Oh boy. '06. Holds a lot of promise, or at the very least the need to pay attention when I'm paying bills. Lemme practice now... 200-6. 2-Thousand- SIX. Two-Thousand-SIX. 2006. Oh yeah, it's flowing now...

So after yet another Slacker Christmas, where I could barely pull it together at all, I've had a somewhat profound realization about the great tradition of New Year's Resolutions. I've decided it's the Yang to the Yin of the holidays.

It's like this: Halloween, buy tons of candy, eat tons of candy. Watch Halloween specials on TV... Thanksgiving, buy tons of food, cook tons of food, eat tons of food and then watch lots of dishes (the one blight on an otherwise entirely tasty holiday)... and then there's Christmas. The Queen Mother of OverDoing it. You make the cookies and eat them. You buy stuff for people- charge it, please- carefully at first, monitoring the ads and scooping up great savings! along the way. Then the calendar gets loaded up with x's and you get into the gift-giving panic and suddenly you're in the stores, tearing down the aisles just throwing anything into the cart and being willing to pay whatever it takes to get it home and check one more 'to do' off your list.

So you overeat, overspend, overstress and suddenly it's all behind you and you find yourself sitting in a house with a wilted tree and piles of new things you're going to have to put away... And the dust bunnies are threatening to take over and the sink is so full of dishes that they're spilling over onto the counter. And suddenly you are hit with the desire and the need to just CUT IT OUT. No more overeating, shopping, slothing, stressing. Nope, I think I'll turn over a new leaf. I'll naw on some carrots, cook up some healthy soup, do some yoga, maybe walk around the block. And I'll stop spending (oh, wait- is that a clearance sale??? Well, maybe I can just cut back). And you look on your new New Yorker Dogs Calendar and -hey, look at that!- it's a new month and a new year!! Coincidence? Or part of some grand plan???

That's my thinking...