Project Blog It: Treat

I haven't blogged in two months, and when I read this week's prompt, I first started thinking about treat in relation to "trick" and as something fun and unexpected. No original thoughts here, but treats can have a dark side, or at least fail to live up to expectation to some degree.

I continue to slowly but surely whittle my physical being down ever smaller and in that pursuit much of what I used to treat myself with is now verboten. A brownie is no longer a treat, but a morass of temptation that will not only add to my ass but would take over an hour on the treadmill to burn off. Not so much a treat anymore.

I treated myself to a massage last week, and had conjured the image of a large and strapping Swedish man or woman prepared to remind my beat-up body that it isn't all about pain. It was a treat, but the experience was less than what I'd imagined as the masseuse was a nerdy guy named "Stuart" or something like that, and was about 5'7" and 110 pounds.

When in California last month, I treated an old friend of mine to a birthday dinner. It was wonderful to see him, but for the first 15-20 minutes together he was still glued to his Blackberry and headset. When we kissed each other goodbye--I felt as much sense of melancholy and potential loss as I did "treated."

I'm dying to treat myself to a new car, a new laptop and a trip to Dallas in January to cheer on Shmonkey in the marathon, but I must first treat myself to replacing a cracked crown, which will be less than a car, but more than a plane ticket. But then again, my Mastercard company just treated me to a bigger credit limit.

It is a treat to now offically live in a blue state, but that's really only on paper. Had there been anything anti-gay equality related on the Colorado ballot as in other states, it would've passed here too. (Although, the proposed constituational amendment that would've given a fertilized egg the same legal status as a born person went down in flames, which was surprising). It is a treat to know Sarah Palin has taken her happy ass back to Alaska, but you know we haven't seen the last of her. Trick or treat indeed.