We have one car that’s a champion in the snow but mice have crawled up inside the dashboard and nested in the airbag system. My warning light has been illuminated as reminder that when I fishtail and throw a 360 on slick, icy roads, I’m SOL save for a rodent family that might shoot out the steering wheel to cushion the impact. Considering the size, weight and non-absorbent make-up of the average mouse, I’ve decided to mostly stay home even though the lack of cleaning apparatus and chill of strained relations makes me want to crawl out of my itchy, winter-dry skin and flee to Florida where I hear it’s 80 and humid and there’s no such thing as chapped lips.

I suppose in this confinement, I should continue the job search I began a few days before the X-mas break wherein I write and re-write cover letters and resumes in order to send on-line responses to job listings in which I am only vaguely interested, those that appear on Monster and Craig’s List, knowing all the while that my ten years as a Landscape Designer don’t translate into value as a paralegal or administrative assistant or pharmaceutical representative but there’s always hope that some firm will see that the individual who ran her own company, wrote for a newspaper and also did time in the accounts department in an advertising firm, can and will learn this office stuff quickly and, in the interim, can probably manage the phones and tend to the ailing tropical plants suffering for light beneath the fluorescents.

I make it sound sort of optional, this employment thing but really it’s dire. In the last days of ‘08 we learned that MBH’s company would no longer be covering health insurance for dependents. So we have the expense of three on our plate in the New Year which makes for leaner times in our already skinny lives. And then there’s the latest confession – that neither of us can take one more day in the house together as a couple; working, sleeping, eating, pretending. And so we’re trying to find a way to swing rent. Some way to give ourselves some breathing room. It may, in the end, save us. Or it just may allow us to sever things in a civil manner. Either way, we see the expense as non-optional.

In order to clear the way for this added financial hit, I cancel newspaper subscriptions, I dial back the minutes on the cell phone, I cancel cable and stare meaningfully at the high-speed internet access bill wondering if we can survive on a dial-up. Wondering if the dial-up option still exists? We are wearing long underwear and turning down the thermostats. The dog shivers in her dog bed. The kids play hours of Wii and we let them, because school’s out and the wind blows negative temperatures and it’s free and we ignore their computer game dependence because their bug eyed attention to Madden ‘09 somehow assuages our guilt.

We have yet to break the news to the kids, this separation, which will confuse and disturb them even more than it does us (if that’s possible). And then there is the news to share that we are taking a leave of absence from the Country Club which really doesn’t affect their Winter lives but will completely rock their summer-time existence. I keep reminding myself that there are worse things to suffer than no swim team or tennis or golf but I feel really, really badly about this one. Possibly because we gaveth and now we taketh away. It’s one thing not to know what your missing, it’s another to miss something you once really, really enjoyed. They have friends there. They have known the sweet laze of sultry afternoons spent licking watermelon drips from their sticky arms and jumping in the chill pool to rinse their skin clean. They have known the smell of fresh mown grass on the fairway. They have known the distinct sound of tennis balls bouncing on a clay court. They have learned how to drag the brush and groom the court after play without filling their tennis shoes with clay granules. They have dressed in a sun dress and sandals and little boy khakis with a starched button-down to attend the awards ceremony at summer’s end where they receive recognition for sportsmanship and effort and achievement. They have known what it feels like to belong to this safe place, a place of well-to-do families and blue skies and a snack bar. I feel sad about a lot of things, but mostly I feel sad that I can’t continue to give them the things they have come to know as normal.

So here’s hoping that somehow, some of the next 364 days will find a way to be truly better than this one. Less uncertain and bleak and fearful and nostalgic. And here’s hoping your ‘09 is a good one, better than the last, even if your last wasn’t all that bad, because who doesn’t deserve even better?

