new years resolutions

View from the porch

By EVE MARX

It’s that time of year when people normally make New Year’s resolutions. Over the years, I’ve made some doozies, including vowing to drink less caffeine and consume less chocolate (failure), swearing to use the elliptical equipment at the gym (instead I quit my membership), and vacuum less frequently, this last after an Electrolux home service repair man told me he’d never encountered a more heavily used machine, a comment I found to be somewhat humiliating and a negative judgment. What was he saying? That I was a clean freak?

I wish I were the kind of person who could say with a straight face that my resolves for 2012 were of a noble nature, like that I would do more volunteering. Sad to say, when it comes to organizations in general, I’m just not that much of a joiner. I couldn’t even handle being in a book group, for Heaven’s sake. I was a candy striper in a nursing home for geriatrics for about six months when I was a kid, and that cured me, I think, of overestimating my abilities. I did love working in the prison, but then again, I was doing it for pay; even so, the first time I got stuck in what was the beginning of a lock-down, it was scary/freaky. I think my first resolution for 2012 should just be to stay out of jail. What’s the old saying? “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.” That’s a good place to begin.

Here’s what I hope is a brief list of my other resolutions. Go ahead and make your own. It’s a fun thing.

My first resolve is to keep my glasses on my face. I’m terrible about wearing glasses when I don’t have to and I have to most of the time. The fact is, I’m blind as a bat now, and, to boot, extremely light sensitive. So if you see me somewhere wearing shades in the shade, it’s not just because I am doing an impersonation of Stevie Wonder or playing secret agent. Although I do like that punk rock look of sunglasses at night. Goes with my stormtrooper boots and leather jacket.

I resolve to never, ever, get another pet except from a shelter or animal rescue. This is not a call to arms that I want or need more pets. With two dogs, a cat, and a horse to feed, exercise, groom and board, I don’t need more animals. I’m already a borderline hoarder.

I firmly resolve after this orgy of holiday eating that has been going on nonstop for the past six weeks, to stop eating. Or at least eat less. As I get older, it seems that every morsel or sip that passes my lips now counts in terms of calories. No more, “Oh, it’s just a meringue,” or jokes about barfing it up. It took me years to get over the fact there is no such thing as a low calorie avocado. Also my metabolism, despite lots of exercise, apparently has taken a nosedive in the past couple of years. Which means I’m back to the Happiness Is “you can never be too thin or too rich” lifestyle theory, although I do think if you are very rich you should do your best to spread your wealth around and not just by buying gifts or helping out your rich friends.

I resolve to wean myself off Facebook. It’s a bad, bad, additive habit. I’m on it a dozen times a day. I cannot say strongly enough that while Facebook is terribly entertaining, it’s also keeping me from doing other things. Like cleaning the bathrooms or dusting. I’m not going to pretend I’ll be giving it up entirely (after all, why bite your own nose off to spite your face?), but, speaking honestly, this is probably the resolution that won’t even last a week.

I will begin to entertain the option of a Smartphone. The main reason I’ve stuck with my razor phone all these years is that it easily fits into the slim, not very deep pocket of my riding pants. I also like that my phone has no keyboard which discourages texting and its outmodedness means that it cuts down on more time I’d be spending in front of a screen, surfing my phone on the internet. But now friend of my son who is a champ phone salesman at Radio Shack has offered to help me with my Verizon. So I’m thinking about it. A Smartphone may be headed my way. I have to enter the 21^st century someday, don’t I? Don’t I?

Last but not least, my very wise son told me the day after Christmas when we were discussing resolutions that he makes the same one every year. “Don’t die,” is his resolution. Makes sense to me.

Happy New Year!