A man in Colorado called the police on a woman he invited over to his house for a date when his girlfriend came home early.  Now I don’t condone cheating but didn’t this idiot have a friend whose apartment he could use for a few hours.  And how did he think calling the police would make things better.   Calling the police is right up there with calling his mom and asking her to come over and help him out. This guy is officially tied with tiger Woods for world’s dumbest cheater.  But as much of an idiot as I think this guy is I also think that this poor soul was probably just another casualty of believing what rappers rhyme about in their music.  He’s probably the guy that rides around with 50 cents P.I.M.P or Ludacris’s Ho’s in different area code blaring out of his prius and thinks he’s a playa because he download a couple of songs from iTunes. Or at least I hope this is the case.

 It’s always a little scary when you decide to take the plunge and follow your heart.  I have decided to study being a writer and I am doing it full time and I want to learn as much as I can about the craft.  This decision has led me to pursue bachelors in writing.  The ability to write is something I have always had but now I want to study how to become better at it.  I must say that so far I love it.  I’ll let you know if I feel that same after writing a play for my portfolio.  I enjoy being in classes with people who share my same passion for writing.  I like reading other people interpretations on the world around them.   As I was looking through my syllabus I noticed that I am going to have to write in styles that I usually avoid.  This concerns me a little because I avoid those styles for a reason.  My goal is that this opens up a world of possibilities for me in my writing career.            

One of my favorite commercials right now is the Allstate commercial where the guy is hanging off the side of a SUV mimicking a blind spot.  While the guy is hanging off the side of the vehicle delivering his monolog on auto insurance and car crashes at the bottom of the screen it says do not attempt.  Really do not attempt, I don’t know what’s worse the fact that the disclaimer is there or the fact that if it wasn’t there some idiot would try it and almost die if not die and then the idiot or his family would sue for millions and properly win.  Why because no one told him not to do it.  It seems like the more advance we become as a society the dumber we become in the common sense department basic inferences about life and day to day living seem to be escaping us.  My almond cookie lotion actually says not intended for internal use on the side of the jar.  My philosophy if you have to be told not to ingest or inset lotion into you body you don’t deserve lotion, you deserve to be ashy.

It’s 2011 almost 2012 and we still have signs up in bathrooms that read employees must wash hands and at gas stations that read don’t smoke while pumping gas.  I have no doubt that one-day we’ll become technologically advanced beyond our wildest imagination but need signs up that say when breathing you must inhale first and exhale second.  Because if we don’t someone will sue, because no one told them to exhale after inhaling and they passed out.

Halloween is tied with Christmas for favorite holiday in my book.  I love the costumes, the haunted houses, the marathon of horror movies that are on television, etc.  My house looks like the inside of a b-horror movie during this time of year.  My kids have gown up with bloody handprints on the wall, a six-foot butler that talks, a shower curtain that had a psycho theme and a host of other horrific creatures that move and talk.   Along with decking the house out for Halloween my husband and I dress up every year, this year I’m evil Alice form Malice in Wonderland and he is the dark Mad Hatter.  It’s a little sad to know that my fourteen year old has aged out of being able to celebrate the holiday because in our area the age limit is twelve or thirteen.  But I still pass out candy to children of all ages.  It’s a holiday that I go over board with as an adult because I wasn’t allowed to celebrate it as a child. (Due to the whole razor blades in the apples urban myth.)

But what makes me sad is the way people have missed construed the holiday and turned into something demonic and evil all because of miss information that has been passed down from generation to generation.  It originated as a Celtic holiday called Samhain. It was mean to celebrate the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter.  Then it became know as “All Hallow’s Eve” which is the day before “All Saints Day” which is a catholic holiday that was started by Pope Gregory III to celebrate all saints and martyrs.  

I know a few people who treat Halloween as a taboo holiday that should never be celebrated.  About a year before moving to Illinois I lost a friendship behind my love of Halloween and even worse my daughter was no longer slowed to play with her daughter.  She even went so far as to knock on my door and tell me that my family was going to hell because we celebrated Halloween. (If celebrating Halloween is the one-way ticket to hell, it’s going to be shoulder to shoulder there) When I tried to convince her that we weren’t doing anything wrong and that even if she didn’t celebrate it our daughters could still be friends she quickly produced this piece of paper that was littered with miss quoted bible verses, verses that had been taken out of context or altered by the author to support anti Halloween theories and her justification for severing all ties.  No matter how many untruths I pointed out in the author’s work she wouldn’t listen to any of my points even though I had listened to all of hers.  My point is that it was never a demonic holiday, satan’s birthday, satan’s day or anything like that.  I don’t understand how such wild accusations about a simple holiday become solidified as truth especially when the history of the holiday is so well documented.  

