I enjoy people watching, imagining the story behind the outward appearance. Sometimes I make up a story, as though I were writing a piece of fiction. Starbucks can be a great place to do that.
This morning the small Starbucks at Union Hills and the 101 (not my usual location) had three couples, all 30-ish, occupying three of the eight tables. None of them were married, but all three were clearly courting. Body language screamed, "We're working on making an impression." The conversation I had with Bud at the gym yesterday (last night's post) colored my thinking about those couples. "I wonder which of them is a wolf in sheep's clothing, wiling their way into a relationship just to get what they can and then move on."
I think the strings - violin, viola, cello (not so much the bass viol) - are the most expressive and evocative of all orchestral instruments. And the cello ranks first among those. No prejudice there. I once heard it explained as arising from the fact that the cello's range matches almost perfectly that of the human voice, from soprano to bass. That's why we so easily feel its passion.
It's not like I ever consciously thought otherwise, but several years ago our son Josh, who works with special needs kids, said something that stuck with me. He pointed out that some people are nice on the inside and some people are natural jerks. Or mean. Or incredibly selfish. Or... That is, what's on the inside has no connection to what's on the outside.
That came up in a conversation in which I expressed some surprise at an encounter with a disabled person who turned out to be a jerk. I had fabricated this idealized version of a disabled person who by nature had a personality that warranted my sympathy and compassion, and this guy deserved nothing of the sort. Being in a wheelchair doesn't confer anything on anyone.
[Note: I'm not saying he shouldn't receive my compassion, just that nothing in his personality or behavior elicited it.]
I remember when we were kids my mom telling us about an encounter she'd had getting on the bus. (She doesn't drive, never has, and so took public transportation when dad was at work.) The lady in front of her in the line to get on the bus was blind, using a white cane. Mom stepped up, took her arm, and offered to help her up the steps into the bus. The woman snarled and swung her white cane around, smacking my mother on the legs. Ouch!
If X% of the population is ill-tempered and insufferable it's reasonable to expect that the same percentage will be found in the disabled community.
Something about that obvious fact felt very liberating. I could go ahead and say, "That guy's a jerk" even if he is disabled.
In the "I'm not sure I wanted to know that" department, Pam told me about a fellow employee at the hospital who had a wardrobe malfunction. One side of her scrubs top was all wet on one side. I didn't get it, so Pam had to explain it to me.
Did you know they made bras like that????
The North Koreans hacked Sony and have released a horde of emails between studio execs, agents, and actors. A headline on USAToday.com drew me into the article about the surprising revelations of snarky exchanges over casting the planned movie about Steve Jobs.
Thud.
Not exactly a surprise that the people involved at the upper end of the movie industry are egotistical, self-absorbed, and cut throat. (Some of them may be in wheelchairs.)
2 comments:
Affirming your disabled people conclusion. I once was beat with a blind man's cane as well trying to help him in the crosswalk. His resistance to my assistance led him directly into a half frozen mud puddle. He thought I did it on purpose, he also happened to be homeless. Getting wet in winter presented an urgent situation to him and he plopped down in the middle of the street while he cussed me out to change into some dry socks and put bread bags over them to keep them dry in his now wet shoes. I sat in embarrassment as he stopped traffic on a busy street in Grand Rapids
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