Happy New Year? Whatever.

Okay, so that’s it for 2010. Over! Truly it is in my best interest anyway, I needed to get back to some semblance of normal that doesn’t involve shopping for gifts, wearing sequins in the middle of the day, dancing with strangers, and staying up past my usual bedtime of 9pm. However, a weaning period was necessary, as I’m among those types that feel a bit sad on Jan 2. So I spent that entire day in my pajamas, moping around the house eating stale Christmas cookies, avoiding the shower, the laundry, the dishes in the sink, the poinsettias that were dying (literally) of thirst, the empty refrigerator and the general Christmas mess.

Which, in hindsight, made January 3rd even worse than it would have been. Although I did feel guilty complaining when I heard about the poor slob that tried to kill himself by jumping off a 9 story building in Manhattan: he landed in an enormous pile of trash bags that are lining the streets since the blizzard. I can only imagine that expecting to end up dead, but ending up in a pile of garbage instead, would not buoy one’s spirits at all, and he must be even more depressed now.

Anyhoo, I didn’t try to jump off a building, but only step off my patio to get the four newspapers that had gathered in my driveway, when I landed flat on my ass….Black ice you surmise?? No, the regular white variety. Had D. Parker been nipping at the eggnog early this morning? No, sadly she had not, and I have no excuse for my bumbling except that I had not left the house during the daylight hours in almost a week, and perhaps I should have borrowed my Nanny’s fancy red walker.

But I managed to gather those newspapers, and then drag myself to the gym for the first time in over a week. Not because I made a New Year’s Resolution to exercise, but because that’s my usual routine, and this is the week we have to get back to our usual routines right? We’d all be dead by Valentine’s Day if we continued to carry on the way we do in December.

Speaking of New Year’s Resolutions, you’re probably thinking, “D. Parker, what are YOUR New Year’s Resolutions?” Well, you should know that I resolved LAST year to stop making New Year’s Resolutions, and if you were smart you’d give it up too. It’s just another way to set yourself up for failure and disappointment and seriously, at our age, who needs more of that? I get enough when I look in the mirror or put on a pair of jeans. And don’t even talk to me about drooping labia, which I was perfectly happy to be ignorant to, until I heard that some women are having labia reduction surgery, and now I have to be disappointed that mine are sagging??

How’s this for a New Year’s Resolution: I will not resolve to get a labia reduction or bleach my anus because I refuse to follow every trend, and I’m confident that sagging labia and regular-colored anuses will come back into fashion.

I won’t resolve to stop watching inane reality tv shows because that would mean I’ve given up hope that someone from the Bravo network will want to cast me in an inane reality tv show.

I won’t resolve to stay in touch with all those old friends I don’t keep in touch with because I must not really like them after all, or I wouldn’t have to consider forcing myself to keep in touch with them.

I won’t resolve to quit smoking because I don’t smoke, and I won’t resolve to stop drinking during the week because I like drinking during the week and I’m pretty sure I discussed that in a different blog already.

I won’t resolve to exercise more because my friend Joelle just told me that she read that as we get older, we should be exercising less, or else we will have to exercise more and I know it made a lot of sense when she told me that last week at her party, but I will check back and see what the hell she was talking about. Either way I’m not going to start exercising more, I just don’t feel like it. And the rest of you losers who were all in my way at the gym this morning, you know it’s only a matter of time before you give up on that too, and then I can have the weight room back to myself again.

I will not resolve to lose five pounds before bathing suit season. And you can’t make me.

I will not resolve to be nicer, to volunteer, to start calling my mother-in-law on the phone, to drink less coffee, eat less sugar, go for a check up, have more sex, read the entire New York Times every day or finish the Sunday crossword puzzle even it if takes me all week.

For most of my life I have been making, and breaking, resolutions, and despite that I grew up to be a happy, fairly well-adjusted, somewhat normal woman. I have no desire to be renewed, restored or better myself, and no Baby New Year is going to trick me into thinking otherwise. Furthermore, why do we all go around saying “happy New Year” anyway? What’s happy about it? I think most people would agree it’s a let down. Even if you are lucky enough to go to a fabulous New Year’s Eve party, which most of us only do once every five years, the next day is a drag. Most of January is a drag, especially if you live in the northeast like me and you have nothing to look forward to except more white stuff falling out of the sky. But if you’ve resolved to be more positive and upbeat, then have at it: wish everyone you meet a Happy New Year. Whatever.