eleven bee

I blame our part-time nanny, and the twenty-somethings with whom I work, for getting me started with the whole texting thing.  It’s not like I wasn’t plugged in enough as it was, what with gmail, instant-messaging, Facebook, and this blog, for example.  I made it nearly forty years on this planet without caving to the allure of the text message.

But now I’m one of them.

I’m somewhat comforted to know that texting really isn’t just for teeny-boppers anymore.  (Do people still use that term?)  The other day, I was enjoying some free outdoor jazz in Boulder with the boys, when I noticed something that kind of took me out of the moment.

The stand up bass player was thumping his way through his solo, the drum player dutifully keeping time with only a nod of his fedorra-ed head.  The slightly graying piano player had his eyes closed, his hands tapping on his thighs as he sat on his rickity piano bench.  He was apparently appreciating the groove that the bassist was laying down, when I saw his left leg straighten out slightly.  It was a move I recognized from those rare moments when my grandfather, the Colonel, would accompany my grandmother and me to church when I was a little girl.  We could always tell that he had had enough when he would stretch out his left leg, and lean back slightly to put his hand in his pocket to get a Rolaids.  Only on this occasion the piano player retrieved not an antacid, but a cell phone from his pants pocket.

And then, while his jazz trio was still performing, with all of us watching, he flipped open his phone and started texting.  It seemed a little rude, or, at the very least, a little post-modern.  Perhaps ironic?  Luckily he wrapped up his important texting just in time to jump back into the music, but it did make me wonder if maybe there shouldn’t be times when multi-tasking isn’t appropriate.

Or is it just me?

image from:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/moriza/126238642/

I find myself at an interesting kind of blogging crossroads.  The problem with having a public blog that is really just a personal journal is that I run the risk of offending people I know.

On the one hand, I enjoy the idea that people I know get to keep up with me here, and I even like knowing that occasionally people I don’t know stop by to take a peek.  But on the other hand, knowing that people I know read what I write here does give me pause when I want to write about the people in my life, or when I want to include something about myself that may make things awkward with those I know.  I tend to over-share in real life but that’s mostly because my mouth often gets ahead of my brain and my self-editing skills don’t have a chance to kick in in time to save me from myself.  And while I’m drawn to (almost) daily blogging precisely because it avoids a lot of the hard work of editing and re-editing a piece until it is just right, writing still allows for a little more refection than simply speaking off the top of my head.  And so I occasionally find myself in a mild state of writing paralysis, where I want to write freely… and yet I feel hesitant to do so.

My thing is that I choose not to waste my energy hating —  neither in real life, nor in the the things I write.  That doesn’t mean that I’m living some contrived life of positivity.  In fact, it’s kind of the opposite.  I like to be around, and I like to write about, deliciously flawed people who interest me.  Those are the people I care about.

I’m rambling, so let me wrap up with a preemptive, yet sincere, “Sorry” to anyone who might ever be offended by the things I write here, particularly if you think you might be reading about yourself one day.  It kills me to think that I may hurt someone I care about — even if I haven’t done it yet.  But the fear of doing so makes it astoundingly difficult to just be me here.

And with that… let the blogging continue.

image from: http://www.mikepaulblog.com/blog/

Many years ago I worked with a woman named Sharon.  Sharon provided administrative support to a posse of a half-dozen or so city planners, and she reminded me a bit of Herb Tarlek’s wife.  (Remember?  From WKRP in Cincinnati?)  She spoke in a sing-songy voice and had a bit of a grandmotherly vibe, despite the fact that she and her husband — a lifelong employee of the US Postal Service — never actually had kids of their own. I remember that Sharon had a seasonal part-time job down at the mall  playing the role of one of Santa’s helpers.  It was the perfect role for her.  Perfect.

It’s a testament to her professionalism that in all the years that we worked together — and we worked closely during the hectic times of the Bay Area dot com development boom  — I only saw her crack maybe two or three times.  And then that practiced polite tone fell aside and she’d march off cussing rather loudly, not quite under her breath.

For some reason, Sharon popped into my head this afternoon.  I think it’s because I was reading Dooce’s birth story, which included numerous references to early contraction pains that she wasn’t able to accurately identify at first.  And this reminded me of one peculiar moment with Sharon, one that I’ve never quite been able to understand.

One relatively calm morning at work Sharon came into my office to let me know that she would have to be going home early.  “I’m not feeling well,” she said.  And then she leaned in a little closer and lowered her voice to a whisper.  “I have crabs…”  She gestured a bit as she said this, pointing down there.

Crabs?  Really?  How… out of character, to say the least.   And really, talk about over-sharing…  I nodded quickly and told her that I hoped she felt better soon, and she was off.

Now, ten years later, it occurs to me that I may have misheard her.  Not crabs.  Cramps. That makes much more sense.  All this time I guess I had thought that maybe there was another potentially seedier side to Sharon.  Maybe Sharon had a pair of black pleather pants buried deep in the back of her closet.  Maybe she was on a first name basis with all the Doobie Brothers.

It’s all so ridiculous.  I feel somehow that I owe her a bit of an apology for having “misunderestimated” her (as Dubya would say)…

Image from: http://www.sitcomsonline.com