Thursday, November 02, 2023

It Didn't Occur to Me to Mind


 "Dirty Dancing" was set in 1963. I turned 3 that year. In the beginning of the movie the main character says, "... when everyone called me 'Baby' and it didn't occur to me to mind."

I was thinking about that as I was running through some dialog in my head for the NaNoWriMo story I'm working on. I was going to have the male mc call the female mc "baby" as a term of endearment. Then I thought I know this character pretty well by now (I've written several stories with her as the mc) and she would not want to be called "baby."

Honestly, I'm kind of embarrassed that it didn't occur to me to mind for all these years. I kind of liked it when my boyfriends and husband called me baby. Maybe I wanted to, or needed to, be babied. But today the implications and possible implied meaning make me cringe.

Now to choose an actual term of endearment. Honey? Sweetheart? Love Muffin? The first two sound as lame to me as the third one. This may be the most difficult part of writing the story.

Be that as it may, I'm sure I'm not the only person whose favorite line in "Dirty Dancing" is "I carried a watermelon?"



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