Five Reasons Why Laurie Notaro Loves Phoenix (and More from This Week's Resolution Guide)

3. Flash floods: 
Frankly, I don't see anything wrong with thinning out the herd every now and then, and if that means that another new arrival to the Valley gets swept away in his Lincoln Continental with New Jersey plates, I'm just not going to get sad about it, even though I'm probably related to them. Listen, if you really think you can charge through an I-17 underpass that's rising with water so fast you can see it, go ahead. It's a mirage! Except it's visible to everyone else, too, when Channel 3 interrupts programming so that 4 million people can watch you be lifted to safety in a basket like a black bear that just got shot with a tranquilizer after eating trash in some lady's backyard.

P.S.: You just might have been able to swim over to the bike rack at the Waffle House if you hadn't been wearing so much gold.

2. Fake boobs: 
Oh, Kierland Commons, I think you should rename your main street "Resty Lane," because, clearly, you are the mall of New Faces. It's the mecca of unveiling, because you are the first place Scottsdale ladies premi re themselves after the bandages come off. The last time I was there, I was the only one who had more water in my ankles than everyone else had in their boobs.And, really, isn't that just a favor to humanity? I didn't think so until a state full of old hippies like Oregon showed me just how bewbies turn into pendulums if you don't support them for upwards of 40 years or if you nurse your child until they have boobs themselves (both boys and girls). So, thank you, augmented breasts, for having your nipples in the right spot if we are forced to see them through tiny tank tops and not allowing them to become tucked under. Don't imagine it. Don't. Just go to Kierland, get a spot under the misters and thank your stars that the only time Scottsdale breasts graze the knees is in yoga class.

courtesy of Laurie Notaro

​1. My old house in the Coronado neighborhood.
I miss the abundance of cat shit in the yard from the feline farm across the street, the ghetto bird that could turn my backyard into day with a police search light, the sounds of gunshots from happy gang-bangers, and the homeless arsonist who almost burned my house down. 

I miss the assholes that will swipe potted plants from your front porch on Mother's Day, the neighbors who stole the sound system from Desert Sky Pavilion for a weekend barbecue, and the hooker who left condoms on the top of my block wall. I miss the halfway house around the corner and its occupants who would kick a dead tree in your yard to the ground for five dollars, and the tweakers who would go door-to-door asking for a contribution to pay for their daughter's casket. I miss the transvestite cooking bacon on a grill in Coronado Park at six in the morning, the parolees sitting on a picnic bench making fun of my little dog while she was taking a shit, and how I had to tell parents that on Halloween, the candy was just for the kids. 

I really don't miss any of those things, I just miss having a new story every day. For some reason, when I tell any of those things to my current neighbors in our quiet neighborhood in a city when I have not once seen a helicopter, let alone a ghetto bird, I have a feeling they simply don't believe me.