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!

Monday, September 15, 2014

When I'm Not Doing Something Incredibly Useful...

“The walk to the bus may have looked like any other, but Monday was the day that changed everything.”

I’ve been known to narrate my life. Not aloud, of course, because that would be unseemly. No use in frightening my fellow citizens.

Honestly, the commentary in my head is usually more entertaining than what’s going on around me.

I don’t limit my narrations to my life, though. I’m willing to narrate yours as well.

“Little did the woman pinching the tomatoes know, but the person next to her at the Farmer’s Market, the person inspecting the turnips, then the rutabagas, was her brother Frank, the man who had left for the Navy 15 years ago only to be struck by lightning and left wandering, witless all these years, in his pursuit of the perfect root vegetable.”

My lips don’t move when I do this, so it’s perfectly normal.

Now if my lips moved

I sometimes see people’s lips moving. They’re walking down the street, fully engaged in something or other. Before Bluetooth and teeny-tiny headphones, this was more amusing than it is now. Like the 'rahr, rahr, rahr' of a dog with a mouthful of peanut butter, one could envision any monologue one liked. Now, however, rather than imagining someone reciting the “My-mother-was-right-and-I’m-leaving-you-you-cheap-SOB” speech as they push their grocery cart through the dairy section, the odds are actually much better that the words they are speaking into the world’s smallest phone are more along the lines of “I’ll be home soon! Do we need milk?”

Boring!


So I’m going to continue to create little fantasy lives around them, what they’re saying, where they’re going, why they’re meeting.

Oh, if only they knew how happy they make me, these lip-moving people, or how much I love them.

17 comments:

vanilla said...

Someone sees my lips moving, I turn off the mute and continue singing-- as though I was singing in the first place.

Unknown said...

I love your imaginative creations!

Shelly said...

And if only you knew how happy you and your wonderful imagination make us, Pearly girl.

Joanne Noragon said...

It's fun to come home, wondering if the long lost siblings reunited over the corn.

Anonymous said...

Follow me around....hand gestures, moving lips, facial expressions....I can keep you busy.

Geo. said...

Fun idea, and instructive, Pearl. As I get harder of hearing, I rely more and more on imagining what people are saying.

jenny_o said...

Keep those fantasy lives coming, please, Pearl!

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari OM
What is it about the mobile life that we can no longer make decisions about milk or no milk all by ourselves... ggrrrrrrrr don't get me started on those things.

Meanwhile - continue to not let it stunt your imaginations dear Pearl!!! YAM xx

Elephant's Child said...

Yay for fantasy lives. Yours, mine, everyone elses. And yay that you are there to interpret and share them.

Merlesworld said...

I'm glad the world still had dreamers with imagination and wit they are needed to lighten everything up just a bit, you made me laugh.
Merle........

Gigi said...

You'd have a field day with me. I sit at my desk and make random comments to random objects all day long. I'm sure the woman who shares a cube-wall with me loves it.

Chicken said...

I always try to engage to lip moving people in conversation. Because I always think they are talking to me. And then comes the smirk. Um, excuse me, Bluetooth Bob, but you look a lot weirder talking to yourself than I do talking to you. Just sayin'.

Anonymous said...

Oh, and if they only knew how interesting their life is in your mind.

River said...

I love where your mind takes you, and in turn, us.
Yesterday I found myself talking to a piece of fluff on the floor. "where were you when I had the vacuum going just five minutes ago?"

Anne said...

You have such a wonderful imagination!

Linda O'Connell said...

I often engage my husband in helping me to develop character details about strange characters. Isn't it fun?

Leenie said...

We need people like you, Pearl, to keep the rest of the world from taking themselves too seriously. Fantasy is SO much more entertaining than reality. That's why I live in my own private Idaho. Here we turn the sound off on the television and add our own sound track. Sometimes so hilarious we have to take emergency bathroom breaks.