Two Word Nerds

I'm being forced to play scrabble against my will. My wife and I came to our favorite pub to do some cafe writing. When we settle in at our table she informs me she really doesn't have anything to write and she didn't bring a book, so she asks, "Wanna play Scrabble?" "No." I blurt. "I need to write. I have a blog to feed."

Then she plays the birthday card. "Not even for my birthday?" she mews. She's been milking this birthday thing all week. I've been trumped. "Do I have to get into the game 100%?" I waffle. "Are you going to try to write while you play?" she replies.

I barely hear her. I'm listening to this telephone lineman vegan obsessive sitting next to us. He's on a quest to find adequate canvas climbing boots to replace his steel-reinforced leather ones, I guess so he can assure anyone who asks, "no animals were harmed in the making of this call." He says he buys dozens of documentaries that expose the dark and slimy underbellies of the government and multi-national corporations (Super-Size Me, The Corporation, The End of Suburbia, Outfoxed) and donates them to small libraries in red counties. Cool idea.

Then there's the irritating English-prof-wannabe who surrounds himself with stacks of thick books. Young women (from the city college poetry lab he runs, I guess) sit down with him to be tutored in arcane poetry 101. He commences to read in a jolly, over-sonorous tone that is clearly meant for all to hear. He thinks he's sounding so erudite and tweedy while actually coming off as a bad Monty Python character. His officious reading of Milton and Spencer could turn the coziest pub into a paradise lost.

This place is a rich vein for people watchers and writers.

"Can I at least make notes>" I say to my wife. "Sure," she smiles.

But when she starts telling me what she's learned about Scrabble from this book she's been reading (Word Freak) -- that two letter words like "U-G" and "X-I" are legal and there are Q words that don't need a U -- I get a sinking feeling, like the proverbial teenage girl who's hoping against hope that she's only somewhat pregnant. I'm not going to get any writing done here. But I shut up and draw my letters.

She's such a word nerd. She writes her poetry and her cookbooks and edits other people's writing all day, and just when you'd think she's had it with words, she plays a game or two of Literati on the Internet with complete strangers.

I must admit I have some word wiggy-ness in my own nature. My fetish is song lyrics. I write them and have been known to obsess over some of the lyrics to my own songs for decades before I'm satisfied. I once interviewed Al Jarreau, the jazz singer, for an alternative weekly, and when I told him how important lyrics were to me, he called me a dinosaur, because no one cares about lyrics anymore. He was right. Pretty much all the songwriters I think are great -- Bob Dylan, Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Tim Rice, Joni Mitchell (is she still writing lyrics?) -- are all over 50.

I guess it was words that brought my wife and me together. She found me in a restaurant bar singing my lyrics. We've been pretty much constantly together since. She proofread my novel, I contribute in my small ways to the preparation of some of her books, and I've written for various publications she's edited over the years. And we read to each other -- poems, articles, chapters from books.

The good news is that our common interest in putting things into words has helped us communicate well with one another. When we "have words" the outcome is almost always positive, unlike the outcome for many couples. We know that, depending on one's skills and intentions, language can be either a bomb or a balm. The only time we get combative with words, is on the Scrabble board.