Earlier this week I found myself
telling my hairdresser her skirt was cute - what has happened to me?
Cute and awesome – the two mainstay adjectives of the American vocabulary. I too have been told my skirt was cute – a woman once bellowed something across the gas station forecourt at me. What? I thought anxiously, is there something wrong with my car. I stopped what I was doing and crossed over to her. Sorry, I didn’t hear you, I told her. I said your skirt was cute she bellowed back again.
My accent is cute, my necklaces have been cute; the
fact that I match a lime green handbag with a pair of lime green shoes, that’s
cute too. Stopped by complete strangers
who want to compliment me. Is it a
compliment to be told you’re cute? Back in the UK cute is probably never used
to describe anything over four years old. I am definitely not cute.
My neighbours recently acquired a
new puppy. I don’t even like dogs but there
I was stroking its nose and telling them how cute it was. It has to stop.
If it’s not cute it’s awesome.
It’s totally awesome that I can match a cute bag with a cute pair of shoes and
it’s totally awesome that my neighbours felt the need to go out and get themselves
a cute dog.
Random conversations between strangers are positively encouraged and part of the American psyche. Folks here will cross the road to
pet a complete stranger’s dog. Yes honey, of course you can stroke the Rottweiler. Many an American, especially the
elderly kind, will stop and compliment families on their cute
kids. That’s so friendly you might
think, until they try and lure them away. Sometimes a bit of reserve wouldn’t go amiss; after all not everyone who
looks like your friendly old grandpa really is.
The ability to maintain ad hoc
conversation has never been one of my attributes and I haven’t succumbed. However, I will have to watch my language
when I return to the UK. I’m pretty sure
none of my UK friends will be that flattered when I tell them how cute they look. It has become too easy to unwittingly develop the native
patter and mimic local customs. When I’m out with my American friends I find
myself discarding my knife and eating with only my fork. I don’t understand why Americans don’t like
using knives – after all most of them are pretty comfortable wielding a gun,
but when it comes to cutlery, a fork does it all. Slice up your food with the
side of your fork and then shovel it in.
Another bad habit that must be
broken – reckless driving. Yes my driving skills have definitely deteriorated since being out here. An amber light no longer means slow down - it means put your foot on the gas and go! And turning right on a red traffic light?
I’ve never thought this was a particularly brilliant US law – mainly
because I’m often on the receiving end as a pedestrian risking my life on a
cross walk. Will I be tempted to inch myself
out on a red light when I’m turning left back in the UK to make a quick getaway? I’m also going
to need to learn to drive with two hands again, one on the gear stick and the
other on the steering wheel. How will I
hold my Starbucks?!
And the final bad habit that must be broken? Alcohol consumption! There has been way too much of that! How easy it has been to see the last two and a half years as an extended holiday, sat on the balcony overlooking the pool on a warm summer, winter, spring, autumn evening, glass of wine in hand, watching the pollution enhanced psychedelic colours of the LA sunset reflecting on the San Gabriel mountains. I'm going to miss that mountain view - it's awesome!!
Hi, read your blog for a while and always find it interesting to hear about aspects of living elsewhere in the world, it's been interesting, thankyou.
ReplyDeleteHope your return to this very wet/windy and cold country ("it's only June!) goes well for you.
Hi Rosie,
ReplyDeleteThank you for an interesting post. I will miss your blog when you return back to the UK. Reading it really helped me to keep my sanity.
I noticed the same issue about talking to strangers. Also, the habit of small talk applies at the office where I work - people from the opposite side of the floor like making short rounds to the other side of the office and stop by other people's cubicles "to say hello" and talk about nothing in particular. In a way it is kind of nice, but somehow I personally just cannot do it. I like my colleagues and everything, but I much prefer to chat when we meet naturally, in the kitchen, hallway etc., and with people with whom I have something to talk about, not with just about anyone. I do not mean you have to be rude; but I do not like the other extreme of pretended friendliness very much either. These chatting rounds are just not for me. I find that it is like with other aspects of life here: kind of nice and pleasant but somehow it lacks sincerity.