ball dropping

Good thing for the day - I've found yet one more reason to go to Belgium - "But just occasionally, when he would make the cauliflower curry of the devil, a collective sigh would go around the table and we would find ourselves secretly thinking 'the barrister would not make us a vegan dinner with no pudding. He would take us to Chez Gérard for steak frites'. Of course, the barrister would not have helped me squeeze the guinea pig's abcess either. But we were notoriously ungrateful." If you follow that link, make sure you scroll down to the one about the tortoise and his enormous penis. Seriously.

********

I hate New Year's Eve. It's a deceitful, tricky day that lulls you into believing that with a single tick of a clock, you can start over and fix your problems. Lose weight, stop smoking, drink more water, get out of debt, be nicer to your family, stop stealing nuts from the bulk bins, learn to bake bread, learn to speak Russian, stop crying at long distance commercials, realize that life-long dream, figure out your life-long dream in the first goddamn place.

It's bullshit. It's just another day. Resolutions are for the delusional. In a matter of weeks, you'll be right back where you were, eating too much cheese, drinking diet coke, smoking a pack a day, penniless, rude, cursing in Russian (because, really, curse words are the only thing anybody wants to learn in another language - that and how to order a beer), crying in front of crap TV and still stuck in the same dead-end job you've had for the past 10 years.

New Year's Eve is for chumps.

That being said - I have a list of things I'd like to do/change in 2009.* I? Am a chump.

I'll only give you a sampling because some of them are private (due to a high EQ (embarrassment quotient)) and because do you really want to read a 99-item long list of things I want to do in the new year? No, you do not, trust me. And no, "stop stealing nuts from the bulk bins" doesn't show up because I don't do that in the first place. I take extra samples from the cheese tray, and I hit up the sample people at Sam's multiple times with no intention of ever buying that package of pre-cooked wings. Haha!!

Behold!

5 Hook up DVD player (yes, we've lived in this apartment for 4 months and have not hooked up the DVD player - shut up)
6 Hook up VCR (continue shutting up)

8 Organize pictures (hahhahhahhaa)

10 Plant an herb garden (and try not to kill it this year)
11 Paint my terra cotta pots so the herb garden looks all cool
12 Purge underwear drawer ("purge" and "underwear" should never go in the same sentence, should they? My apologies.)

16 Make one project off that list in your head titled "stupid stuff nobody will like" because who cares if they like it?

21 Ask doctor about lump on knee (again with the shutting up)

25 Dig out sewing machine and make something (look for lots of festive tote bags)
26 Eat breakfast!
27 Eat more fruit (one piece a day!!)
28 Eat more protein (I could live off pasta and vegetables if left to my own devices)

31 finish that fucking clapotis (3 years! 3 motherfucking years!! That bitch is going DOWN!)

34 fix my hair like a real grown up, instead of relying on a ponytail at the age of 37

42 Intarsia (what is it? How do I do it? Is it contagious?)

45 knit a pair of socks (I have a feeling by the end of the pair, I'll start a movement to criminalize socks, but it seems like something I should tackle at least once)

47 Learn the Q with no U scrabble words
48 Learn to crochet (This is mostly for my mom. I make no guarantees I'll like it.)

68 Stop smoking (This is my year! I can feel it! chump chump chump)

70 Take more pictures
71 Take my mom out for coffee (Hi mom!)
72 Wake up on time
73 Watch the news (seriously, I'm like an ostrich)

77 Write in journal (shoot for 2x/week)

83 for the love of God, buy some new bras

I suppose I should be nicer about New Year's Eve. The idea of closing the lid on the shoe box marked "2008" and setting it up high on the closet shelf is kind of appealing. I'll give 2009 a chance - it's 365 more days to try to figure out what the hell I'm doing, I suppose.

You guys have a happy, safe New Year's Eve. I'm going to spend mine with a cute boy, a couch and some beer.


*The (sadly) now defunct Disgruntled Housewife** had fantastic annual lists and the number of items corresponded to the year - 99 in 1999, 107 in 2007, etc. I tried to follow the same format, but I'm either frighteningly lazy (did I say you could talk yet??) or unimaginative because if I try to push the list out to 109 items it will include things like "#105 - grow hair", "#106 - continue breathing through either mouth or nose" and "#107 - continue to chew food before swallowing." However, the thought of ending a list for 2009 on any number not ending with a 9 leaves me deeply unsettled, so here I am with 99 items and a nagging feeling that I am just a little bit crazy.

**Nikol moved to Kansas (Kansas!!) and opened up this incredibly cool knitting workshop/artist's retreat thing and I want to be her girlfriend, but she's all busy being creative and fabulous. Hmph. If anybody wants to buy me one of her calendars, I'll take really good care of it.