I’ve been sort of hanging out behind the potted plants and walking in dark shadows hoping this one might pass me by but Holly from June Cleaver Nirvana has slipped up beside me and quietly placed the baton in my hand. I considered sprinting off in the direction of the spectators screaming I’m not worthy. Because I’m afraid that my six words won’t make good company for those bits of brilliance already written by Nora Ephron and Dave Eggers and Hemingway. Hemingway for God’s sake! And I’ve never completed a thought in only six words in my life. I’m nothing if not verbose. My life is only just a quarter of the way through (I hope) and six words seems like one-sixteenth of a thing I might have to say about that 25 percent of the life I’ve already lived. Damn. This promises to break me in two. I’ll share my favorites from the video clip over at Smith:

Revenge is Living Well Without You – Joyce Carol Oates
Thought I Would have More Impact – Kevin Clark
I Still Make Coffee For Two – Zak Nelson
Never Really Finished Anything But Cake – Carletta Perkins

And now my own bits of drivel:

Surprised To Say, Where Am I?
Missteps, Compromises, With More To Come
Not Entirely An Unmitigated Disaster
It’s Safe To Say – Deceivingly Unspectacular
This Too Shall Pass, And Quickly

But definitely the one I offer up as the ultimate encapsulation:

Not to Worry, It Will Change

So those of you not rushing towards the exits, grab a seat, stay awhile. Give us YOUR six words.

She could not hear our knocking. We let ourselves in and found her still in bed. She had yet to rise and get dressed for the day.

The television is on in the corner. It’s been on all night. She has forgotten our appointment and is embarrassed to be caught in bed at four minutes to noon. The two of us stand politely near the hollow door while she puts on her clothes and slowly rises to meet us. Neither of us dares to even glance at the picture of the President and his wife. It’s just too shameful.

The case worker talks in a plain voice about the old woman as if she isn’t there. “Brace yourself, this is going to be difficult. She’s become paranoid and delusional. She’ll have to be convinced to write the rent check.” I kind of shake my head and gesture towards Gladys who is rising slowly from the bed. It seems impossibly humiliating to be speaking of her like this, not ten feet away. And the case worker says, “Oh don’t worry. She can’t hear us. She’s as deaf as a stone.”

There is a steady drip from the faucet that serves as kitchen and bathroom sink and I walk over to turn it off. It is broken and spins freely in my hand. The fire alarm chirps a warning that the battery has run down. I shout to Gladys as she shuffles towards the table at the window, “Gladys? Gladys? Do you have any batteries? I’d like to change the battery in your smoke alarm.” I am almost screaming but she still can’t make it out. So I try again, louder, making sure I am in front of her so she can read my lips.

She shakes her head and repeats batteries with a blankness that underscores the fact that she can’t grasp the meaning of the word. And then, suddenly, there is connection. She declares, emphatically, “No, I haven’t had batteries in months. They come and take them all. Let themselves in here all the time. It’s those bitches down the hall. They steal my books. They take my china.”

“When, Gladys? When do they take these things from you?” And she declares that the theft occurs every time she goes out, sometimes when she’s sleeping. She gestures to the five Styrofoam cooler boxes she has beside the bed. She tells us that she has put everything of value in those white boxes. She has bundled them with packing tape.

“Those bitches will take everything in here if I’m not careful.”

I glance around knowing there is nothing to take. Perhaps they have already filched everything of value or, more likely, she is forgetting that she’s never owned the things she now thinks are missing.

She unwinds some tape and takes the lid off one of the cooler boxes. She removes a small votive candle, the kind eight year children make with colored sand in the third grade to give to their mothers on Christmas. It is not particularly well done, the glass is dingy with age and the filth of tobacco smoke, but Gladys holds it in her hands as if it were the Holy Grail.

“You see this candle,” she asks. We nod gravely. Of course we see the candle. We each own a similar candle made by a child’s hands.

“My grand daughter made me this candle. A long, long time ago. She lives in Florida now and I’m going to live with her.”

“Right, Gladys. Florida. We know,” her case worker says rolling her eyes slightly. “But until you finalize those plans for Florida, you need to pay your rent. It was due the 1st and it’s now the 13th.”

