Man. The extraordinarily unattractive things that people choose to do to their hair. And the clothes - dear heaven, the unbecoming clothes. And the grim neccesity of breeding as soon as one has hit puberty.

I could say the same thing about the grim little Rust Belt town where I'm living now, m'dear. Not with as much style as you did, but I could. And although I don't say it out loud often, I think it *quite* a lot.

If you're perfectly pleasant to everyone, I don't think you qualify as the most atrocious snob -- unfortunately, I'm perfectly sure there are people who walk around all the time making everyone around them choke on their scorn and sneering.

It must be so disconcerting -- it's where you're from, and it's not. And now I'm wishing SusanW were still hanging out here, because IIRC she feels a similar dislocation and from-another-planetness when she goes back to the town she grew up in as well.

I would have said estranged, Fay, not obnoxious. But I do know the feeling of being damned when I come F2F with my own snobbery.

I'm a snob too, Fay, if having a generalized distaste for the average post office crowd makes one a snob.

On the plus side, I'm sure they have a generalized distaste for you, too. People who have nothing in common tend not to be fast friends.

I grew up in one of the most anti-intellectual, rabidly right-wing towns you can imagine. (There was a group that armed themselves because the John Birch Society had gone soft on Communism.) This was a town where most of the kids got married in the months after high school and went right to work and started families. I never fitted in - I had less in common with most of them than I'd have with ... well, I can't imagine. I've gone back once, for my father's funeral, and I'll never set foot in that hell-hole again.

Edited to add the point to all this - you're much kinder than I am, Fay.

Nah, babe, but that's why "hooplehead" is my new favorite expression. Because I need a word for The People for when I'm not feeling all Springsteen about them, which is where I try to spend most of my time, honest. But that chick with three kids and three baby daddies smacking her kids in the store? Total hooplehead.(and since I'm borrowing from Deadwood, she should feel lucky I'm stopping there, know what I mean?) Talk radio? Wal-mart? Lousy with hooples.

dislocation and from-another-planetness when she goes back to the town she grew up in as well.

I feel the same way when I visit my home town, which is unfortunately and fortunately only an hour away. I am not only a snob but a hypocrite, because I will mock the people I grew up with but I won't dare let anyone else do the same.

It must be so disconcerting -- it's where you're from, and it's not.

My guilt comes from *not* growing up here. So I *know* I'm being a snob, but there's also a lot of sadness -- the economic depression in this area, as well as the lack of education, is just astounding. And then there's a whole uncomfortable weirdness to mocking people you feel sorry for.

OMG, I want to marry the lot of you!

In conclusion: let's make out.

That's what people do with family. Or the Democratic party. If you're a hypocrite for it, I am too. I do sometimes have to deal with the fact that I was kind of taught to view the bearer of a Southern accent as if they had Goodwin, Schwerner, and Chaney in their basements, although ime, I've personally heard more ugly racial shit from the Midwest, in the same voices that tell *me* "gee, you betcha."