Readjusting to life in suburbia
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Going back to life in a small town is enough to make my skin crawl!
I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s just weird. I have to drive EVERYWHERE. I am single-handedly making those nasty oil people rich! Grrrrr. Where’s the public transit? Where are the people walking to and fro? Why is everyone here so BIG?!?
Well, that’s not entirely true, but as you can see, it’s been a bit of an adjustment. Ironically, i miss dressing up (and by “dressing up,” i mean “caring about what i look like") to go out for the normal daily chores like grocery shopping and going out to eat. But what has weirded me out more than anything else is that people are FRIENDLY. Yes, friendly.
I went for a trot this morning, a trot being something between a walk and a jog because my heart can’t seem to handle much more than that these days. I passed by several other walkers/joggers/trotters and ALL of them said, “Hello!” It took all the strength I had that wasn’t being channeled into trotting to smile back and gasp out, “Hi!” back to them. Wow. People here say hello without being that icky guy on the street leering at you with unclean thoughts in his head. They were genuinely friendly. It’s perfectly acceptable to ignore people on the streets of New York, but here, I would have been considered very rude and unfriendly! One guy actually yelled his greetings from the other side of a wide street as we were passing each other. Yes, they were all decidedly friendly people.
Who knows. Pretty soon i might actually smile as I walk in public places again. I’m still working on the “hello” bit, but maybe that too will come with time. For the time being, i’ll have to settle for being that icy person who trots the streets and produces a strangely forced smile when approached by friendly strangers.
AH-HAHAHAHAHA! I feel your pain!! Last time I was home, I went to a coffee shop in Pasadena (intending to read in peace), and found that every man and woman in the shop was determined to smile at me anytime I looked up from my table. I couldn’t figure out what was going on for a little while…
Posted by on 02/08 at 07:34 PMyou’ll probably have to get your friends out here to yell and scream at you and jump around.
Posted by Ryan Moore on 02/08 at 11:54 PMWow, Kat. To put this into a different perspective, when we were visiting CA last month, we were SHOCKED to recall how “unfriendly” Californians are. Almost 2 years in the midwest has made us expect a full blown conversation with every stranger we meet on the sidewalk during our jaunts with the dogs!
Posted by laura on 02/09 at 06:33 AM**hangs head in shame in Japan**
**no, lifts head up**
Okay folks, this is CULTURAL!!! I totally understand how Kat feels in that transition, ‘cause in the big bad city of Osaka (and perhaps in most of Japan in general), you just don’t say hi to people. But if you didn’t know I lived in another country, and I were to describe how I & everyone else behave, you might think that it’s an “unfriendly” or “cold” place. If you know I’m in another country, then you can say it’s cultural. But if it’s at home, then we look at it like there’s a scale of “good” and “bad”. But it’s all relative, and maybe it’s good to understand that there are different *cultures* in the States, and along with that people have different ways of communicating and sharing love. People in one area won’t communicate as “openly” in one way as people in another area, but that doesn’t mean they’re unfriendly. You just have to live there awhile and find the avenue of connection, the way that the local people share and show each other concern & love. It’s different wherever you go---but no less real or friendly.
Posted by Ramone on 02/10 at 09:46 PMAh Kat, what would you say to Ramone’s comment? Are New Yorkers friendly deep, deep-down? And not fashion snobbish? Just culturally misunderstood? Can you be so culturally misunderstood that you even misunderstand yourself?
After about a year at Emory, I went jogging in Laguna while home over Christmas. I waved and said “hello” to one of the Black construction workers building a house on Glenneyre. He actually stopped me and asked me where I was from. I told him that I was from here, but had been living in Atlanta. He shook his head and said, “Well that explains it. You sure ain’t from around here.” Laguna Beach people are largely assholes. Not intrinisically perhaps, but the culture promotes assholishness. All I can say about cultural comparisons is thank goodness we’re free to move.
Hey Kat, would it help to break the ice if you were to make funny faces at people who greeted you? Stick thumbs in ears, wiggle fingers, protrude tongue, etc? Might even get them to stop greeting you in the first place!!
Love,
Kirstin
“losing weight so that my identity can be larger than me”Posted by on 02/14 at 09:28 AM