Gladys goes to get her check book and we find that she has lost the register. Without going to the bank there’s no way to determine if she has sufficient funds to clear the check. She can’t recall how much she is supposed to pay for rent on a monthly basis. There’s no record of what she has paid in the past. Perhaps she owes two months. Maybe three.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “I’ve lived in this place for twelve years. I don’t owe nothing anymore.”

As I sit on the phone enduring the voice mail hell that is the Housing Authority’s call-in service, I wonder how this woman has found herself here, a step from eviction, alone and destitute, on full government assistance, sick and smoking and angry at those who are trying to help her. After twenty minutes of phoning and holding and pressing cued numbers, I learn that she is mostly caught up on her rent. She is only late with March. I ask her to make out this month’s check and she fills in October on the date line. We start again. Pointing to the calendar that her case worker has hung on the wall.

“It’s March,” she says, incredulous.

“Yup, all month,” I say. “And I’m going to come back to see you again. Next month. When it’s April. I’ll help you make sure you get the rent paid and the cable and the phone bill taken care of.”

“I don’t give a shit what you do next month,” she says. “I’ll be in Florida.”

“Okay, Gladys. I hope so. And then I won’t come and you can send me a postcard,” I say as kindly as I can, mustering my benevolence despite the cursing.

We let ourselves out as the Meals on Wheels delivery volunteer is just arriving. I can hear Gladys say to her as I’m heading down the stairs.

“Well, it’s about time. Where the hell have you been?”

While minor sacrifices, like no Margaritas at the Mexican restaurant last weekend (the first restaurant meal of the thirty day stretch), are easy to make, major adjustments have also been made. I was able to decline an invitation to head North for a weekend of skiing. After tallying the cost of long underwear and lift tickets and equipment rental and ski instruction and food and the gas to get us there, the answer was obvious. The old me would have accepted the offer and hoped that the credit card had sufficient balance to support our vacation. The new me measured the price of our pleasure and decided against the trip. I’ve been told that skiing is a blast. I also know, first hand, what a drag it is to sit home on a cold weekend in January. But it’s absolutely no fun to pay for a $1000 weekend well into summer.

In the past thirty days I’ve had to be thrifty, using gift certificates and frequent shopper coupons to purchase next month’s book group selection. A good book is always a justified expense. A good book that costs $4 is a victory. In the spirit of the game, I have been avoiding catalogs and slick fashion mags and Elle Decor. Its best NOT to know what I’m missing.

We’ve made pizza, three times in four weeks, instead of ordering from a local pizza joint. We have come to like our own creation better than the delivery variety. Each time the dough is a bit different, we select a fancy mozzarella and concoct a fresh sauce, all in pursuit of the perfect pie. We are close, we are very close. We joke that once we’ve got it, that secret and perfectly delectable recipe, we’ll open our own pizza place, called We,The Pizza . We laugh and feel clever.

But here’s where the fun stops. My Better Half, swept up in the spirit of the thing, has made a suggestion, a staggering and solemn suggestion that would, indeed, save us $70 a month but is surely the end of lighthearted fun and the beginning of something permanently spartan and unpopular.

“Let’s get rid of Verizon Fios,” he said and, game over, I wanted to weep. I even surprised myself with my own visceral and dramatic reaction. I wouldn’t even call us a television family. The kids aren’t allowed to watch t.v. during the week and are only allowed a movie or a televised sports event on Sunday. My Better Half and I rarely watch live broadcast network television and prefer to catch up on popular HBO series via Netflix. But there’s a feeling of freedom that our cable package with rewind and pause and high-def, affords us, even if we don’t use it all that much. When American Idol airs at 8 and I’m still reading a story or putting away laundry, there is comfort in the fact that I can kind of float downstairs twenty minutes post start-time and back the whole thing up to the first contestant. I miss nothing and gain the ability to skip through irritating commercials. It’s a beautiful thing.

