I've been included in a Minnesota anthology "Under Purple Skies", now available on Amazon!

My second chapbook, "The Second Book of Pearl: The Cats" is now available as either a paper chapbook or as a downloadable item. See below for the Pay Pal link or click on its cover just to the right of the newest blog post to download to your Kindle, iPad, or Nook. Just $3.99 for inspired tales of gin, gambling addiction and inter-feline betrayal.

My first chapbook, I Was Raised to be A Lert is in its third printing and is available both via the PayPal link below and on smashwords! Order one? Download one? It's all for you, baby!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Well It Certainly SEEMS Like a Friday

Here I am, a day earlier and yet still a dollar short! Welcome to my Friday, ladies and germs. As you may recall from a previous post, I now have Fridays off – whether I want them or not.

And do I want them? The way this week has been going? Yer damn right I do.

But wait! What does the iPod, the decider of my weekend, have to say about this?

Heard on the bus this morning:

Idiot Walk by The Hives
Who is He (and what is he to you) by Bill Withers
Immigrant Punk by Gogol Bordello
Barracuda by Heart
Why Don’t We Do It in The Road by the Beatles
High Clouds and a Good Chance of Wayne by Wayne Bergeron
Red Barchetta by Rush
The Wizard by Black Sabbath

A little feistiness, a little soul, a little jazz and we’ll wrap it all up in the sludge-y darkness that is Black Sabbath.

O, Tony, Ozzie, Geezer, and That Other Guy! Why don’t you answer my fan mail?

Insert gleeful cackling here.

My friend Sandra and I have a love affair with words. It’s all on the up-and-up, I assure you. She finds me somewhat risible*, and I find her munificent**.

As I say, it’s all on the up-and-up.

The best part of the whole thing, of course, is that she’s as taken with the beauty of the English language as I am. We are free to be as geekily enchanted with it as we wish without receiving that face people sometimes give you when you use big words.

You know that face. The one that says, “Well, who do you think you are?”

There was a time, right around 10 or 11, when I purposely played dumb. As has been noted in the past, we moved a lot when I was a child, and so while every school was different, one aspect of it always remained the same: I was a good student.

What can I say? I inherited good hair, crooked bottom teeth, a small amount of low-grade anxiety, and a working brain.

I am satisfied with this.

At some point, however, I noticed a certain amount of derision that came my way whenever I raised my hand in class.

In one town in particular, my name was not “Pearl”. It was “Egghead”.

“Egghead”: Because sometimes, being smart is not so smart.

What little girl wants to be “Egghead”? I stopped raising my hand. I stopped arguing when things didn’t make sense to me. I purposely “threw” several tests in a row in order to convince my classmates that my earlier intelligence had been a fluke.

We lived there less than a year.

I didn’t miss that town.

But I was sorry to leave my one friend there behind. I hope her friendship with me didn't affect her reputation for long.



Have a great weekend, everyone – I’m off in search of funny, kind-hearted people, big words, and delicious lime-flavored, salt-rimmed drinks.


* laughable
** generous

17 comments:

Maureen@IslandRoar said...

I love using new words; my dad and I always played that game.
Thank goodness you got out of that town quickly!

Kate Coveny Hood said...

I love big words and have no fear in asking "what does THAT mean?" So I can use it myself.

It makes me feel sad when I think of some of the silly things I did or said to be liked when I was the new girl in school. But I guess it's all part of the growing up process.

darsden said...

woooohooo Ipod made home for the weekend early :-) great song by Heart, now I am going to go spin the ole LP version of it and get the original effect. Thanks have a great early weekend

Chris said...

Enjoy your long weekend, Pearl. Or is that, "Egghead"?

La Belette Rouge said...

It sounds as if you are going to go on a walk with an idiot guy with hives and you run into a guy and you are not sure who he is. It is a immigrant punk fish. Then you decide to quit walking and do it in the road. The clouds part and it turns out your lover is no Wizard. Hey, what do you expect, I have had no coffee.

Douglas said...

Yeah, what you said.

I didn't move around nearly as much as you and I balanced my penchant for big words and testability with hanging out with the Bad Boys. Well, I also eschewed homework and skipped school and classes which helped keep my grades down.

We all wear the masks we need to, it seems, when "survival" is important.

Crazy Mo said...

Lime-flavoured, salt-rimmed drinks solve everything. This is a well-known fact. I've proved it many times. Enjoy you're long weekend!

Eskimo Bob said...

I like where you say around 10-11 you started acting dumb. Sneaky feminine wiles.

I once liked this girl in the 4th grade. She was the prettiest girl I had seen up to that point. The surprising thing is she felt the same way and we were on our way to grade school love - which could have become a love story that would have rivaled any "High School" romance . . .Unfortunately she wasn't too bright.

Roshni said...

Enjoy!! *sigh*

Joanna Jenkins said...

School kids can be tough. Sounds like you ended up pretty darn together! Enjoy your long weekend.

@eloh said...

OMG Pearl, you are my youngest daughter....I removed her from public school in the middle of the second grade. An unbelievable situation where the teacher was making my child be her "aid". The other kids called her teachers pet and worse, I knew if I didn't do something she was going to "dumb up".
After this post...you have confirmed for me that a child will do self preserving measures. Thanks

De Campo said...

I adore utilizing immense terminology in my day to day existence. I’m especially fond of incorporating grandiose prose while scribing military operations.

Who doesn’t want to put their life on the line for an op entitled “Operation Phenomenological Transcendental Action 9”?

Madame DeFarge said...

Your weekend sounds fab. Mine will be spent doing the post holiday washing and using rather different words to emphasise my frustration with inanimate objects. And husbands.

Diane said...

I, for one, am glad you have a love affair with words. And that you write them down and share them with the rest of us!

Unknown said...

Are ya talking about TGI Fridays Pearl? By big words do you mean size wise?

Girl someday we will toss back non-sequiters and libations until we are sufficiently inebriated.

Fookin' A

Peace - Rene

Michelle said...

Hello Pearly-Q Egghead!

I miss you! Without words, there would be no bloggers!!

HAPPY WEEKEND!

Mary@Holy Mackerel said...

Awww, you poor thing.

I was called Egghead too...and Four Eyes...and Ostrich Legs.

Those childhood memories are so sweet.