howdy, neighbor

My scalene muscles hurt today. I'm assuming this is from gritting my teeth and wincing too much. This happens when I lift weights and lately, it also happens in my sleep so that I wake up with my jaw muscles and everything attached to them feeling sore and angry. I'm commenting on this because I'm bored and since it's bad form (as mentioned earlier) to announce every thought and feeling out to one's co-workers, I am writing. Onto a better topic though.

I was having a conversation the other day that started with an observation I made about a little mini-fence in the corner of a random yard on the vast expanse of suburban waste that is Long Island. This fence was approximately 4 feet wide and 3 feet tall and came to a corner but did not continue to protect the yard; just an ugly bush that was cowering behind it.

"What is the fucking point of that?" I inquired.

There was a chuckle from the other side of the car and then nothing, until we started to see them at about every 5th house.

"I'll tell you what that is," he said. "Everyone has to keep up with the Joneses."

"I don't think the Joneses are really on the cutting edge out here." I replied.

This launched us into an analysis of neighborhood-ism and how people are more worried about what their neighbors think of the exterior of the house than that there is a gaping hole in the roof in the back or that despite a lovely and refreshing exterior facade, the furniture inside the house is all circa 1968 and smells like cat piss. Never mind the comfort of the inhabitants of the house, just make sure the neighbors think you've got all your ducks in a row, for fuck's sake.

I took the opportunity to rail on the suburban lifestyle and neighborly bullshit. I mercilessly made fun of the dwellings and habits of people who, by all accounts, are probably lovely people who clean their minivans weekly and have well coiffed children playing kick the can in the streets on weekends. I was raised in such a neighborhood, which may explain why my parents suddenly lost their fucking minds and painted our lovely grey-blue house a horrific shade of coral pink, thereby providing me with ample reason never to go there or admit prior residency ever again.

In good conscience however, I can't assign the unattractive "follower" trait solely to the suburban dweller, because if you roam the streets of Boston, New York, Miami or any other booming metropolis, what you will find are the same willing clones, following the misguided cues of each other in an effort to attain a higher grade of cool or to get a higher grade of sexual partner. I wonder what the success rate is and how that information can be tracked. I mean really? How many guys that wear striped shirts, untucked, with large collars, can really distinguish themselves by anything other than shirt color in a sweaty, STD-laden cesspool of house music? Same could be said for guys in really, really, really tight t-shirts with spiky hair; although you may be able to differentiate them by their undeniably cool religious tattoos. Obviously those guys have a close connection to their faith, which would make them totally distinct.

For the women, I'm pretty sure that every small-breasted woman is wearing the same push-up bra, thus falsely advertising her wares (or lack thereof) and pretty much the same tight, polyester/nylon blend pants or exceedingly short, beaver-bearing skirt, sans underwear. Because, voluntarily entering a realm where disease is perched at the ready on every surface, without underwear is a totally sound idea. But I digress, this is not to detail my opinions on the mating habits of the useless and infected. I merely outline how they seem to follow one another in the same, sad manner as the suburbanite with the "mom jeans" and the husband in khaki pants with embroidered whales, follows the neighbor's choice of vinyl siding and useless fence placement.

But if you're the neighbor, in city or suburb who chooses not to toe the line and move with the trends, then you're the weirdo family who risks being ostracized and not invited to the block parties or first birthday's of everyone in the area. I can't begin to conjure a fate worse than that.