I've never really considered myself a lucky person. Sure, every once in a while I'll be fortunate enough to accidentally get an extra hamburger thrown in with my fast food order, somehow jump into the most quickly moving checkout line at the grocery store, occasionally win a little radio contest. But, overall, I suppose I'm no luckier than the next gal.
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Like many of today’s proud, hard-working Americans, I marvel at the immense courage displayed by the oppressed foreigners who risk everything - sometimes even their lives - when leaving their respective homelands to plant new roots in this great land of ours. In my opinion, their resilience and bravery alone make them worthy of joining us in populating The Land of the Free.
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Like many people, my life has not exactly been a bowl of cherries. From childhood family problems to my own marital difficulties, from my teenaged struggle to find meaning in my existence to my recent financial woes, it seems like every day of my life has offered little more than a 24-hour struggle to avoid complete mental breakdown.

Through it all, there's only been one thing I could count on - one companion that's always been at my side, one friend that's never led me astray: alcohol. Yes, for much of my life, drinking was the only thing that saw me through the tough times.
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I swear, I'm the only person I know who isn't completely screwed up in the head. My family, my friends, my coworkers - the whole lot of them act so messed up. It's so obvious that everyone except me has some serious, serious issues.

Example: my husband. I don't know how many times I've told him over the last couple of months that we need to do some redecorating to the outside of our house. I constantly remind him, "What will the neighbors think if we are not spending every free moment we have working on upgrading the appearance of our home?"
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As a perilously undernourished nine-year-old child growing up in Iraq, my tortured existence has crept along without meaning for so long that the world rarely seems to make sense anymore. The U.N. sanctions against the country I was born in have created living conditions comparable only to a flaming pit of Hell, of which there is no escape, no hope.
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I've practiced general psychology for almost 15 years, providing personal counseling for individuals and couples in need of advice and direction. Whether dealing with depression, abuse, anxiety, stress or marital problems, my clients look to me to help sort out their lives and provide solutions to their dilemmas. And after all these years, I've got to tell you, there is nothing I'd rather do. Beyond the pay and personal satisfaction I get from my practice, I simply enjoy the godlike power of being a therapist.
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Hey, you! Yes, you - the uptight suburbanite wearing the Old Navy Sweatshirt, with the immaculately landscaped lawn, two-point-three children and freshly leased 2003 SUV - what do you think of my mohawk? Shocking, isn't it? Unnerving, isn't it? You hate it don't you?

Not that I care. Frankly, it doesn't matter one way or the other to me what a pompous, politically correct, super-conservative consumer pig such as you thinks of my fashion anti-statement. In fact, the whole reason I shaved this weird stripe down the center of my head is to show all of the people like you that I don't care what anybody thinks.
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As a District Courthouse secretary, my time is very important. I have events to coordinate, phone calls to take and about a million pieces of paperwork to file. When I take the time to send an e-mail, you damn well better believe it is for a good reason - if I didn't need an immediate response, trust me, I'd send it snail mail. That's why I hit the CAPS LOCK before I type my e-mails - writing in all capital letters shows that I, and my words, are important and demand attention.
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Alright, guys, you know we've got this show coming up at the Static Club next Wednesday, and you know how our set of originals is a little short and all? I had a brilliant idea of what we should do for this show: a really cool cover song. That would be sweet-ass tight.
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Last Saturday was the first chance I've had in a long while to plant my butt in the Lay-Z-Boy recliner and sit down to a marathon of old comedy movies. As I watched, buttered and salted old-fashioned popcorn in one hand, malted Dairy Queen strawberry milkshake in the other, viewing hour after hour of such classics as The Great Outdoors and Tommy Boy, I made a sad realization: there are no good fat actors left.
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I'm no dummy.

I know how important it is to keep informed about what's going on in the world around me, to stay up on current events, to constantly be learning. Information is power. Knowledge is power. Enough said.

That's why I read everything I can get my hands on - newspapers, magazines, books, flyers, tabloids, etc. In my experience, there's no form of communication more reliable than the printed word. If information has been mass-produced in a paper format, you can be damn sure that every word of it is the God's honest truth. They wouldn't print it if it wasn't true!
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I have a message for all of you parents who, through your own negligent actions, have lost a child to a kidnapper. You know who you are and what you did. You chose to leave the sleeping infant in the stroller on the sidewalk out in front of the store after seeing a clearance special through a shop window ("It'll only take a minute!"). Or you became preoccupied at a sports game and the kid wandered off in search of the public bathroom alone, never to be seen again. I have one thing to say to this type of parent: I'm impressed - it's damn near impossible to get a kid stolen these days.
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