overheard in girl talk hell: omniglot

"Once you've learned one Romance language, you pretty much know them all."

overheard at eleusis, ii

overheard at eleusis, i

surprising news

"Air Freshener" does not freshen air.

overheard in girl talk hell

"I have thought of a wholly untapped source of hilarity: nursing homes!"

you heard it here.

in related works, i offer only the following, not particularly hilarious, reflections on an elderly couple i once knew, who were patrons of such an institution for a time:


it is final enough. to die by your own hand a mere month—is it?
or years: since she lost her mind—after the beloved passed,
suffering done at last in the crying white tennis-shoed
persistent living if you can call it that facility. final.

overheard in girl talk hell

"Some people talk just to talk; they don't care if anybody is listening."

overheard in girl talk hell

"If [instead of reviewing assigned files one is being paid to review] you just wait, somebody else'll do them. Then just go sign up for more."*

overheard in boy talk hell

i don't do too much overheard in boy talk hell. no doubt, as a result of millennia of patriarchal tradition, boy talk hell is kind of just normative generalized small talk, though it may still veer into decidedly men-are-gearhead-nerds-from-mars realms, as with the popular notions of fishing, the barbecue, power tools and spectator sports.

but today in boy talk hell, one party said to another party, "everybody objects to paying their taxes," and, with a pointed pause pregnant with contempt, "except you." (one of the many "everybody . . . but you" statements used by said party to said other in today's boy talk hell), and i had to look (once more) at my little prototype "do not cast your pearls before swine"-sign as i turned to engage...

girl talk hell provide the red bull

[pic disappeared from source, so deleted here - ed.]
allegedly a complete album download from our friends at the music swamp, which has a nice motto. but there was no complete album there.

come to think of it, the band girl talk does come up a bit in the searches. i bet this is the cover of a girl talk album entitled "he'll provide the red bull", rather than a girl talk hell album entitled "provide the red bull" and that pesky apostrophe's missing.

i don't know anything about the band girl talk, except that their syntax and mine overlap from time to time. maybe i should try to find out about them.

oh, if only there were a way to casually encounter some desired datum . . .

that magical time ("i hate")

dear reader - we come again to that special time of the year -- mardi gras has passed (and les bon temps have rouler-ed), daylight is being actively saved ('though this writer does not quite understand how, or why, we would try to save it without first deploying a bunch of photovoltaic gear), and the kids are shaping up for spring break -- when the typically-disparate conversational miasmas of girl talk hell and boy talk hell tend to topically converge, and all talk everywhere is of that sport, and that league, and those schools once again.

wherever you are, i hope you either share (and enjoy) the mania or have sufficient insulation.

the queen and the foregoing

i have been talking of girl talk hell for some years, having been immersed in several different instances of it in that time, and even before. i just didn't know, before then, that it was girl talk hell, and, when i complained, depending whom i was complaining to, i likely just identified individuals by name, or generalized anonymously: "a group of women situated near my workspace at the office."

(i can remember one instance since the coining of "girl talk hell" that i complained - somewhat less discreetly than wonted - of whom-is-now-subsumed-in-the-archetype-of-the-queen by name: "I can't stand another moment of exposure to the inane rantings of Givenname Patronymic!" i exclaimed to a GTH sympathizer, with exasperated-villain-grasping-claw-handed gestures and all, outside the bathroom just about the same time a . . . person who had some social dealings with Givenname Patronymic walked around the corner, and i was mortified; but me and Givenname Patronymic had some friction of our own anyway, beyond, and yet strangely entangled with, the normal confines of girl talk hell. i determined to try to be more circumspect;)

talk a lot pick a little more

This video excerpt, from The Music Man, is a fair facsimile of Girl Talk Hell, with the exception that, as you can see, Robert Preston is able, eventually, to go away; not an option in Girl Talk Hell.



If those men in that barbershop quartet were talking about football instead of politely singing "Goodnight Ladies," this would be exactly what the place I work is like . . . except that Robert Preston gets to go away, and my livelihood rests amid the menace.

"Balzac!" indeed.

overheard in girl talk hell

"I think I'm a good speaker . . ."

overheard in girl talk hell

"Other people's idle chatter around me at the workplace is inconsiderate and annoying."

overheard in girl talk hell

"If I had gone to a college no one had ever heard of, you can be sure I'd have gotten a 4.0."

overheard in girl talk hell

"If his behavior changes, you would be irrational to not conclude that he's cheating on you."

overheard in girl talk hell

"I don't tell guys I date I'm Jewish because there are so many antisemites out there."

(. . . so it's ok to date an antisemite so long as he keeps it a secret? - ed.)

overheard in girl talk hell

The definition of 'whipped: "When people with reliable partners stop taking care of themselves the way single people do."
(for um, "sexier" values of "taking care of." - ed.)

This unisex and otherwise wrongful statement produced a lot of argument and discussion, even beyond the traditional locus of conversation, but the Queen of Girl Talk Hell would not be dissuaded from her error . . . which, come to think of it, might be endemic to such outbreaks.

overheard in girl talk hell

"If I'd wanted to be ignored, I could have stayed home and done it myself."

overheard in girl talk hell

". . . and that's when I decided never again to leave home without putting on makeup."