people who aren't my people
Wed 2015-08-26 22:01:21 (in context)
It is seriously amazing how much inspiration you can get just listening to conversations in a bar. Annoying conversations. Held by conversationalists that are absolutely not your people.
That's my new theory. Bear with me for a bit.
Derby practice is done, and, is as our common practice, John and I have stopped for food before going home. It's a restorative process. I need food (hungry athlete is hungry) and John needs food and decompression time (coaching tends to use up all his extrovert capital). And I need some dedicated writing time because today went all to hell.
Seriously, I was on a great track to get everything done before derby. I was up on time, I got right to work--and then the washing machine died.
It died in the middle of a load of clothes which John needs to pack tonight, because he's getting on a plane for Detroit tomorrow so as to help coach our All Stars at D2 Playoffs this weekend. And the clothes he needs to pack are now just sitting there in a tub of water, going nowhere.
It's probably the lid sensor switch, but I wasn't about to try to DIY that sucker on the spur of the moment, especially since such efforts would probably not play well with our home warranty thingie. So I called the home warranty people, and they called an appliance service, and a tech is going to come out on September the 8th.
Meanwhile, my assignment is to wring out the clothes, rinse them in the bathtub, wring them out again, then put them in the dryer for an all-day session on Auto Dry Moisture Sensor Something Or Other. And John's assignment is to take the other load of laundry to the laundromat, and bring it home in time that my derby jerseys can air dry.
And my work day, the one that was off to such a great start, is now all shot to hell. It's not fair.
But here I am hours later, preparing to hit the reset button on it all over a beer and also a pizza with shrimp and green onions on top. And there's this four top right behind us loudly sharing stories about waking up drunk in strange places and also the One That Got Away And Thank God For That. And they... are so very much not my people. And they're loud and right in my ear and I want to hide under the table and--
--and it occurs to me that no, I don't need them to shut up; I need to be taking notes. I don't know how to write people who aren't my people, not without turning them into some sort of caricature. I need to be taking notes and expanding my character-creation repertoire here.
So... I'll be over here in another editor window, jotting down whatever I can remember. See you later?