Rats! I knew I forgot something on New Years Eve (besides forgetting that when climbing on furniture around people with cameras, one should seriously consider the length of their dress). It's the eleventh of January and I didn't make any resolutions. It should be known that while I've always made resolutions, I've never successfully kept a single one longer than a few months (read: days that feel like months). Of course, I usually make really lofty attempts at self-improvement, like becoming more versed in current events, being more involved in the political process, or limiting my alcohol intake to the low end of the "problem drinker" category. Maybe '08 should be the year I just get real.
Still, '07 was chockfull of life lessons and it would be silly to go into the New Year without making a few personal tweaks. But since resolutions haven't really worked in the past, this year I'm calling it "Dumb Crap I Won't Be Doing In Aught Eight".
Encouraging People to Write on Me in Permanent Marker
Perhaps it's because I've made it to my 26th year without any tattoos and only a few piercings, but every time I'm drinking and there is a Sharpie within twenty feet, I need to be defaced. This is the token passed-out girl's worst nightmare, and here I am handing markers to people and telling them to go to town. Whether it's a few letters on the knuckles, an anchor tattoo, and most recently, having party guests sign a massive bruise (to take attention away from it, natch), my body has been a canvas for more than enough impromptu artistic expression (if you call sloppily-penned phrases like "I LUV PEEN" artistic expression). Nope, I choose not to reduce myself to having to bathe with pumice soap every other Sunday in '08.
Shopping at Abercrombie and Fitch
Besides piping so much of their signature fragrances through the ventilation system that I have to browse for sweaters while dry-heaving, I get glares from the employees like I'm a childless, 45 year-old-man in Chuck E. Cheez, wearing nothing but a trench coat filled with Tootsie Roll Pops and Golden Retriever puppies. Maybe it's because I'm ten years their senior, or maybe it's because they know I'm going to make them retrieve pants in a size that they've shelved fifteen-feet in the air, where they keep clothes that fit those we do not speak of (read: anything above a size 4).
Watching Nip/Tuck
Okay, this one's going to be a toughie, but I think I've allowed this show to rot away enough of my soul for one lifetime. Contrary to popular belief, the Writers Strike started about two seasons ago but apparently only the Nip/Tuck writing staff actually left their positions. FX had them quickly replaced with a mix of sexual deviants, out-of-work prop comics, crayon-wielding kindergartners and Andy Dick (who in a way represents the culmination of all of these groups, I suppose). The result? Story lines involving midgets performing oral favors in Santa's workshop. Meth-addicted scientologists turning tricks for drug money. A menage-a-trois with the devil. And
Giving Restaurants Too Much Credit
Over the holidays, I woke up hungover at my friend's place with a serious gravy craving. And we're talking about savory, brown gravy--nothing perverted. Fortunately, by the time we got to Denny's it was after eleven and I could order off of the lunch menu (to my dismay, brown gravy hasn't made it into a breakfast entree yet...but believe me, I am working on it). So while the others were opting for your typical Dennys fare, I was searching for the perfect vehicle for my brown gravy. And since I didn't want my gravy delivered atop a "hearty mushroom chopped steak," my only other option was Denny's Slow Cooked Pot Roast. Of course when I ordered it, my friends immediately began to mock me. I didn't care, though--I'd have the last laugh when they were eating soggy sandwiches or Moons Over My Hammy and I was enjoying a delicious pot roast, covered in "velvety brown gravy." Then they brought out my pot roast. Oh. My. God. This meat had been slow-cooked in a way that prison wine is slow-vinted in a toilet tank: just sitting for weeks in the dark and fermenting. When I finally worked up the nerve to chew on a piece of it, I realized that it tasted like baby tears and Purina. What was I thinking?! As my friends belittled me, I gingerly scraped some brown gravy off of the saddest pile of instant mashed potatoes you could imagine and licked my fork. That was pretty much all I could eat. Forty minutes after we had left Dennys, it was clear that my body was rejecting the piece of pot roast, along with everything else I had eaten in the last 72 hours. So in 2008, I plan to exercise my best judgement at restaurants instead of being blinded by gravy lust.
All in all, I'm being pretty ambitious. Still, if I could go a few months without having to go about my day stricken with food poisoning and covered in Sharpie graffiti, I think it could be a pretty good year. Or at least a less stupid year.
Happy 2008!
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