\Te`di*os"i*ty\

Right! I give in! I can fight my own stubborness no longer, and I must add a 6th NYR!

6) Stop being so damn fat.

Ok. There. I said it.

I shall develop my own program.

Step 1)

Stop eating so much chocolate.
This will happen as soon as the enormous pile of edible gifts so gratefully received this Christmas have been consumed.
Estimated start date: February 15th 2007.

Step 2)

Get moving.
Ah. Problem. REALLY don't like to move further than necessary.

Well technically it isn't 2007 yet. I can strike it from the list.

So Saddam has been hung (drawn and quartered?) and put in the ground. Far too much media coverage has been assigned to this event. Surely - SURELY - we should be focussing on the ridiculously important news that June Sarpong has been given an MBE. The mind truly boggles at such news. A 29 year old TV presenter, that gave the prime minister a hard time about not buying his wife flowers, and does good for charity. All boxes ticked, here's your complimentary t-shirt, please take a ticket and join the queue to see Ma'am.

This is more like it, a truly deserving and special case, bless her heart.

Lord I'm cynical today.

Hmm New Year's Eve. So where was I last year. Ah yes, in Hull, with her, bored and cold but together and close. Year before? Ah yes, Glasgow, with her, watching Snow Patrol in the square, singing God Save The Queen at midnight with all the other English Barbarians, marvelling at the length of Flower of Scotland. This year? I'm at my parent's house. This is NOT how 2007 was supposed to begin for me.

I went to a friend's birthday party last night. Predominately her family, only a couple of our friends. I spent the entire night talking to someone I went to school with. We discovered we had both been made single recently in horrifically callous circumstances, and that we both loved fish (keeping them that is). Then he walked me home, and text me, and promised I could go see his baby guppies and barbs, and he wants to see my goldies. Naturally, having left the house (and therefore having at least one reason to celebrate), I was very drunk on a box of cheap white French plonk, and therefore couldn't quite tip myself over the edge of dozing and into sleep. Thus, most of the night was spent planning our wedding and naming our first born. The friend whose party it was doesn't call me Bridget for nothing.

I am therefore adding something to my Resolutions, which begin in full force tomorrow:

1) Start drinking decent coffee
2) Start drinking decent red wine
3) Therapy
4) Stop falling in love with a man after a single conversation just because I'm desperate to get over an ex girlfriend and lead a normal life.
5) Oh, and learn to drive. Again. So that I can meet him at weekends.

Oh, for goodness sake.

Another result of this party is my plan to rescue a goldfish from my friend's very overcrowded tank of 8 fish (heartbreaking). He is grey and plain and looks miserable. We connected. I have named him Julian, and shall go round there with my net and a sturdy bag at once.

Today I managed to sleep in until 11am. This is not excess - I was awake until 5am in a drunken blur, tossing and turning. No dreams of her. But I did dream a plane crashed outside my house and I watched it blow up. Meaningful? Nah.

Watched The Railway Children. As a child you don't notice that the actors playing Bobby and Phyllis are nearly old enough to draw their pension, but I did today, and it's annoyed me, so I'm going to read the damn thing in a huff as soon as I get off here. About 1am then.

Also watched Dracula. Don't get me started on that one.

Actually I will. I adore this novel. As a rule I avoid adaptations because they always get me riled up (Kiera Knightley as Elizabeth Bennett? Christ almighty), and this was no exception. Don't mess about with plot. Don't pointlessly change character names. Don't kill people off that actually should muddle on until the end. Don't introduce syphilis! Much better they had done this as a two-parter and stuck to the point slightly. Don't mess with my Gothic literature. 6/10, see me.

The creative geniuses who wrote this test have declared I am 41% lesbian. Sigh. I have no words for this.

I can also confirm that cheese makes the tip of my nose itch and like hell. I've suspected this for about a year, and now after careful observation and recording, I have proved it to be true, and that Cheddar is the main culprit. Also, cheap perfume has made my neck itch, and cheap earrings have made my ears itch. It is a day for itching and bitching.

1) Start drinking decent coffee
2) Start drinking decent red wine
3) Therapy

That's my list so far. They're realistic and achievable, surely the point of NYRs, and give me something to give up next year. I'm happy with all my current vices.

 
Not every day needs to be spent in front of a computer screen, nor spent looking at a bookshelf trying to decide which book will take the longest to read. No sir. Today I went fishing. It was cold and grey, and miserable, but fresh and cleansing, and I cleared my head. I also caught two carp, big ones, which disrupted my train of thought, but if I will insist on dangling sweetcorn on a hook I should face the consequences. At least they got a meal, and a lip piercing, which I want, the lucky devils. I came home and cleaned out my goldfish, marvelling at how big they are getting, and resolving to release them into the above pond should they get any bigger. I shan't have been the first to do so, if the monster goldfish rumours are true.

My head is somewhat cleared. The Christmas sentiment and special moments that I cannot and never will again share with her have been frozen and subdued by the side of a pond, a temporary solution until I thaw myself out with a glass of wine. I've no doubt she will permeate my brain again tonight. Perhaps I will dream of her, perhaps I will be unable to sleep through dreaming of her. Perhaps I will get too drunk to dream anything.

Join me in raising your glass to Sleeplessness and her civil partner Exhaustion - you must admire their stamina.

Hello.

It's getting rather late, I think it's time for me to go to bed. Hard day ahead of me tomorrow, existing. Perhaps I'll buy Peep Show after returning the Christmas present she got me, that I asked her not to get. Our relationship doesn't warrant presents anymore; we don't have a relationship.

woke up and for the first time,
the animals were gone.
it's left this house empty now--
not sure if i belong.

at night i trip without you
and hope i don't wake up.
because waking up without you,
is like drinking from an empty cup.