Well, it's New Year's Eve again.

I'm still not a 150 pound model with a villa in the south of France.

I believe that in 2014, my goal was to be more like Fat Amy. I'm not sure that I actually accomplished what I set out to accomplish. I'm still not too sassy or anything like that, but I've still got my chub on, so I guess that counts as halfway, right?

At any rate, I do believe in making resolutions. Even if I fail every time. So that is this year's resolution: I'm going to keep trying to be better. Not just happier or thinner or anything like that.

Better.

I will keep trying to be a better person.

I will keep trying even if I feel like I hate everyone on the planet and I want to make myself a little Hobbit house under the ground and be alone for the rest of time. I won't stop trying to be kinder and fairer and just...better.

Even if I suck at it, which I do, quite a lot of the time.

I'm also going to do better at my allergy shots because I've gotten really bad at remembering those.

So, yeah, better person and allergy shots.

2015 is going to be a full year.

Chrimas

Well, Chrimas is over (spelled it that way on purpose...don't ask...it's not funny to other people). I'm always sad because, unlike a lot of people, I don't feel any more depressed at Christmas than at any other time, plus, well, Christmas.

I love snow and cold and presents and games and a free day where I can eat what I want. I also love how nice people are at this time of year and how they take the time to do stuff for others. Awesome.

This year was stellar, as far as presents. I feel like my family struck the right balance between fun and useful, and I only have a very small bag of re-gifty stuff (which came almost entirely from people who don't know me well). I have a sweet, sweet Neil Diamond concert to look forward to and new knives to use, in addition to a Spock mug and t-shirt that are amazing and a sparkly vintage ring that is absolutely perfect. And a Superman onesie. Enough said.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. So much fun stuff.

At any rate, I hope everyone else had as much fun as I did. I feel like we even navigated the family stuff well, and made it through okay. Which is totally acceptable, as I don't think perfect is really possible.

So the season's about done and everyone's getting ready to resume normal, non-Christmasy-magical life. No more overeating, over-drinking or general overdoing, which I guess is okay, and also no more scrambling to figure out gifts at the last minute for those people that got accidentally left off the list. Phew. Had some close calls this year.

But the tree is staying up for another week. It just is. I'm not ready yet.

I can't believe Christmas Eve is tomorrow. I always feel as though I must have left some thing undone, and then I don't discover what those things are until ages afterwards.

Oh, well. No matter. We got snow last night so all is right with the world.

I am already thinking of my resolution for 2015, and I have some pretty good ideas, but I am starting a new project right now. I am becoming a semi-vegetarian.

Anyone who knows my family is thinking, "Huh..." right now, and with good reason. I don't think anyone in the history of our whole family has ever been a vegetarian. Our family was built on a firm foundation of ground beef and bacon. And steaks.

But I feel like I want to try.

It's not like I'm addicted to meat. I actually go for weeks sometimes with the only meat I eat being served at my Mom's house. I've just been feeling sadder about it than usual when I eat it, and I don't think food is supposed to be that way. All sad, all of the time, I mean. I think if it bothers me, then I probably shouldn't do it.

I just hope I don't gain weight.

At any rate, I will still probably eat some meat occasionally. I don't know. I'm doing this sort of haphazardly, and it's mainly because I can't stop thinking about the poor little animals when I'm eating.

Which is a horrible thing to think about.

I also don't think it's wrong to eat meat. I feel like it's okay, if it doesn't bother a person to do it. My husband isn't stopping eating meat anytime soon, and it doesn't bother me at all.

This is weird. Just weird.

At any rate, I'm going to try it. Just to see how it goes. I know for sure that I'm going to eat meat sometimes, but not very often and only for special. For instance, we're going out for breakfast tomorrow, and if I feel like having bacon, I'm going to have some. 

So, yep. Haphazard. That's why it's not a resolution, per se. Those need rules and structure. This is just...I don't know. I'll figure it out eventually.

Today is Thursday. Not Friday. Not at all.

But for five glorious minutes when I first woke up, I thought it was Friday.

