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/.

Otherwise, hello, and welcome.
Mail Trillian here<




Trillian McMillian
Trillian McMillian
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Women, The Internet and You: Tips for Men Who Use Online Dating Sites
Part I, Your Profile and Email

Part II, Selecting a Potential Date

Part III, Your First Date!

Part IV, After the First Date. Now What?


"50 First Dates"






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.
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Contact The Media
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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.)

Quasar
Hyperbole
Amenable
Taciturn
Ennui
Prophetic
Tawdry
Hubris
Ethereal
Syzygy
Umbrageous
Twerp
Sluice
Omnipotent
Sanctuary
Malevolent
Maelstrom
Luddite
Subterfuge
Akimbo
Hoosegow
Dodecahedron
Visceral
Soupçon
Truculent
Vitriol
Mercurial
Kerfuffle
Sangfroid




























 







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Highlights from the Archives. Some favorite Trillian moments.

Void, Of Course: Eliminating Expectations and Emotions for a Better Way of Life

200i: iPodyssey

Macs Are from Venus, Windows is from Mars Can a relationship survive across platform barriers?
Jerking Off

Get A Job

Office Church Ladies: A Fieldguide

'Cause I'm a Blonde

True? Honestly? I think not.

A Good Day AND Funyuns?

The Easter Boy

Relationship in the Dumpster

Wedding Dress 4 Sale, Never Worn

Got Friends? Are You Sure? Take This Test

What About Class? Take This Test

A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far Far Away, There Was a Really Bad Movie

May Your Alchemical Process be Complete. Rob Roy Recipe

Good Thing She's Not in a Good Mood Very Often (We Knew it Wouldn't Last)

What Do I Have to Do to Put You in this Car Today?

Of Mice and Me (Killer Cat Strikes in Local Woman's Apartment)

Trillian: The Musical (The Holiday Special)

LA Woman (I Love (Hate) LA)

It is my Cultureth
...and it would suit-eth me kindly to speak-eth in such mannered tongue

Slanglish

It's a Little Bit Me, It's a Little Bit You
Blogging a Legacy for Future Generations


Parents Visiting? Use Trillian's Mantra!

Ghosts of Christmas Past: Mod Hair Ken

Caught Blogging by Mom, Boss or Other

2003 Holiday Sho-Lo/Mullet Awards

Crullers, The Beer Store and Other Saintly Places

Come on Out of that Doghouse! It's a Sunshine Day!

"...I had no idea our CEO is actually Paula Abdul in disguise."

Lap Dance of the Cripple

Of Muppets and American Idols
"I said happier place, not crappier place!"

Finally Off Crutches, Trillian is Emancipated

Payless? Trillian? Shoe Confessions

Reality Wednesday: Extremely Local Pub

Reality Wednesday: Backstage Staging Zone (The Sweater Blog)

The Night Secret Agent Man Shot My Dad

To Dream the Impossible Dream: The Office Karaoke Party

Trillian Flies Economy Class (Prisoner, Cell Block H)

Trillian Visits the Village of the Damned, Takes Drugs, Becomes Delusional and Blogs Her Brains Out

Trillian's Parents are Powerless

Striptease for Spiders: A PETA Charity Event (People for the Ethical Treatment of Arachnids)

What's Up with Trillian and the Richard Branson Worship?

"Screw the French and their politics, give me their cheese!"


















 
Mail Trillian here





Trillian's Guide to the Galaxy gives 5 stars to these places in the Universe:
So much more than fun with fonts, this is a daily dose of visual poetry set against a backdrop of historical trivia. (C'mon, how can you not love a site that notes Wolfman Jack's birthday?!)

CellStories

Alliance for the Great Lakes


Hot, so cool, so cool we're hot.

Ig Nobel Awards

And you think YOU have the worst bridesmaid dress?

Coolest Jewelry in the Universe here (trust Trillian, she knows)

Red Tango

If your boss is an idiot, click here.

