too many people

I like to people watch at Nollen Plaza over lunch. Today I sat on a bench by the war protestors. One of them was a woman in a straw hat and she wouldn't stop talking. I don't know what she was talking about, only that the timbre of her voice accompanied every other sound in the plaza. I wondered if she was annoying the other war protestors. I thought it would be funny if they all got into a fist fight. You know that's happened somewhere -- peace activists getting into a big ruckusy fist fight with each other in the middle of a protest.

But it would also be unfortunate (the peace activist fisticuffs), because I bet opposing groups would really work themselves into a froth over the hypocrisy.

And then I thought a lot about how it's likely impossible not to be a hypocrite at one point or another, so we should really give each other a break. We're too many people rolled into one body. We can't be consistent and true at the same time. Actually, sometimes I wonder if maybe we're all just the split personalities of one being, trying to assimilate. Like that John Cusack movie where all the people met up at the creepy motel and discovered they had the same birthday. I liked that movie.

And I thought about what a bleeding heart I can be one minute, and then how much I want to punch someone in the face for breathing loudly the next. And I thought, "Well, I'm not terribly unique, so I bet a lot of people who are mean and irrational some times are actually kind and good other times." So I decided to just start assuming that everyone who is a jerk to me isn't really a jerk all the time, so I should forgive them. Maybe if I do that, then when I'm a jerk, people will recognize that I'm not always a jerk and forgive me, too.

I walked back to work and entered the building a few steps behind a woman who has been overtly rude to me since the day I started. (I don't actually work with her. She's just on the same floor.) A custodian was cleaning the glass on the door and didn't like that we were interrupting his work. The woman and I rode different elevators upstairs.

She walked in the door to our cube farm one arm length in front of me, looked behind her, and then let the door slam in my face. I had to catch the door before it hit me in the face, and it jammed my finger.

I walked to my cubicle and she came over and said something to the effect of, "Can you believe how rude the custodian was?" I thanked the universe for the illustration, had a private chuckle and reminded myself to give her a break. She can't help it. She's too many people fighting for space in one skin.