Conundrum.

Two days away. People are arriving.

I'm trying to decide how much time today I can reasonably spend hiding.

An evening.

I now have two t-shirts with pictures of myself on the front. In one of them I look like a crack whore. Drinks were had, cross-dressers were danced with. Boas and tiaras were worn, not necessarily by me.

Everything in its right place.

I've had the kind of day where I only feel like eating pizza now that it's mostly done. This is actually an improvement over yesterday, when I had the kind of day that could only be finished with a super-grande margarita and cheap Mexican food, and not in a good way.

What kind of flowers are we having for the wedding? I don't know. When are we going to figure it out? Before the wedding. I don't know. What about other decorations? I don't know. Ceremony, music, food and wine? I STILL DON'T KNOW!

EVEN IF I KNOW, I DON'T KNOW!

I don't have time for anything. Today I also hate computers. So when I finally came home from work, I got back on my computer. It makes no sense. I make no sense.

I should go over to my neighbors' barbecue, and yet I would be such bad company right now that I can't. Not to mention that all I really want is pizza.

From natto to Batto.

Last night we went with Anna and Sushmita to try Saito's for the first time -- very good sushi even if we got stuck at a table rather than the sushi bar and the wait was substantial. And even if my last sushi taste sensation for the evening was natto, which I found truly vile. I am happy that Anna has taken to scallop and unagi with the same gusto that I exhibit.

Sushmita abandoned us after dinner, but the rest of us went to see Batman Begins. Now I'm not a big fan of the Batman genre to begin with, but this movie was almost enough to turn me. Granted that I'm running behind my usual tally to date for seeing movies by this time in the year, but this was without question my favorite 2005 movie thus far. My usual problem with formulaic action-adventure movies and comic book movies in particular is that I get impatient waiting for predictable things to happen: all right, all right already, let's just get this over with. There was very little of that here. The structure kept things moving along even though this was not a short movie. I really, really liked the screenplay.

If I get my act together today, maybe I'll make it to see My Summer of Love.

The ratio of people to cake.

What a week. Work plus pre-wedding plus some other adventures = serious energy input and output. Things are moving faster than I can track. It's heady, exhilarating, intense, manic. Everything I'm experiencing these days feels like more.

The Ratio of People to Cake is going to be our Puzzle Safari team name. I don't care what anyone says.

Things to read.

Last night I finished rereading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in anticipation of the release of the sixth book next month. It was more satisfying than I remember it being, maybe because the first time I read it I flew through it in a feverish 24 hours in a frenzy trying to figure out which character was going to die. Having finished that, I've now moved on to Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, which I can already tell I'm going to like and not like. Personal essays that revere and inflate the significance of both author and pop culture are most satsifying when you're the author whose significance is being inflated, and yet even when you're not, the fact remains: who isn't interested in discovering the meaning of life as seen through the prism of the prom episode of Saved by the Bell? Reading this book reminds me of Jay, who recommended it, and of Heather, who might as well have.

I've been thinking lately that someone should start an advice column in our weekly company newsletter, which at present focuses exclusively on developments in dorkland and people selling video cards and baseball tickets. I've been thinking lately that it should be me.

The Comeback.

Is anyone else watching The Comeback? Lisa Kudrow is a much better actor than I'd ever given her credit for being. This show is so awkward it's painful, and like a grotesque car accident, there's just no looking away. She's superb.

If you're not watching it, you should be. The first two episodes are going to be reairing this week sometime.

T is for tapas.

Yesterday I woke up seriously grumpy. This past week there has been a lot of activity: lots of work and my trial hair and makeup appointment for the wedding (hated the hair, loved the makeup) and a couple of movies (so-so on Crash, enjoyed Mr. and Mrs. Smith) and more wedding stuff. I knew that last night we had plans for Vilde's graduation party and dinner at Katherine's so I was figuring that other than going running I'd spend yesterday loafing around on the sofa and reading. Chris went off to a Japanese book sale with Carlton in the morning and I got a slow start, figuring I'd head off for a longish run at some point but in no real hurry to get the day going.

