THE NEW YEAR'S ASS KICKING FROM YOURS TRULY

I can safely say that in the twenty seven years of my life I have never, even once stuck to my New Year’s resolutions. At least not the whole lot of them. One year I did stick to one of them and lost a lot of weight and ended up 109 pounds of bony chin and clavicles (so unattractive) and another year I did finally learn how to drive (yeah I was 25 when I finally did it but the point is I got it done). Those are the two things I’ve stuck to. I haven’t ridden my $450.00 bicycle each weekend as I promised myself I would last year. I didn’t stick to my vegetarian diet (I did last 9 months, so yay me!) I didn’t learn how to play piano, or guitar, violin. I didn’t take ballroom dancing lessons and I didn’t try to learn Japanese or French.

I am a quitter, I must say. It is so extremely difficult for me to stick to stuff I don’t readily enjoy. I enjoy riding my bicycle but I enjoy more staying in bed and reading novels. I do love animals enough to become a vegetarian but it takes so damn long to cook meatless dinners! I would love to learn to do the quickstep and I’ve always dreamed of playing the piano. But I fear that the piano might take too long to learn and I don’t have the dough to spend on dancing lessons.

Nevertheless I am determined. This year is the year of the new me. No more half assed attempts, no more no-can-do, no more excuses. No more rationalizations. If I want to learn how to play the piano then I won’t get myself the $120.00 pair of shoes but the $30.00 option instead (Eeek) I guess I could stop spending $60.00 on haircuts…sigh. I guess I can stick to my guns. I will see results. As God as my witness I won’t be lazy anymore!! … I’ll try my best to not be lazy anymore! ... I’ll make an honest attempt to not be too lazy I'll make an effort!! (Oh God, I can’t even commit on paper!)

No, I will not give in, damn it! Next year is the year. Next year I will:

• Write no matter what or how badly every single day.
• Show Dear Husband how much we love him.
• Take Zoey for longer walks.
• Finish the immigration paperwork.
• Become a vegetarian…or pesco-vegetarian since I am not giving up sushi (I don’t care how much PETA wants to call fish the kitties of the sea) and don’t quit just because of the holidays.
• Go bicycling with BT each weekend and exercise most days because she is getting married and I can’t let her down with her very important goal of losing 20 pounds before the wedding.
• Use the Rosetta Stone to learn French at least 4 times a week.
• Use my yet to be paid treadmill at least 3 times a week.
• Be a nicer person (I always miserably fail with that one)
• Volunteer at animal shelter (yes, sometimes they kill the animals, but stop being a pussy!)
• Learn to play piano or guitar or both.
• Try to be nicer, be diplomatic, not to hang up on, don’t murder tolerate dad.
• Stop being such a smug, superior and snobby know-it-all.
• Read less and practice hobbies that involve other people aside from me.
• Get a hold of viper tongue.

Like Julie, from the movie I saw Saturday, I think I should set myself some timeframe. Since I don’t have A.D.D. as an excuse reason to not finish anything then it should be easier for me. I should have finished at least 2 of the 3 books I’m working on. I should at least know how to play some songs in the Piano by July. I should at least know how to say “I need the bathroom and can I have more beer” in French by April and I should have lost at least 15 pounds by July with my new pesco-vegetarian diet and exercise.

So prepare yourself 2010! Come hail or high water, no matter how much my comfy blankets reel me in. No matter how much I want to eat a piece of meat, no matter how lazy I feel or how pissed off I am I vow I will get up and bike, I will not lay down for 6 hours straight and hole up with a book (too often), I will not eat cute cows, pretty piggies or charming chickens! I will be active, I will, if it kills me, swallow the meanness and be nice.

So help me God.

JUST WRITE

Oh what a night. We, Dear Husband, sister and I, after a delicious (and expensive) dinner at an amazing restaurant called Leila’s went home to watch Julie and Julia. What a better way to end an amazing night but to enjoy the always breathtaking Meryl Streep.

Now I do not know about cooking, and as much as I hate to admit I don’t know much about blogging but I couldn’t help but relate to Julie Powell (played by Amy Adams) and her frustration with her professional life, her inability to escape a job she utterly hates, her fear of failure and her brimming hope that the big break was around the corner. Hope is scary shit.

