Peyton Place, revisited

I guess it's just a part of getting old, and being home all day as opposed to clocking in at a workplace, but when I look around the neighborhood it seems everybody's crazy except me and Cliff.

I spend way too much time peering out windows. Honestly, speculating on other people's lives gives me more entertainment than watching television. To think that twenty years ago, I called people like me "nosy old biddies", and rightly so.

But you know, parents let their kids run wild. I mean, fifteen-year-old boys are sneaking out of their homes in the middle of the night and throwing drunken parties in a guy's barn. On a school night. And my husband has hay stored in that barn.

I see a family of four nearby renting a two-bedroom hovel, sharing it with a cat and two dogs (one of the afore-mentioned boys sneaks out of said hovel at night). They have the finest TV, and blue-tooth phones (whatever that is) and have bought a GPS system for the ten-year-old junker they drive... but they live in a total dump. Why wouldn't they want something better for themselves? Why wouldn't they choose to buy a decent house, rather than rent such a place?

Then I turn the spotlight on myself, and realize that others might view me the same way. This old house needs either remodeling or tearing down, and we remain satisfied with status quo. Yet I always have a nice computer or two, and my guitar is second to none. Not to mention the Honda Gold Wing we so enjoy, and two hay-burning horses. People around here probably wonder why I don't want something better for myself.

It's all in priorities, I suppose.

Anyhow, I have plenty to entertain me here in the boonies, in any direction I look. You folks in the city don't have a thing on me: I have the druggies, the boozers, delinquents and losers... and they're all outside my window, performing for my own personal entertainment. (It is all about me, isn't it?)

It isn't so bad, being old. I find cheap thrills in watching others misbehave; I only wish I could stay up a bit longer at night, because I think I'm missing the best parts.

I hope nobody thinks this entry is about my neighbors; because what it's about is me, admitting to some of my own flaws.