Better Late Than Never

Top Ten Resolutions Even I Can Keep

10. Stay out of the gym during the month of January. There will be 1,003 people there who think they can go 9 miles per hour on the treadmill because they saw some yahoo on Biggest Loser do it, and they're sure it's not that hard. Get off before you hurt yourself.

9. Refuse to do any more stupid people tricks. I entered some ridiculous 50,000-words-in-a-month novel writing contest in November. First of all, I don't have 50,000 words I can put in an understandable sequence in a month. Second of all, don't you people have lives? Moby Dick is already taken.

8. Do not buy one more appealing paperback book until I have finished one of the seven appealing paperbacks on my bedside table. I don't care if it's got Oprah, Michelle Obama, Ellen DeGeneres, Mackenzie Phillips, and Snoopy all on the cover, I'm not buying.

7. I am not going to pay more to check my underwear on a flight than I pay to check my whole person. Do you hear me? I'll take a cab to Mazatlan, I swear.

6. Insist that wait staff at restaurants learn the soup of the day before they approach my table. True story... recent outing to a restaurant in the Legends; asked the waitress what the soup was; she replied, "umm, something with chicken in it, I can't remember the name." Oh, that narrows it down.

5. Put my Christmas cactus in the closet so it blooms on Christmas instead of November 19th. Oh, for the love of penguins, does this mean Al Gore was right?

4. Use the word "Shankapotomus" more. Seriously, try it. "Catapotomus, Dorkapotomus, Freakapotomus," isn't that fun?

3. Watch more prime-time television. Really. I'm the only one I know who can't keep up at a cocktail party because I have no idea why Madmen aren't sitting on the laps of Desperate Housewives.

2. Figure out why they put braille lettering on the ATMs in the drive-up lane.

1. Go to the gym in February.