A corrupt-tempered mood.

I stumbled across some character-notes from this past summer. Notes about people I met through the season whom I had the foresight to describe a little, that I might use the memories later in formulating new characters....here are some of the entries:

Rather shabby, lumpy, pale clerk with limp moustaches who is kindhearted, dull, and rather hopeless. His daughter works at the coffee shop downtown, of which he's rather proud and mentions often.

Old woman who is 1/4 negro and whose husband holds a prejudice against the race. He always uses the "N" word, but "he's the first to stop on the side of the road if one is broken down." She wishes she had the funds to do a blood tests on her husband and see if he has any negro blood. Husband wears an eye-patch.

Old, blind woman whose mind is still very sharp and who calls herself the matriarch "who doesn't do anything."

(during one particularly trying afternoon this summer, I vented to myself in third-person.)

Every point was countered with a remark of a dismally cankerous nature, inconvenient to the point of frustration and boiling indignation. Anything said was bound to be parried and disagreed with and so, valuing her own composure of spirits over the beauties of conversation, she purposed to say nothing at all....

....Being in his presence felt a deal like being locked in a dryer. They tumbled about, haphazard, from one subject to another and got in royal tangles at every turn. She felt her patience, like a left sock, disappear somewhere in the cavern of his thoughts, never to be heard from again..

(my coworker was fond of singing and anecdotes...)

...Was this how it felt to be in a musical? She'd always thought it to be a pleasant idea, but now she was not so sure. One couldn't say a thing without him striking a pose, raising a finger, and relating one anecdote or another from the hoards he had collected over the years for just such an occasion. Drat brilliant people, she thought. They drowned your own thoughts in the fury of their intellect. He was a genius cast in a variety show, and she was his audience--held captive by the single fact that if she did not put up with him, she would not receive her paycheck.

Is constantly making up new and ridiculous salutes for D. Reads favorite parts of Shakespeare aloud from the computer screen. Prints the words to songs I'm singing so I won't have to hum.  :)

In more recent news, a dear woman from our church brought her grown son with her. He is mentally challenged, but the most precious fellow. He's got a memory like a steel-trap and reads the dictionary for fun. Our dog scared him, however, and put him in a sour state of mind...

His Mother: "Well aren't you in an ill humor!"
Bill: I am not in an ill-humor. I'm in a corrupt-tempered mood!"

Of course I had to write that down in my writing journal. I mean, it's brilliant. I am intent upon using it someday, though perhaps in a different context. :) People-watching and listening and observing is a huge way to grow your knack for writing characters. Keep track of these things! It's hilarious to read over later on.