So this is the new year....

Resolution for 2009: Finish best of 2008 list.

Yeah, I can start that tomorrow, right? The FIRST day of the new year doesn't actually count for anything.

I am sad, though, that I didn't miss the slutty hot mess that must have been Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin on CNN.

I'm going back to bed, with coffee, an awful book that both tact and my career forbid me from naming but that I am going to pretend was written by Meg Cabot because, though it was not written by Meg Cabot, not only is the cover done in the same super-cute quirky chick-lit-esque-but-with-brains-because-everyone-knows-it's-forward-thinking-to-assume-girls-can-do-math-and-don't-need-princes color scheme, and not only is the premise kinda the same (hey quirky kinda-screwed-in-the-head chick, you can find love too and then you'll be a-ok, even if you are a size 14 because that's not fat unless you're trying to size jeans at Forever21), but, for some reason, the thought of reading a Meg Cabot book right now in secret kinda intellectually gets me off a little similar to the way you put little chocolate pieces on your pizza when you think no one's looking and then scarf the damn thing down, and hunker down and probably listen to that Death Cab For Cutie album that I keep thinking about and pseudo-referencing but not actually wanting to re-download until now and just letting today pass by.

Don't assume my lack of super-enthusiastic "there's no 'I' in 'team' but there is an 'I' in 'all of these are my accomplIshments' " motivational calendar self-help-speaker-who-adds-everyone-on-Twitter 'whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right as long as you remember to always be closing' espousing is indicative of any lack of enthusiasm for 2009 on my part.

I just tend to think it's both unrealistic and, um, almost kinda slightly pagan, really (seriously...a drunken orgiastic gathering to celebrate...an almost arbitrary changing of numbers in increments of one?), to confine the potentials of life to a set grouped number of days. Honestly, something awesome could have happened at 11:59 pm yesterday evening and then it would have been 2008 and then wouldn't all the potential positivity of 09 have been wasted on one splurt and then oh god what's the point of living, etc? It's like resolutions-why only give yourself 365 days to do something good for yourself or others? The whole thing feels, to me, like the concept of "yes we DID" vs "yes we CAN". "Did" implies that all requisite accomplishments have been reached, whereas the potential of "can" is both powerful and infinite.

Can>Did.

But, whatever, I didn't major in math.

Or, to put it in the words of Kate Bush: "I just know that something good is gonna happen. I don't know when. But saying it could even make it happen."

Ok, granted, the song was about crazy-as-fuck Wilhelm Reich thinking that if he buried glowing objects in his yard the government wouldn't lock him away from his family, but the sentiment remains the same.

The sentiment. And the outcome.

As I wrote this, I received an email from Pizza Hut informing me that the "best way" to "spend" my "New Years Day" would be to order a pizza from (natch) Pizza Hut now-featuring "all-natural pepperoni".






















As you can clearly see, you know the processed fakeymeaty porky fattystuffs are now "all-natural" because there is WHEAT in the "all natural" logo.







Of course. Fifteen points to Oglivy or Wieden & Kennedy or whoever it was that makes like 100k more a year than I do to focus-group concepts like "Ok so if we attach a piece of wheat to the logo will it be immediately evident to you, Mr and Mrs Joe Pizzabuyer, that our pepperoni is now all-natural? Peeerrrrefect."

Actually, make that 20 points for the additional suggestion that I rush out right now, on New Years Day Morning or whatever it's called, to procure said pizza. Apparently, if one is to believe both Pizza Hut and Bono, all is quiet on New Years Day...other than the ringing of phones placing orders for the new all-natural super-awesome Jesus-cured-pepperoni pizza. Yes, Jesus is actually IN the back room of every single Pizza Hut, simultaneously (he can bi-locate, after all), curing the all-natural pepperoni. Jesus AND Bono. Same person. But only today. Only on New Years Day can one acquire said holiest of holy pork product. Again: you know it's holy because there's iconography of wheat in the logo.

If that's how I am supposed to spend my new years day? Then, yes, in fact, I am going back to bed. Me and Meg Cabot.

Not actually Meg Cabot. But I can pretend.