Floridians

We had a neighborhood crab party last night. I rarely eat that much of anything, and I've only had crab before a handful of times, so it was fun and delicious to break open leg after leg, drag out the sweet, tender meat, soak it in butter and gobble it up. I've already grown quite fond of most of the people there - it's an interesting neighborhood. There's Debbie, who's as good as gold, a delightfully crazy older lady from England who screams about pussies as if she's oblivious to the modern, American secondary meaning of the phrase, Sal, a man, who is very sweet but does have women tattooed all over his legs, etc, etc. :D I love the diversity.

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This morning I went to Seascribes - the writing group at the nearby library. It was my fourth Wednesday to go there, and my last for a while, since I'm leaving on Saturday. There were ten there this time, which is far and away the biggest group I've seen there so far.

There is an older lady who writes about her adventures sailing around the world,

A woman, one of the club's founders, who writes memoir-esque vignettes,

A woman, I think another founder? who is working on a novel about intersecting lives,

and A man, sort of the leader, who had a book published about his memories and is working on another.

- These are the ones that I've seen a few times, who I have gotten to know fairly well. There are also...

Two ninth grade girls who write fantasy, one writing about modern world, semi-plausible disasters at the moment, the other about angels (who can hate and have mental breakdowns)

An Indian woman who has lived all over the world, has just returned form a trip to Peru, and is writing a story (a mystery?) set in the Netherlands, where she used to live.

A woman, new to the group, who came today and is writing a book about creative writing for children, as well as some romance novels - she has a lot of nonfiction articles published already.

A woman who is apparently a regular in the summers, a New Yorker who is currently writing her own memoirs.

It's a diverse group, if you look past the ages (aside from the two ninth grade girls and I, they are all 60+... erm, 50+ at least - It's Florida, after all!)


People here just seem more free, more unique, more interesting than in West County. I never realized how conformist the community there was until I came here.