Auld Lang Syne (Whatever That Is)

Here we are, the week between Christmas and New Year’s. A week best known for drinking leftover eggnog and polishing off Mom’s rum cake because – let’s face it – another 1200 calories, at this point, isn’t going to matter much.

This is the week we spend un-decking the halls, shopping for half-price Reese’s Peanut Butter Trees with the same people we complained about the day after Thanksgiving, and debating whether we should put in some face time at work or simply find a new job with a more compassionate company that knows well enough to just shut down for the last 10 days of the year.

But this is also a week of introspection and personal review. Have we accomplished everything we set out to achieve for the year? Or at least all the things we bragged about in our Christmas letters? Did we convert all the old VHS tapes to Blue Ray or even begin that Toni Morrison novel? Of course not. But we don’t spent time fretting about that. Instead we pour the champagne and turn our attention to the changes sure to abound in the coming year.

There are plenty of us with plans to get fit, get organized, and get a life… and some who might even do it. There are some of us who will vow to spend more time reaching out to the needy and less time Facebooking… and others who know better that to set ourselves up for that kind of failure.

I, myself, don't attempt New Year’s Resolutions. Forty days of Lent is plenty for me. An entire year of bettering myself is impossible to ask. So since I technically still have some time to come up with my own self-improvement list, I am currently free to dream up resolutions for you, my fellow earthlings, to achieve. A “List of Resolutions I’d like to See the World Embrace,” as I call it.

My list is meager, an attainable set of goals for us to work on: an end to illness, corporate corruption, global warming, violence, and TMZ’s coverage of all Simpsons – Ashleigh, Jessica, OJ, Bart – and anyone else who shares the last name.

However, if by chance the New Year’s Baby pops out of Brangelina Thursday (she is pregnant with one, isn’t she?) and actually offers to grant me just one item as part of some World-Wide New Year’s Bailout Package, I am prepared to do a little down-sizing.

Obviously the first item off my list would be an end to illness, and I’m not just saying that because without strep throat or pink eye my family-practice-doctor-husband couldn’t pay the mortgage. I’m looking at the bigger picture here, and how it affects us all. You see, without illness in the world, we could never call in sick to work again:

“Hey, boss, (cough cough sniffle) I can’t make it to work today.”
“Why not?”
“Can’t you tell? I’m sick.”
“No, illness was wished away by Weekly Jules earlier this year. Now get your a$$ to work or you’re covering for the entire office this Christmas, you faker!”

Next to go would be corporate corruption, as it has its place in our lives as well. Yes, we cringe and judge away at the shamelessness of crooked and greedy CEO’s, but the truth is we count on them. After all, a-holes like Bernie Madoff make us feel, when we are at our most self-centered and lazy, as though we are not the biggest pricks on the planet.

Now, having seen “An Inconvenient Truth,” I’m just as concerned about the earth as the next gal, which is exactly why I never let my 98,000-mile (American-made) minivan idle, at least not while I’m at the McDonald’s drive-thru. But to see a complete end to global warming has its downside as well, so I’m not sure I could keep that one on the list either. I mean, I kind of like watching Zac Efron cool off at the beach with his shirt off and am not quite ready to see that one end.

And finding a way to rid the world of violence would certainly make a leisurely drive through East St. Louis more appealing, but without it, Jack Bauer and his quest to save the world from total destruction in 24 hours every year would lose all believability.

So this leaves me with TMZ’s coverage of all Simpsons. And that one is non-negotiable. I don’t care if one of them cures cancer or finds a way to resurrect Mother Teresa, I don’t want to hear about it. Although if one of them discovers a way to eliminate stretch marks without surgery, call me.

As for my own set of goals, I hope to be on Oprah, of course. But that’s been on the list every year since 1985. Most of all, I hope to keep dishing out stories with no purpose other than to give you something to laugh about. And for joy to pave your journey in 2009.


For my 10-year-old, Amelia, cursed with a birthday between Christmas and New Year's. What were her parents thinking??