It's a New Year, Baby
Tuesday, January 1, 2002
Happy New Year.
2002.
I'm a little hungover. I guess that's what four Cosmopolitans at a jazz club will do. And we won't even mention the wine that went with dinner before that. Dear lord. You must think I'm a lush.
But I'm doing better than my husband. He's still in bed. Complaining about a headache. Begging both the dog and I to go back and lay down with him. He did get up temporarily. For ibuprofen. And to honk one of the horns we carried back with us last night. Those things are loud.
We did have a splendid evening. One of our best New Year's ever. We even commented on it over, what, the third cocktail. James said exactly that.
"I think this is one of the best."
And if feeling good about yourself counts in the equation, the night certainly does rank up there. I did my hair all curly with an updo. Made a few curls hang over my face. Silver eyeshadow. Sparkly sleeveless blouse. Lipstick. Each time I went to the bathroom I was, like, "Damn! I look GOOD!" Even the cardboard tiara they passed out at midnight seemed to work. I wore it the rest of the evening.
The jazz was fantastic. We went to this place called the Artist's Quarter in downtown St. Paul. It's merely 7 blocks from where we live. Although, we did take the bus there. It's damn cold here in Minnesota. The ambiance was dark. Candlelit. There was a vocalist. She sang my favorite jazz song ever. Ms. Otis Regrets. I told her when we were leaving that was my favorite. She smiled. "But you're so young," she said.
If there was any low point to last night at all, it was when James fed me what he said was Swiss cheese from the buffet. And as I chewed, something was wrong. It tasted weird. Then all of a sudden I recognized the taste.
TURKEY!
He'd fed me a cube of turkey.
I spit out what I could, but I can't say that none of it went down. You know, it's been 5 months since I've given up meat. But I still remember what it tastes like. And it don't taste like Swiss cheese.
We walked home at 1am. Our waitress called us the cute couple with the martinis. She said she loved us. I told her I loved her hair.
It had snowed a little. And it was cold. But we walked home. We didn't see any buses anyway. The entire walk back, though, we honked our horns. Obsessively. Not that anyone was around to hear us. But the horns sure do sound great echoing off the buildings. We must live in the only downtown ever where you can stand around after midnight and hear yourself echo down the streets.
Weird.
We got home. My feet were a little sore. James kept saying how drunk he was. We watched a recap of the ball drop in Times Square. I ate what was left of our dessert. We fell hard to sleep.
Happy New Year.
And so we have today off. And the tree needs to be taken down. We have leftovers to munch on -- like James' excellent Tomato & Fresh Ginger Pasta Sauce that he made for dinner last night. There's also a bottle of champagne in the fridge.
And we start 2002 and already I have a good feeling about it. Things seem to be in place. Life is prepared to move on. And if last night is any indication of the year we're going to have, it's going to be great. Last New Year's sucked. We went to some overprice bar-dance thing in downtown MPLS that felt more like a bad wedding reception than a celebration of the new year. But this year's rocked. Or, jazzed. Whatever.
Oh, and there are resolutions, too.
I've been thinking about them.
Firstly, I want to actually hunker down and lose these last 20 pounds. I'm actually not sure what I weigh right now. I'm hoping it's about 150, but it could be more. But I seriously want to get down to the 130-ish ballpark. And this year I resolve to get serious about that. I'd already (well, at least up until Christmas vacation) been working on my portion control. And now that I can join a gym again, I can have more structured workouts. So, it's really within my power. I just need to get serious. And, honestly, I've never given myself "weight" goals like "lose X pounds" which all the experts say you shouldn't do. But screw 'em. I want those 20 pounds gone. And THIS YEAR!
My other resolutions include setting a budget with our new finances. If we could live on James' unemployment, we should be able to save a large part of his paycheck which can pay off debts and go towards a house. There's really no excuse for not doing this.
I also want to work on "me" stuff. Relationship stuff. I want to be less intolerant. Less judgmental. Less bitchy. Less angry. I'm actually writing some of this out using the Get Real Challenge exercises by Dr. Phil on Oprah's website. (I'M SUCH A NERD!) Perhaps I'll share some of it here. Perhaps I won't. We'll see.
So, let's review. New Year's resolutions:
- Lose 20 pounds
- Make and stick to budget to save for a house & pay off debts
- Be less intolerant and angry. Start working on this with the Get Real Challenge exercises
Man. I am a walking cliche. How many people out there have the same resolutions?
It doesn't matter, though. This is what I need to work on. And this is why 2002 is going to kick 2001's ass!
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