Everybody's a Critic

Playing on the iPod: Something I recorded off Astreaux World
Meters swum today: None. I'll be back tomorrow.

So I'm at WriteClub! on Sunday, right, and we're discussing the new Indiana Jones flick (we discuss all kinds of things at WriteClub!, maybe 10% of which have anything at all to do with writing). I mentioned being disappointed and Kellum says, "I'm not surprised, you don't like anything." And I says, "Uh, what?" and he says, "You don't like anything. You criticize everything. It could be the best movie on the planet and you'd still find a reason to pick on it." Me? Really? Come to think of it, Lawrence of Arabia was a little slow moving in parts. I'm kidding. Well, sort of.

I do solemnly swear never to dis an Indiana Jones movie in Kellum's presence again. That aside, though, am I too critical? I used to be the Queen of Snark before Cranky dethroned me, so the odds would favor that distinction. (Snark, attitude, criticism, etc.) To say nothing of sticking reviews of bad movies in my blog. I hit my stride with my thing about the DharmaCrafts catalog. So, uh, it's beginning to look like yours truly can definitely chalk up "being too critical" in her Fourth Step list of all her character defects. (Next to "needing people to like me to the extent of being ridiculous," "needing to be smarter/cooler/faster/higher/farther than anybody else in the room," "believing I can outsmart anything, including things that don't respond to smarts" and "tending to respond to things out of fear and before thinking". ) Now that somebody's mentioned it, it drives me crazy when other people pick on things. Anything that drives you crazy about other people, you can pretty much count on the fact that you do it, too. Not psychology nor Bible verse, just bitter personal experience.

All of which is kind of un-Buddhist-y. I'fact one of the precepts monks take is not to point out the faults of others. Good thing I'm not a monk, I'm not at all sure I could go for 24 hours without saying something in the family of snark. I'm also the Harbinger of Doom. I have a great fondness for tornadoes, hurricanes, large catastrophic fires, earthquakes, tsunamis, and any other disaster that is happening somewhere else to people I'll never meet. And while I'm not expecting to switch off the Discovery Channel just yet, it goes without saying that if people like Kellum are starting to notice, then Something Needs To Be Done. Because I am, after all, a Nice Person. Or at least I want to be.

Oddly enough, here's my horrorscope for this morning:

Today's New Moon in your sign is the closest thing to an astrological New Year's Day for you. Celebrate it by making a commitment to what you want to accomplish in the next six months, prior to the Gemini Full Moon in December. Keep in mind that Mercury is retrograde, so you may start off on the wrong foot. Don't worry about making a mistake; just pick up the pieces and try again.

Not that I ever read the silly thing.