I came to the realization as I was washing my hands after running to the bathroom because wetting my pants at 5:30 a.m. is not on my to-do list. It was a DEFCON-1 situation (I say this because I have looked at the Wikipedia article, and I know for sure that DEFCON goes from most danger to least danger in ascending order, so 1 is totally the worst), but I was smiling, which is unusual for me because it makes my face hurt and I feel like it's a sign of insanity if I smile too much.

Got to keep that on the down-low.

Anyway, I made it and I was washing my hands while singing, "Twinkle, Twinkle" at a rate of 60 bpm (which everyone knows adds up to the right amount of time in which to remove the most bathroomy poop germs from one's hands--they're in the bathroom, whether you're in there pooping or not) , and I looked at the wreck that is my hair this morning and all of a sudden I just knew.

I wanted to throw my head back and howl, but I thought that might be a little over-dramatic, so I went to the kitchen and poured myself an extra half cup of Chocolate Cheerios (they're good, but not, "Let's buy the giant-size double-pack at Costco!" good).

Same thing, man. 

At any rate, I am now in a state of post-Friday sadness, because even though it was never really Friday, for five brief, shining minutes, it felt like Friday in my heart. My heart lied.

My heart did not deserve the extra Cheerios, but I can't exactly separate it from the rest of my body, which totally did deserve those extra Cheerios.

It's going to be a stellar day. I can just feel it in my guts.

So I went clothes shopping with a friend yesterday, and I came to realize a couple of things:

First, fat people shouldn't look at the other person's clothing when shopping with skinny people. All of the clothes my friend pulled off of the rack looked like doll clothes compared to the tent-like garments at which I was looking.

Second, skinny people look good in everything, even the things they think are bad. For instance, I saw people in the dressing room grimacing at their reflection in the mirror, even though what they were wearing made them look, well, skinny. If something makes me look thinner, I buy it. No questions asked. There is no, "Does that color work on me?" or, "Does this collar style suit my face?" for me at all. Nope. It's, "Does this make my bulginess seem slightly less bulgy?" If the answer is yes, it's a go.

Finally, no one makes worse clothing choices than fat people who were skinny all of their lives until adulthood. Put the tank tops and outfit with a crop top and stretchy pants down and back away, ladies. I've been doing this my whole life. You do not want to enhance that area by draping it in spandex, trust me. Throw a baggy shirt over those slim-fit jeans that is long enough to go over all of your...areas. And don't let the world see those upper arms. Encase them in fabric. Believe me, no one know more than I do about how difficult it is to find things that fit properly, but we've got to stop letting those flabby upper arms fly in the wind. It's not good.

I know that, theoretically, people should wear whatever makes them feel good about themselves, but sometimes I feel like it's my duty to inform my fellow large ladies about how much of them we can see. I know most people have mirrors and such, but sometimes I wonder.

And there were some short shorts in the clearance section for the really big sizes and I am concerned that they were purchased to be worn. Worn in public. And that could just be a real, real bad situation. This is a time in which we could be aided by realistic plus-sized mannequins.

Also, did you know that many mannequins now have nipples? Because they do. Nipples. Seriously. I guess I've seen it before, but there were just nipples everywhere yesterday and, well, it was just kind of rough in there.

Also cold. For the mannequins, I mean. You could tell.

Yesterday was bad.

The kind of bad that I don't even want to talk about, except that it was really, really bad.

So I won't talk about it.

I only hope today is better because I am still tired from yesterday, and if today sucks like yesterday did, there may be some crying at work.

At my desk.

In front of people.

Just saying.

But I'm not talking about it.

I am, however, bringing an assortment of cookies from Sunday's recital and I may or may not share them with the office.

I may also choose to eat them all, by myself, for lunch.

I can do that if I want. I'm an adult. I can make that choice.

Ah, well. Here's to having a good day.

And sugar, nature's cure-all.

Yesterday, I screamed my head off at the neighborhood cat. Again. I swear that he knows I hate him being in my yard, so he makes sure to be just out of my reach, but where I can see him all of the time. He kills all of the baby birds and even the bunnies sometimes. It's like happy Bambi time back there until he shows up, and then it's like one of those nature shows where I spend half the show with my eyes closed, but I see something anyway so I spend the rest of the show crying.

