Happy New Year

Let’s break this down into the bare bones, shall we? It’s the end of the decade, you’ve already seen Lists and LISTS up and down the wazoo. Everyone has an opinion, tra la la la. A new decade is dangling over our heads, just there,  and the Internet will not let you forget it. Not today.

I’m not a fan of New Year’s Eve. It makes me a little sad to begin with (especially this year, so far away from my nearest and dearest, who are together from various places. Without me. Who is currently at work. And that’s the very last time I will complain about it) and I dislike any occasion where there’s so much expectation tied to having A Great Time (Thanks to Copious Amounts of Alcohol). Great times, as we all know, are rarely planned affairs (so is a really good drunk. It’s best when it comes on you, a happy by-product of a good time and not the other way around). Holidays like Halloween, New Year’s Eve and St. Patrick’s Day just seem to be begging for disappointment. And a killer headache in the morning.

I do like resolutions though. I’m a fan of R-E-S-O-L-V-E in general, the challenge of it, the inherent hopefulness of it. You might hear me complaining about all the obnoxious tartlets out and about tonight but I’ll never shake my head in disgust over Resolutions. I heart declarative statements.

Courtesy of Notebook Doodles

[And, just for the record, I kept one of mine from last year! No soda (with the exception of ginger ale, strictly for medicinal purposes, and for Jack and Ginger’s- because they’re DELICIOUS and soothe your stomach as you drown it with whiskey. Pure genius. I have a policy of embracing things that are pure genius) has passed my lips between January 1, 2009 and right this very second. One year since I’ve had a Diet Coke (technically, it was a Jack and Coke). If you’ve ever had a Diet Coke, you just wiped a tear of pride from your eye.]

So, lift a glass, cross your eyes and say a little prayer for me. The 2010 Resolutions:

I. To make myself more financially secure. Which means I’ll most likely move to a cheaper apartment and get a weekend job. I’d like to thank all of my friends who are getting married next year, every single one of them a destination wedding (“Recession? Not on MY wedding day!”), which has pushed me to do this- something I probably should’ve done years ago anyway.

II. To not complain about something more than once. Making the statement “never complain again” seems impossible. But if I could pare it down to just ONE complaint and then let it go? I think we’re on to something. (See Resolution I. You will not see me complaining about how much money I have to spend next year, not again.)

III. Go to the doctor. There are various things that I should be screening, testing, watching etc. and I just have not done any of them. This is not the way for a 28 year old to behave. And I might as well do it this year, before health care is absconded altogether and we have to start getting flu shots in back alleys, trading loaves of bread for bottles of cough syrup.

IV. To email each and every one of the bloggers I read faithfully every day and thank them for all their hard work and how much it means to me. I’m not big on leaving comments, preferring to keep my thoughts to myself and stay out of the bog, and the by-product of that is being a silent admirer. And if you’re going to admire, dammit, do it loudly. We all need to hear it, more often than we’d like to admit.

To 2010! Have a wonderful time tonight, even if it’s just you and that bottle of cough syrup. (And pray for Cones, who is crammed on a sleeper train in India tonight, ringing in the New Year with, likely, someone else’s elbow in her ear).