New Year Resolutions - Part 2 (The Prequel) - A New Dawn...
Hey penpals, so lovely to see you all again. It's February, when New Year Resolutions weakly mewl, abandoned and forgotten, like pet rabbits we begged our parents for and now keep forgetting to feed. Well fear not, here are some of my New Year Resolutions that you will be able to keep. Doctors don’t want you to know about these simple tips that will change your life forever…
1. I want to ban the use of the phrase “it’s just common sense!”
You really only have two options in life; end every argument you find yourself flailing in by blurting out in frustration “LOOK it’s just common sense!” or have the courage to say what you really mean “I emotionally feel what I’m saying is true, but I don’t have the patience or thought-out argument to back my point up, now let’s change the subject before this becomes a proper row.”
Say it with me: No one has common sense! Most people are irrational idiots led by the lodestars of emotions, unexamined cultural norms and sugar levels. If a lot of people agreeing on something makes it correct then the sun travels around the earth, smoking is great for cleaning out your lungs and The Big Bang Theory is the greatest sitcom of all time.
At one stage it was ‘common sense’ that Anthea Turner should be on every single television show. I think it’s ‘common sense’ that you can put salad cream on poached eggs instead of hollandaise sauce because they look the same. It’s ‘common sense’ that as long as you have a spreadsheet open, you can drink as much as you like and it’s a ‘work meeting’.
Next time you feel tempted to blurt out in an argument you’re losing, “look it’s just common sense” just know it’s the exact same debating technique Janet Street Porter uses on Loose Women to explain why she thinks Meghan Markle is definitely an undercover KGB agent. Nothing is common sense.
2. We need to stop reviewing stand up comedy
I know this might seem like I have an agenda here but hand to god, nothing is more genuinely pointless than reviewing stand up comedy. Next to smells, few things are as arbitrary and uniquely personal than what makes us laugh. It's why I cancelled my subscription to Smell You Later, the caustic quarterly that writes withering reviews of scents. They really went in on lavender in the last issue. Turns out, it's completely hack.
Just because you don’t find something funny, it doesn’t mean other people won’t, it just means it’s not for you. Writing a pompous review of a comedy set is like reviewing porn. In fact, that would be fairer because I think pornstars have more robust self-esteem with a better ability to accept constructive feedback than most stand up comedians. In general, they probably had happier early childhoods than anyone taking an hour show to the Edinburgh Fringe.
“I found Two Horny GIs Join the Gym neither horny nor hot - the only thing exercised was my patience! Scene after scene of men kissing, exploring each other erotically and high fiving. The only groaning from me was boredom! Who on earth finds that sexy? Sorry guys, but I can empirically state no one finds that a turn on. Where were the lesbian scenes? I kept waiting for two teenage girls dressed as milk maids trying to convince Old McDonald to let them keep the dairy. Now that’s hot! That’s what I want in my erotica. Yes, other people in the cinema seemed to be enjoying it but I stayed as limp as a towel. I can only imagine they liked it because they don’t have as sophisticated taste in porn as I do, which is good old fashioned women kissing and an occasional visit from a horny FEMALE bus driver. If THIS what’s supposed to pass as sexy nowadays then cancel my gym membership. That said, I enjoyed the moment 45 minutes in when the male lead started crying about his dead dad. Two stars.”
3. I will not care if someone is “nice”
Being nice is not a moral value, it just means you’ve learnt how to speak to people in a socially acceptable way. It’s like judging a novelist on how neat their handwriting is. Everyone knows how to be nice, it’s not some weird instinct that is impossible to fake. If Meg Ryan can fake an orgasm, I think Jacob Rees Mogg could figure out how to seem interested in the Netflix series you’re watching. It’s not an unbreakable code. Private schools churn out polite, charming, sociopaths every year. Making plebs think you’re actually quite nice really is on the Eton syllabus. Niceness is empty calories. Obviously it's preferable to howling in someone’s face but the ability to manage a normal social interaction doesn’t translate to being a good person.
I know someone who met a controversial comedian, and she hotly defended him because when she met him, he was “so nice”. She said it with such finality, like she’d just revealed some insider information that changed everything. “Guys, he can’t be transphobic because I met him and …he smelt amazing!”
4. I will now only order cocktails in pubs
Over lockdown I was talking to my friend and wondered why in the past, I had always ordered beer in pubs when cocktails taste so much better. He pointed out it was probably because cocktails are five times more expensive. It was the point in the restrictions, where it had been so long since I had been in a pub, I had forgotten how money worked.
Self care is not settling for sour dank beer that tastes like cornflake tears. I will drink cocktails. I might be in a pub in Central London but my liver is with Christine Baranski in Manhattan.
Yes, I have been burned by these slinky mistresses, but I just can’t resist making eye contact when I see them across a crowded room. I once went to a very trendy Southern Style Steamboat cocktail bar in Brooklyn with American relations. I didn’t recognise any of the boutique cocktails on the menu, so I panicked and asked the waiter who was dressed like a New Orleans 1930s barber “What's the nearest you have to a margarita?”
I saw him physically wince and my American relatives looked at me like I’d asked if there was any way I could get a bucket of water for my donkey outside. I didn’t realise that in the US, only hen parties and maybe Tiffany Trump drank margaritas. I thought ALL cocktails were fancy. My uncle sighed, placed a protective hand on my elbow and quietly muttered to the waiter “she’s from Ireland.”
5. I will go to the gym more even though exercises classes fill me with doom
I go to a weekly barre class; this is an exercise where you do elegant ballet themed exercises in front of a floor to ceiling mirror until your thighs feel like they’re being slowly ripped apart from the inside. I look so different to the other regulars that at first glance you might mistake me for the class mascot. Or maybe I’m only there because my carer goes there, and I play along while she gets a break. I like to think I’m providing a public service; I provide a reassuring horizon line to remind the others in the class how hard the exercises really are. I’m basically the fabled ‘normal person’ everyone thinks should be at the Olympic Games to remind people how fast the athletes really are. They might think being able to headbutt yourself with their own ankle is no big deal, then I keel over for the third time in a row and everyone feels so much better about themselves.
Turning up to barre class.
In one class I was in such pain, the instructor said, “I’m going to finish early because I’m still recovering from a car accident” and without thinking I visibly fist pumped the air and I do not regret it.
Because it IS hard. At least one point in every class, I’ll catch my reflection, out of breath and I’ll panic and think I can't keep going. The relentlessness of life overwhelms me. The constant grind that everything takes. The tiny speckles of victory before you see any result. Then the remorseless constant vigilance to keep it all up. I want to buckle to my knees and howl at the sea. How does anybody do anything, when everything takes so long?
But, like you readers, I will strive - I will beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past, until I arrive on that shining city on a hill, my goddam full potential, always always striving, for if our reach should not exceed our grasp, what is heaven for?
More practical New Year's Resolutions next week!
Read my second five resolutions here!
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