Evil Cat Full of Loathing.

Wildlife Works

Detroit Cobras


The Beachwood Reporter is better than not all, but most sex.



Hey! Why not check out some great art and illustration while you're here? Please? It won't hurt and it's free.

Shag

Kii Arens

Tim Biskup

Jeff Soto

Jotto




Get Fuzzy Now!
If you're not getting fuzzy, you should be. All hail Darby Conley. Yes, he's part of the Syndicate. But he's cool.





Who or what is HWNMNBS: (He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken) Trillian's ex-fiancé. "Issues? What issues?"







Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.


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Reading blogs at work? Click to escape to a suitable site!

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

 
Tuesday, July 01, 2014  
So yay. I hit the 6 month mark at my new job. I still call it my new job. It doesn't feel new anymore (it only took about three weeks for it to cease feeling new), but it seems to be like the new mall syndrome.

You know how in most towns/municipalities/counties there was a mall built in the '80s that was a Donald Trumpian gleaming ode to '80s consumerism that completely blew the doors off the existing local mall that was built in the '60s or '70s? The existing mall was a perfectly fine gathering place for the local citizens to procure their personal goods and household effects and consume oversized hot pretzels, take the wee tots to see Santa and the Easter Bunny and get their ears pierced. But then they built the new mall and one by one the stores from the existing mall who could afford the higher rent moved to the new mall. Eventually the existing mall became the old mall filled with weird and oddly specific shops ("Stitches Needlepoint Thread Shop" "Hammerz and Nailz"), shops specializing in cheap luggage and fake members only jackets, and stores selling those multicolored twisty candles. Often there was a JC Penney that hung on to the bitter end, but eventually they, too, moved to the New Mall when they added on an annex. The new malls had perfectly lovely names, but to all the locals it was always known as The New Mall. Oddly, I've noticed the old malls never fully become The Old Mall. Locals still refer to them by their given names. But the new malls, no matter their legal given names, no matter how old, are referred to as The New Mall. Saturday Night Live did a series of class skits about this. I'd post links but NBC is brutally protective of all things SNL.

Anyway. My new job seems to be afflicted with The New Mall syndrome. I suppose it's because I was unemployed so long and people are relieved I have job and want to revel in the glory. "So how's the new job?" Six months into it I still get asked this a few times a week.

The New Job really kind of sucks. But because I had such long and painful ordeal finding a full-time job, I feel like I am not allowed to ever speak ill of a full-time job that pays me a regular paycheck and health insurance. I feel like I have to be eternally grateful and humble and walk in a cloak of humility for the rest of my days. I am grateful. Of course I am grateful. And for the first time in a very, very, very long time I have a terrific manager. But. Even she confesses: My job sucks. It sucks so badly that my manager is trying to help me find another, better job. She feels guilty for convincing me to take this sucky job. Let's face it, it wasn't a hard sell. I was a month away from homelessness. Any job was a good job at that juncture. It was truly an 11th hour hail Mary Danger UXB save at the last possible second. And for that I am honestly, truly, sincerely grateful. But I'm just saying, for the record, my new job sucks. I'm at my desk and solving problems and crises at 7:30 AM and I usually don't leave until 7:30 - 8:00 PM. Often I get home and do paperwork until 11:00 PM. There is always work to do on weekends. Always. I've taken a 45 minute lunch exactly three times in six months, and those lunches were with my boss who lied and said we had to go to a meeting at HQ. The rest of the time I eat my lunch at my desk while I'm working. I am routinely followed into the ladies room by someone barking requests at me, or, when I return from the ladies room there are phone calls, emails or notes stuck to my screen demanding to know where I was and that I see/talk to them immediately because they have urgent needs. (You have no idea how many times I hear that a day, "Urgent need.")

