HAPPY NEW YEAR
How to Make New Year’s Resolutions That Can’t Fail!
So much winning
“What are your New Years’ resolutions?” Perky people in yoga pants yell to me from across the street.
I don’t know how they find me. Those Lululemonesses force me, against all my better self-preservation, to make a New Years’ Resolution list.
They hover at the corner until I am finished writing it out.
“I have time to wait,” they say, downward dogging with goats on their backs.
Everything on your New Year’s resolution list is something you previously failed to accomplish.
I’m not trying to gaslight you — New Year's Resolutions do that all by themselves.
They’re the mean girl of goal setting. The secret asshole who pretends to like you but gives you the finger when no one else is looking.
You will not lose twenty pounds.
You will not stop ordering takeout.
You will not read more.
You will not make Xmas cards.
You will not stop going on dates with people who make you go to rodeos dressed like Faith Hill.
New Year's resolutions awake those turdy voices in your head you thought you’d murdered in therapy.
They send me into an existential spiral that even Jean-Paul Sarte thinks is a little over the top. Sartre died in 1980, but he hitched a ride with Jesus on Christmas just to tell me I was being dramatic. J-P S actually said, “You are your own hell. You don’t even need other people.”
That sent me into such a state, I fell asleep and had one of those Ghosts of Christmas Past Dreams — which was great because I woke up with a solution to my malaise.
Make a resolution list that can’t fail!
- Binge-watch everything — leave no show unbinged.
- Wake up at 3 a.m. and check Facebook — to see if anyone liked anything I posted. Fall asleep with my face stuck to my phone.
- Buy pre-made Trader Joe’s salads in non-recyclable plastic containers. Admit to myself I don’t love massaging kale but keep telling other people I love massaging kale.
- Have a snack at 1:30 in the morning —not water, an apple, or chamomile tea. Fill a coffee cup with ice cream and whipped cream because all my bowls are dirty.
- Wash my dishes two days after I ate on them — or just before company comes over.
- Don’t invite company over.
- Interrupt people when I am overly excited — or when I feel it is my turn to talk because my story is better than theirs.
- Judge people who look like they’re doing life better than me. I don’t care if they’re an astronaut. If they’re winning, find their flaw and tell everyone.
- Forget to moisturize except when someone asks me if I am wearing a mud mask because my skin is so dry.
- Floss when something is painfully jabbed in my crown, but not before. Use a key to remove the food.
- Shop on Amazon when I am too tired to walk to Walgreens which is around the corner.
See? “So much winning.”
11. Appropriate quotes from ex-Presidents and repurpose them. Hey, at least I am recycling.
12. Don’t do anything I failed at last year.
Happy New Year and Good Luck!
Thanks to T. Kent Jones for editing and for not suggesting any meaningful new years’ resolutions which I would inevitably fail to accomplish.
