10 reasons why I am boycotting trick or treaters this year....

Look, I am not saying this is how I am every year, but this year, I don't particularly care to pass out candy in my neighborhood to these kids and here's why:

1. I don’t want to contribute to type II diabetes/obesity in pre-pubescent children. If I pass out anything, it would be pamphlets on obesity. I am by no means a guru on health, but kids are fat these days.

2. I do not want to reward the neighborhood kids who egged my car twice in a month a while ago. Both times it happened on a Monday right before I was leaving in the morning. Yeah, nice work kids.

3. The other 364 days of the year, tons of kids come to my door wanting me to buy stuff and I’ve given them plenty of my time and attention. I should be given candy for just listening to their inarticulate sales pitches/gimmicks. Always be closing, kids. You get my sale, you get some candy.

4. Strike two about coming to my door on a non-Halloween day: I do not reward illiteracy. Kids consistently disregard and/or can’t comprehend the “no solicitation” sign. I reward kids who can read. When you can read, you get candy.

5. I will not reward the kids who bend and break off plants in my yard. I see you do it, you think I don’t, but I do. No candy.

6. I might have rewarded the kid who brought back all my People magazines when they were sent to the wrong address, but, they were partially mangled. No candy.

7. The kid who rides around on his motorized scooter for HOURS on end will not get my candy because it’s loud and he chases little girls with it. That’s karma kid. I hate bullies like you.

8. I know that if I put out my newly carved pumpkins, they’d be demolished and turned into pumpkin bisque on my driveway and I don’t reward vandals.

9. I have never seen a cute little kid in my neighborhood. Period. Sorry, but cuteness wins. I don't do ugly.

10. I quite honestly do not want to get up every 5-6 minutes (on average) for a good three hours just to pretend to care. Trust me, I am sparing you my phony-bologna bullshit. I don’t feel like lying and saying that your “dime-a-dozen” vampire/witch/goblin conglomerate is “unique”. Sponge Bob? So overdone, later kid.

Ok, this may seem harsh to a lot of folks....but as Barbara Streisand says "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke". :)

What is it with assholes in Escalades?...most of them anyway

Ok, so you probably are thinking that I have animosity against Escalades because I drive a VW Jetta "GL" (aka for manual windows, tape deck) and that I am just taking out my daily aggressions on the guy who appears to make more money than I or I had a "bad day" or that I simply have nothing else better to talk about. No, well, kinda but no. My complaint is two-fold here. It starts when I am comfortably coming home from work and like the majority of people, I enjoy traffic when at a constant.

So, I approach a brief stoplight behind a Geo Metro initially and once it turns green, the Escalade next to me is going a decent speed passing us, not fast but not too slow (sounds like I am describing sexual preferences) and being a person who suffers from car-discrimination, I assume the Escalade to occupy a more preferable lane which would naturally go faster than a Geo, so I merge. First time I start having a huge problem with "Escalade": He suddenly decides to drive slower than the Geo Metro which passes me of course. Murphy's Law.

The Geo screams past me so fast that the mural of cancer and "support our troops" ribbons upon its hatch-back becomes a virtual polymorphic blurr. Well, I exaggerate just a tad, but that's what it felt like at my core. I slam my hand on my steering wheel, "great, I am getting passed by a roller skate". You think I am making this up, but I actually said this aloud. I talk to myself, you see. Anyway, there I sit behind this Escalade moving slower than a Mormon virgin. After my patience has plunged into annoyance, I slowly merge toward the shoulder to see if possibly I am misdirecting my anger and there is another asshole slowing traffic in front of him. But no.... It's this guy. I can't go back into the lane where the Geo blasts past me at light-speed because now that lane is slowing due to LEGITIMATE traffic. I am stuck and my blood rising because all this self-important waste of air had to do was apply pressure to the gas and I would be that much closer to home. People are passing him and flying by, and merging into our lane years ahead of us. Luckily, I have a sudden window through which I can go around him. I take it and while I do not normally subscribe to road rage, when I pass him and notice he's talking on his blue-tooth and looking down at what presumably is his small cock, I flip him off and blaze past. I noticed after doing so that he was quite a large man, but what is he going to do, eh?

