Dirty Ashtrays.

I really hate dirty ashtrays. Although I smoke, I despise the smell and yuckiness. Yuck...but I love to smoke.

It's funny how life can sometimes seem like a dirty ashtray, too. I mean, like smoking, I don't normally complain about something while I'm doing it...it's the results or the after-effect that I bitch about. I don't know if this metaphor makes any sense but...let me try and explain.

• Every year I try to make my Christmas tree look perfect and then I cry when I have to take it down.
  

• Three years ago on Thanksgiving morning, I made the best butternut squash casserole and then dropped and shattered the fucking dish while transporting it to my car.

• I spend a gorgeous sunny day mowing the lawn, bathing my dogs, washing my car, sweeping the goddamn DRIVEWAY and then it rains...while the dogs are playing outside.
  

• You finally understand and cherish what your Great-Uncle Chet has been babbling about for 15 years but he dies before you have a chance to thank him.

• (For the actors who are reading this...) You bitch and complain that you're never cast in a show. You get cast in a show. You bitch and complain all during rehearsals. The show opens. You bitch and complain about everybody in the show. The show closes. You don't have another show this year...and you bitch.
  

Maybe these aren't the best examples (and YES, I know that smoking is very, very bad - much worse than dropping a Pyrex dish...albeit filled with the best butternut squash ever.)

I don't mean "dirty ashtray" as in disappointment. I don't even mean mistakes. I'm not even very depressed about it. It's life! We know that a smoker's ashtray is going to be dirty but, when it is, we still bitch and complain about it (well, at least I do.) Maybe that's why I like smoking in my car so much...I can throw the butts out the window.

I think that's going to me by new mantra: throw the butts out the window...piss in the ocean...dance like nobody's watching...love like I've never been hurt...fart in a tornado. Really.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not saying "what you don't see can't hurt you." I'm trying to say "don't worry too much if you see it and it hurts." Am I wrong? Maybe. Does it make sense to me? Yes. Will I practice what I preach? Probably not.

I need a fucking cigarette...where's my dirty ashtray?