I thought it was cool and beautiful that Apple Stores closed during the memorial for Steve Jobs so that the employees could watch it.   In a day and ages where companies are trying to sell as many units as possible it was nice to see people pause for a moment.  But it also started me thinking, when Anna Nicole Smith and Michael Jackson died television programs were interrupted, there were countless gone too soon news reports, countless interviews and other live reports.  There were doctors on television giving their expert opinions,people questioning how could this happen. Funerals were televised programs were sold.  (Which I still feel was in poor taste)  As a nation we did everything but stop time for them.  When Steve Jobs died there wasn’t the same fan fare.  There are no gone too soon reports no doctors on television giving their expert opinion on the cancer that took his life.  As a nation were shocked and moved to tears when two drug addicts over dose but not when a visionary dies.  One of my husband’s co-workers even asked what was the big deal.  Well lets see the big deal is he is one of the main people if not the main person responsible for why we have personal computers in our homes and computers on every desk in the work place.  He is the creator of the ipod which allows you to download the music of a drug addict that was brought up on child sex abuse charges twice and carry it with you where ever you go.  Without him celebrities wouldn’t be able to have their sex tapes “leaked” without their knowledge and viewed on countless desk tops and lap tops.  My lap top weights ounces instead of pounds and our ipads allow us to read books, watch movies, play games,update our face book and leave our laptops at home.  And don’t get me started on the iphone, my data usage proves that I use it for everything but making phone calls.  It bothers me that we live in a society that say what’s the big deal when a visionary dies, and pays homage to our the village idiots and train wrecks and worships them like gods. But more importantly what scares the hell out of me is that we have a generation of kids that would rather grow up to be the next Pauly D or Snooki than the next Steve Jobs.  They would rather be the idiotic shock and awe on cover of Star magazine than the visionary that quietly changes the world.  

I have officially crossed over to the dark side today.  I am no long a PC I am a Mac.  So between the iphone. ipod, ipad, and now the air pro apple officially owns my a$$. I’m pretty sure someone from Apple will be knocking on my door in a few days
to collect my first born as finial payment. The surprising thing is that I don’t have the dirty feeling that I
thought I would have crossing over. LOL What finally pushed me over the edge was being on the phone at 12:30 in the morning with tech support guy that was located across the ocean and having the guy on the phone tell me that he was mispronouncing his words I just didn’t understand how the words are said correctly.  This is not I repeat not something you say to someone who hard drive has just committed suicide and didn’t bother to give any
warning signs before doing so.  I wish I could say that was my only bad experience with a PC and tech support but I can’t.  I have also had the pleasure of dealing with those people who drive around in the black and white beetle (you know the ones) and it was just was nerve racking.  I took my oldest laptop in to these people and explained in a clear manner, using my
inside voice and pronounced all of my words correctly what problem was.  Three weeks later and seventy dollars lighter
they repeated back to me the same thing I told them and they also made no attempt to put together a plan to fix the problem.  It’s because of these people in the black and white beetle that I believe a b!tch slap should not only be legal in this
situation but applauded.   Violence may not have been the answer but it would have made me feel better.  So bye bye PC hello Mac

I
did something today that I never thought I would do in a million years I ran my
first 10k and finished in a respectable one hour and five minutes.   And despite the blister on my foot I feel
great, and it was all worth it.  There
was a level of energy in the air at the start of the race that is indescribable.  There is something very inspiring and
humbling being passed by someone who is much older than you.   I found running across the finish line to
have almost a euphoric feel.  It was a
feeling that normally I only get from buying shoes and handbags.  Today taught me that one should always try to
siege every opportunity to step out of one’s comfort zone and trying something
they have never tried before.  And with
fingers crossed I’ll be back in my six inch heels by Tuesday.

My husband and I were in a restaurant recently and we got on
the subject of people feeling that they are entitled to certain things in life whether
they earn them or not especially when it comes to things such as job promotions
or material things such as designed clothing, luxury cars, etc.  In the process of going back and forth and
stating our reasons why the problem exist.
I made the point that the reason
why people feel that way is because we have become a society that hands out
awards for everything and we are constantly patting people on the back for doing
what they are supposed to do in life.
And it starts in kindergarten with kids are given a happy face sticker
just because they showed up and sat in there seat.  Our youngest son is always asking for a
reward when he gets an A and when I explain to him that the reward is the A he
always states back that he needs something for getting the A.  He feels this way because from preschool to
now fifth grade he has attended school with the kids whose parents that
demanded that all the kids get a reward even if they fail the test they get a
reward.  Because without the happy face
sticker next to the F they earned little Billy or Brenda might become Ted
Bundy.  I’m going to go out on a limb
here and say that it takes more than a happy face sticker to stop someone from
becoming the next serial killer.

Last year three of our kids had a
middle school academic awards program which lasted over three hours and there
were more awards given out of nonacademic that academic because they didn’t
want the kids who weren’t getting an academic award t feel left out.   Are you serious why even call it an academic
award ceremony just call it “the everyone gets something ceremony.”   That ceremony was almost as bad as the
graduation ceremony our 8^th grader had.  Yes a graduation ceremony for 8^th
grade complete with cap and gown and not one but two valedictorians.
I also believe that this
obsessive need to get what we haven’t really earned or being patted on the back
for just being is why we have adults who moved back home after college to “find
themselves.”  Or never move out at all because
they’re saving up for the down payment on a house or car or to pay for a wedding
and can’t save and pay rent.