As the movie went along I was so incredibly moved by both Julie and Julia’s dream come true of publishing, we hear in the end the many editors leaving offers and phone numbers in Julie’s answering machine and see the letter from the publishing house that after several years, continents and effort Julia received.

I could only imagine how that would feel and as I sighed and tear up a little at seeing MY dream come true in someone else’s life on TV, Dear Husband smiled at me and squeezed my hand letting me know that he thought that could be me.

Little did I know that an encouraging conversation about my future career as a writer could turn into an argument where he was fighting for one thing and I was about another! We spent ten minutes yelling at each other (ok, me yelling and he trying to speak on top of my yelling) just to discover minutes later than the only reason why we couldn’t agree was because I was fighting over one thing and he over another. We both said “oops” agreed that next time we should agree at least on what exactly we are fighting about before we start fighting and collapsed in a fit of laughter in bed.

The conversation pretty much started with Dear Husband trying to say that I could be a published writer if I put my mind into it and that if he wanted to be published he could. What he meant by that was that without writing abilities his drive alone would get him published because he would allow nothing, absolutely nothing get in the way of being published if that was indeed his dream. When he said it, it sounded to me as if he was saying that if he wanted to be writer he could. Regardless of the fact that he doesn’t write and he is totally left brained and his inclination are more mathematical. What I heard was that he, just by deciding to be one, could be a writer as simple as that and that if he wanted to he could outline a story and write whatever he wanted to write about.

Now, the subject of will and want is always been a touchy issue in our household since Dear Husband is a firm believer on “The Secret” and that anyone can do whatever they put their mind into and I am more of a pragmatic school of thought. To me it felt incredibly insulting that he felt that whatever ability God gave me to express myself, my thoughts and stories through the written word was meaningless when paired against the will of men. That whatever talent I have as a writer could be challenged by whomever person came along and simply decided to be a writer.

After we went through comparisons where Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Mike Piazza, Degas, Monet, Picasso, Beethoven, Bach, Nora Roberts, J.K. Rawlings and others were used as examples of abilities, talent and hard work, we got to the bottom of his point which was that talent alone is not going to get me anywhere if I don’t have the guts to go after it. And that some talentless fool out there may get what I want simply because they wanted it more than me. Because they fought for it, because they were fearless, because they let nothing, absolutely nothing get in the way of what they wanted.

I have to want it. Nothing is going to happen unless I make it happen.

Julie and Julia went after their dreams with an unstoppable determination. They fought against society, geography, lazy co-workers, and unsupportive parents and in Julie’s case crippling fear of failure.

Hope is indeed scary, it brings forth all sorts of dreams and feelings, plans and possibilities but I am going to embrace it damn it because nobody wants it more than I do.

You’ll see.

AWESOME CHRISTMAS!!

Oh the many things to be thankful for, family, friends, music, food, alcohol, alka-seltzer and extra strength Tylenol.

I woke up this morning and I am 27 years old today, almost 30 and lucky that I am alive, healthy and surrounded by the many people in my life that love me and enrich my existence. I usually hate my birthdays, it makes me uncomfortable cutting the cake with people looking at me and I usually just want to spend it in bed and ignore the fact that each year I get older and that soon there’ll be gray hairs and menopause, wrinkles and brittle bones. Agh!

Today it was different, today I woke up happy. I was happy because I had so many presents to open and the $300 worth of gift cards gives me this almost manic and giddy feeling because of the serious shopping I have to do in the near future, but more than anything I woke up happy because even though Dear Husband was in the bathroom spewing wine, beer and whiskey and even though my head was pounding and even though Zoey was waking me up way too early, even though the house was a mess of wrapping paper and tape I was happy that the place smelled like pine, and that everybody loved their gifts and that today I will celebrate another year that I am alive.

Today my dear friend Dick proposed to his lovely girlfriend BT and that is just one more reason to love this day.

Let’s think today about those much less fortunate than us, those who are poor, afflicted by disease or simply those who have many blessings and choose not to see them. We are so incredibly lucky to be alive and well and I hope I never forget it.

Merry Christmas to all!