but imagine if it were real

My next door neighbour's name is Miguel. Miguel is easily a senior citizen, probably closer to eighty, and I've only seen him twice in the five weeks that I've lived here in Arizona. The second time was just this evening, on the walkway in front of our condos.

His name is almost definitely not Miguel. I can't say that I know for sure one way or the other, though.

"What do you suppose they make all that racket for?"

that was Miguel talking.

"who's making all what racket?"

and that was me. You can usually tell, because I don't capitalize when I speak.

"The birds, right over there"

and he pointed at a tree with a very faded trunk just a few meters away. There was indeed quite a lot of noise coming from the tree.

"They make so much noise. They just can't be happy, they've got to fuss about it"

if this were at all a real conversation, I'd have said something like

"maybe they're happiest when they fuss?"

or,

"maybe they're even fussier when they're happy?"

but, what I really honest-to-goodness said was,

"miguel, i wonder if i could ask you a small favour. Could you have a chat with the relevant people and have them look into the auto-correcting applications of most modern pieces of software that tell me that 'favour' is spelled without a 'u'?"

and he said "Yeah, I know just who to talk to"

and just like that, the problem corrected itself.

and so, on a hot streak, I said,

"miguel, what should i do with my blog? I hardly update the thing anymore, and it's really making me quite sad. the sidebar's been the same for months"

"well", Miguel spoke quietly, mimicking my characteristic lack of capitalization, "perhaps you've got nothing good to write about. this can be a pretty boring place. maybe it's just because i'm easily a senior citizen, probably closer to eighty"

see, that's what I thought, too.

and it's not that I didn't have mu-

*cough*

"miguel, it's not that i don't have much to blog about. i'm just overwhelmed by the idea of writing about it. i thought maybe taking a break would bring me back into a place where i was more comfortable writing again"

Miguel told me that taking a break from just about anything is usually a bad idea. I think maybe it's just that he hasn't had anything to take a break from in such a long time.

Maybe he's on to something, though.

Thanks for the comments: Babs, the_wraith, Beth, Snowy, Chris, Scarlett, Aileen, Sean, David Airey, Stoyan, Marc, Antonio, Colin.

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