A Halloween Story

I am ??-years-old and I have never been trick or treating. Never. How sad is that? I also have never had a trick or treater knock at my door. Never. The former is because of where and when I grew up (there was no such thing as trick or treating in England when I was a kid) and the latter I guess because I have never lived in a suburban house in America, I’ve always lived in urban apartment complexes. I’ve always had candy on hand just in case (kind of - after the first year I learned not to stock candy I like!).

So I had to think hard to come up with my favorite Halloween memory to share with you. No surprise, really, that it was during my last couple years in Boulder, because, it seems, most of my fondest memories are from that period (as this post will attest). It was a Saturday and I think for once it was actually Halloween. It was the inaugural appearance of my spice girl/spice rack costume which has had many incarnations since and the usual suspects were there (you know who you are). We started at the Grove, followed, of course, by a stop at the Cellar. I was flirting with one of the guys who was on the peripheral of our group but who, for some reason, seemed especially cute that night (it was the conversation about Proust that got me, I think). Someone else decided, however, to be a major cock-blocker and so nothing came of it (not that night anyway; we did eventually hook up). Then somehow we ended up at an outside party in east Boulder. Outside. In Colorado. In the depths of winter. I truly do not think I have ever been so cold. How we got there I cannot remember, but I know we had difficulties getting home. A cab was eventually called and because I was the last stop I ended up paying the majority of the fare. Plus I left my trick or treat bucket there, which had a condom, a few fun-size candy bars, and a bunch of left-over pool game quarters in it. And the next day I woke up with a cold. But I had the time of my life; it has, so far, been the best Halloween ever and I wouldn’t change a thing about that night (well, I would have liked to have used the condom, but no biggie).

Happy Halloween

Because I Am Obviously Not Doing It For You…

Once again, I am so sorry I am so boring. Seriously, I took another chunk of time off last week (only 23 more hours left to use up!) and I literally did nothing (well, I ate. And drank. But that is all I seem to do lately anyway). So I’m thinking, if I cannot entertain you, perhaps someone else can. One of the earliest posts on this blog was about other blogs I read. I’ve since dropped one of those, thankfully, because it was about a friend’s husband’s battles with cancer and he is now cancer-free (yay!), but I have added some more:

Nigel (such an English name! Really, I have never met an American Nigel) was my first professional editor, while I was still in high school and he worked on the local evening newspaper. I still cringe when I think of the silly school-girl crush I had on him but thankfully he has forgiven me my youthful  infatuation, and we have become friends over the years and the continents.

Wendy and I have a lot in common, not the least of which is our late mutual friend Adam, whom we both befriended back in our Boulder days. Unfortunately, it took Adam’s suicide a few years ago to bring us closer together and we finally met for the first time last year when she visited Las Vegas.

Patty is my friend for many, many reasons, one being that she is the ONLY person I know who watches more television than I do. She watches so much, in fact, she has a blog about it.

This Is One List I Will Never Make

Most of you know how obsessed I am with lists and that at times I can barely function without them. But I do not have a bucket list because I think keeping a bucket list is a pretentious thing to do and you all know how much I hate pretention. Just because you have a bucket list does not mean you will achieve anything on it. And having cool things on your list does not make you cool.

And ask yourself this: what happens if you die suddenly and then someone finds your bucket list and there is a ton of stuff on it that you never got around to doing – how sad is that? People would think you died unfulfilled and how embarrassing is that? “Ah, poor old Colin, he wanted to run with the bulls in Spain but the closest he got was being kicked in the balls during a soccer match.” Or, “Check this out – Helen wanted to cross off ‘Go to Paris’ from her bucket list but all she managed to do was cross off ‘Midnight In Paris’ from her Netflix list.” 

When I die there will be a lot of things I haven’t done that I would have liked to, but no one is going to know about it.

But I think, really, it just comes down to my jealousy, pure and simple. Because, unlike Helen, I can cross off “Go to Paris” from my list, but I cannot cross off “Have someone list me as their emergency contact on an official form”; I can cross off “Attend a professional tennis game at Wimbledon’s Center Court” but I cannot cross off “Have someone call me before they go to sleep because mine is the last voice they want to hear.” You know, those little, everyday things that normal people (i.e., not fat lonely losers) take for granted.

The Citizenship Chronicles, #13

Had a dream last night that I failed the interview part of the process. I walked into the interviewer’s office and before I could even sit down, he told me that I was not going to pass and I might as well leave already. When I asked what he meant, he said it was because I was too fat and that America had too many fat people as it is and that if they let me stay, it would be just adding to the fat statistics.

What if there is a grain of truth to this dream? What if the interviewer is a fatist and he won’t let me stay? I’ll have to buy two airplane tickets to get my huge arse back to England.