clutteredlife.com: April 2006

previous posts
Goombas on the 50 yd line.
Now in color!
Halloween's most frightening skeleton.
Election Day mayhem.
Xmas lists.
Halloweeeeeeen.
And I'm in!
Chrome.
Matriculation.
Nope.

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Friday, April 28, 2006

How to banquet.

Stuff I learned last night:
If you happen to find yourself going to a big banquet type dinner, and they ask you if you want chicken or beef, tell them you're a vegetarian. Even if you have to lie.
You end up with better food and the rest of your table will eye your scrumptious dish with envy as they compare it to the lifeless livestock lying on their plates.
Also, if you get there and there's already a salad at your place setting, don't wait around to see if you're supposed to start eating it because what will happen is they will come out with the main course and whisk your salad away without even warning you and you'll never see it again - especially those cute little radishes cut to look like flowers.
Lastly, assuming you have a choice, sit close enough to the ice water pitcher so that you can refresh your glass with ease, but not so close that the whole dinner everyone's asking you to fill their glass.

Oh, and if you have to keep giving multiple standing ovations, don't forget your napkin is on your lap.

And, if you're not sitting close to an exit, try not to drink coffee or tea. They are diuretics and you can only do the pee pee dance in your chair for so long before you're forced to get up and walk out of the door in front of 200 people during some big important speech.
posted by hilary at 3:28 PM | 6 comments | links to this post

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Philandering philanderers.

A friend of mine recently broke the news that her picture-perfect marriage is over; her husband and the father of her three children had cheated. Not only that, but it wasn't the first time. I'm so mad for her. "Don't be," she said, but I can't help it. What the hell is the deal with this rampant dishonesty?
Look, I understand that men are walking sperm producers capable of single-handedly impregnating every female in Europe, but they're also partners in a society that has agreed upon monogamy. You make the commitment, you stick it out. If it doesn't work, that sucks and at least you tried, but you don't go philandering while still reaping the benefits of a relationship. It's just wrong, for women as well as men.

After her announcement, I started thinking about all the people I know who have been cheated on. Very few of them are male. Sure, women cheat, but my personal experience is that men do it a whole lot more. Thinking on it further, I was shocked to realize that, with the exception of one, many of my relationships were tainted with cheating too.
My first boyfriend I can't blame at all. I wasn't ready, my best friend was, and he was 14.
I had to say buh-bye to number two when he answered the phone thinking I was another girl that my friends told me he was seeing behind my back. It was a total high school drama thing, and I think I could have handled it better if she hadn't been this giant brute keen on doing me physical harm. Eew, how attractive.
Boyfriend number three was just this side of abusive. I was only too happy to hear he was seeing his ex behind my back as it gave me a way out of the relationship.
Number four was one of my all-time favorite guys ever ever ever. Still to this day, I only wish the best for him and hope he's happy. Every once in a while I google him, but he doesn't have much of a presence in cyberspace. The major problem with my dear number four was that he was a serious pothead. Maybe that's why he didn't cheat? Sadly, that's the main reason I had to break up with him.
The next serious relationship I got into resulted in a diamond ring. Long story, but we didn't tie the knot. I don't think I could have married him after discovering the online affair he was having with some bored housewife who wrote to him, "I'm exercising every day so that I look good for you when I come up to see you." Um, yeah, that's definitely not husband material there.
And the last one, well, let's not even go there. Wow.

At first I looked at all this rampant cheating and thought, "Well, gee, the only common denominator is me," but no! I hear so many of my girlfriends (and occasional guy friends) complaining about cheating partners that it can't just be me. I look at people in the news and it's like non-stop broadcasting about who is cheating on whom - Brangelina, Claire Danes, KFed, comedian Ron White, etc etc etc - where does it end? Is that a societal norm now?
What is it that people get out of cheating? Is it just sex? Is it the thrill of that first romantic love that goes away after people get to know each other? Do people just not want to bother finding out what real partnership and commitment can offer?
posted by hilary at 9:35 AM | 6 comments | links to this post

Monday, April 17, 2006

In the ether.

Where have I been? Around, just not so inclined to blog lately. Nothing new to report, really. It's kind of comforting to have this steady pace in life. No surprises, no deviations from routine.
It's maddening as well, occasionally. I don't want to end up one of those cubicle residents of the library tech department who tacks pictures of faraway places to her walls in the harsh light of the fluorescent light above. What I once thought was an exciting job - the life of a cataloger or acquisitionist - reveals itself, after a tour of an ivy university's library system, to be quite a downer. The conservationist, on the other hand, lives bathed in beautiful white light for the purpose of selecting perfect color matches to repair or preserve ancient texts, maps and manuscripts. Ancient, like a thousand years old. That's what I want to do.
Apparently, that's what a lot of people want to do, and there just aren't a whole lot of multi-century manuscripts lying around in need of care. After our tour, every single classmate of mine exclaimed with glee, "I want to be a conservationist/preservationist!" I'm fairly certain there are not enough jobs available to make our dreams come true.
Though as I sit here and try to talk myself out of dreaming, I glance around my walls. How many of my classmates have collected ancient vellum documents? A slab of skin, inked by hand, and signed with two tabs for wax seals - this is what sets my heart aflutter. Leaves from a book printed in the 17th century, marked in red by the hand of someone whose great great grandchildren have long since died - do my classmates own these things, carefully tucked away and brought out only on rare occasion to stare at and admire?
I feel like part of me was meant for that kind of work, but then I wonder how common those feelings are. Certainly there is not enough work to go around for everyone who tries to get into it, what makes me so special? Why don't I just settle for something else I'd enjoy? Something easier to obtain?

These rambling thought tangents I sometimes ride are boring, I'm sure, to anyone who isn't me. Please accept a rather insincere apology.
posted by hilary at 6:09 PM | 5 comments | links to this post

Friday, April 07, 2006

Free time.

You know when you have some monumental test coming up and the prof gives you a HUGE list of the stuff from lectures, chapters, etc to study?
And then, for days, you spend most of your waking hours reviewing the material, and making notes, and feeling upcoming dread?
And then the "test" happens, and you blaze through it in two of the allotted sixty minutes because it's all multiple choice and based on exactly 5% of what you were told would it would be based on?

Yeah, I would like those hours of my life back plz, k thx.
posted by hilary at 11:31 PM | 5 comments | links to this post