new year's resolutions

in my head right now, there is a big band playing some grandiose theme music and I am wearing a ridiculously sparkly red dress, some gaudy junior-prom-like jewelry, long white gloves, and red lipstick. I have perfected the take-my-picture smile and the princess-wave. I am confident, laughing slightly, and blushing just enough to make you wonder what I'm thinking. as I waltz across the stage of your mind, envelope in hand, you cannot resist "ooh"-ing and "ahh"-ing at my shiny-ness, anticipating what is, I'm sure, the most important announcement of your year thus far - my new year's resolutions, my "master plan v. k27"!

oh, how I love being self-entertaining!

so, without further ridiculousness, the list:

• take classes - yoga, climbing, art, swimming, whatever. just get out of the house and learn something.
• write more - my current nervous habit is to stand in the kitchen and find something to do, like eat chips and salsa or rearrange glasses in the cupboard or water the plants. my new nervous habit needs to be that I sit down and pound out the things that are bothering me. writing is my favorite therapy, and let's face it, it'll probably be more entertaining for you!
• focus on fry - I got him because I needed unconditional love and wanted to give it in return. I think I've done an okay job as his mom so far, but I think I can do much better when he finally returns to st louis.
• listen to less sad-bastard music - though it has its place and time, I'm easily depressed enough as it is, why do I need the help of music?
• see three doctors - for my heart, because my blood pressure/flutter are out of whack and scaring me a little; for my teeth, because I haven't in a while; for my intestines, because I need to be sure. okay, maybe a fourth. for my head.
• remember my own self and be true to that self - I tend to sway in situations. I tend to let certain currents take me or commit me to things I don't necessarily mean. usually it's small things in conversations, for sake of not arguing or just agreeing. but sometimes it's big things... and then those snowball... and then I'm unhappy. which leads me to...
• communicate better - to reference one of my favorite wilco songs, "handshake drugs": it's okay for you to say/what you want from me/I believe that's the only/way for me to be/exactly what you want me to be. I think the reason I like this song so much is because it's ridiculously true: the only way I can understand anyone, the only way anyone can understand anyone else - and thereby cultivate good relationships - is by saying exactly what they mean. there must be tact involved, surely, but clear, honest, and sincere communication has proven to be the best thing in my life so far this new year, and I bet it will continue to be as long as I allow it.
• allow money to rule part of my life - the part that calms down when I've paid all my bills on time and have a positive bank balance. but only that part.
• practice better consumerism - speaking of money, I spend too much of it entirely too frivolously on things I don't need or sometimes even want. I ripped an opinion article out of a magazine in the WF breakroom one day on this woman's crusade to buy things second-hand at all costs and re-read it whenever I'm nervously standing in the kitchen. I have come to believe that she was right: it's so easy to run down to target to get whatever I need right now; but it feels so much better to randomly find the coolest glasses ever from my childhood at value village, and have inside jokes about them for years to come.
• stop intentionally eating things I'm allergic to - I have food allergies. everyone in my life knows this. (as I recently told nick, "most people are weird, but they don't have to tell everyone about it all the time.") considerate people in my life take this into account when we go out, for which I often feel guilty. the problem here is that I sometimes disregard these health- and life-threatening factors. sometimes I order something and just eat around the peppers. sometimes I eat a cherry hershey's kiss because I want some chocolate and it's the only thing in a 20-foot radius. sometimes I find myself with a bag of something that "may contain sunflower/safflower oil" in my hand, thinking the worst that could happen is that I end up in the hospital, I think... but I have some benadryl somewhere, so I'll probably be okay. and this is completely unhealthy; it's self-harming and even mildy suicidal. I know what can kill me, and I must choose to avoid it, to live. this requires creativity, and remembering that there are things I can eat... and that in order to keep eating those things I can eat, I have to fully and truthfully avoid the things I can't. and I must face whatever it is that is really bothering me, really causing my laziness or desire for anaphylaxis, instead of stuffing it full of deadly proteins.

there you have it, folks: the sincerities of me in one convenient list. some of these will prove to be easier, more measurable than others. and some I will just have to track myself. but if I'm anything like the person I was last year, all of them will be accomplished with a freshly-brushed smile.