I mean, seriously, I don't know whose he is, but why have a cat if he's always going to be in my yard?

At any rate, after yesterday, this has got to stop. He was on my guest room window, trying to get in to my bird who was screaming bloody murder and who I thought was going to have a heart attack.

I Googled it. Birds can have heart attacks.

So I go in to see what the ruckus is all about, and the cat is trying so hard to get in that he doesn't see me, so I slide the top of the window down and scream at the the little turd to get off of my window.

I may have used stronger language than that. My neighbors may hate me now, because I was pretty mad. There were some f-words in there.

Well, I don't really care. My little bird, who is 14 and likes to be held less and less as he gets older, was shaking like crazy and was at the front of the cage waiting for me to pick him up and I held him under my chin against me for like five minutes.

If you knew my bird, you would realize how bizarre that is. He has never, in his whole life, been a cuddler. He only wants to be picked up to play an exciting game of, "Let's bite your fingernails!"

Seriously. He is fascinated by fingernails. He will spend ages grooming mine. It's kind of adorable.

Anyway, no cuddling for Bruce. Never. So, yeah, he was terrified. And he was making his little baby lucky noises at me, which is what he does when he is feeling kissy with his buddy. 

He's in love with his buddy, which is this yellow stuffed piece of fuzzy cloth that he sleeps with and clucks to while he's rubbing his head on it. It is also pretty cute.

So, yeah, all kinds of weird behavior, but no heart attack. Which is good for the cat, because I would've hunted him down and taken his butt to the pound if he would've hurt my bird. (That's the worst I could do--I couldn't actually hurt him because I just love me some animals).

On the plus side, this morning, Bruce the cockatiel is cooing and clucking at his buddy and coming over to make the occasional kissy noise at me. So he must have already forgotten.

Of course, his brain is pretty much the size of a pea, so I can see how that could happen.

So, here's my tip for the day: Calm down.

Yep, just calm down.

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT go on someone else's Facebook page and take comments on someone else's post by someone else's friend way too seriously and go bananas on them with self-righteous comments that just sound a wee bit insane.

Don't do that.

Instead, maybe smell a flower. Or give a homeless guy some cocoa. Or pet someone's dog. Do something nice and happy. Try really hard not to be offended by everything. 

Maybe laugh a little, I don't know, because maybe, just maybe, people are joking and not being serious.

Or maybe not.

But, either way, getting super bored up in a public forum kind of makes a person look a bit douchebaggy.

Just a bit.

So calm down.

Alright, back home and to normality.

Except, not really, because I don't think normal exists, certainly not up in my house.

At any rate, I'm glad Thanksgiving is over and we can move on to the main event: Christmas Recital time.

Yep, that's the main event.

It's weird, because when I was a kid, so many people took some kind of lessons and had some kind of recital that it wasn't all that unusual. Now, it's not (apparently) done as often, so no one has any idea about what to expect.

And that's the part I enjoy the most, ha ha ha!

(I was rubbing my hands together and cackling while I said that last sentence, in case you couldn't tell.)

But, no, seriously, I think it's kind of awesome how excited the kids get and how nervous the parents are, even the ones with the older kids, and how none of them seem to realize that it's the adult students who are the most scared. Well, except for me, I get that. I totally do. I also love Christmas time anyway, so it's super fun getting to sing Christmas songs and whatnot FOR MY JOB.

Yes, people pay me to sing Christmas songs with them and/or their children. It's pretty sweet.

The only part that is not sweet is the part where I have to play for some of my students. That is not sweet. It makes me want to barf.

Singing in front of fifty people? No problem. Playing the piano in front of the same crowd?

I MAY DIE.

I don't know why that is, I only know that when this weekend is over I will be a happy camper. And I will have a beer with my dinner. And then maybe cake; I don't know.

At any rate, I love Christmas Recital time, even when I have to play the piano for some of my students. It's my favorite time of year to be a music teacher.

Also, there are cookies at the recital. Did I mention that? Yes, cookies. And other assorted snack goodness. I kind of like food.