Mary Bellamy

I have survived the following (in chronological order):

• a massively unhealthy dinner from Carl’s Jr. on Wednesday night (made even more unhealthy by my decision to swap out the drink for a Cap’n Crunch milkshake)
• beer. Quite a bit of it.
• moving furniture while drunk. When I was growing up, I used to rearrange my bedroom every few months. It was a small room with lots of furniture, but I found at least four arrangements that would work. Living in our cabin at the commune, I couldn’t rearrange because some of the furniture was built in. I’ve been in this house for 11 months and have rearranged the living room twice and my bedroom once. I am scared of being in a rut, even furniture-wise. Commitment issues??
  
• watching crappy TV with Jennie
• starting Thursday with a bottle of champagne. At 8:15 a.m. Don’t worry – I took the day off from work.
• finishing said bottle by 10:30 and realizing I hadn’t eaten food yet.
• an epic-length dinner at a local restaurant. We had no less than three people helping us, resulting in a lot of miscommunication, and it took us more than 90 minutes to get our food. The end result? 25% off our bill and profuse apologies from a young man who was wearing makeup.
• Bollywood choreography after a day of little work but much drinking
• a frank sex talk with my ex-boyfriend
• Thursday. In general.

But you know what can cheer me up even when I’m down? My grandmother sent me a dirty card. And tonight I’ll meet up with a friend who is in town from NYC for the summer. Dinner, hopefully no more drinks and a movie with a group of friends. I’ve nixed my plans to flee town for the weekend. Instead I’ll let James cook me dinner on Sunday. And I think I’ve found two grad students to move into my house. Life may not have been good yesterday, but it’s getting better.

Memorial Day weekend. Time to do nothing. A whole lot of nothing. Last night Marmian and I kicked off the festivities by going to see Matt Vrba playing at the Loon. Today is the Clucking Blossom post-mortem barbecue. Tomorrow is the Bob-Eley-cue. And Monday the university is closed. Coincidentally, this is also my boyfriend's day off from work, so I predict a lazy day of laying around and doing absolutely nothing for hours.

Later this week, as per usual, I will take to my bed for a day of dramatic self-absorption.

After that, the hunt for new roommates will continue. I've been talking with a few people, but have made no decisions yet.

Tuesday night brought the Meeting Of The Dogs. After dinner, henna, a movie and drinks, Victoria and I brought her Italian Greyhound, Itchy, over to Robin's house to meet his Italian Greyhound, Zoe. I guess IGs do have something of a territorial nature, because Itchy has assumed that I am her property, and thus she staked out a spot on my lap. As previously discussed, Zoe adores me, and thus she also staked out a spot on my lap. It's a big lap, and they are small dogs, but no human being can stand such a high level of cute for very long. Fortunately, it quickly degenerated into a lot of humping. Not on my lap. No pictures, but we'll have another doggie playdate soon.

Now to a more serious subject. Robin's best friend is coming to visit. Actually, the visit has morphed into coming up here for the rest of the summer. Now, this wouldn't be a problem, except his best friend happens to be female. And historically, I don't do well with female best friends. Of course, the inverse is also true: I often don't like the women my friends date. But back to the issue at hand: She is coming up. For the entire summer. And I'm pretty sure she's going to hate me.

Longtime readers of my blog who don't know me may be scratching their heads and saying, "But why would she hate you, Mary?" Longtime readers of my blog who do know me are cackling, because, well, they know me.

Let's look at the facts:

• I am dating her best friend
• He (and his little dog, too) adores me
• I have a somewhat caustic sense of humor

OK, maybe the list doesn't truly represent my fears, but trust me. She is going to hate me. We will circle each other like wary dogs for months. (Much like Dara and I did when she started dating James. We're great friends now, but this undermines my argument.) This should be an interesting summer.

OMG this hurts my brain. And I promised myself I wouldn’t make this blog political.



OK, here’s the deal:

I will give baked goods to the first person who can:

a) name two of the dance scenes featured in this clip. Just the movie titles will do, though you get bonus points for knowing the names of the songs.
b) explain why this technically could never be considered a Bollywood clip

I like it when people make me think. Driving home last night, Robin and I started musing over the difference between “oblige” and “obligate.” How can you not love a man who will discuss etymology with you? *swoon*

The dictionary, though usually my friend (OK, usually read by me and my friends at parties. Seriously.), was not help with this one. The definitions (of the transitive verbs only):

Oblige: {OFr obligier, obligare to bind, oblige < ob + ligare, to bind} vt 1) to compel by moral, legal or physical force; constrain; 2) to make indebted for a favor or kindness done; do a favor for;

Obligate: {L obligatus, pp of obligare} vt to bind by a contract, promise, sense of duty, etc.; put under obligation

Not so different, eh? Both words essentially mean to make someone feel like they have to do something. In common usage, though, I tend to think that “oblige” implies more of a voluntary act. Is this simply because we most commonly hear the intransitive form of the verb? “Much obliged” is a stand-in for “thank you” in some parts of the country, seeming to give the feeling that to “oblige” someone is to be accommodating to them, not to force them to your will. Conversely, “obligate” implies a forced or compelled act.

However, further investigation has shown that perhaps this understanding of the difference between the two words comes down to my nationality. We do not speak the Queen’s English in America. Rather, we have an English all our own. Don’t believe me? Try reading The Economist’s Style Guide section on Americanisms.

While The Economist simply states that it is oblige, not obligate, I found further explanation from an Aussie. As it turns out, “obligate” as a verb is an American construct not necessarily found in other forms of English. For example, Australians would say “Though the watch was meant as a birthday gift, he felt obliged to get her something expensive in return.” Americans would use “obligate” in that instance.

The moral of the story? Well, you can use “oblige” and “obligate” somewhat interchangeably, but it will mark you as an American. And if someone does you a favor, I would not recommend saying you are “much obligated.” And, more importantly, when you start talking words with me, I like you more.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have an RSS feed. I finally got off my ass today and subscribed to a whole bunch of blog feeds.

My Toolbar Bookmarks were becoming increasingly complicated. There were the design blogs that updated a lot and I visited daily. Some had sporadic updates, so I visited them weekly. But sometimes the sporadic sites would have a good run of posting and I'd be stuck wading through stuff for an hour.

Now all of those blogs (well, at least the ones that have feeds) go right to my Google Reader. What did I do before Google? It's my default e-mail client. I G-chat with my boyfriend almost nightly. I sort, store and share documents and calendars. Ah, Google, how I love thee!