i’m skatin’ by this morning…short on words…feel like i used ’em up yesterday in a verbose rant about “balance” or something unattainable like that (i’m sure i’ll find a few more lying around…i always keep a stash). meanwhile, i’ve noticed a certain season of testiness settling upon me. irritants that i can normally laugh at with a patronizing, yoda-like affect now crawl under my skin and supplant my usual optimistic outlook and relative tolerance for stupidity with grumbling admonishments akin to my father swallowing curse words and muttering “commie” as he stomped out of a room protesting all that pinko news in the 80s…and again in the aughts.

i don’t even like to use the word stupid (stupidity being an obviously better choice). i didn’t realize how crappy a word it truly is until it began to fly from my 2.5 year-old’s mouth as an insult. as an insult, uttered in frustration and impatience, it’s a word that has haunted my ego and tempered my id all the days of my life. i’m trying hard to change my relationship with that word and explain to my daughter that there is just no reason to call a person stupid…especially your family or yourself or a whole class of people or ideologies.

now i have to live it, even on the roads of the DC metro, with littlebean all quiet and sponge-like in the back seat and the christmas shoppers only just now starting to filter into the usual rush hour highway accidents and gridlock. Lord help us through the silly season…she doesn’t need to realize yet the fierceness of the holiday spirit in her homeland.

until this mood passes, i must needs to put the blinders on early, develop my seasonal “la la la i can’t hear you” refrain, stop reading election bumper stickers…at least the ones that piss me off at a completely irrational level, cause cursing, and a temptation to shout the word stupid in myriad contexts. sometimes that temptation is just too great. i’ve not stopped my relapses completely yet…maybe i’ll use the ol’ white knuckle coin system, even if i’m not ready to dedicate a whole 12 steps to my success.

until this mood passes, it would help if i stopped checking the nationality of poor drivers, taking the less spectacular performances of my GPS lady personally or bitching like an involuntary martyr at nearly universal electronics and customer service issues. i will continue to root for my AL team in the World Series and do a better job blocking the fact that they are from texas. (everything is bigger in texas, and leading that list are our egos). they would be a first time winner…always cool, unless you are an expansion team who was added to the slate after my birth in 1972. i’m not sure how long it takes for a post-natal expansion team to gain credibility with me. i will let you know the first time it happens…the first time i think of the colorado rockies as a real team or tampa as more than a spring training site. and let’s face it, those fly-by-night florida marlins and arizona diamondbacks are an embarrassment to the World Series Title club…season winners or not. (does that seem like a harsh assessment?)  maybe the secret number is 30 years since i forget that the mariners and toronto were new in 1977. or maybe it’s because i was only five in 1977.

the points are, trish has got to brace herself, or start the regular meditation practice i threaten all the time, or drop some of the passion, or flee to an ashram (or the caribbean) and find all that gratitude i usually push out into the Universe to keep my own karma rolling with a smile. let’s do it – NO MOSS, NO MOSS, NO MO…oh, come ON! forty-five on the beltway? you flippin’ mossmobile…MOVE it!

how many animosity-building days til christmas?