Get your sticky hands off my knocker

The grocery store contains two kinds of patrons: (1) Adults who are desperately trying to kill time so they don't have to go home and hide in their cave-like dark house and (2) Parents who are cruel enough to only allow their kids to trick or treat at local businesses, i.e. grocery stores.

I am one of the former.

This is a free country, right? I mean, I stood in the Vote Early line this morning and voted like a good American should. So why do I feel so guilty about not answering my door? That every single light in my house is out and I'm burning my retinas by staring at this computer screen like a loser who never gets invited to a Halloween party?

No, it's not a secret that children aren't my favorite things to collect. But I'm not evil. It's just that tonight's potential turnout on my street is unwieldy. This entire neighborhood is devoid of children except for this street.

AND let me describe one of the costumes I saw on a 10-year-old girl. I think she was supposed to be a cat? A witch? Lindsay Lohan? All I know is she was wearing those shiny skin-tight leggings and a little top. AND her parents (or some adults) were with her and her friends. . .

I remember being a tiger in a baggy homemade striped tiger suit (I loved this so much that when I got too tall for it, I cut the feeties off and continued to wear it.) I remember being a witch that had nothing to do with a leotard. A clown, even a birthday party.

Who lets their kids go out in public like this? Did the parents take a picture before leaving the house to preserve the evening? "Ok sweetie, smile at Daddy."

So, my next question is probably expected but I'm going to ask it anyway: Why do females use Halloween as an excuse to dress like frustrated sluts?

I know this girl doesn't have the best of role models and I'm not even talking about Britney Spears, blahblahblah. I'm talking about adult women who feel it's perfectly ok to go into public places as long as it's Halloween, grocery stores for instance. Itsy bitsy tight black little dress that kept its "R" rating only because it had a smiling pumpkin stitched on it, black and orange stockings held in place by black garter belts and really high black stilettos. This would normally spell "slut" to me but she was about 50, which just meant it was sad.

This is what that little girl will look like on Halloween 40 years in the future.

Which brings me back to my first point. Why is it the norm for those of us who choose not to partake in childhood diabetes issues or encourage once-a-year hooker dressing to hide like moles in utter darkness? For whatever reason. My reason is my unwillingness to part with the fun-size Three Musketeers.

I feel like I'm taking one for the team. I mean, childhood obesity is at an all time high. I'm saving the children from that ooey gooey nougat stuff that I could eat in bowl with a spoon sans chocolate.

But, like I said, it's a free country.

I should be celebrated not egged.

I'm leaving my attention span to science

Here's one for the ladies: Have you ever worried about leaving the bathroom and forgetting to pull your pants up? Not just the zipper, the whole pant.

Because I do. This is a real possibility because when I'm on the throne, I'm thinking deep thoughts. Or I'm involved in a magazine article. Or I'm so spaced out that my thoughts would read like Homer Simpson's: DoDooDeeDooo.

But my attention span is so diverted at times that post-restroom pantslessness could happen. It would take me tripping over them or walking like I'm trying on shoes at Academy where they join the shoes together with a wire the thickness of telephone lines before I had even an inkling something was wrong.

I think I would remember to pull my underwear up. (Note that I did not say the "p" word.) It's simply the pants.

I'm also avoiding checking my sent box at present. Reason being I emailed my friend Glenn asking if he is going to photograph the "sluts and dudes" on 6th Street for Halloween.

He hasn't answered me.

I think I sent it to my mom.

We're all afraid of say "I love you" to our boss as we hang up the phone. But what if you have a dream where you're in love with your boss? (I can't believe I'm talking about this. This is how certain I am that like 10 people read this blog.) And what was really gnarly was he was this gross, abusive a-hole. I swear I drank caffeine nonstop for a week just so I didn't fall asleep.

Then there's the time when my skirt hitched up past my right arse cheek in rush hour Chicago. I really thought I looked hot because 400 guys passed me with huge smiles on their faces. Not until three blocks later did a WOMAN, of course, tell me what was up, so to speak.

There's always the emailing someone and spilling your heart out at 3am. On Ambien. I woke up early the next morning lazily at first then with the force of the space shuttle when I vaguely thought I remembered but was making vows to God about faithful churchgoing that I didn't do what I did.

And this is why I avoid sent boxes. Some things should just remain a mystery.

Just released - monthly anorexia!

My name is Tamirra and I am a magazine-aholic. I can't stop. Oh sure, I thought I had it licked when I canceled subscriptions to magazines that make no sense to my life - Real Simple, a probable favorite of the local white suburban mommie set, and Domino, which would make sense if I had the money/inclination to redo my house in retro-50s pieces. The furniture being about $2000 removed from actual 50s prices.

But despite having complaints about "women's" magazines, I keep subscribing to them. It's for this reason, much to my mailman's horror, that I continue to receive Sears catalog sized InStyle.

It's easier than keeping your credit card on file with ITunes. You just click the Bill Me Later button and *poof* here comes some self-confidence sucking literature that probably takes an hour to flip through.

I try to be selective. I figured since I am an athlete, I should subscribe to magazines about how to work my pectorals and get "killer abs." Oh, and wear cute little shorts and put my hair in a ponytail on top of my head.