And then there’s the tricky business of watching whole tennis tournaments. First, the early rounds are only available on cable and then, of course, they are aired during the week, usually during the work day when it is important to look busy with things other than watching tennis tournaments. So there’s only one way to watch televised tennis and that’s with the ability to tape, replay and fast forward at will.

Also, the cancellation of cable would mean the end of The Daily Show as I know it, which is a day late by necessity. I simply can’t stay up that late and must catch up with Jon Stewart after the fact. Better late than never. The cancellation of cable would mean no more 30 minute stints with Cesar Milan and the wayward dogs of California. (Is it me or is the canine population of LA particularly prone to aggressive behavior and peeing on the sofa?)

So I moaned and stuttered and held on to the furniture for support, trying desperately to justify the expense, wondering where would the cancellation of cable leave me but hopeless and abandoned and utterly entertainment-free?

(Before I can answer that question, a thank you is in order. I want to express my gratitude to the one individual who actually purchased something via my Amazon links on this blog. I don’t know who you are or what item you actually bought but the $1.09 in my Amazon Affiliates account warms my heart and makes me feel just a little bit closer to keeping my cable habit. Never mind that in order for Amazon to cut a check, I’ll need to earn another $98.91. After a whole year of linking products and posts, I’m on my way.)

Now back to the cable issue-gasp, gawk – I’d rather begin walking to the grocery store with my wheel barrow and a bunch of those string sacks that environmentally conscious people use instead of plastic. Is that sacrifice enough to keep the cable? I could bike the three miles to tennis. I could wear outerwear in the house and knock the thermostat down to 60 degrees. I could shower but once a week and knit my own socks but getting rid of digital video recording? I just don’t think I can do it.

In tennis for instance, I enjoy the workings of the game, the serves, the cross court returns and the half court volleys, but the reason I go back week after week is not because of the process, it is because I am driven to improve, I am obsessed with winning. I work to become THE tennis player. It’s an end game of sorts. It’s ridiculous now that I am 34 and my chances of winning a Grand Slam title are nil. But I’m driven there, towards some sort of completed tennis product.

The same can be said of every task I set out to do. That’s why I enjoy cleaning and cooking. The goal of cleanliness or a delicious meal is easily attained. It’s an hour or two of exertions and I’ve achieved a finished product. I like that these domestic tasks are tidy and controlled and doable.

But when it comes to writing, this is where the whole thing breaks down for me. If I sit in front of the computer everyday and strive to complete a novel, then everyday is a disappointment. If I look too hard for the purpose in blogging, for a reason to continue to read and write about daily meanderings, then, again, everyday can be considered a failure. But why do I need to feel that I am doing something useful, achieving something? The process of writing should be good enough, why do I need a destination?

For the past few months I have been revealing to family and friends that I am working on a novel. I thought it would help to say it out loud. I thought I needed to have people to hold me accountable. I have declared a destination and people I see on a daily basis might ask me from time to time about how it’s going on the road toward completion. And until By Jane’s post I couldn’t understand why, ever since I opened my big mouth about working on a book, I haven’t completed even a page of writing toward that end. I see now that it’s too big, too expectant, too impossible a task. It’s something I can’t complete today so I put off for tomorrow. What dangles before me is not the carrot but the stick. I need to let go and rediscover the process. So what if I don’t complete that novel? What if I wake up tomorrow and begin revisions and decide the whole thing is absolute shit and cast it aside to write one more blog entry about my children or my marriage or, god forbid, tennis? What if, what if, what if? I’m saying it here because By Jane has inspired me to do so. Who the hell cares if I finish that novel this year, next year, never? If I feel inspired to write about the bag of frozen meatballs I bought yesterday on my way home from the kids’ piano lesson then there is reason enough in that.

