Total Perspective Vortex
What really happened to Trillian? Theories abound, but you can see what she's really been up to on this blog. If you're looking for white mice, depressed robots, or the occasional Pan Galactic Gargleblaster you might be better served here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/.
Don't just sit there angry and ranting, do something constructive.
In the words of Patti Smith (all hail Sister Patti): People have the power.
Contact your elected officials.
Don't be passive = get involved = make a difference.
Words are cool.
The English language is complex, stupid, illogical, confounding, brilliant, beautiful, and fascinating.
Every now and then a word presents itself that typifies all the maddeningly gorgeousness of language. They're the words that give you pause for thought. "Who came up with that word? That's an interesting string of letters." Their beauty doesn't lie in their definition (although that can play a role). It's also not in their onomatopoeia, though that, too, can play a role. Their beauty is in the way their letters combine - the visual poetry of words - and/or the way they sound when spoken. We talk a lot about music we like to hear and art we like to see, so let's all hail the unsung heroes of communication, poetry and life: Words.
Here are some I like. (Not because of their definition.)
Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Smart Girls
(A Trillian de-composition, to the tune of Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys)
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Smart girls ain’t easy to love and they’re above playing games
And they’d rather read a book than subvert themselves
Kafka, Beethoven and foreign movies
And each night alone with her cat
And they won’t understand her and she won’t die young
She’ll probably just wither away
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
A smart girl loves creaky old libraries and lively debates
Exploring the world and art and witty reparteé
Men who don’t know her won’t like her and those who do
Sometimes won’t know how to take her
She’s rarely wrong but in desperation will play dumb
Because men hate that she’s always right
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Life(?) of Trillian
Single/Zero
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
I have had company over the past few months. Friends and relatives have stayed with me for long and short visits. Of course I love to see my friends and family and it's great that they want to visit me.
But. You know how you don't really know someone until you live with them? Yeah. Well, same when they visit you in your home. I've traveled with some of my guests and those trips went well. But. Having someone stay in your home is completely different than traveling on neutral turf. I was surprised, to say the least, at some of the behaviors that played out in my own home. Behaviors exhibited by friends and family, people I like, people I respect, people I had no idea were capable of behaviors exhibited in my own home.
I suspect they are completely unaware, or at least partially unaware, of the fact that they are being less than gracious guests. I blame myself. I'm easy going and inviting, casual and free, giving and concerned and generally the sort of person who tries to make guests feel comfortable and at home. I sleep on the couch so they can have the bed, I buy the sort of food they like, even if it's meat or beer or coffee or chocolate or something else I generally do not buy or consume. I make sure there are new, or at least nice towels and linens for their use. I do whatever I can to accommodate them during their stay in my home. Maybe I don't do as much as I should, but only because I can't afford to go the extra miles. I think maybe because I'm so anxious to make my guests feel at home they, well, feel at home and behave exactly as if they were at home. I think maybe they feel so at home they don't even realize that sometimes they cross the line of gracious guesting. I think they're unaware. I hope they're unaware. Because I'm cutting them a lot of slack because they're feeling at home and are unaware of their impolite and sometimes mean behaviors.
Just in case you don't know how to be a bad guest, here are a few guidelines.
How to annoy your host and ensure you will never be invited for another visit.
Smoke. Smoke a lot. If your host is a non-smoker and requests that you not smoke in their home, comply, but begrudgingly, with sighs and contemptuous looks at regular intervals. Make at least one “joke” per hour about having to go outside for a smoke because you’re not allowed to smoke inside. When not in the confines of the host’s home, smoke. Smoke a lot, smoke everywhere, all the time, more than you usually smoke so that it’s retaliatory to your host for not being allowed to smoke in their home. Make your host suffer and pay for not allowing you to smoke in their home. If you go to a restaurant tell the hostess you want the smoking section before anyone else can respond. If there is not a smoking area in the restaurant make a lot of comments about being treated as second class citizens and then leave the table for prolonged periods while you step outside to smoke.
Use your mobile phone. All the time. Never turn it off. Make sure your friends call you every hour. All of them. Make sure every one of your friends calls you every hour. 24 hours a day. Yes. Leave your mobile phone on at all times, even, especially at night, and make sure you have the most annoying ring tone possible, something like the Macarena or Mozart set to tinny mobile phonics, set at the loudest volume so that it will wake you and everyone else in the middle of the night. Never mind that you’re visiting someone you don’t get to see very often and should be spending undistracted time with them. Never mind that your host has taken vacation days from their job and would like to get a decent night of sleep. Never mind that it’s just rude to be constantly talking on your mobile phone when you’re with people, when you’re at a restaurant having a meal, when you’re in the middle of a conversation about something important like major life decisions, or when you’re watching a movie. Make sure you have your host pay $10 to get you into a theatre and then sit there and text through the entire movie, and make sure the screen is really bright so it annoys everyone around you. If you’re watching a movie at home make sure you receive and make lots of calls during the movie. When your phone rings demand that the host hit pause while you blab on your phone about the movie you’re in the middle of watching. The object here is two pronged: 1) You want to feel important and popular, and you want to give the appearance of being important and popular, and 2) you want to make it very clear that your host, your friend, is not as important as whomever is calling on the mobile phone.