1. When I see women like this at the gym, it makes me want to tear the scrunchie from the top of their blonde heads and preach to them about giving their souls to the anorexic Establishment.

2. My hair is pretty short and I've seen bald men with thicker hair. I've tried making a ponytail. It would take a bottle of Aqua Net and 20 bobby pins to get it to stay there.

Another reason I subscribe to "healthy" magazines is because of their tips about good food for athletes to eat. But in reality when I see a story about dark chocolate actually being a "benefit for my bod" with a picture of chick who can't weigh more than 95 pounds wearing a huge laser whitened smile, the article loses a lot of its credibility.

Not only is the model wearing lipstick while she eats her Hersheys, she holds it right up to but not actually in her mouth. It just hovers in the oral vicinity, like a chocolate carrot before a horse. Seriously? The closest chocolate has gotten to this woman's mouth has been when she stoops over the toilet to barf up dinner.

If these subscriptions are beneficial to me in any way, I'll believe men read Playboy for the articles.

Botox on my shoulders makes me happy

Well, mostly.

Eating a bowl of cereal has become the weirdest thing ever. Because most of my shoulder and neck muscles have been 'Toxed, when I try to eat with the bowl propped on my lap (I avoid tables at all costs) it feels like my head is going to drop into my bowl in a narcoleptic way.

It's like those dreams where your muscles won't work and you don't know why. And then you get sad because they don't work any longer. Or maybe it's just my dreams. (I take Ambien, which not only makes you unknowingly purchase items online/bid on random shit on Ebay/eat an entire box of Wheat Thins, makes you have the strangest dreams. It's like LSD for non drug users.)

So most of the muscle pain is gone but in an odd way. It's like non-pain. But there's still a little hold-out. One little bit of muscle that is insisting it wants Botox just like its friends and will keep me from getting on my bike until it gets it. Like an actress who won't come out of her trailer until, well, until she gets Botox.

I'm just curious, in the event I can ever get in the pool, what my stroke is going to look like. Am I going to flop my arms forward like I have no skeleton? This actually buys me an excuse from ever learning breast stroke.

But getting my tattoo dragon back piece worked on was a breeze. In two hours, Michael got more done than we have in two months because of my wooziness. And I wasn't thinking he was the devil holding an buzzing instrument containing 2000 extra-sharp needles. Now, you're not hearing this from me but using muscle relaxants other than the purpose for which they were intended also helps. A lot. A lot a lot.

I'm trying

to figure out how to do this. . .

This is your brain on drugs

blubbbbb. . .not sure how to make the noise of a tongue lolling out of mouth. . .

Sore back. Muscle relaxant.

The only reason I'm putting anything in here is because I got my coolass new camera and I want to post a picture.

I finally made the jump from film to digital. I mean, I've got the little tiny Coolpix but I get the feeling if I showed up to an event for which I was hired as a photographer and I whip that out. . .

Anyway, this is a picture of the corgi of my dreams, Clementine. This was shot at 1/8000 of a second (she's chasing water from a hose - note the little white streaks. No they're not dust. They're my camera being bitchin'.)

More to follow as I'm currently taking pictures of just about everything.

Well THAT was disappointing

Yesterday was supposed to be a two hour bike ride. My back is supposed to be better.

So how can two hours turn into 15 minutes? Fifteen minutes spent wondering "Does it or doesn't it? Is that pain or muscle weakness? Do I really want to screw up a lifetime more of training from this one bike ride?"

Do I feel like a wimp? Yes. Am I second-guessing myself? Yes. Did I sit around for the rest of the day having a Pity Party? You bet.

I managed to pull it together for the editor of Southwest Cycling News (a wonderful, literate cyclist whom I'm looking forward to writing for). But when I went to visit my friend Michael (also the Tattoo King of the World - check out his link listed below), I was busy trying to sound cheerful and like not a thing was wrong.

You know how this usually goes. High pitched voice, nervous laughter obnoxious enough to annoy anyone within 10 feet of you, diarrhea of subject matter coming unedited out of your mouth, blah blah blah.

Oh, well. I'll see him Sunday while I'm under the influence of muscle relaxants for further work on my beautiful dragon on my back. At least my speech will have slowed and I'll probably be in a coma so he can get lots of work done.

One huge point of note and enough to pretty much turn my day around: My new camera is here!! Oh, it's delicious. This is my first foray into professional digital photography. Yes, my faithful fossilized Nikon is being put out to pasture. He and my Dad's wonderful Nikon will live their days out in harmony.

Unless I throw my hands up in frustration with the three 400-page instruction manuals necessary to just set the thing up and revert to my old celluloid ways.

I realize if I am to be marketable, I need to go digital. But if you ask any fossil who, like people who refuse to leave their houses despite the onslaught of a hurricane, are stuck in the days of photo processing and the unadulterated pleasure of losing oneself for hours in a darkroom, we are NERVOUS.

I feel like Mom in front of her computer, slowly picking my way across the keyboard hunting and pecking, reading the entire screen to make a simple decision. It will be a painful (and freakin' expensive) transition but I'm looking forward to the new wrinkles in my brain.