Dry and Wry

I loved being in Wales and England - I fit in so well from a temperament standpoint .  I'm 3/4s German, 1/4 Scottish by heritage.  When we visited Germany a several years back my wife (who is 100% German) and I looked at each other after just a few hours and said: "Ah."  We saw that some of the characteristic we both possess in spades - logical, technical, brisk, efficient, steady - were well-represented in the society.  We looked like we came from Germany.  My trip to Scotland where everyone is always telling a story - I didn't believe half the stuff I was hearing - filled out the rest of my psychological resume.

We went to a meeting in Exeter in the SW of England.  The leader saw a couple of new faces and immediately tapped me to kick things off with a short monologue on Step 12.  I was happy to do this - I'm comfortable talking in front of people and it's always great to be able to take my sad, tired routine on the road, try some shit out in front of new faces.  If these folks are anything like me they're all half sick of hearing the regulars share.  Anyway, I don't filter my thoughts anymore so I shared my usual absurdist, peripheral views on recovery, dry by nature, sarcastic by choice.

These folks got it right away.  Sometimes I have to tell people I'm joking - which means I'm not being very funny - but everyone absorbed the humor organically.  SuperK didn't have to make me go apologize to anyone when I was done sharing and I watched her face carefully to see how many times she cringed.  It was a pretty low cringing count so I was sure I wasn't being too abstract.

One of the hikes we took we climbed for a while up a muddy, rocky trail - a geological feature those of us who live in the normal world would call a "creek"- that led across a sheep pasture to a concrete cairn marking the highest spot in the county.  There were two other couples up there enjoying the view across the moors in between intermittent bursts of rain.  I chatted for a while with one of the Brits and picked up on the irony right away.  He offered to take a picture of two of us in front of the marker.  I demurred, suggesting that while I would be proud to be photographed with SuperK she preferred not to be seen with me.

He looked at me: "I don't know - you're wearing sunglasses in the rain.  I'd call that pretty cool."  I laughed.  The intervals between rain, sun, and clouds came so quickly that we had quit adjusting our wardrobe to meet the conditions.  When I mocked my pubic-hair beard he called it "patrician." 

I almost had to look the word up.