Meta in the middle

I'm a human being. I can't help it. I was born that way. All the people I know are human beings too. Call it coincidence, call it insularity, call it lack of creative spirit, but it's still true. Human beings, unlike other animals, are noted for their intra-species diversity, which is what leads to most of the joy and most of the trouble in this world. As diverse and inconsistent as human beings are, however, there is one characteristic that unites us: Put a bunch of us in a room together and we will find something to disagree about.

For someone like me who always thinks he knows what's best, I find this fascinating. And at the moment I'm involved in two intense projects, both of which are more interesting in their meta discussions than in the projects themselves.

In one case, I am part of a show that the parents of graduating seniors at a local high school put on for their kids. This is supposed to be a silly fun thing where parents sing, do skits, and generally make fools of themselves for their kids. That part of it will happen and it'll be fun and soon forgotten. The behind the scenes discussion, however, can be prickly at best and vicious and accusatory at worse. I am lucky enough to be in several acts, which puts me on a bunch of e-mail lists, so I get to see the discussions unfold.

One of the acts I'm in has been in danger of being cut from the show from the very beginning. I'm not entirely sure why, because it's short and probably the most polished act in the whole thing. But maybe because it was created without anyone asking for it or because it has no "act captain" as designated by the producer, nary a reaheasal goes by without its existence being threatened.

After the final rehearsal last night, we got the word once more and the guy who really is our acting act captain freaked. They relented grudgingly but asked us to consider shortening the act, which runs about 90 seconds to start with. This yielded an e-mail thread that began around 12:30 this morning and is now up to 33 messages, ranging from vituperative to clueless. Here are some key phrases:

To say I was fuming-pissed off is an understatement

schmaltz yourselves up a little bit

it is a power struggle 

Based on the stress level and barely legitimate comments 

  What if we did our whole song at the dessert?

Can ______ do the intro in another language? 

Sorry. I only share my guy clothes

Frank who??? 

We seem to have reached some kind of Kumbaya moment by late afternoon, but only after I threatened to quit the show and read entire e-mail thread at the Poetry Slam at school (with character voices).

The other discussion involves scheduling a meeting to review a new piece of the school website. What's great about this discussion is that while all of the words seem to be about scheduling a meeting, what it's really about is who's to blame that we're still trying to fix something that people knew was broken in September. It's all in the subtext.

I find it best to refrain from this kind of coded conversation. I'm not so much of a who's fault is it kind of guy (especially if I'm being blamed which I'm not in this instance) as a how can I fix it type. So I wait for the fur to stop flying and then offer to help. Fewer people end up angry with you that way.

This is good policy in general. Try to avoid participating in any sort of brouhaha while there are still sides to be chosen. The best-known corollary of this is the "Don't trash the ex" rule. You never trash your friend's ex because you never can be 100% sure that they won't become ex ex.