Random bits

[pen_grunt]

Random bits...in itsy-bitsy bullet form for perusal:

• Hey, I made myself a new icon! Whee! Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being has a peculiar hold on me. Not so much for being an awesome book (though I love the way that Kundera uses words...so that they feel like little bits of squishy food that you can roll around in your mouth), but more for nostalgic reasons. It's amazing how memory can color your recollection or perception of a book or a song. I was 18. In Montreal. On my first real vacation. My first time out and about alone-ish. With my French-speaking older boyfriend. We would stay out till 4, get up in the morning and read (out loud) a few chapters over breakfast in the hotel. It was as close to a idyllic setting as I had ever had. Everything about it was romantic and new--then again, I was also at a very impressionable age.

• I made it through a work BBQ at Derrick's boss's house being a good spouse. I did fairly well on the interacting-with-people thing. My extreme shyness is slowly (very, very slowly) melting away as I gain more experience in uncomfortable situations.

• Said BBQ made me realize how lucky I was to skip the stage where I thought it was even remotely okay to get smashing-drunk in front of one's boss. Some of Derrick's co-workers did a grand job embarrassing themselves, and we could only cringe and bow out early.

• Hey, our fence blew down in the Friday night (actually, really early Saturday morning) storm. Hey. The power was out from 4 a.m. to 9 a.m. as well. Our refrigerated milk products spoiled...and since spoiled milk is the very worst thing in the world, I was very tempted to cry over it. Especially when I didn't realize it was spoiled until we dumped it in our pan of Mac & Cheese. Pawned, as the kids say.

• I'm in Cincinnati all this week. Hey. We went out to the Brazilian meat-orgy restaurant tonight. Tomorrow will be vegetarian on principle...I feel like stuffed hell.

• My bullets kinda suck. Must. Learn. Proper. Formatting.

Comments

[lisa-e-is-me.livejournal.com]

Like you, I am also mystified by people who get wasted at company functions. Hello? Your boss is watching. Also, you look like a jackass.

My husband's company used to have a big Christmas party every year, until one year a fight broke out after dinner, once everybody had gotten good and liquored up. It was a fistfight between a husband and wife, which was started, and finished, by the wife. She had to be physically restrained by two people while she bucked and kicked and screamed until the police came. Merry Christmas, everybody!

[pen-grunt.livejournal.com]

It was really rather ridiculous--WE were embarrassed because the boss's wife actually WENT to bed, and people were getting drunk and trying to persuade others not to leave the BBQ. I mean, one half of your hosting party was too tired to entertain you...it's time to leave people.

Of course, these were all the brand-spanking-new interns/new-hires that got drunk. All the people who have worked there for a while (my husband included) stayed nice and sober (or stopped at a beer or two). Worse: they decided to drive home...because really, who wants to stay at their boss's house because they're too drunk to drive? Ugh.

I can't believe the husband and wife fight...err...FIST fight. That's just incredibly...well, let's put it this way--did anyone start chanting "Jerry! Jerry!"? That would go a ways to explaining why they USED to have a Christmas party--I don't think I could handle seeing a scenario like that between co-workers two years in a row.

[liquid-siftings.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, Unbearable Lightness... It has a nostalgic place for me as well. I actually saw the movie before reading the book, but I saw it at the age of 19 with my first "real" girlfriend. It was "our" movie for a long time. (And I happened to be gaga over Juliette Binoche on top of it)

I read the book shortly thereafter and luxuriated in the language. Marvelous.

[pen-grunt.livejournal.com]

The book (and the movie, as well) are both very delicately sexy in a way that truly is erotic without being erotica.

I always preferred Lena Olin to Juliette Binoche--but that could very well have been because I could not STAND Tereza at least half of the time (book and movie, actually). It's a testament to her acting that she managed to hold the character--but the character ruined her for me.

It was strange seeing the movie after reading the book--Sabina, and all the Sabina "scenes" were so radically different than I pictured while reading.

And on an additional note, I once had a cat (male) that I named Karenin--not after, as most people assumed, Anna Karenina--but after Karenin the dog, who was named after Karenin, Anna's husband, who was really a girl (the dog, not the husband).