The Stories I Tell ~ from The Word Cellar

Stories. Anecdotes. A free round of words for everyone!

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Location: Pennsylvania, United States

I love stories. I'm the one at social functions with a dozen new anecdotes. But I worry about hogging the conversation. Sometimes I tell myself that I'll be quiet and let others do the talking. But no matter how hard I try, my stories insist on bursting out! Here I can let my stories (the classics that I tell again and again, as well as new ones that unfold along the way) run free. I'm a professional writer and editor, and sole proprietor of The Word Cellar. I write for a variety of publications and clients on everything from green buildings and nuclear reactors to entrepreneurship and the arts. If you need words written, edited, or enlivened, I can help. Contact me.

8.12.2008

Won't You Be My Neighbor?



Dear Potential New Neighbors:

Thanks for talking to me before the real estate agent showed up. I was just out there in my backyard, battling with The Garden That Threatens To Engulf My House when you waved hello from the neighboring deck. That was nice of you.

And then you came around to the side yard and clearly wanted to converse. I have to say, I felt a bit giddy at that moment: drunk on the possibility of talking to real, live people. You see, I work from home. And today, my longest conversation with anyone outside of my cats was 30 seconds on the phone with the husband, about something that I can't even recall.

So you -- and your desire to interact -- caught me a little bit off-guard. I'm usually pretty good socially. I can hold a conversation about almost anything with almost anyone. But I was rusty tonight. So if I came off weird, please forgive me. I don't know why I felt like I had to explain the random swing set at the bottom of my yard. Well, actually, your two adorable kids are probably the reason. I didn't want anyone getting their hopes up about playing with the neighbor kids. No kids here. Just two lazy adults and one idle swing set left from the last family. And me babbling about it.

Other than that bit of rambling from me, I guess the conversation went okay. Right? Neighbor?

Yours truly,
Jennifer

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add to kirtsy | 9:07 PM

4 Comments:

Blogger tj said...

We live in a "professional adult" gated community. By professional adult that means no children, no loud music, and you may as well be retired. Anyways, a grandchild of one of our neighbors stopped me while I was weeding to say hello, and needless to say I gushed with happiness. Good to know I'm not alone.

8/13/2008 3:32 PM  
Blogger Caroline said...

I feel your excitement here. I work from home, too, except for a couple days a week I elected to work in a bookstore in order to not lose all normal social skills. I am sure it was nowhere near as weird as it seemed, but I am completely with you on the whole "losing the ability to talk normally" phenomenon. Here's hoping you have fun new neighbors shortly with at least one working from home so you can have fun lunches together!

8/13/2008 3:52 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Babbling and rambling? It sounds like you held up your end of the conversation quite well. They just wanted to say hi and I'm sure your babbling came with a smile and your rambling with a throaty chuckle that is quite attractive. ENJOY YOURSELF- Jennifer-you are a lot of fun!

8/15/2008 1:29 PM  
Blogger liz elayne lamoreux said...

oh i so get it. i work from home as well and if someone calls in the middle of the day i talk her ear off. i can't imagine if we had new, social neighbors move in next door. that would be beyond exciting.

8/20/2008 10:35 PM  

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