low note high note

If you think this post is about me singing, then you are wrong.  (Believe me, you don't want to hear me sing.)

I have chewed on this for a few days, and decided it's time to spit it out.  I could talk to you in words and terms that might make you think "wow, she's smart".  But I have found that when I am really bothered by something, it is better to speak the way I do when I mean something.  Bald ass plainly.

And I mean this.

So here's the low note:
I've been watching lots of people the last little bit.  Unhappy people.   People who think they are above other folks.  Not just here in the blogs and things I read online, but in the real world too. 

And it's stuck in my craw.  These people who think they know more than other people.  Who think other people don't have the talent they have.  People who criticize ad nauseum what other people do or are, in a vicious belittling way.  People who get their chuckles or make themselves feel better by insulting and putting other folks down.

It torques my jaw.  Irritates me.  What a waste of time I think to myself while I read or listen to this shit. 

If you have a legitimate gripe, spit it out.  Air it.  Get it off your back.  But don't keep tearing other people down because you need it to make yourself feel better, or to justify yourself as a human being (a term I use loosely).  Maybe that's the best they can do.  Maybe it's the best they can be.  Allow them the space and air they need to exist.

Because this is the way it is:

If you have something to share with the world, then stop bitching and show us what you have.  There is room enough for all of us on this blue marble.  We don't have to tear each other down to have our own space.

Constructive criticism is good.  I believe it makes us try to be better at what we choose to do.  It improves the voice we are trying to share with the world, in whatever form we choose to share.  I also believe those people who can't take it shouldn't be throwing barbs.  Those barbs turn into boomerangs, people, and they come back and smack your own ass.

Waste time bitching about what other people have, how they do things, how they got there, how stupid they are, how untalented they are and on and on...and you are wasting time you could be doing something with your OWN life.

Enough of that now.  I am usually upbeat and silent about most things.  Once in a great while, I rant.  That was a bit of rant.  Now for what happened to me yesterday.

This is the high note:
I was the last one to leave work yesterday.  That's been happening a lot the past few weeks as I settle into my new job responsibilities and try to get a grasp on things.

As I was leaving, I noticed my side of the building still had all the lights on.  I could see light through the glass doors in the lunchroom.

Then I realized what was wrong.  I could see the glass doors.  Usually the lunchroom door is closed and locked at 5PM or thereabout.  Houston, we have a problem I was thinking as I went toward the double glass doors.  I pushed one door open, then the other door.

And panicked.  I didn't have the key to lock them.  In fact I didn't know how to lock them.  I knew I could manage turning out the lights, but how could I leave with THE DOORS UNLOCKED?

I called the one person who knows everything about everything.  My boss's assistant.  She told me do this and do that and look for this on the door.  I did everything like an automaton.  She told me if those steps were all done, then the doors were locked.

Then I realized.  I was opening the doors from the inside.  They lock on the outside, not the inside.

As soon as I realized, I told her what I had done.  She laughed.  It didn't offend me because I do stuff like this all the time.  So I laughed too.  What else could I do?  I can't defend stupid, so I own it and go on with life.  :D

I left the building, after turning the lights out of course.  As I was backing out of the parking lot I hear this soft screetch scritch.  I can't tell where the sound is coming from.  I turn the steering wheel and keep hearing it.  I bend over and look closely at the steering wheel.  I twist the wheel this way and that.  Keep hearing it.  Accidentally honk the horn (I am sure the neighborhood loved hearing that). 

Finally I figure I'll just drive it until the steering wheel falls off in my lap and then do what I always do in a car emergency.  (Call Stevie Wonder.)  So off I go.  I get close to a gas station (the tank is on E), and start to turn in.  I hear it again.  Then it dawns on me.

I grab my seat belt.  And drag it across the seed beads and sequins on the tank top I am wearing.

screetch scritch...

Yep, it was one of those kind of days.