(Chinese) New Year’s resolutions
Chinese New Year came and went on Thursday, and I didn’t post my resolutions. So here they are, and I encourage my loyal and incredible readers to hold me to them.
1. Talk less, say more.
I tend to be quiet most of the time, but when I talk, I babble. And it’s usually random and incoherent. I actually do have a good vocabulary, and I’d like to start sounding more intelligent. That, and I tend to fall silent when I’m annoyed — I’ve cut off so many people in my life by just assuming they knew why I was mad instead of telling them that they’ve burned my butter. Also, I’m not always direct (too many years of playing workplace politics is to thank for that). I’m sick of wasting words, and that stops here.
2. Get off my ass and go to the gym.
Fuck, I’m going to be paying my monthly membership fee to the evil overlords at Bally’s for another two years — might as well take advantage of it. I always felt good when I was going regularly — it’s time to get back into a shape that isn’t round or oblong. 🙂
3. Eat better. And yes, that means sticking to a diet.
Tiff had an awesome dinner party last night, complete with a various sampling of low- to no-carb foods. The food (and the company) were immensely enjoyable. Dude, all I have to say is “whole wheat pizza crust.” If Dr. Atkins weren’t already dead, he would’ve keeled over, knowing we were eating such tasty (yet minimal!) carbs.
Tiff is raving about the South Beach Diet, and I’d like to learn it. Till I do, I am going to make my refrigerator more Atkins-friendly, starting today. I had to buy groceries anyway, so I loaded up on some meats, cheeses and green veggies at Giant. And I just made a terrific shrimp salad for dinner. If I can continue eating good stuff like that, I know I won’t (really) miss the ice cream, caramel popcorn, cookies and other crap that usually serve as meals as opposed to after-meal treats.
My lifelong idea of dieting has been eating all the bad stuff in the house so that it isn’t around later on, when I actually plan to start a diet. Unfortunately, you know what that means — I buy more junk to replace the crap I already ate. 😉
In good news, I’ve been forcing myself to take Olay vitamins (the stress defense/skin improving variety). And maybe it’s just my imagination, but I’ve been handling my stress remarkably well ever since I’ve gotten into the habit of swallowing those big yellow pills every morning.
4. Write more.
At this point, I’ve already started updating some old writings. I had applied to get into a graduate poetry program more than two years ago, but I didn’t get in. That killed me in such a way that I didn’t write a poem for two years. But I started back up with it (poetry was always my way of keeping at writing, even if it wasn’t the stuff I wanted to be writing — at least it kept my brain from falling too dormant). And writing is way cheaper than going to therapy.
5. Say “no” more often.
Ask me a favor. I’ll say yes (usually) even if I’d rather masturbate with a chainsaw. (‘Cause I’m just a girl who “cain’t say no.”) When I attempt to resist, I feel like I get bullied into spending my time catering to other people (i.e., when people ask me to host parties like for, say, cosmetics companies), no matter how sweet and genuine I know they are. And then I get mad that I wasn’t able to say, “Um. Not interested. Never will be. I know you need the sales, but I need my company to stop furloughing my salary when the mood strikes.” Or that I said it but it still wasn’t a good enough excuse. (See Resolution #1.) I don’t owe anybody anything, and believe me, it’s way easier to get me to do you a favor if it’s my idea or suggestion.
But that’s not to say that I don’t enjoy lending people a hand when I really want to and they really need me — and when I CAN help without sacrificing my very vital “me” time, although I’ve gotten better at preserving that time during the last year. It’s just the approach — be courteous, be grateful and be sincere. I rarely ask favors of anyone else, but the courteous/grateful/sincere approach charms the pants off them every time. 😉
6. Stop being afraid.
No, I’m not afraid of killing bugs and spiders (or fixing shit around the house), nor do I really fear meeting a knife-wielding asylum escapee in my parking lot after midnight. But I am afraid of disappointing (at least some) people. It comes from a lifetime of being unhappy with how I look (let me tell you someday about my high school bout with anorexia, and then my subsequent don’t-give-a-shit attitude that has me tipping scales today). I think it’s this neurosis that led me to be a people-pleaser (see Resolution #5). I admit, I get into these moods where I just don’t feel like being seen in public, which leads to — you guessed it — depression eating (see Resolution # 3).
7. Stop smoking. Again.
Turning 29 again in May is my milestone. And I plan to smoke like a chimney till that time comes. 🙂 But this smoking habit has really aged me, and I simply cannot be lying about my age when my skin has been ravaged by stress and smoke in my “actual” 20s. I don’t necessarily have a burning desire to live to be 100, but if I do, I’d like to have people think, “She was 100? But she didn’t look a day over 60!” 😉