01.03.2005 - 2:17 p.m.

So. I have spent more of the last three weeks with my family than I have at any time since the previous millennium, when I had summers off of college. In these last weeks, I have slept very little, wrestled with a number of craft-gifts that suffered a number of last-minute setbacks, introduced my family to the boyfriend�s, spent a lovely afternoon out with some friends I�d lost track of since high school, forced my poor cat to live alone, spent three days in and around a cabin in West Virginia, played eight card games and three board games, completed one thousand-piece puzzle, and consumed approximately 3247894 Christmas cookies.

I have been busy, and also without internet access from the moment my brother opened his computer game on Christmas morning until my return to work today. I apologize to either of my known readers who may have missed my writing in the interim.

So, resolutions. I seem to recall that last year, I was morally opposed to them�something about feeling like a sheep, saying I�d lose weight just because everyone else did, and anyway everyone knows they�ll weigh at least as much the next year. I believed it was dumb to set aside New Years� as the day to make them, because hello, if you have an epiphany on December fourteenth, why not implement the necessary change of lifestyle the very next day?

Heh, so I made three resolutions this year. For one thing, it just seems like a lot of what I�ve realized about myself has been realized recently, and for another maybe I was wrong last year�there is a real function to taking stock, even if you are only revisiting something you already know. People forget, or get distracted or discouraged, and it�s good to get back to basics. My resolutions this year are all more or less about acting on plans I�ve had for a long time, so that I can move on to the plans after that, so I can have the life I want when I�m forty. Because at some point you have to stop talking about what you�re going to do and cowboy up to doing it.

Although somehow I remember having said something like this before, probably several times. It�s exactly the kind of thing I keep avoiding.

Anyway, here is what I am going to try to do better this year:

1. Organization. This last month, my boss actually said to me, �Go home. We don�t pay you enough to worry about your job after five.� Which was very sweet of him, but then he doesn�t realize I stay after five because I waste most of the hours before two not working. So in 2005, my internet surfing will lessen, my productivity will increase, and my procrastination will be beaten with a wet noodle. Although today is my first day back, it is nearly two, and I haven�t really worked much yet, but then everyone is a little sluggish the first day. I still have hope.

2. Health. I don�t think I put this here, but last year (almost two years ago now, I suppose) I had some health stuff going on and wasted the whole year changing prescriptions and seeing doctors and not knowing why my body had turned against me. Although the situation was eventually resolved�my intestines had been taken over by bacteria that does not in fact aid digestion, and once we figured that out, the right drug did the trick�lately I�ve noticed that my brain has turned this episode into a certainty that every unexpected burp or twinge may cause my sudden and painful death, or worse, be the beginning of another lingering inexplicable expensive sickness. This is exactly what my brain did with guys, after the bad one: All men scary. Love is not for you. Put the man down, and no one will get hurt. So I am not only going to be more healthy diet- and exercise-wise, which will help me feel like I have less to worry about, but I am also going to remember that when my brain is sure I am developing blood clots or catching the black plague, it is only reacting to old data. I am young. I am fine. I have all the right bacteria in all the right places, so there. (This one was less coherent, sorry. The third will be short and sweet.)

3. Grad school. This year. I mean it.

-stonebridge

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