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

 
Sunday, November 23, 2014  
I'm doing a little social media experiment. This is part of it. You're reading this, so you're now part of it, too. Thank you for your participation.

Life is not back to "normal," yet, but then again, my life was derailed from normal a long time ago. Years before my life (?) went into a very awkward pause thanks to the recession and unemployment, my life was not following a normal path.

I'm still digging out of unemployment, and will continue to dig for years. It will be years before I'm back on track financially, professionally and emotionally. But I have a job and a steady paycheck, and thanks to that, small traces of good old Trill are starting to surface. I never fully lost my sense of humor, and I tried very, very hard to not let my sarcastic synapses take over and turn into full blown cynicism. I am proud of myself for that, by the way. It was not easy. But even with all my efforts to maintain a sense of humor, my knee jerk "see the funny side of it" responses were not what they used to be.

But lately they've dared to peek out of the shadows now and then. Mainly in the safety and solitude of my home. My home. I have a home and I'm paying the mortgage. It's mine. If you haven't been through what I've been through you cannot comprehend the overwhelming emotions that well up in me just by typing those sentences.

Although I'm not the girliest girl on the block, I have a few talismans of girliness. I'm girly enough to have a favorite shade of nail polish. I'm not really into the whole nail fad that's taking Instagram by storm. My fingernails are typically well groomed, but most often they are not polished. When they are polished, like many women, I have my go-to shade. My go-to color has been OPI "A Rose at Dawn, Broke by Noon." Many moons ago a group of us gals went for manicures. The manicurist thought this color would look great on me. She was right. Not too pink, not too red, not too dark, not too light. It has a somewhat frosted finish, which I know is a bit dated, but, 11-12 years later when I have this polish on my nails it still elicits compliments from strangers. A couple of my friends have tried the color and it doesn't look very good against their skin tones. This is truly one of those colors that just works on me. Oh sure, I try other colors, but I always come back to A Rose at Dawn, Broke by Noon. It's an old, trustworthy friend. OPI is known for discontinuing colors without warning, so I hoarded a small cache of bottles of it. (It's a girl thing.)

During the awkward pause of unemployment there was no money for new nail polishes. However, I  am very (very) fortunate to have a close friend who works in the cosmetic industry. He kept me stocked with make-up basics while I was unemployed. Every couple of months he handed over a shopping bag full of samples, discontinued products and demo products to me. It was one of the most thoughtful things anyone did for me when I was unemployed. Thanks to him I always had make-up to wear to interviews or meetings with freelance clients. There were usually a couple of small sample bottles of nail polish in those bags, and those sample bottles of nail polish provided a few moments of normalcy for me. For a few minutes I was just like other women trying a new shade of polish and doing my nails. It's something most women take for granted. But when you're unemployed things like new bottles of nail polish are frivolous and foolish expenses that are cut the day you're laid off.

My stash of A Rose at Dawn, Broke by Noon was running dangerously low, so last spring one of the first splurges I made with my new paychecks was a bottle of my trusty old rosy nail polish friend. When I ventured into Girl Land (my local cosmetics emporium) for the first time in years, I was dazzled by all the wares. I had not stepped foot in that kind of place in four years. I felt a little off balance, a little light headed, and very aware that I had a wide-eyed look of Dorothy stepping out of the black and white farmhouse into the Land of Oz. I made my way to the nail polish section and, there, waiting for me, was my trusty polish. However. Also on display was a kit of four new shades, a promo for the new Muppet movie.

Okay. Disclaimer: All things Muppet immediately pique my interest. I know they're a Disney franchise and blah blah blah. I don't care. I love the Muppets and will go to my grave a devoted fan of all things Muppet and especially all things Kermit. So yes, I am a bit of a sucker for Muppet merch.

But. Nail polish? Was I that much of a sucker for Muppet merch that on my first visit to Girl Land in four years, with the first extra $20 I'd had in four years, I would shell out for a kit of nail polish simply because it had Kermit and Miss Piggy on the box and had colors named Miss Piggy's Big Number and Kermit Me to Speak?

Yes. Yes I was that much of a sucker.

And I do not regret the purchase.

Because, after all these years, I stumbled upon a new go-to nail polish shade. And this one is not frosty so I look a little more current. A Rose at Dawn, Broke by Noon is still a trusty friend. But now my trusty nail polish friend has a wing man. Kermit Me to Speak has taken a place of honor next to A Rose at Dawn...

In that collection there were also a shade of blue and a glittery top coat. I hadn't experimented with them other than to try them on a nail and quickly remove them. Last weekend I was feeling in need of some mirth, so I painted on the blue (Miss Piggy's Big Number) on all my fingernails. I do not consider myself to be a blue nail polish kind of woman, at least not by day, at work, anyway. So a full set of blue (and I mean really blue, Muppet blue) nails was outside my usual nail box. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it, either. Then I decided that since I'd gone that far, I might as well go all the way. I added the top coat of glitter. (Appropriately called "Let's Do Anything We Want.") And you know what? I kinda liked it. I kept it on through the weekend and into the work week. It didn't cause an uprising at the office, I'm pretty sure no one even noticed, or, if they did, they didn't care enough to say anything about it.

And on the fifth day I hated it. It started to get on my nerves mid-morning on Thursday. By Thursday night on the bus home I was agitated that traffic was miserable and delaying me from getting that polish off my nails.

This is a big reason why I don't have a tattoo. If I get this antsy over removing a nail polish color that I liked but quickly grew to loath, a non-removable tattoo would be insanity invoking torture for me.

I got home, threw off my coat, grabbed the polish remover and cotton balls and feverishly rubbed off all traces of the blue and glitter from my nails. I tossed the spent cotton balls into the toilet and went about my evening in a much better mood without the offending blue polish on my nails. By 8:30 I'd completely forgotten that my nails had been blue with a top coat of glitter.

And then it was time for bed. I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and was startled by what I saw the toilet.

It looked like Smurfette discarded a used tampon in my toilet and neglected to flush.

And the fact that that was my first thought the minute I saw it made me happy. "Trill, there's a synapse or two of the old you that are still firing. You are still lurking in there somewhere." It's a little thing, and I know the joke isn't all that funny. But. It's the first thing that popped in my head when I saw the bloated cotton balls smeared with blue nail polish floating in the toilet. And that says to me that my brain is feeling relieved enough to let its guard down and relax for a few seconds. I've lived every second of every day in a state of high alert and panic, focusing every bit of conscious thought into finding a job and making money to survive that there was no space, no brain matter to spare, for anything other than survival tactics.

That Smurfette joke, as banal and not-that-funny as it is, is proof to me that somewhere in there is the normal me, the me before the awkward pause of unemployment. Unemployment changed me in ways I still cannot fully articulate. And I doubt that I will ever be the same. The experience was that awful.

But. I am happy to know that there are remnants of me buried so deeply in my brain that even the horrendous nightmare that I endured for four years can't kill them. 

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9:46 PM

 
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