Wear perfume/after shave. All the time. Make sure the scent gets thoroughly saturated throughout your host’s home. Bed linens aren’t enough, you need to get the scent straight into the mattress and upholstery of all furniture. Liberally spray it in bathrooms and carpeted areas of the home so the smell saturates the shower curtain, rugs and carpet. Open the host’s closet and spray your scent in there so your hosts clothes all smell like you. Your scent will remain long after you have left leaving an odiferous reminder of yourself for your host to enjoy for weeks.
Go through your host's stuff. Remember when you were a kid and the obnoxious brat down the street would come over to play and would get into all your stuff? Be that kid. Open closets, drawers, cupboards, vanities, chests, anything, open everything and comment on the contents. Pull the ugly glass out of the china cabinet, hold it up and say, "Man is this ugly. Where'd it come from?" When your host says it's an ancient family heirloom say something like, "They left the old country and that's what they brought with them? I can see why they left the old country..." Pull a dress out of the closet and exclaim, "My husband's mother has this exact dress!"
Evaluate and critique your host's book and movie collection. Question their taste in authors. Ask them why they read several titles in their collection. Do this not with a genuine interest in their interests, but with contempt and disgust at their reading choices, be it high brow or low brow or somewhere in between. Same with their movie collection. Think of it as a cross examination rather than a discussion on books and movies. Assume your taste is infinitely better or "more normal" and remark that there's nothing to read or watch at your host's home, even if there are shelves full of books and movies.
Complain about the host's lack of television viewing choices. Be it cable, Dish, or whatever, remark that the host's television choices are inferior and substandard. "My Gawd, you don't have 180 channel cable?! Good gawd these aren't the Dark Ages. Fortunately I have my TiVo/OnDemand at home so I won't miss anything while I'm staying here in the Dark Ages with you. Har har. Ahem. Seriously, you really need to get up to speed with your television choices." To really drive the point home, make sure to bring this up in several of your mobile phone conversations loud enough so your host hears you loud and clear. "No, I missed it, she doesn't have that channel. No, I didn't see that, either, she doesn't have that channel, but I TiVo-ed it so I can see it as soon as I get home. I can't wait."
Help yourself to your host's computer and then cast disparaging remarks about your host's computer platform and internet connections. "Hey, how do you turn on this goofy Mac thing of yours?" "Firefox? I just want to get online, where's Explorer? No, I don't want Firefox, I want Explorer. What do you mean you don't have Explorer? First no OnDemand and now this?!" Periodically yell out, "Hey, you've got an email from your brother." "Hey, who's Zoltar3500? He just sent you an email." To really impress your host, once you get online a) spend hours online, b) download a bunch of files and programs, c) change their default browser to your preferred browser and d) leave enormous files on their hard drive - mp3s and enormous photos will take up a lot of space and have file names which are not immediately obvious as trashable.
Choose very expensive restaurants, cuisine, movies and other forms of entertainment. Do not offer to pay. Or, if you do pay, pay your portion and not one penny more. Be sure to choose a restaurant that is a cuisine your host does not like (e.g., suggest a steak house to a vegetarian, a seafood restaurant to someone with a shell fish allergy) and one which is very expensive. If the host makes a counter suggestion dismiss it with, “I don’t like that place/kind of food, it’s gross/not good” and insist that you want to try your choice of restaurant, it’s your vacation and you want to enjoy it. Never mind that it is your host’s vacation, too. They live here and they can eat wherever they want whenever they want. You’re the guest and you want to eat where you want to eat. Insulting their choices is a good way to teach them they have bad taste and that you have superior judgment. You’re doing your host a favor by teaching them what to do and where to do it. If you know the restaurant is above the budget of your host, graciously offer to pay your own way. When the check arrives be sure you pay only for your portion, but split the tip down the middle of the full bill, even if your meal cost $34 and your host’s meal cost $12, you pay only $39. ($34 + $5 (1/2 of a $10 tip)) A better tactic, however, is to not make a move to the bill or purse or wallet when the bill arrives at the table. You’re visiting your host, after all, you are a guest, after all, so paying for food is not your responsibility. Choose a movie you want to see, even if you know your host won’t want to see it. (e.g., suggest Blood Rain of Cow Slaughter to a squeamish vegetarian or I Love You So Much that Life is Endless Bliss to someone who’s just had a bad break-up) Make sure it’s at the most expensive theatre in town and starts 20 minutes after the cut-off for the discount price. (And remember to text on your mobile phone with the brightest screen throughout the entire movie.) Walk up to ticket counter and say, “Two for Blood Rain of Cow Slaughter, please,” and then stand there with your hand out waiting for your host to give you their share of the ticket price. If they hand you $20 for the $19 total ticket price, assume your host is paying your way and pocket the 50¢ change and do not offer to give your host $9.50 for your ticket. This will ensure that you see the movie you want to see and your host pays at least their way. If your host gives you $10 for their ticket act surprised and confused and then make a big production out of getting out your wallet and paying for your ticket.
