Strange Encounters with Jazz Peers

Max, thank you for your Vulcan words of encouragement.

Multiple people have approached me with confusion about your choice of topic yesterday. Personally, I don't think it was boring -- it was pretty colorful, in fact.

Gah. The things stuck in my head recently have not been great. Usually, it's been jazzy patterns over chord changes, but occasionally, it's also been "Argon the Noble Gas" or Britney Spears.

As you know, I'm spending the week at U of I for jazz combo camp. Consequently, I've had quite a few interesting conversations with people around my age who also like jazz. Many of these conversations occur at lunch or dinner. Today, I'd like to share an example with you.

While in the lunch line, I stood behind two younger boys -- maybe freshmen? -- and I assume that they're never going to find this blog. I don't know what their names were, so let's call them Dishwasher and Patrick.

Dishwasher kept making a lot of vocal observations -- things that I usually process quietly inside my head. And whenever Dishwasher would say something like, "I hope there are napkins at the end of the table," Patrick would say, "That's what she said!"

I wasn't really sure what was going on, but it happened at least three times, and Patrick never said "that's what she said" in a way that made sense. I thought maybe that he had just learned the phrase and was repeating it constantly like a toddler learning a new word. Then, something interesting happened.

Dishwasher said, "It doesn't ever make sense when you say that." Silently, I agreed, and then Patrick said, "I know. I don't really wait for the appropriate time -- I just like to do it as much as I can."

So in my head, I was like, "DISHWASHER! That's totally your cue!"

But Dishwasher was silent.

That's the end of my story, Max. I'll see your post tomorrow!

P.S. We should start planning Bananagrams soon.