Enter the second problem with this Escalade that I have: They are too fucking large (not to mention the obvious environmental contraints they pose to our precious atmosphere) and the owners generally feel a sense of entitlement to drive without yielding to the flow of traffic. They have this "they can wait" attitude. Their choice of speed or lack there of should be honored by everyone. Had I been able to see around this monstrous vehicle, my anger could possibly have been softened and I would have signaled long ago to change lanes. I could have avoided his preoccupation with his own farts, or whatever it was that was so captivating to him at the moment he stopped traffic. We're all going to die soon, asshole, we'd like to enjoy our final days, k? Thanks. But his jacked up, overly-priced "truck" obstructed not only my vision but also my sense of morality. So, I looked like a douche-bag sitting behind this asshole while everyone passes me by on their way to happy hour or to whatever their poison may be. "Hey daddy, look at that moron in the dumb car just sitting there behind that big, cool car..." Ok, that was probably never the conversation the kid in the mini-van next to me had with his morbidly obese, beer guzzling, narcotic-popping, mommy-bashing father. I only assume these things about the fat man in the mini-van because I can, it's my blog. Anyway, the Escalade never responded to me after my "hi there, asshole" finger wave, he was too self-involved and was probably scheduling a three way with some slutty waitresses at the Golden Corral for all I know. I just wanted to "share" why I think Escalades are a collective nuisance to my soul. I am making another rum and coke now.

Old Man Winter is an impatient bastard

Yeah, I doubted the warnings. All the hype and comparison to "Blizzard '97". Whatever! I didn't live in C. Springs then. In Boulder, we had the April blizzard of '97 that closed CU for the first time in over 10 years. THAT was a storm. So, last night when I looked out the window at midnight and didn't see a drop, I said "fuck you weather first news at 6". I didn't believe the "large-mouthed bass" amatuer weather man telling me to beware. Well, he showed me. I looked out the window at 7am and exclaimed "Holy shit, that guy was right". Limbs drooping, cars covered, wind howling. I am the amatuer. So, with work cancelled and cabin fever setting in, I might reorganize my closet or polish my andirons. What the fuck is an andiron? (It's a fireplace tool, but that's besides the point.) I feel like maybe a nostalgic viewing of The Shining is in order. Or I'll catch up on 40 hours of Oprah. Man, she's really getting full of herself.

Glick vs Garofalo...

This will be particulary appreciated by my sister Carrie, but here's another in the great list of my heros.

On Rob Corddry's last night

He's my hero.

Hangover no. 6546 (approx.)

Yeah, some day, I'll get it. Mixing whites and reds plus champagne will hurt you. No, really?! Exactly what I tell myself every time I do it. Chas refuses to sit next to me because a harmelss wine tasting party turned my tongue to a proverbial liquor drenched runway for funk. As my friend Simon once said, "who crawled in my mouth and laid carpet?" It was a great party, for sure. Chas and I even woke up at 6:23am and decided it was a good time to watch CSI and then go to breakfast with all the god fearing people of Colorado Springs in their Sunday "best". I looked around wondering if they could smell my evil ways. Sure enough, they could. I was not only wearing last night's clothes, but also chiming on about "did I embarrass myself last night?". "No, you were fine, sweetheart" Chas reassured me. Whew! Post drinking anxiety coupled with euphoria just never ceases to amaze me. I giggle and then frown wondering if I should offer an apology for any opinions I decided to share. Oh well...tis the season. I wonder if this pumpkin over there can feel my pain. C'est l vie. Time to finish my eggs and bacon. Cheers!

Enough about Christmas already....

Christmas sucks as is because of the obvious stress is causes someone like me with a large family. But it sucks even worse that it's brought up in early October and sometimes even earlier than that. There are already riots for the new TMX Elmo which is proported to be the hot xmas item for kids this season. I just want to lay it out there that all the Christmas zealots can shut the fuck up already and let the rest of us enjoy Halloween, fall leaves, and anticipating Turkey Day without the impending "over commercialization" of the Christmas season in our faces so early. Little Jimmy will have to wait just like the rest of us for his xbox 360 or whatever. I'm mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore. Many say I am a Scrooge, but I am not against giving and the appropriate "glee" surrounding Christmas. I am against the social stress brought on so early to venture out to the malls and the Christmas anxiety that is created with pundits on TV and radio advertising the "new hot item" that everyone must have. Let it rest, I just want to survive the obnoxious trick or treaters at my door next week. One at a time, eh?

