They Say You Want a Resolution

January 1

The day when everyone sits down and writes a list of all the things they want to change about themselves. The old standards like "lose weight" or "save more money" or "get a new job." Same old, same old. Granted, I did pretty well with my resolutions from last year. Although I still have no money and on occasion drink like Karen Allen in "Raiders of the Lost Ark." I've written down some real and serious resolutions for 2010, which I'm keeping to myself so that I won't be judged by you people when I inevitably screw them up. But I will share some of my more realistic resolutions with you.

In 2010, I, Suzanne Stanley of Lansdale, Pennsylvania (for the time being) hereby resolve:

1. To care less about what people think about me. Unless of course it’s something negative in which case it’s all I’ll be able to think about.

2. To try to surrender to sleep. My husband complains that I feed my insomnia by preparing for it when I go to bed, so I resolve to stop doing this. That means no taking my reading glasses, ear phones, iPod, cell phone, magazines and glass of water to bed at night. Instead I’ll just lie there when I shoot up at 4 a.m. in a panic. Just lie there and sigh loudly. Maybe toss and turn a bit. Get up and use the bathroom a couple of times even though I really don’t have to go, which will of course make the dog bark. Then go back to bed and toss around for a while more until I’m sleepy....hang on a minute….my husband was reading over my shoulder and just said I’m allowed to take all the aforementioned contraband to bed after all.

3. To open bills as soon as they arrive. I’m not promising to be able to do anything with them, but I’ll open them just for fun.

4. To swear less in print. Or to at least use creative punctuation when I need to emphasize a £u¢k!n9 point.

5. To stop buying conditioner every time I buy shampoo. I’m the only one who uses it. This is why we have enough conditioner in the house to last through the next three years. I may even give a few bottles of it away to a friend of mine. For some reason her teenage sons go through an excessive amount during their exceptionally long showers even though they have crewcuts. Puzzling.

6. To try and be less frustrated with stupid people. You know the ones I’m talking about. The people who don’t pay attention to the road because they’re putting on makeup using the rear-view mirror; the idiots in restaurants who talk so loudly on their cell phones that you learn every detail of their life from their child’s last BM to their husband’s worsening erectile dysfunction; the jackass in front of you at the McDonald’s drive-thru who acts like he has no idea what they serve, asks what exactly goes on a quarter-pounder and if the fish fillet’s are fresh or frozen (Clue: the meat in any sandwich with an -o- in the middle of its name came fr-o-zen).

7. To be more subtle when trying to sway you toward things I really really enjoy. Things like horror movies, exotic food, and the music of Gavin Heaney, aka Latch Key Kid, who will be performing an all-ages show at The Mint in Los Angeles on Saturday, Jan. 23rd at 9 p.m. What? That was subtle! I didn’t even give you his websites! www.latchkeykid.org or www.myspace.com/latchkeykid1

8. To not let my mind go straight for the dirty if a story or joke can be taken two ways. OK...I promise to not let you know that my mind went straight for the dirty. My mind does what it does.

9. To have more sex. Yes, with my husband. Although if he’d just loosen up a little bit…

10. To correct my husband less. He recently said that I correct his stories, punchlines and grammar too often when I should instead just sit, listen and let things slide by. This is indeed not the case, and I pointed that out to him.

11. To blog more frequently, and try not to take it personally when people read it yet never bother to leave a comment at the bottom. I mean, how else would I know what people really think about me?

Oh shit…there goes resolution #1. And #4! Dear, do you want to go upstairs?