i wanna be an industry

We had dinner guests tonight -- Tammy, Gail, and Nancy. One of those three is a man -- can you guess who it is?

If you guessed Gail, you would be correct. Gail is the sheriff's deputy whose retirement party I went to a few weeks ago; Tammy is his wife, the former editor of the town paper; and Nancy is the other reporter at the paper. My mom used to be the advertising department, so we know Tammy and Nancy pretty well; Nancy is also in the secret society. Tammy and Gail are moving to southern Missouri, so this was sort of a farewell get-together.

They all came over for dinner, which was delicious -- steak, baked potatoes, green bean casserole, and spinach salad (note: spinach salad does not consist of fresh spinach and a vinaigrette; it consists of frozen chopped spinach, boiled eggs, onion, miracle whip/mayo, and some other secret ingredients I can't divulge for fear of my grandmother's wrath). Fun seemed to be had by all, since they stayed until 11:30. Many small-town stories were exchanged, gossipy histories rehashed, family ties explored, etc. Mix together two small-town newspaper reporters, a member of law enforcement, and my father (who keeps pretty up-to-date on what goes on around here, and was once in law enforcement himself), and you hear all kinds of stories. If I were more extroverted and wanted to go to the bar every day to get people to tell me all the dirt from the past sixty years, I could have ideas for a score of novels.

As it is, I really need to be focused on *this* novel, so I'm going to Des Moines tomorrow to work on it. Today was not particularly productive -- I ran into town twice, once to pick up the pants I had shortened (Melvina charges $2.50/pair, which is a steal), and once to get some ice. And it's funny -- if I run into someone I know (like today, when I was at the convenience store I used to work at and ran into one of the guys who works with the propane delivery), I definitely drop into a little bit more of a drawl. Not that it's probably noticeable as a drawl, since I still talk waaay too fast, don't enunciate, and generally have a hard time making myself understood, but I still notice it. I will never get to the point where I say 'ain't,' but if I stay here long enough, maybe my speech patterns will slow down enough that I won't have to repeat myself constantly. We'll see...