Bird Talk

I once worked with this Polish sales lady who was always done up to the nines. (It was a direct marketing company whose product was English lessons. It could have been umbrellas for all they cared about teaching.) She wore high heels and form fitting jackets, a real mani-pedi lady. We were talking politics with her friend, also done up to the nines. It was a relatively serious analysis of what was going on with the European Union and Poland’s role. Then a potential client came in, a man in a suit, and the Polish ladies swung their heads around, batted their eyes and got into the work of making the man sign up for classes. It was like a switch, from serious discussion to flirtation. My colleague was incredibly smart but she wasn’t letting anyone in on it: a need-to-know basis. It made me laugh.

It makes me laugh again when I listen to the lyrics of a song like “Girl Talk” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_Talk_(Neal_Hefti_song ):

They all meow about the ups and downs of all their friends,
The who, the how, the why — they dish the dirt, it never ends.
The weaker sex, the “speaker” sex we mortal males behold
But though we joke, we wouldn’t trade you for a ton of gold.

Men have/had no idea what women talk about. We just talk about the same things as normal people, which, you know, we are. We just complain about the patriarchy a bit more, and being man-splained how to do things anyone could figure out. And getting passed over for jobs and underpaid for the ones we have. But otherwise just normal conversations.

Yesterday there were alpine choughs hanging out on the side of wall near my house. They were chatting up a storm, and I imagine trying to find a mate, but you know, we have no idea. Bird talk.

Foro interviewing a bird to find out what they really think. Although I tried to argue with him that it’s just one bird’s opinion and it might not be representative. He said he has to start somewhere. True enough. A bird on the mic is worth two on the bush.