By the time Chris got back, I still hadn't left yet, but I'd made arrangements to meet Mike for a run around 1:30 in hopes of staving off my anti-social grumpiness. We ran through the pouring rain (seriously, is summer ever going to arrive this year?) and Mike made some excuse about needing to be home by 3:30 for a barbecue (a barbecue? nice cover story... ) and I came home. By the time I got out of the shower Chris was haranguing me to go shopping with him, and I complained like hell about it but eventually agreed to go (talk about your role reversal... ).

So we took off, me bitching all the way, until we pulled up outside Tango and Chris stopped driving.

Chris: Let's get out of the car.
Kieran: Uh, no.

So Chris gets out of the car and opens my door and attempts to cajole me out of the car. I'm glad he eventually succeeded, because when I got out of the car I saw my sister through the window of Tango...

Yep, I was totally hoodwinked by a surprise bridal shower. It took me fully five or ten minutes after getting there to realize what was going on -- I (yes, I!) was speechless. In addition to lots of Seattle friends, Meri had flown in and Kara had driven up from Portland and I couldn't figure out how everyone had come to be there. Somehow everyone managed to keep a social secret from me for two months. I guess I have been at work a lot lately.

It was really fun. We had tapas with paired wines for each course (more on the menu in another post, perhaps, but it was really good), no ridiculous shower games, and we had the place all to ourselves. Meri did a great job putting it all together, Chris did a great job not losing patience with my inability to stick to the schedule (by the time I got out of the shower and agreed to get going, we ended up getting there a little late), and everyone really made it fun. Thanks, guys, for your collusion, even including those of you whose collusion was limited to making up cock and bull stories about barbecues.

We did end up making it to Vilde's graduation party and Katherine's dinner with her parents, which were also a lot of fun. All in all much wine was consumed, as Anna and Sushmita can attest, not having driven home until after 11...

Thank you, everyone. It was a really great day!

Things I say.

By all reports:

So there you go!
Okay then.
Alrighty then.
It's true.
So there you go!

So I've spent the last couple of days figuring out the pragmatics of each of them. (That's not something I say, but it's something I did. It's true.) Now I understand how they work. I work. It works. Something like that.

Now I'm on the lookout for other candidates for the list.

And there are leftovers, too.

Chad's birthday dinner and Jess's graduation party were on Friday night and last night we had some people over for dinner. I've been reflecting lately that -- New Mexicans aside -- for most social gatherings that we attend, we're either the oldest or the youngest in the room. We're almost never in the middle. I've also been thinking about the ways in which my preferences for social gatherings are changing. By and large I'm more interested in smaller and quieter these days.

But as for the food: last night I made a risotto primavera that came out pretty well even if I forgot to give people good cheese to grate on top of it, plus a spinach-mango-candied pecan salad that would have been better had there been more mango. It turns out that candying pecans takes about 10 minutes start to finish and the results are damn good, so I'm going to do this more often. Chris made a standard tomato-basil-mozzerella salad plus our first recipe from the Mario Batali cookbook that we got when we went to Salumi, something called devil's chicken. It was basically roast chicken with lots of black pepper and chile oil and red onion and cherry tomatoes and Italian parsley. This cookbook looks pretty good -- the recipes are much more straightforward than the ones in his previous books. The stuff looks actually cookable. By which I mean actually cookable by me.

Dinner parties, even dinner parties where we're the only ones drinking, are Not Too Bad.

Career development.

In light of Beauty and the Geek, I've been considering how I'd be depicted on a reality TV show. I think my only hope would be to have someone more even type A and neurotic than I am also on the show. Somehow flying under the radar doesn't seem like a viable strategy for me.

It could turn out all kinds of Jerri Manthey. Although I've never been on Blind Date.

If being a linguist doesn't work out for me, maybe I can host a dating show on the WB. NFL weather reports optional.

Beauty and the geek.

Screw Fox, it's the WB to the rescue this time around!

This show panders to every horrible stereotype about bubblehead bimbos and dorky boys that you've ever heard. I hate it. I love it. I love to hate it. It's faithful to the Paradise Hotel tradition of hot and humid reality TV. In a word, it is going to redeem the televisual summer. Record it with the DVR of your choice today. No, tomorrow. It's reairing tomorrow.

Today was borderline annoying in a variety of ways. Chris and I handled that by leaving work and going to Seven Stars Pepper, and eggplant in garlic sauce plus scallion pancakes plus the WB saved the day.

No, seriously. It's going to redeem the televisual summer.