I have read that writing is a whole lifetime and a lot of practice. It is less urgent than just necessary. I’ll share a passage from a book for writers called, “Writing Down the Bones” by Natalie Goldberg. If this doesn’t give us bloggers a reason to be than I don’t know what will,

“Our lives are at once ordinary and mythical. We live and die, age beautifully or full of wrinkles. We wake in the morning, buy yellow cheese and hope we have enough money to pay for it. At the same time we have these magnificent hearts that pump through all the sorrow and all the winters we are alive on the earth. We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with the pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings, this is how we lived. Let it be known the earth passed before us. Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn’t matter.”

Today I am writing for writing’s sake. Today I accept what is and put down it’s truth. And hopefully, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, I will remember to do this too.

JUST? THAT’S ALL? Interesting word choice.

I’m not sure how he manages blase and flippant when talking about drafting ANOTHER brilliant and concise short essay that best represents me, a better one than the first time around (the flippancy and the need for better are implied. But I figure if I can’t do better than last time why bother? Apparently, my last attempt wasn’t good enough). And then there’s the task of twirling off three new short stories before the March deadline. It’s not that I haven’t been writing since last Spring, it’s just that I’ve been working on a novel and the fair admissions staff at this particular university discourage applicants from submitting long fiction. A fact I probably should have considered long before mid-January.

And with American Idol starting up again this week, I feel quite like one of the hopeful contestants that follows Randy and Simon and Paula from audition stop to audition stop though she is ridiculed and rejected at every location. She enters the room with her number pinned to her chest, sure that the audition in Seattle will be different from the one in Tampa, convinced that this time her talent will be heard and appreciated. She can see their name in lights. So alluring is the notion of someone important finally taking her seriously, that she is blind to one important fact – she is only marginally talented. In the pursuit of her dream she has become an earnest but laughable fool who has presented herself, once again, as a glutton for punishment.

The whole nation groans along with the three judges each and every time she throws her name in the ring. It’s just too painful to watch. The audience covers their eyes and holds their breath just waiting for the audition to be over, for her to finish her pitchy tune and be booted from the room; resolved to return to next year’s auditions with a new hair do and some kick-ass cowboy boots because she has convinced herself that it must have been the outfit.

I figure if I am resigned to the ridicule, if I fully expect rejection and just plain forget to go to the mailbox for all of April and May, then I just might survive the painful period of waiting. Unlike American Idol, the process of rejection from this esteemed Master’s program is a long one. Just long enough to allow all hopeful applicants to fully fashion the image of their acceptance, to imagine themselves attending titillating writing classes with accomplished professors before lowering the boom of denial.

As an adult, who is expected to have plans and goals and something always on the horizon, it’s so incredibly hard – the not knowing. So I’ll pretend I know already and just do it, fashion a personal essay that is passable and professional and maybe just the thing that moves them this time around. I’ll slip a few chapters of Habeas Corpus in the mail, ignoring the warning to avoid long fiction, I’ll shove it all in a manila envelope, not the fancy black leather binder of last year. It’s the equivalent of showing up to the American Idol auditions in a bathrobe. It’s the proof that I’m crazy jaded and not too worried about collecting another rejection letter. It is liberating to act as if I don’t want it that badly. It’s fuck if I care. It’s a lie.

And, now that I’ve got some remove from that uncomfortable conversation, I can see how this ‘poor mouse’ thing might have legs. I can limp about and lament my having no money for simple things like movies and coffee and new espadrilles for my trip to Florida and friends and family will buy me things and take me places and feel charitable and good.

I might never have to spend another non-obligatory dime. But then (sigh) I would have to swallow a whole heap of pride and get past the fact that other people’s consumption on my behalf does not solve the global problem, it just solves my problem. It is after all an exercise in restraint, an existential shake up, if not a subtle veil for the stark reality that is my checking account.

So bear with me friends while I beg off anything fun and interesting for the next 60 days. It is not your company I eschew. Really, it isn’t. Lenny Kravitz isn’t feeling the love either, nor is the shoe department at Nordstrums or the Boston Flower Market or Whole Foods or Amazon.com or the sweet little gift shop in the center of town that sells a darn good mocha latte and the most adorable chocolates from France.

