awe.

one of the best things about this most northern east of the country are the peoples accents. more so than anyplace i have been yet do these people pronounce their accents. specifically it is the dropped 'r' sound from many of their words. i have heard the accent before, but i have never been here around so many people that share it. it makes talking to people fun. or, really just listening to them talk.

one thing that hearing these accents has done is remind me of my past. i dont know how i couldve forgotten this or so successfully blocked it out but, growing up, i had a speech impediment. i couldnt say "r." instead of saying something so simple as "where are we?" i would say something more like "whewe awe we?"

by the time i was in regular school i had to go to speech therapy classes. i was in a room with a few other kids, some with unreconciliable speech impediments probably brought on by downs syndrome or somethign like it, but i wouldnt have known this then. all i would have known was there was something wrong with me and i was forced into small rooms with people that were outcast from the general school population. i felt a great deal of shame about this, but eventually recovered to be able to pronounce "r." i was happy to be out of those classes, but as a child i couldnt shake the shame that i felt as being part of the outside.

that probably manifested itself in me as i grew older by being outlandish and trying to set myself apart from people on my own terms. to give the sense that wherever i was was better than wherever anyone else was. a conscious,if not well understood, elitism of a 12 year old.

sometimes, as an adult, i slip on my "r's" and in that instant i would recall that i had the impediment growing up and i would look around to make sure no one noticed. of course, no one ever has becasue no one has ever known that it is something to notice. but i never, until now, actually thought about how that shaped my view of the world. that a clear divide between those that were the same and those that were not had been around since i was 7 or 8 years old, that kids are taught so well to fear and ostracize anything that isnt status quo. i can only imagine how that magnifies to kids of today.

anyway. continuing on. i wrote somewhere before that i was terrified of college students, i think the reality is that i am just terrified of people. i have been working on my route, using the internet to make contact with people (some i know and some are new) but when it comes time to initiate real contact i freeze. like, here in portland i was supposed to meet this person to show me around some places and we were going to meet at a bar. all i had to do was call when i got here.

yeah right. i cant call someone i dont know, randomly and try to hang out. thats not where i am. but i keep setting up contacts. and whenever it comes to actually calling people, i just freeze and talk myself out of it. it is really ridiculous. i think that being around people would be good for me, but then i think about how i am living right now and bringing someone into it, really into it would just be a nightmare.

so i will continue to set things up with people and be the flakiest flake out there. what a wowld.