We'll Hide in the Mountains

Welcome to Friday, ladies and gentlemen!

What does the ever-shufflin’ iPod have to say about the weekend?

Remember now: You can follow the link, but sometimes it’s not the first one on the list, so be sure to match the song and the artist!

Pushin’ Too Hard by The Seeds
Rock Lobster by The B52s
Spanish Bombs by The Clash
Phenomena by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Wooden Ships by Crosby, Stills & Nash
The Rubberband Man by The Spinners
Joker & The Thief by Wolfmother
Teddy Picker by Arctic Monkeys

I have nothing to say about this except that The Spinners make me happy in a way that only smiling men in tuxes do.

And by the way, wouldn’t that be a great Halloween costume, you and your friends in tuxes and doing those cool dance moves? Forget the Pips, man!

Awww, who am I kidding? I still love you, Gladys. And your little Pips, too!

So tonight is my reading at Banfill-Locke, 30 minutes of unbridled Pearl-ness: probable humor, plenty of room for error. I am nauseous with anticipation.

The following is the bio that was sent out introducing me:
Pearl is the unpublished writer of the daily blog Pearl, Why You Little... (http://pearl-whyyoulittle.blogspot.com) and has written speeches, short stories, and essays for the past eight years or so, some true, some outright lies, and all without compensation. She is willing to write for food.

Kinda makes ya want to buy me a sandwich, doesn’t it?

Anyway, we have time for one, right? Just one?

My brother and I are just a little over a year apart. Until we were about 10 or so, we were basically the same height, the same weight -- there was even a brief time in there where I could beat him arm-wrestling.

He will deny it.

Don’t listen to him.

And while my brother has the ability to make me swear in imaginary languages until I'm red in the face, he also has a way of making me laugh until I go weak and fall off whatever I am sitting on, whereupon I am forced to regain my strength and assume a defensive posture, as next will come him sitting on me and offering to tickle me until I pee my pants.

We don't do that (much) anymore, by the way.

At one time our favorite argument involved what to do if we were required to go into hiding. Looking back, it may have had to do with the continual moving we did as children -- did we see ourselves as refugees? Dad said we moved a lot because it was harder to hit a moving target, but that was just clever talk for "there must be something better over there"; and we moved on a yearly -- and sometime half-yearly -- basis.

Kevin swore that we could always hide in the mountains. Never mind that we were born and raised in Minnesota. He was sure there was mountains around here someplace.

"What if there aren't any mountains?" I would say.

"Every country has mountains," he would say, dismissively. "You have to have mountains if you're a country."

I wasn't so sure about this, but hey! at eight years of age, it did make a kind of sense. As the years went by and our knowledge of the world grew, however, we developed grave concerns over where we would hide should we find ourselves inexplicably in, say, Belgium.

Kevin was sure that, somewhere in Belgium, there was a hidden mountain range.

To this day, we have this argument, although he now asserts that there was never such a discussion, that he was just pulling my leg.

I know better.

And if I ever go missing, you'll know where I am. I'm in the mountains. In Belgium.