And I have to report that I’m more than a little stymied by the thorough reference list I’ve been asked to provide. Having been sitting in front of a home computer for two years, it’s almost an impossibility to come up with three relevant business or community references that can speak of my relative sanity. I suppose the mail man knows I’m reliable in that I answer the bell when it is rung and I often put the flag up on the mailbox when sending out-going letters. The neighbor can be contacted as to my strict adherence to schedules. My lawn gets mowed on a regular basis. I’ve been known to fertilize and apply lime supplements. I’ve got general yard maintenance standards and this should count for something.

It’s shame My Better Half can’t write a recommendation as I’m sure he’d be glad to enlighten the management over at Elder Services as to my unyielding and dogmatic nature. It would read something like this, “CCE is an individual with steady resolve and unwavering expectations. It is she, after all, who plagues me day in day out about placing clothes in the hamper and dishes in the dishwasher and not wearing my slippers out of doors. It is she who practically wrote the book on industry and perseverance in the face of household dirt and pet hair on the couch. CCE has an expert’s sense of when to tighten the reins in order to suppress disorderly conduct. She has no problem doling out rebukes and maintaining order with well timed sighs and ominous silences. She’s no stranger to emphasis and will slam drawers and doors with impunity.”

Or perhaps one of you, my loyal readers, could make a pitch for my professional worth. After all I am here day after day, entertaining the five of you with haphazard words slung sloppily across the web page. You could mention that my typos are only occasional and that my story choices are sometimes amusing and, occasionally, maybe once or twice, actually border on brilliance.

And while I’m suffering my charitable-block with dignity, I contemplate Mad Hatter’s willingness to throw off the chains of commerce and consumption and give it all up for eight weeks of self-imposed asceticism. She dangles the challenge before the rest of us, taunting us to join her in the decision to buy only necessities for the next two months, sixty days of nothing but groceries and medicine and gas. And I think, hell yeah, why not? It’s not too different from the reality I’m already living. With little spare change rattling around in the MadMarriage coffers, every non-essential purchase is dissected and discussed and the source of great dissension.

I’m willing to pass the local Starbucks with nary a wave, to fill my own thermos with tap water before the daily trip to the gym, to eat lunch at home and snack from the cupboard. But I have some unanswered questions. Is it only products that I must eschew or is it service as well? My confusion and apprehension stems from the impending need for a hair cut and highlights, from the spousal b-day looming on the horizon of mid-January, from the weekly fee required to secure court time for a Sunday match, from a dentist appointment, the first for G in nearly a year, from the fact that the babysitter will surely want dollar bills not a dozen home-made cookies after her evening here with the kids on the 18th.

Does the bottle of wine we like to consume on weekend nights count as a grocery item or is this something we must give up in the bargain? Does the download of the new Lenny Kravitz MP3 release count as consumerism or is it art appreciation, particularly because the required transaction takes place in the ether of the internet…no packaging, no immediate exchange of cash just a future credit card bill and one new song on the MP3 player?

Having no answers to above the questions, here’s the best I’m willing to do…no cosmetics, no clothes, no gifts to self (like scented candles or house plants or cut flowers or new novels), no bottled waters or cafe coffee, one meal out a week and only a cheap, non-fancy meal at someplace only a rung up the ladder from fast-food, one bottle of wine a week, one gift for my suffering spouse unfortunate enough to have been born just three weeks post-X-mas, only school supplies for the kids, (stuff like erasers and notebooks and glue sticks), no dreams of new furniture or rugs or refurbishments of bathrooms until March, one evening out on the 18th while employing a sitter at home who will be paid in cold hard cash, one trip to the salon to hide the roots and get my ritual 12 week styling. ( I swear I won’t do it again for another 12 weeks. I think I deserve congratulation on my willingness to go 3 months without a haircut. I know women and men who insist of five weeks, some even four. I’m a hair hero in comparison), one additional day on the tennis court a week (my two day minimum has already been paid for, everything else is cake), no MP3 downloads for the entire 8 week period (did I say none, maybe I meant one but we’ll see how it goes). So there, I’m out of breath and out of time but I’ll fill you in on any other exceptions I think of along the way. Will the eight week period of anti-consumerism help the bottom line? Probably not a whole lot seeing as we’re already keeping things pretty spare, but it’s a good exercise, a thoughtful pause before slapping down the card is always a good thing. Here’s hoping it’s not too painful.