Make a mess. Do not attempt to make a even quick swipe of the sink after you brush your teeth. Leave towels on the floor, half full coffee cups and bottles of beer should be placed everywhere, especially on wood furniture next to a coaster. Never on a coaster or napkin, always next to one, directly on the bare wood furniture. Coffee and beer rings will leave a lasting reminder of your visit, one which will be cherished forever. Give yourself a “quick color touch-up” to your hair while you’re visiting. Make sure to splatter the hair dye on the walls and leave the splatters there to dry and stain the walls. Ditto the shower curtain, towels and rugs. Those spots of color will be a lasting remembrance of you and your visit. Every day when your host goes into the bathroom they will be reminded of you. If you don’t color your hair, don’t despair! Use white or light colored towels to blot your long lasting Crimson Fire lip stick and to remove your Jet Onyx Blackest Black Ever mascara. If you’re a guy who doesn’t wear make-up, just cut yourself shaving and use the light colored towels to blot the blood from the cuts. Leave your things scattered all over – especially in common areas like bathrooms and living rooms. Stuff. Everywhere. Kick off your shoes and leave them in the middle of the floor. Guys, especially your huge smelly sneakers, girls, your over the knee four inch heeled boots will nicely fill a main passageway of any home. If your host has a small home this will be especially easy, and you have a good excuse to make more helpful suggestions like, “You need a bigger place, you can hardly turn around in the bathroom, there’s no place for me to put my stuff,” or, “the bedroom closet is so small I can’t fit my stuff in there. You should have a closet designer come in and do something with this.” Your host needs to be made aware that their living situation is sub-par and not fit for you because you’re used to so much more, and nicer living space. Make suggestions for furniture, too. “They make really nice shelves and armoires, you should get some.”
Make it clear you do not like your host's pets. If you are not fond of cats and your host has one or many, be sure to reiterate how much you hate cats at least once an hour. Make childish "ewwww gross" faces and say, "I just don't get why people like cats" whenever the cat is within eyesight. No matter how spotless the host's home is, find a cat hair, one cat hair, point to it and say, "Cats are gross, they leave hair all over the place. It's unclean." Compare cats to dogs and other pets whenever possible. If you are not fond of dogs and your host has one or many, be sure to comment on what a pain it is to have get home to let the dog out or what a nuisance it is to have to deal with a barking dog. Suggest boarding facilities close by where the pets could stay during the visit.
Arrive sick. Show up at your host's home with a bad cold, strep throat, stomach flu, ear infections, cholera, any type of infectious disease will do, but the more miserable the symptoms the better. What's really cool about this is that just as you're starting to feel better your host will be coming down with your disease. If you're making a weekend visit, your host will probably get hit with the disease the day after you leave and will have to take one or several days off work thanks to you and your germs. If you have a sick child be sure to bring them along, everyone loves a sick child and there's nothing like kid germs to spread contagion like a wildfire through a home. Your host will be sick within a day of your arrival. This is a great plan because your host won't feel like doing anything so they'll stay home with your sick child while you go out and enjoy yourself.
