Too Many Notes

My best friend and I share a love of the movie "Amadeus." In particular, we enjoy the portrayal of Emporer Joseph by Jeffrey Jones and his memorable line about Mozart's opera:

"I liked it. There were just ... too many notes."

This is how I feel about a lot of things. Like CBL ... I like her. She just has ... too many notes.

It's a way of saying there's something that bothers you about someone that you can't quite put your finger on. And, sure, there's lots of things about CBL that I CAN point out that bother me. She emails me at 7 at night and tells me to call her to discuss a project after I've worked 12 hours. She sends 30 emails in a night, several of which are all responses to one single email you've written. She throws temper tantrums in restaurants because she thinks everyone is picking on her. But these are all specifics.

There's also this elusive quality that makes me grit my teeth. Even when she's trying to be nice or she's not being particularly insane, she drives me batty. Maybe, as my wonderful therapist suggests, it's just because I spend so much time or energy dealing with her that ANY intrusion into my life is too much. (And, that's only goiing to get worse when she moves out here this spring.) Or maybe it's because I try so hard to surround myself with people of substance and rich spiritual lives that I see right through her vaporwear. I don't know. It just feels like ... too many notes.

Of course, when I get to feeling like this, I should also point out that I am a total heel. Because, in reviewing a presentation draft I'd sent her a few days ago for a big meeting with our division president she replied like this:

"It's really great, but I think you should do a better job of highlighting your accomplishments. You've done so much really fantastic work this quarter that you should really toot your own horn."

Hi there, I'd like a little salt on my foot please.

So, we''ll see how it goes with CBL live and in the flesh all week. We'll get to hang in Boson and be BFF's Forever! And we'll see if I can maybe focus on her good points and drown out some of those extraneous notes.