Any challenges you all feel like sharing while I’m in the competitive mood?

Oh good brave folks who traverse the waves and endure the heart stopping chill of the January surf, may the year bring you wealth and health and enough wisdom to stay home next year so that I am not needed as photographer and witness to your stupidity. May the dawn of ‘09 find us all snug a bed, finally having found the grace and good sense to forgo all this New Year’s nonsense.

“Fine,” I said. “You need me to have a resolution? Well, here it is…I resolve to clean out my sock drawer. Once and for all, take all those lonely, worn, little socks that have no partner and throw them all away. That’s my resolution.” And, two days left in December, I yanked open the drawer in question and cleaned the heck out of it. Restored order to the mayhem. And then I said, “Not even 2008 and my resolution – already accomplished.”

My Better Half left the room, disgusted with my efficiency. My near perfection just bothering the hell out of him.

And I began to think that maybe, rather than choosing our own resolutions, we should all turn to our loved ones and say, “Hey, what’s the one thing I should resolve to do this year?” Because I’m pretty damn sure that My Better Half has a few things he’d like me to change and God Knows I could make a list of things that he should accomplish in ‘08. And if he weren’t a regular reader of this blog, I’d give you the run down. But that’d really rock the world, shake the fragile foundations of the institution of marriage. Imagine how much fun we’d all have drafting resolutions for our loved ones. “I, CCE’s Better Half, resolve to stop chewing so loudly. To drink less. To sleep on my right side so as not to wake my sleeping wife with my god-awful snoring.” We’d all have so much fun pointing out each others’ failures and inconsistencies right up until the divorce papers were served. So we’ll leave that idea at the curb, there with the tired, used Christmas tree, once beautiful and fawned over, now neglected and worthless. Dead, dead, dead.

On New Year’s morning, standing there in the thin sunshine of a thirty degree morning, listening to the waves and the gulls, bundled against the wind, I watched the crazy people I know (my brother, my nieces, My Better Half, my best friend’s husband and my O included), run wildly for the surf, dashing for the cold waves of the Atlantic in nothing but their swim suits. And I resolved to never let the frigid ocean spray touch my delicate feet on the first of the New Year. They can have the accolades, the earned heroism. I would surely die of a heart attack or hypothermia. I resolved to never be a member of the Craigville Beach Polar Bear Club.

And while I was at it, I also resolved to never run a marathon. I prefer the quick torture of a sprint. Around the block and back. An ass-kicking dash. All over with in twenty minutes.

I resolved to pay less attention to the dirty kitchen floor and the collection of soiled clothes in the hamper because no one ever says, after a person’s death, “Damn, was her house immaculate or what?”

I resolved to give in to moments of lethargy and watch stupid television every once and awhile because it is not a crime to miss a day at the gym, to forgo one Nautilus circuit for a snippet of Project Runway.

I resolved to serve a few meals a week from the package, to make it simple, spend more time reading books and playing on-line poker and less time conjuring up the homemade meal that the family will decide is disgusting and refuse to eat anyway.

I resolved to let the laundry pile up in the hamper until the lack of clean underwear necessitates a wash.

I resolved to cry more and wallow in self pity and give in to guilt and worry about money and to love and loathe and feel things through and through.

I resolved to live 2008 for me and no one else. As the swimmers’ towels drifted down the beach, picked up and carried yards away by a stiff wind off the water, I turned and trudged back to the car. Resolved to let them chase their own warmth and comfort as it raced away in the opposite direction.