TiVo pollutes the soul

The thought of having lived without TiVo for the majority of my 30 years is almost unbelievable to me now. I used to dream of having one when they came out, just one tiny 40-hour TiVo in my living room. However, the concept was totally foreign and hard to comprehend plus I didn't really have the cash at the time.

"You mean, you can freeze time and then zip through the commercials?". That was my initial understanding of TiVo's magic. I couldn't grasp what was really happening, which was simply an internal "vcr". I thought that TiVo was bending the space/time continuum and I was amazed that I could halt the actors' dialogue by a simple touch upon the ergonomically svelte remote. I was completely captivated by its power. I envisioned that by recording all my favorite shows, I would have so much time to do things outside the confines of my house. Take up more hobbies, get out and run or frolic amidst the "outdoorsy" folk.

Wrong.

Chas and I now have 3 TiVos (1 dual tuner, so that equates to basically 4, his doing primarily but it warped me no less). Little did I know that upon installation of the extra TiVos, I would become the sloth that I so abhor. The caveat with TiVo is that while it's a wonderful TV preservation tool, no matter how much you can record, no matter how much time you allow for viewing, it will suck your soul dry because its capacity supersedes your abilities. Make sense? Well, for one, it romances you into the possibility that you have time to view everything by virtue of the fast forward. However, even though I can zip through commercials, I still don't have enough freaking time to watch it all. Maybe I need to get a life (sure, I'll grant you that, I have become a bit of a homebody of late), but I was so thoroughly courted and manipulated by TiVo that it sucked me in beyond repair. The cute and cuddly TiVo mascot that bounces around on your screen when you reboot and its "come hither" antennae entices your urge to view every possible second of TV...need I continue?

It's like a dysfunctional, co-dependent relationship and man, is it crippling. Not to mention, TiVo is just plain rude at times. For example, it will cut me off if a show runs long and also decides to record things I don't particularly care for like every home and gardening show because I watched "Curb Appeal" once. Totally inconsistent unless I manually program, blah blah. I mean, sure, I am not faultless here, I know how to read the TiVo manual telling me how to avoid the "issues" but shouldn't something so advanced be a little self sufficient? I know I feed TiVo's dependency vis a vis making it wake me up each morning with the Today show and then record and monitor my shows while at work and then to subsequently manage my evening show portfolio while I sit down to dinner. But, it sometimes requires too much of my attention when I have set it to record an entire Thursday night line up and find myself having to scroll through about 8 hours of must see TV. It's a virtual catch 22.

Another LARGE problem, We still have show conflicts with multiple "T". Not to mention, we didn't consider the fact that if you record 7 one-hour shows on Monday, that means you have to watch them in increments over the course of the week and thus cutting into other viewing times. How can one possibly win?

Finally, rather than using life experience to punctuate the timeline of my life, I now remember which show I was watching at the time something happened or how I felt at one moment during my week when "such an such" a show was on. TiVo permiates my every move. "Well, I was watching CSI when I had this shooting pain in my chest causing me to end up in the ER for two days...." Now, this didn't happen, but it could. I think perhaps TiVo and I should break up or have a "break", or maybe go back to being "fuck buddies" and just see each other late at night...who knows, but one thing is for sure, I should probably start learning the Serenity Prayer.

Is anyone actually reading this shit?

