I Want My Past Back

I want it just like it was too. I don’t want any niggley little updates either so that someone else can feel better. My past is all about me. Incidentally it is the only thing in my life that someone else isn’t constantly trying to improve. Back then I was single. I mostly feel that way now but I know better. I am not single other than on paper as there is no formal paper saying I am not. But really I am not.

I remember once being fiesty and perhaps saying “Hey!  You want a piece of me?” . Well it seems she did. I know she regrets it now. I really wasn’t the catch I may have intimated I was nor the actual catch she longed for. We all lie at first and then ask why we were believed by them or why we believed them. Like Sinatra, on regrets, I’ve had a few but unlike Sinatra not too few to mention. I have a whole catalog that alphabetically lists the catalogs full of regrets I have. But they are all mine and in that I take good comfort.

I have never met anyone that disappointed me. I like every food I have ever heard of. I like to think that I am not a high maintenance type of friend. To my knowledge no one has suggested to me that I am. I can buy a whole winter, spring, summer and fall wardrobe off the rack in twenty minutes and it will look tailored. Tailored by a novice two thumbed tailor but still..  Where it says average Joe in the dictionary there is a picture of me taken some years ago when I was thirty eight point three years old. There I am no longer average. I am above average in years.

The light bulb overhead just went on. I guess maybe that might be the real issue. Maybe I don’t want my past back. Maybe what I want back is the me that I was then. Me from the past.

Drinking water

from a bottle is akin to drinking beer from a glass. It is backwards. This is 2012 and not 1962. Other things have changed as well but this is a big one. Sure we didn’t have nifty single serving recyclable plastic bottles then and we do now. Buying a single serving of water is the result of technology. We do it because we can. At least beer is still sold in a glass bottle. For now.

Image via Wikipedia

 

Wooden Chair (Photo credit: epSos.de)

Arranging chairs to accommodate guests is a big challenge at the best of times. At the worst of times there may be no chairs and many guests. In between there can be some successes balanced with a few drops of vinegrette on the lapels of your best suit jacket or silk tie. C’est la vie. Say what you will the chair has to be positioned correctly. It has to fit the guest and distances between guests have to be observed. Directional cues have a language of their own. For conversation to flow freely direct eye contact can only be permitted when desired by the participants. A bias of 10 to 15 degrees is optimal for left corner of chair one and right corner of chair two in a normal rectangular room with rectangular furniture. When rooms are other than this only past experience will get you a leg up. It the furniture is round the angles will surely be less than ideal. Grin and bear and use tall center pieces as a distraction. Often using two shorter lit candles in lieu of one in the center will have the same effect. Two focal points is more that what ninety percent of people can handle while attempting to see much less see and hear a guest speaker.

Straight back chair sans back cushions should be your first choice. Any second choice should be discarded before being considered at all. Soft tones are best and also the only choice where colour is an option. Too much of a contrast between chair colour and wall colour has the same effect as having a radio or television blaring a few feet away. Avoid it.

Only one height of chair is permitted in a room and that is chosen as a function of the table height. The distance from chair seat top to table bottom has to be fixed at 11 inches. The  thighs can then fit under while the elbows can hover above without undue stress. Men over six feet-six and women under five feet tall will have the same relative proportion. All feet will be on the floor or near it and that is the best you can do.

If you are lucky enough to get this far you can now turn your attention to lighting. That we will leave for another time. For now eat,sit and be merry.

Dear Sheryl

Louis Vuitton (Photo credit: Eva Rinaldi Celebrity and Live Music Photographer)

How have you been? I couldn’t bring myself to contact you directly since the accident with the water cooler. I wasn’t aware that you could not put carbonated beverages in it as the glugging bubbles would create enough pressure for it to pop its top. Who knew? Add to that the pure coincidence that you would be walking by it at that exact time carrying your new Vuitton suede . You must know how badly I felt. The giggles were a pressure relief in themselves from the joy that you were not personally wounded. And if you remember there were tears too right afterward. I did not laugh till  I cried as some suggested. I cried in shame over what I had unintentionally orchestrated. It could have been anyone. Still it was me and I deserved your comeuppance.

I have been in hiding since and am just now coming back to society and to this page.

Please forgive me if you can. I won’t drive by your home any more to check for the blue forgiveness ribbon on the Forsythia. I was told that could pass for stalking.

Your friend;

a.