The People in My Neighborhood

I lived for years in a series of crappy low-rent apartments that had regularly scheduled bug sprayings, so I was never close to any of my neighbors. Mostly because they were either despondent families in-between homes, or surly party-all night college students, but mostly because in crappy apartment complexes no one wants to know anyone else (especially the weird family who sat around naked in their living room that overlooked the main road). When I moved into my first home I was very excited to do community things and swap recipes and lend sugar, only to discover that the neighborhood I was in wasn’t a ‘do things’ kind of group. I tried, unsuccessfully, to organize several events, including a multi-family yard sale and a cul-de-sac barbecue. The only one who put anything out the morning of the yard sale was my crazy neighbor who apparently bought every single made-for-tv item ever invented, broke them, then tried to unload them on unsuspecting suckers. She had the ThighMaster, I swear. And the barbecue idea didn’t go over so well, mainly because many of my neighbors had limited English skills and weren’t sure what I was trying to do, or potentially because some sort of crack house had recently been established on the street and we were all a bit fearful of going outside anytime.
So it’s safe to say I had low expectations when I bought my current home just before Thanksgiving. I figured if I was lucky I might have a bearable relationship with the neighbor on each side, or know their first names and how many children/pets they had, or at least be able to tell the difference between the two. What I didn’t expect was to see bright and shiny faces on my doorstep today, smiling broadly with hands extended, welcoming me and introducing themselves. And it’s happened before! Sometimes when I’m outside, unsuspectingly unloading groceries or checking the mail, people cross the street to say ‘hi’, or wave as they drive past, or send their children across the lawn to offer me orange slices (that last one sounds weird, but it’s totally true, I just figured it was some suburban cult thing and graciously yet tentatively ate one polite segment).
It’s sad how excited I got when I met today’s neighbors, a lovely young couple with an adorable 5-month old. And the husband is totally hot. The wife is a doctor, how cool is that? Is it shameful that I want to be friends because I can already picture myself calling her and asking her about Alistair’s latest sniffle? The worst part was, I was definitely NOT at my best. Please remember I work from home, and although I do not yet have a child I certainly look like I do. Ashamedly I will admit that the food smears and questionable stains on my clothes are all my own doing, and that my hair looks this way because I wear a headset for conference calls and then scratch my head around it when I’m thinking, so it gets these awesome bumpy knots that stick out and make me look like a mental patient. Did I mention I have been wearing these pants since Monday, and they are unfashionable brown corduroys? Or that my t-shirt says, ‘I know what boys like’? Also I had most certainly not brushed my teeth, so the whole time I was talking to them I kept putting my hand in front of my mouth.
To make a long story short, they were very cool and did not stammer or shriek or raise any eyebrows when I explained that I was a single woman attempting to get pregnant living with two gay men. This may seem like a lot of information to give out when first meeting someone, but I like to be very upfront about it, to gauge reactions of those I see as Future Babysitters and Prospective Dinner Party Attendees. It turns out they are Canadian, like myself, so maybe that’s why they seemed so damn open-minded. Crazy Liberals, just can’t shock ‘em. Anyhow, I was like a school girl on a first date, and stuttered and stammered and waved my hands a lot and basically was a dirty, incompetent mess, which is how I am most of the time anyhow, so at least they met the real me. And I offered to babysit (see, always thinking).