Use a lot of everything – shampoo, conditioner, soap, toothpaste, toilet paper, tea, coffee, food, make-up, whatever you can use, use it and use a lot of it. Three entire rolls of toilet paper in four days is a bare minimum. One new, full sized bottle of shampoo, conditioner and body wash and an entire tube of toothpaste should be used during a four day visit. More, if possible. On the third day yell out from the bathroom, “Hey, you’re almost out of shampoo, hand me another bottle.” Make an entire pot of coffee and only drink half a cup. Leave the nearly full coffee pot on but don’t drink more than the original half a cup of coffee. Ignore the pot of burning coffee until your host’s home stinks of burned coffee. Insist that you do not like loose tea so that your host, who only has loose tea on hand, has to procure tea bags, and then leave spent tea bags sitting directly on counter tops. This will make a nice stain to remind your host of your visit and of your considerate personality. If your host is a female and has make-up, use it. Lots of it. Especially the make-up which appears to be new or nearly new. Your host will find your big finger gouge straight to the bottom of her her new concealer an endearing reminder of you. This is especially effective if, after applying half of the container of your host’s make-up you say, “Ick, I hate this color on me, this is gross. Who would wear this?!” Pack inappropriately for the weather/location or simply do not pack anything so that you will need to borrow clothing upon your arrival. This will give you an opportunity to go through your host’s entire wardrobe and critique it as you do so. “Oooh, it’s cold! I didn’t think it would be this cold. Can I borrow a sweater/jacket/coat? One of your smaller ones might work on me....mmmm, no, that color is horrible on me. No, that would be dreadful on me. No, that’s way too big. How about the brand new really nice jacket your mother just bought you? I can wear one of your sweaters under it to take up the extra space between our sizes.” This will reinforce a) your superior taste and b) the fact that you are a size 2 and your host is not.*
Make comments about everything your host does or owns comparing what you do and own to their sub-par standards. “You still have that couch?! Might be time to consider a new one. I just got one at (expensive store) and I love it. It’s so comfortable and really stylish, it goes perfect in the new living room, with all that space I needed something to make a statement, my living room is so big, it was so much fun decorating it with all new furniture. If I’d known you’re still using that couch I would have given you my old one, it was still in perfect condition, it was only a year old, but, oh wait, it wouldn’t have fit in here, your living room is too small.” “You should go to (expensive bar) more, you’re never going to meet anyone at (the cheap place you normally go), or at least not anyone worth meeting. No wonder you’re still single, you need to go to better places, more often, get out there, you know? But get out there in good places. Of course you’ll need to update your outfits, we should go shopping, you have to look the look, you really need a new coat, I was noticing yours is looking like it’s had a few too many dry cleanings. My dry cleaner is really good, they don’t use the regular harsh chemicals so my clothes stay looking new. The cheaper cleaners use really cheap processes which just damage clothes.”
If you’re a couple traveling to visit a friend you have special and unique opportunities! Especially if you’re visiting a friend who is single. Be sure to flaunt your happy coupleness in front of your host every second of your visit. Look at each other all gooey eyed, call each other Pookey and SnuggleBum, kiss a lot, and generally pretend your host is not with you. Have a lot of very loud sex. Scream, pant, moan, giggle, shriek, spank, oooh and ahh as much and as often as possible. Don't hold back just because you're in someone else's home, someone eles's bed, someone who is just one thin wall away... This is a good way to nudge your host into buying a new mattress and sheets or possibly moving to a new home. Shower together and giggle and shriek in the shower. Bathrooms amplify sound and this will ensure that your host knows you had wild freaky sex in their home. Draw hearts with your initials in them and suggestive images in the steamy mirror for your host to find the next time they take a shower. And just in case your host is deaf and blind, leave several massive wet spots in the bed for them to find after you leave. If you’re single, don’t despair! You still have opportunities to show off your sexuality to your host! When you are out one night be sure to hit on lots of people. Invite them back to your host’s home for a wild night. Along with noises and wet spots, leave several condom wrappers tossed all over the bedroom and kitchen.
Don't bother to bring or buy reading materials for the trip home. Help yourself to your host's magazine and books for your trip home. Just take the magazines, no need to ask, and if you see a book of interest say something like, "You have so many books you won't mind if I take one, will you?" And then help yourself to two or three. DVDs, too, take whatever you want because you have a long trip home. This is why it's crucial you offer negative evaluation of their book and movie collection earlier in your visit. You don't like anything they have to read or watch, but you'll take several books and/or movies with you for your trip home.
* I once attended a wedding where a male guest visiting from out of town had “forgotten” to pack a suit. To attend a wedding. The sole purpose of his trip was to attend a wedding. And he forgot to pack a suit. So he imposed upon his local host to borrow a suit. The host was considerably larger and shorter than the tall string bean suitless guest. The suitless guest wore a too big, too short suit to the wedding and then used it as a source of “comedic” material throughout the entire evening, the comedic material centered around his larger, “short” host and the host’s suit. And yes, as the evening progressed he drank a lot of alcohol and the “jokes” got louder and more mean spirited, and as a finale he puked, repeatedly, in and on the borrowed suit. This guy was clearly a graduate of the How to Totally Alienate Yourself from Your Friends and Never Get Invited to Anything Ever Again school of manners.
5:32 PM