I guess I have a fear of never being heard and maybe this is an effort in futility...The "blog". Even the word is slightly annoying. blog. I haven't studied the etymology of the word, but it's my guess that wherever it came from, the word "narcissism" is sure to follow. I always resisted in setting one up for that reason. Who the hell wants to hear me talk about inane topics relating primarily to me? As many of you know, I am a talker and perhaps (especially after a stiff martini) a bit long winded but I feel that this "blog" could very well be my "new" therapy. After bidding "adieu" to my trusty therapist in Boulder, I needed a more reliable outlet per se. I have collectively been in therapy for over twenty years now and before you gasp, let me explain. It wasn't that I had insurmountable "issues", we all have them, I kinda liked having a person for hire who couldn't awkwardly say "excuse me but I have to use the bathroom" while I am in mid sentence about my horrific elementary school experiences or awkward adolescent trauma or any other seemingly incidental moment in my life. They had to listen and analyze even if it killed them. Mind you, I recently had a therapist who I could only see at 9pm on Mondays because for whatever reason the entire town of Boulder had occupied earlier slots. Anyway, he would nod off at times. Yeah, at 120.00/hr I was essentially paying to watch him slump in his oversize chair and then jerk his head suddenly returning to consciousness. At the worst times too, he would seemingly doze off. Once, while I was reaching what they call in the therapy world "a break-through", the proverbial "ah ha" moment about a pretty big issue I was having, he started "the nod". I felt horrible and somewhat pathetic that my very own therapist was going into the Freudian dreamworld. What irony. I left feeling a little defeated and as my 7th grade math teacher exclaimed in a booming, scathing voice once upon a time, "Trish, write a book, we don't care...". Ouch. I have usually been able to take every ounce of humility that comes my way pretty well (wink) despite but this was down right humiliating as well as a waste of time. I did severe my relationship with "Rip Van Winkle" the therapist and now all I have left is my little blog (tear). I may butcher syntax and grammar/punctuation because damnit, this is my blog. I know the proper use of the colon and semi-colon, etc. but hey, if Faulkner or Stein can eliminate conventional punctuation, then fuck, so can I. It's my space. Not MySpace but you get it. I've gone off on another tangent..woohooo!!! Anywaaaay, It's my ideal forum perhaps, an unconditional ear to spout my BS to, no matter how unwanted or "weird". So, welcome to my twisted mind, it'll only get more warped. Thanks for your time. See you tomorrow, but I tire easily, so who knows.

I luff you...I lurve you...I loave you

So, yeah, I'm engaged.....Wow. I recently spent an hour or more typing a cute little piece about how Chas proposed and DELETED it by mistake. So, this is the abridged version. I guess it's good so I can spare you the romanticism. Ok, so, I am in love (well, for almost 2 years now), he gave me a ring last night and we are blissful. It feels a bit like I am wearing someone else's hand right now. I haven't worn a ring in years. Obviously, this one is far more significant and meaningful than any jewelry I have worn or will ever wear again. I am thrilled and also terrified about the "big day" only because I don't deal well with crowds. I'll have to get over that. The date and all that is TBD. We want to enjoy the "early days" of being pre-married, I guess you could say. I think I have several people to thank for meeting Chas. It's a bit of a six degrees of separation of sorts. Ok, here goes. I'd like to thank Kerry for helping me get a job at Noof and thus meeting Rebecca who introduced me to Steve who then took me as a friend to a random Christmas party in Manitou Springs and thus introduced me to Chas while standing outside for a smoke....that's only four degrees, but still, thank you for introducing us. Who knew?!

I'm an aunt, hopefully the "cool" one.

So, yes, as indicated by the title, my family has been extended. I am officially an aunt. My older sister gave birth to a little baby boy, Jackson Charles Ferguson on Sept.20th, 2006. This means that now, I am always going to be 30 years older than someone and with that comes various fears. I hope he likes me. I don't want to be that aunt that gives him slipper socks or self help books for Christmas or the aunt with a cat. I also don't want to be "that's my aunt who lives in Brazil and we never see". I guess I am not trying to be selfish and make this birth about me. But as the saying goes, "So, enough about me, what do you think about me?". I am kidding, really. This is a huge event in our family. A new member to have to buy gifts for. Nah, it's a landmark event. He could possibly act like me a bit or even look like me. The thought! My sister commented on the phone the other day that he made a face like me. I asked her if he was rolling his eyes. I can't wait to meet him. He looks thoroughly thrilled to meet me....

I think I am the last person to create a "blog"

I always have struggled with ADD, but self-diagnosed of course. I would sit down to create some masterpieces for my soon-to-be-blog since that's what everyone was doing. I quickly realized that maybe people didn't want to log on to read my bullshit or anecdotes about my "wonderful" life.

About a week ago, I decided to say fuck it and share my tid-bits/ideas/randomness with people and if no one reads it, well, then I can say to myself "wow, you are brilliant, you should do talk radio".

So, here's a go. This may only last a week (reverse psychology) but what the hell.