Christmas is nearly here and as a result all of my holiday spirit evaporates by the time my car hits the open road, because Christmas seems to drive my fellow man to forget everything he or she ever learned about driving. I am trying to let it go because it’s Christmas and we’re all equally in a hurry to get to the Target before Twilight  and Hello Kitty Island Adventure are sold out, but it’s difficult. My road rage sustains me. It is my outlet for all other raging. You know what happens when people drive well? I learn all the lyrics to Kreayshawn’s “Gucci Gucci”. Don’t contribute to my husband’s scorn, continue to drive like idiots. It’s for the best.

I got the swag and it’s pumpin’ out my ovaries

I would rather do cartwheels

handsprings

triple toe loops and

quadruple axels

down a stretch of old asphalt

in the Arizona desert

in a bikini with

no sunscreen on this amazing

blindingly white

sun-resistant

Irish-Scottish-German-Cherokee-Sioux-Iroquois

already sunburned skin

in the scorching heat of

Mid-July

with no source of water nearby

with crowds of people watching

as the asphalt gives way to sharp gravel

and I end my

ill-advised gymnastic extravaganza

with a triple backflip-somersault-twist

and land in the splits

than clean one more thing in this house today.

I have no defense here. I am not timely. I haven’t prioritized sharing my offline presence with my online presence. If we’re being honest – and I try to be because frankly a good portion of my life contains events that couldn’t be made up even if I wanted them to be – I internalize a lot of my crap because I like to sit on it and hug it tight and love it forever before I break up with it and post it on the internet. Thus, last post, 2009. 

In a lot of ways I feel like my relationship with online blogging is unhealthy. I mean, if you were dating a person who kept promising they’d be better and then constantly did not, and in fact, did worse, I suspect you’d be out the door. Then they’d beg you to take them back and you’d give them another chance and they just do it again and again. 

So, I’m sorry, Internet. I won’t tell you I’ll do better. I can only tell you that I’ll try. 

Meanwhile, I really, really need to bitch about traffic. I am a restive person. I rarely get upset. I like to save my negative energy for anxiety and rage-fueled rants on the world wide webs. But for the LOVE of GOD I cannot COPE with people who INTERRUPT THE FLOW OF MERGE TRAFFIC. Can I talk to you about this, persons reading this who have clearly hit the bottom of the internet? Because the way I understand it – maybe I’m wrong, but I doubt it - when two lanes merge into one and it is not an on/off ramp, it goes one car, next car, one car, next car, right? A simple 1-1-1-1 pattern? Yet there are assholes in the world who seem to think they have accomplished some event in their life that gives them the privelege of DOING IT WRONG. Are you that person, the one that sees a lane closed sign and drives all the way to the very last possible cone before turning your blinker on, passing any number of available merge spots in your pursuit to get to the top of the list, like you’re some kind of cheetah in pursuit of dinner? Except there’s no actual dinner here to pursue and instead you’ve just pissed off 8 other drivers because you pulled a dick move. Don’t be that person. Be a friend. Take an open spot. 

Don’t be the person who tries to squeeze in to a spot where a vehicle has already let another car in front of them, either. That guy has done his part. It is your job as the merger to remember the pattern, one car, next car. If you speed up to get in front of that guy, you’re being a dick. Don’t be a dick. Brake and try the car behind him. If that car won’t let you in, that car is being a dick. 

What I’m saying here is, respect the flow of traffic. It is designed to get you there as quickly and safely as possible. And who knows, you may do it to me and it may be my moment to snap and then I will follow you home and send you a really sternly-worded letter about personal responsibility, and you do not want that.

Truly, my lack of discipline is embarrassing and I promise you I am appropriately ashamed of myself.

I’m curious about the scorn people seem to have for ‘bloggers’ right now. Oh, I’m sure it’s always been there, but it seems to be the soup du jour. Not all people who blog are pompous pricks, though I will admit that I almost said ‘I find myself curious’ which is like a guaranteed ticket to douchebaggery. Anyway, I want to blame it on Myspace because Rupert Murdoch owns it and because I’m harboring blanket hate for teenagers today, but I can’t even do that because I genuinely don’t understand what’s wrong with people writing. Good, bad, about Sarah Jessica Parker’s missing mole or Barack Obama getting rid of nukes, it’s still an intellectual pursuit at heart and I can’t help but think that can’t be anything but a positive thing. Especially for those Myspace teenagers.

As parents – as a nation – we are so focused on the physical health and fitness of the upcoming generations that I am a little nervous we aren’t focusing enough on their tiny little developing brains. Being athletic and eating your veggies is important and all, but to me it seems like being a little overweight would be preferable to being an idiot. I’m not talking about just uneducated, because you can be plenty smart without a degree or diploma, I’m talking dumb as a stack of bricks because no one could be bothered to instill the importance of knowledge in between playdates and soccer practice.

I’m overreacting and I know it, and I know that when I was 15 I had stupid conversations and did stupid things, but I was pursuing experience because I knew experience begets knowledge and knowledge is the secret to world domination. That’s definitely one secret I’ll share with my kid.