Crazy Thoughts When I'm Alone

When I'm alone is when I start thinking crazy things.

Thankfully I'm not alone very often (otherwise who knows what could happen) but on nights that I am, I usually forget to eat dinner and have super crazy thoughts. Maybe it's the hunger talking, or maybe it's my brain trying to process the 14 different idiotic things I see every day.

Here, in no particular order, is a short list of my crazy thoughts from tonight:

1. Tattooed grandmothers. It just hit me that my grandchildren (should I ever have any), will be among the first to witness tattooed grandmothers. Men have been getting tattooed since the dawn of time, so Grandpa with a saggy anchor on is arm is really nothing new. But grandmothers with stars on their feet? Birds on their ribcage? Flowers on their arm? A giant horse in the middle of their back?* Now that will be bizarre. I realize that in other cultures, tattoos are not a new concept. Heck, even in America tattoos are not a new concept. But the amount of tattooed grandmothers patronizing Old Country Buffet at 4:30pm for dinner will be astounding. I can promise you that.**

2. Horns honking. I live right off Lake Shore Drive and I hear horns honking all night. My office is also at a busy intersection in Skokie where it is not unusual for someone to lay on the horn for a full minute and a half (I've timed it) if the car in front doesn't take their right on red. Who invented the horn? Who decided that it would be a good idea to put something so obnoxious on something already so obnoxious?

3. Forgiveness. I read the "Dear Sugar" advice column every Thursday and today it was about forgiveness. Granted, the act that this woman was trying to forgive was far more terrible than anything I've ever had to forgive. But it taught me a lot about not letting that small dark, twisty place (the one everyone has, and don't even try to deny it) become a large, dark, black hole that consumes my happiness.

4. Reading. I LOVE to read. I just finished a book that I started yesterday (and I may have skipped dinner to read). It was the kind of book that makes you wish your commute was longer so you could read more. And now that I have my Kindle, I read constantly. Why didn't I read this much for the last 8 years of my life?

Well, I guess that's it for now. It's weird to see my random thoughts spelled out. And now that they're out for me to see, I guess they're not so random anymore.

*I really did once know a young woman with a giant horse tattooed in the middle of her back. She was one of my babysitter's friends when I was about 7. She's close to 30 now, probably with children of her own.

**I'm in no way knocking people who have tattoos. Just a random thought I had, and I really don't mean any harm by it at all.