I got this job because over the past five years everyone who's held this role has quit or been fired. Many people quit after the first few weeks. My manager was called in to "fix" the problems. She studied the previous people in the role and made a list of traits that did and did not work. Apparently a few people were offered the job before me and they refused. The reputation of this job was that bad and that well known. My boss was desperate. And then I came along. I was desperate, too. So. There you have it. That's how I finally got a job offer. A desperate manager needed to fill a job no one else would take.

Why do I work such long days? Is it a matter of working smarter not harder? Pffft. No. I have to work really smart. If I weren't working smart I would have been fired or I'd be working even longer days.

The reason I work such long days is because our client only hires interns and people right out of college. And that would be okay if they were bright, savvy, professional and talented interns and recent grads. But they're not. In the six months I've been there 12 people have quit, and 17 have been fired. The good ones quit, the not as good ones screw up so badly, so many times that eventually they get fired. My manager and I are tasked with picking up the slack. I hate the term dysfunctional. It's overused and cliché. But this situation is the definition of dysfunction. It's the reason why the term dysfunction was created. I always wondered about the origin of dysfunction. Now I know.

But I have a full-time job and for that I am truly and sincerely grateful.

It will be a long time before I'm back on my financial, emotional, and social feet. Unemployment took a debilitating toll on every aspect of my life. That doesn't all just evaporate the second you get a job offer. It will take me years to scratch and claw my way back to where I was before I was laid off. And if you will recall, I was not exactly in a great place. That's how bad things were - my sorry state of affairs before I was laid off is the stretch goal that will not realistically be attained for a couple years, at best.

People ask me if I'm enjoying having paychecks.

Erm. Yes?

They ask me what I did with my first paycheck. (I paid my mortgage and bought a bus pass so I could commute to work. And I bought a big bag of apples.)

My friends invite me to go shopping with them. They think it's now socially acceptable to invite me to join them in their favorite pass time. I don't have time, or money, to go shopping.

I ordered some work clothes online. A few pair of trousers, a blouse, a skirt and yes, a new pair of shoes. I bought snow boots (because it was January and the boots I had were old and leaking). My most satisfying purchases were underpants, bras and socks. Mine were so old, threadbare and tatty they really didn't qualify as garments. I didn't throw them away, they just sort of disintegrated into sad little piles of thread.

My favorite thing about a paycheck is being able to shop in the produce aisle and buy toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo and soap. It's exciting to not have to diffuse my shampoo with water to make it last longer. It's very gratifying to look at Brussels sprouts with the smug knowledge that I can buy them. It gives me deep comfort to not have to ration my deodorant use.

One very positive thing that came from my unemployment is a friendship that blossomed via a freelance project. We discovered we have a lot in common and have become quite good friends. It's really nice to have a girl friend in town again. Heck, it's really nice to have a girl friend again. Double heck it's really nice to have a friend again. And now that I have a paycheck, when we can carve out a few hours on Sunday afternoon I can afford to go to a matinee or cash in a Groupon to try a new restaurant.

Yes, I'm really going nuts with my income.

The focus is on digging myself out from the hole that went almost to China. And little by little fixing up my condo. The goal is to sell it in a few years. To do that I have to do some work in the bathroom and gut-rehab the kitchen. Which was the plan when I bought the place. But then I had surgery, my dad died, I was laid off...the plan was derailed. So I'm trying to get it back on track again. One small project at a time. I'm focusing so hard on this that clothes, shoes...all that other stuff...doesn't interest me. Well, that and after what I've been through I can't muster the interest or desire for anything frivolous. I need new curtain rods for my living room - I look at them online the way other women I know look at handbags. My mother gave me a new air conditioner for my birthday. It's the most exciting present I've had in years. I wept when we checked out with it at Lowe's. Wept. Tears of joy. I have actually hugged it. When I walk by it I give it loving pats.

Does it make The New Job worth the suckiness? Not really. It's a sucky job. There's no silver lining with the actual job. But. I am grateful to my manager for choosing me. She had a sea of equally desperate candidates from which to choose, but she opted for me. It was finally my turn to get the job offer. And I am hugely grateful for that.

11:23 PM

 
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