Random topics, not enough time to write

10:24 PM 7/3/10

I'm blogging again on a Saturday night, instead of working.  (And now it's Sunday morning when I've reopened this and started writing on it again.)

pan's labyrinth and stardust
tammy's key
the haircut
reality check postponed
contaminated dreadlocks
fireworks and fairs
fridge in break room
baby music in adult voices
peter and the open relationship

Those topics may not necessarily be in the order that I will write them in.

I'm seeing lots of small fireworks displays, for the past few days, because they don't want to compete against THE BIG DISPLAY that will happen on the fourth. I've seen a few in Bellefonte as I've been driving home from work in the evening. I'm going to make a long story short, and, like every fourth of July, I'm going to mention Dan Barker and the story of Why The Fireworks Suck, When They Used To Be Great.

The story of why the fireworks suck when they used to be great:

An artist named Dan Barker created some computer software and designed a bunch of equipment so that he could set off the fireworks in time with music. He did this for a few years using donated money from the businesses in State College, but he eventually decided it took up too much of his time and he didn't get paid enough to do it. So he said that he was dropping out. The town decided that they should be 'entitled' to get his software and the firing equipment because the Fourth of July fireworks display 'belongs to the town.' It belongs to everybody, they said. He disagreed with them about that. There were other conflicts too, but I don't remember all of it. Eventually, the original designer did quit, and a group of government employees took over the fireworks display. So the song choices changed drastically - that was what I noticed the most. And it's not as well done, not as artistic as it used to be. I noticed the change the very first year that Dan Barker left. Now, it's just riding on its old reputation from back in the days when it really was good.

That's the short version. I'm writing quickly today because I don't have time. I tried to write this last night, but Peter called and wanted to go for a trip to the grocery store, so we did.

Movies: I recently rented two movies from Lyken's Market. They have only a limited number of movie choices, and it's a random collection, so that forces me to pick out movies that I've never heard of before and never had any desire to see. That's a good thing, not a bad thing. It means I don't get overwhelmed by a huge number of choices.

They both turned out all right. But Pan's Labyrinth is too scary for children. For instance, it showed a scene, early in the movie, where the main villain killed a guy by bashing his face in. They actually SHOWED him bashing the guy's face in with a bottle. That is too scary for a thirty-five year old. And it had a sad ending, and I found it depressing. Stardust was a better movie for young children. It wasn't as scary or gory. It had a happy ending. And of course they want me to mention that there was a scene where a guy was getting a haircut, and the haircut magically made his hair longer, not shorter. The guy who gave him this haircut was, of course, the cross-dressing pirate. I was able to see through the pirate right from the beginning - he wasn't really as mean as he pretended to be, and I could tell. He looked like he was going to cry when he was threatening Tristan and Yvaine.

I'm not in the mood to mention another hair-related comment that I was supposed to make. Maybe some other time.

An incident with Tammy the manager: I was rushing to get done last night, mopping the floor, noticing that it was right about nine o'clock and I was going to be leaving late. Tammy came up to me and told me that a customer wanted pizza dough, and there wasn't any out, and I was supposed to be responsible for making sure that there was always pizza dough out there. ('Tammy... not now,' I whispered, as I continued walking around and mopping while I listened to her.) She could tell that I wasn't happy about it, because she started getting defensive and making it sound like it was all my fault and I was a bad employee and I was the only one who had ever let the pizza dough run out because I was the worst employee ever... etc, etc. That's how I started to feel while I listened to her. But I agreed to drop what I was doing and go put out more pizza dough, and I promised her I'd write a note to remind myself and others to always check on it in the evenings.

A little bit later I actually went up to her and told her that I appreciated it when she told me these things, because it really was helpful and there was a lot of stuff I didn't know or didn't remember to do. She grinned and was really pleased that I had thanked her. I sincerely meant it. It was annoying that I had to drop what I was doing and go do some other thing, but the truth is that if I were the store owner, I'd want the store to make profits, and that would mean we had to have stuff out on the shelves. Reality says that she was right, even though it was annoying and inconvenient at the time. So I thanked her. She was delighted and it made both of us feel better.

She only made me feel like a 'bad employee' because I responded badly and made her feel like a 'bad manager,' the worst, most unpopular, most hated, meanest manager in the store. (This fits, because someone else had just told me that she was one of the two people who he most hated working with.) But someone needs to make sure that things really do get done, and I have always felt that our department was sloppy and had bad morale. So if someone tells us we need to do something, and if it's real, if it's actually true that we need to do this thing (instead of some stupid, arbitrary, imaginary task that doesn't help anyone), if it makes sense that yes, pizza dough has to be out there so people can buy it, then I'm going to agree with her.

So, that was the key to understanding her: She makes other people feel bad because she feels like the most hated manager in the store, the worst one that nobody likes. But she's actually right about some things and I admire her for doing her duty even when it's inconvenient and a hassle.

I won't have time to go into depth into the list of topics I wrote above that I wanted to write about. 'Baby music': There are musical intervals that people start using all the way back in infancy. I've heard baby noises recorded. There is a sound they make for 'pleasantly surprised.' It's a two or three tone melody. It starts at a high note and ends at a low note, and it's a major interval, which means 'happy.' It's a large interval, like a fifth or something - I could test it on Reason on my laptop and find out what interval it is. Babies say it by going 'Aaa-ahhh!' High-low.

I have heard adults make that exact same melody, but they put words in it, and it happens when they're surprised and pleased. I heard someone do it the other day, and I heard Curtis do that melody once too. He did it when I commented about the ring he was wearing, which had a little spider shape cut out of it. He was pleased that I noticed it, and he said, 'That's my SPI-der!' It was that melody on 'spi-der'. It happened the other day when I was getting something out of the fridge at McD and someone was about to get it himself, and he said, 'Oh, that's what you were GET-ting.' Same melody again. So I wonder if this is universal, if babies in China are making that same note interval melody when they are pleasantly surprised. The melody can be put into many different sentences. 'That's WON-derful' would have the same melody. Musical notes actually mean something. They express real feelings and they are used in language every day. When we take the words away, we leave the feelings behind and we still recognize them, and that is how song melodies are written, but song melodies are much more complex. And it starts when we're babies, before anybody teaches us.

I need to go get ready for work, and I'll have to postpone most of these topics.

The reality check postponed: I saw Curtis for about two seconds yesterday - once when he came in the front door after a cigarette break, and once when he was leaving, while Sue was talking to me, and my back was turned to him, and I glanced back when I saw him out of the corner of my eye as he was leaving. That sucked. I had left him a phone message and wanted to see his reaction. My reality check. Reality is what I need from him. I can't get reality if I write text messages and don't get an answer. I can only get reality from him if I say something to him and he responds. I have to see WHAT the response is. It could be good or bad, it doesn't matter. It's reality. Getting someone's real reaction is what I want most. So I have to wait until I see him again, and I didn't see his schedule this week, so I don't know when we'll work together again.

I also wanted to talk about Peter and about how we've talked about me having crushes on other guys, if it's important enough to mention. I mentioned Curtis to him many months ago, but I told him that this might be a false alarm again, and nothing would happen. I don't want to talk about it and get him upset if nothing is really happening. He always used to say, 'Some eighteen-year-old is going to come along and steal you,' and I always laughed at that because it didn't seem like that would actually happen. (Curtis is nineteen now. He was eighteen when we met.) I am not planning on leaving Peter or abandoning him or refusing to see him. I want to work out some kind of agreement, if I do see anybody else.

I really do have to get ready to work now.