Title: Fair to middlin'
Hearing: The rattling of dice; my parents playing Yahtzee and gently squabbling
Tasting: Oatmeal raisin cookies and milk
Seeing: The TV on some random cable channel
Feeling: Bored, rawther. I like it.
I am so getting my accent back, y'all. Talking to Cynthia last night, she kept commenting in amazement on how much slower and relaxed my speech has become in the last four days. The drawl I grew up with has returned, coating my words like so much thick honey. Even my jaw feels more relaxed now that I'm not bending my words around the choppy syllables of my adopted Midwestern non-accent, which is the only way most Coloradoans can understand me.
I feel better when I talk this way. Instead of getting ready to do something, I'm fixin' to do it. I don't do things eventually, I get around to them directly. I don't yell or scream, I holler. Instead of trousers or pants, I wear britches. The drugstore is down the road a piece, or over yonder. All in all, I'm doing tol'able well, I reckon.
It's a strange thing for me that I lose my Southern aphorisms along with my accent when I'm out West. Probably it comes from a certain weariness with the strange looks I receive when I drawl out, "Gimme a po-boy, dressed, and a Co-Cola," in the middle of Subway. (Go to GumboPages if you're unfamiliar. I wouldn't pull y'all's legs about that.) If you tell someone out in Colorado that something made you so happy that you were grinning like a mule in a briar patch, they'll likely either give you a puzzled look or burst into guffaws of laughter and comment on your heritage in a derogatory manner. It's like the inevitable Civil War debate when you get found out as a Southerner: it gets old real fast.
Like most people, I pick up the speech patterns of those around me, which is often necessary for me to communicate with Yankees, Canadians and other fast talkers. If I want to keep my Southern drawl, I have to exaggerate it, to the great amusement of my cow-orkers. However, when I get home, I may just keep the accent as long as I can and let the Westerners make fun of my redneck ways. Let 'em; it's who I am.
Y'all come back and see us, now.
-- marcie.