Is That an Arpeggio in Your Pocket? or After Band Practice We're All Meeting at the Dairy Queen

Wednesday started much as any day starts: a brisk walk to the bus stop, a good-natured hollering from Mike, That Guy on the Bicycle (“MORNIN’, PEARL!”) followed by a quick fleecing at the Starbucks and a ride up 48 floors to my desk where the bright lights and heady acclaim of my life as office drudge and witty conversationalist awaits.

But first, where are my manners? I know why you’re here! You’ve heard, haven’t you, that my iPod, set on “shuffle” and played during my morning commute, foretells the future!

It’s perfectly true, I tell you!

Aw. Come on. Play along.

Two-Timing Touch and Broken Bones by The Hives
Setting Sun by The Chemical Brothers
Daft Punk is Playing at My House by LCD Soundsystem
Nu Tones by Nomo
Who Cares? by Gnarls Barkley
Up From the South by The Budos Band
Dancing Machine by The Jackson 5

What’s it all mean? What do you mean, “what's it all mean”? It means push the furniture to the walls! Invite the neighbors! It means dance party, baby!

That’s my official take on it, and I refuse to be swayed. We will party and we will do it with vigor.

So it is foretold.

And now, back to Wednesday. Because that’s the day, the day that started normal and ended in a supremely sweaty room full of musicians and perverse sheet music, some of which harbored five sharps…

I ask you: Five sharps? Is that necessary?

Following in the footsteps of my father, professional drummer and King of the Clean Joke (a title without compensation or property, I assure you), I was a musician myself for a number of years. Eventually, however, the need for me to cook, clean, and pay the bills overtook the time I had to practice my instrument (primarily the clarinet) and I lost touch with that side of myself.

Until Wednesday.

“It’s a great band, Pearl,” Scott had said over calamari a month ago. “We meet five weeks at a time, twice a year, resulting in two concerts. You should come.”

And I've been practicing since then.

So let me ask you this: When’s the last time you were in band class?

The woman next to me, a woman 20 years my senior and roughly half my height, moves the music stand we share to almost directly in front of her own chair.

“Sorry,” I say to her, not very sorry, actually, “I can’t really see that.”

She eyes me suspiciously. Clearly she is envious of my status as 10th clarinet of 14. She reaches forward, angles the stand infinitesimally in my direction, sits back, then reaches forward again and readjusts it so that it is once again directly in front of her.

I am transported. The years fall away, and despite the fact that I am no longer first chair, I am in love. The flutes sit just over there, perky and straight-backed; the French horn player behind me mocks the arrangement of Pavane we’ll be playing; and I’m pretty sure that the drummers are sneaking out the back door when they think no one is looking.

Nothing has changed but my weight.

And I think I can take some of those second clarinets.

What is Hip? Tell Me, Tell Me, If You Think You Know

A worked-over re-post. And you know why? Because I had band practice last night! Hee-hee! I'm so excited!


I see myself as a pretty hip chick. For cryin’ out loud, look at all the evidence I have!: Creedence Clearwater 8-tracks, embroidered bell bottoms, one of those big combs sticking out of my back pocket…

That’s all still cool, right? Am I right?

I’m hip, baby; and what you’re cookin’?

I’m smellin’ it.

But I worry – not that my cats aren’t getting enough tartar control in their “crunchy seafood medley” diet or that my canned foods have fallen out of alphabetical order. No. I’m worried that I’m not keeping up with the slang like I used to. Sometimes, perhaps during a bout of casual eavesdropping on the bus, I overhear people speaking English and yet I have no idea what they are saying. They’re speaking in a code they’re not sharing, and I want in.

As has been noted in the past, I’m a lover of words: multi-syllabic words, words with heft and girth, words borrowed from previous generations. I love ‘em.

And that’s why I’ve arranged for lessons.

Why not? I figure The Boy can always use a couple extra bucks, and who better to bring me up to speed on what the Cool Kids are saying these days than my smart-aleck of a boy?

I’m really excited about this.

He’s already assigned me my first word.

“Give me a good one,” I say, whipping out a notebook and writing the date carefully in the left-hand corner. Smiling, he gives me the word. I just know this is going to work out well. I mean, I’ve even spelled it correctly, right off the bat: “cheevil”.

The Boy assures me that if I slip this word into casual conversation it’ll be noticeably cool.

But what’s it mean? I ask him.

You don’t need a meaning, he says. That’s what makes it such a great word – it covers everything.

You guys, I’m so excited. Things over here are going to be totally cheevil!