There are times when I cannot decide if I should say what is on my mind or not.  Then there are times when it is decided for me.

The next movie coming to my theater is Creed III.  I appreciate the fact that the new movie is the first sports movie to use an IMAX camera.  However, I was more focused on the movie featuring a cast of color, a director of color, and a writer of color.  That is a decent step in bringing variety to movies.

I had brought this up at staff meetings before.  How we had showed Nope, The Woman King, and Black Panther- Wakanda Forever in sequence.  That having three movies in a row focus on people of color used to be unheard of.

I wanted to tell my coworkers that I love stories.  That the best way to learn about people is to listen to the stories that they are passionate about.  Hear their viewpoints come across and what narratives they feel are worth exploring.  I was eager to share that the more we listen to others’ stories, the easier it is to treat them through the lens of “us” and stop looking at the world as one group versus another group.  I felt myself getting worked up as I talked to them about supporting Creed III because a boxing movie could help pull us a little closer together.

Yep.  I know how it sounds.  A bit soapbox-y.  Especially in a work environment.  I think I could have pulled it off.

But.

I arrived at work two hours early to try to work on another movie.  I wanted to screen it and make sure it was ready to go. 

I turned on the projectors at 7.  I checked e-mail and busied myself as the projector powered up.  By 7:30, the dual-projectors were ready to calibrate.  By 7:37, I saw that the audio was acting up.  I ran calibration again.  And again.

Around the third try, I noticed that one of the audio elements was not being discovered by the computer system.  I tried to coax it.  I turned the audio off and back on.  No joy.

I called a tech and tried to get help with the audio.  I was told to turn off a breaker.  My understanding was that I should flip the master breaker.  Which is when the trouble really got started.

By 8, I was fully engaged in trying to get the master power back online.  There was beeping.  There was breaker flipping.  E-mails and phone calls were made.  Bypassing a part finally dealt with the noise. 

Then, my coworker contacts me.  He had left his key at home.  He was stranded at the other side of the complex.  Could he use my key for the day?

Distraction dealt with, I tried to reboot the system.  The projectors would not turn on.  There was electricity.  The sound seemed to be functional.  Progress had been made.  But I was unable to put any sort of picture on the screen.

More contacting technicians.  Asking them to turn on projectors from their end.  Being asked to turn off physical switches on my end.  Going through most of the startup process that I began two hours ago.

Eventually, the computers and projectors were powered up.  By 10, the system was still testing a few elements.  It was calibrating this, error-ing that; generally doing its darned best.  And, at 10:25, five minutes before my first show, I finally succeeded in projecting a moving picture.

I had had no time to screen anything. My project would have to wait for another day.  I had just enough time to get the scheduled movie on screen.  There had been absolutely no wiggle room to attend a staff meeting, let alone say anything.

Life will arrange things how they are supposed to go.  I reject fate.  I do not think that we have to do anything or are doomed to trudge down a certain path. But I do think that the universe, or God, or quantum entanglement, nudges us in certain ways. (If you are going to rage against the way things are going, it is best to have a strong motivation.)

If life points a certain way, I try to pay attention.  If the morning tells me to shut up and focus elsewhere?  Then I put away my soapbox for another day.