How we are perceived

I have a coffeeshop where I've been a regular for 10 years now. The staff is almost all women, and three generations of one family own the place. I love it, and them, dearly, and I think they really like me too.

One of the younger women who works there is about 19 and exuberant, colorful, just a positive spirit of a girl. When I stopped in the other day during her shift, she started to make my drink and then we got to talking about where we live. Having never been to my place, she just started describing to me where she would picture me living. She knows I'm going to be moving out west in 2008, so that's part of the glamour, I think, but here's what she described:

"I just see you living way up high, in a modern apartment building or a townhouse that's perched over a city, with the night lights below you and a big spiral staircase, you know, like in the movies? And you dress really nice and there's music and champagne!"

Gotta love this girl!

And yes, even though I'm still living in the Midwest (for now), I do live at the very top of a modern apartment building, perched over...a highway...with the city lights across the way shining brightly at night. There's no spiral staircase, but I do have some spirals on my canopy bed frame...and do I dress glamorously? Sometimes! champagne? Not really, maybe I'd better look into that. Music: yes!

My ideas about where to live when I move west are quite urban: Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Vegas. And I'd love to be perched up high, though my sweet Polly dog would like to be able to just go out to the yard and have her own space! (She's a very good apartment dog, but a house would be nice for her sake.)

Interesting, how we are perceived...