duck-shaped pain

So I wake up early after maybe an hour of sleep. This is one of those days when the combined powers of coffee and green tea are useless to me. I go to the appliance store and slog around the shop sleeplessly, barely able to complete sentences or even locate my chair.

We have regular slow periods, one of which usually occurs around 10 a.m. I need sleep. Most of the chairs in the shop are extremely uncomfortable -- the only one worth fighting for was being occupied by my aunt. So, I decide to curl up against a dryer instead, and was surprised to find that it was fairly comfortable, at least when compared to the chairs. I managed to get about 25 minutes of sleep before the FedEx guy woke me up.

I notice weird things in my speech every once in awhile. This morning, I was discussing produce with someone, and the topic of yellow wax beans came up. I said the words "those yellow beans" in my head, but what came out of my mouth was "them yeller beans, over there."

When I am discussing beans or squash or similar items, the word "yellow" becomes magically transformed into "yeller". I don't refer to yeller cars or yeller crayons or Mello Yeller, but when produce come up, I sound like I'm from Arkansas or something.

My mother's side of the family is originally Southern, although most of my relatives who got the good sense got out of the South as soon as they could. So I grew up well aquained with Southern speech patterns, thanks to my grandparents and other relatives. Some of it even transferred to me.

Now, I live in a part of the country which seems to have no real discernable accent, and my speech tends to be free of regional slang (because we don't have any), but once in awhile, in certain settings and with certain words, the Voice of The Hill People takes over my mind and I say things like "them yeller beans, over there."

Take the word "root". Normal people pronounce it something like "rewt" and don't think anything of it. For me, it's one of the few words where my unintentional Hill People Talk comes through. I pronounce it something like "ruuht" (very guttural, hard on the "r"). I used to have a friend when I lived in Denver who was absolutely fascinated by the way I pronounced "root", which I had never even notced saying before. He would try to set up conversations where I had to use the word. and it was really irritating after a while. He attributed it to growing up on the Western Slope; I had to explain to him that it went deeper than that.

Now playing: The Evan Dando of Noise? by Alan Licht. [1] The only album I know of that combines guitar noise with hog calling. It works better than you'd think.

On my desk (such as it is) this morning when I got to the appliance store was an enormous bag of crookneck squash. My aunt's squash plants worked overtime this week, so she's had to resort to random, anonymous giving in order to rid herself of the little yeller beasts.

You know, I absolutely love this band too, but this review that I came across just seems a little excessive in its praise. To quote:

Guitars and violins soar, drums crash accordingly, basses chug along, and people get fucking hurt. If, to talk in guitarist- speak, there is a pedal for "intense," Godspeed You Black Emperor have stomped it to bits. Music this ambitious almost needs to be heard on a different kind of stereo.

Golly.