Thursday, December 28, 2006

High Resolution

I don't make New Year's Resolutions. I stopped after my friend Tim told me why he didn't do it any more either. We like to think we are in a perpetual state of self-improvement and don't need one stupid holiday to remind us that we are always a work in progress. I was 19, hot for Tim and thought, "that's a philosophy I can dig." So I stopped making resolutions.


What I do instead is make reminders, and rank them, of what I want to focus on improving in my life. This looks like a good place to put those reminders. Until I blog so much they get shoved down to the bottom and off the screen and I don't have to look at them anymore.


1. Wear lipstick. I keep forgetting to put this on in the morning. I look much better when I wear it.


2. Get haircut regularly or PinkyNicole will nag me incessantly. She will nag me anyway, but she will find something other than my hair about which to nag. Nagging is one of her favorite hobbies.


3. Read more challenging, elegantly written, complexly plotted books so I do not sound like a complete biblio-bimbo when I talk to Princess about what I have been reading. I do not suffer boredom in my books easily and am grateful I am not on the Notable Books committee.


4. Two cookies. ONLY two. Not a handful with a glass of milk! TWO!


5. Get new glasses. Because I need something I might actually accomplish on this list.


6. Write more zany postcards to family and friends. I am going to bring back snail mail one stamp at a time! Besides, isn't a loopy postcard better than a "Have you seen my child?" flyer or the gas bill?


7. Get back into yoga and tap dancing. I need something to keep me from turning into a wizened and brittle basket case. Banging your feet on the floor and breathing through your left nostril are very therapeutic.


8. Call my sisters more often. I forget how much I laugh when I'm on the phone with them.


9. Stop saying "fucker." Especially loudly in public when the bus blows right by. It's nobody else's business that I was too lazy to get to the stop on time. And when I say "fucker" on a street corner in downtown Kansas City, that's what I'm saying.


10. Read other sections of the New York Times besides Arts, Style, the crossword, Ethicist, On Language (fucker!) (oops, sorry), End Paper, Funny Pages (hell the whole damn magazine) and Week in Review.