Resolve, and thou art free.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
New Year’s resolutions, that is. I thought I’d go ahead and share mine as well. As if you care. There are only a couple; I know myself, and any more than that would overwhelm me.
1. Become more informed. The primaries are upon us, and I don’t have any idea, beyond the bare bones, what any of the candidates stand for. I read Express (the condensed version of the Washington Post given out free to Metro commuters) from cover to cover every morning, I get the NY Times headlines emailed to me every day (and I read probably 50% of the stories), plus I read the Yahoo headlines and numerous blogs (what do you mean, none of them are news blogs?), and I still feel like I don’t understand what’s going on in the world. Maybe my brain is broken, but it’s like I’m reading the information and it’s not staying in my head. I live in the center of the political world, and I am hopelessly out of touch. But I can tell you what Britney’s latest legal trouble is, so there’s that.
2. Get back on track, weight-wise. I haven’t talked about it, maybe at all, here, but I’ve been on Weight Watchers for nearly 20 months now. I’ve lost 60 pounds, which is great, and I’m thrilled, but I have a long way to go (30-40 more pounds), and I’ve not lost anything since September (in that go up one week, down a couple weeks, back up a couple the next week, kind of way). I am so not one of those people who whines that I’m working the program perfectly and it just isn’t happening. No: I’ve kind of gone off the rails, and I take full responsibility for that. It’s time to get my head back in the game, because WW does work, but you can’t fool the program. Or the scale.
3. Get more involved. I do nothing. Nothing. I get up, go to work, come home, sometimes go to the gym (in my complex, so I don’t even have to drive), make and eat dinner, watch some TV, travel the information superhighway, read a little, and go to bed. Wash, rinse, repeat. The weekends are marginally better because I accomplish more (read: clean my apartment, go grocery shopping, and cook lunches for the week), but they are largely the same. If I don’t go down to Richmond or have someone from Richmond come here, I don’t do anything. It turns out that my “work friends” are just that: friends at work. Which sucks, but it is what it is. One person I thought would be more than that (not the same one from early November – a boy – but not a boyfriend, just a boy friend) is apparently tired of me.
So, now I have to make my own fun. This goes along with that “I swore my life would be different when I moved here” thing I talked about early on. I want to meet people. I don’t know how I forgot about church (I’m Unitarian), but I never even thought to look one up when I moved here. I’m going to do it. And I joined the local bar association when I passed the bar in October, and god knows they send me enough crap about getting involved, so I want to try to do that, especially volunteer work.
Thinking about the effort it will take makes me tired, and I’m tempted to say I don’t have enough time, but: wash, rinse, repeat. Thinking about having to talk to people I don’t know at all makes me kind of nauseous, and I’d rather stay home and watch TV, writers’ strike or not (you guys, they’re bringing back American Gladiators – how freaking awesome is that??), but you get the life you make for yourself, right?
4. Go on a date. I don’t know if that’s so much a resolution as it is a hope, but here’s where I’ll do my part: if I meet someone I’m attracted to, I will ask him out. If someone asks me out, I will say yes, even if I think there’s no way in hell we’ll hit it off, under the heading of “Hey, you never know.” Unless it’s, like, one of the homeless guys who hang out at the top of the escalator at my Metro stop in the city or something. Give me a break: he can’t buy me dinner (don’t worry, I’ve got my room in hell all picked out.).
So there you go. My new year in four easy steps. How about you – what’s your big resolution?
Now, I think I heard something about some political brouhaha in Iowa tonight? (I’m kidding, I promise. I know it’s Idaho.)
Hear Me in the Harmony 