7 Ways to Improve January

This winter I've resolved to cut down on everything, including movement and thinking. Hopefully this conscientious decision will free up at least a little global intellectual bandwidth and personal space, and with the savings, God can get to work on the to-do list I've sent him. To whit:

1. Find and return George W. Bush's conscience. I've given up hope on the search for the brain, but maybe he could get back the moral compass? Last night I had the choice of joining the wives for Bunko or listening to the Regrettable State of the Divided Union address, and I did neither, opting instead to cower in my freezing living room watching the glorified murdering spree of Wyatt Earp.

2. Dissuade and punish whoever's been funneling motor oil and ground glass into my sinuses and chest cavity every night for the past week. Your holy laxity in this task has emboldened the perpetrator, and they've taken to doing the same thing to my husband, who whimpers and snuffles in his sleep when he's sick. While this is cute and somewhat endearing, it quickly gets old and I have to elbow him. Lovingly.

3. Bring back the sun. Just for a few hours, just so I can remember what the world looks like when it's not smothering under a sodden, gray wool blanket. This is why I hate January, and why:

4. There must be a new January holiday, just to help out MLK Day in breaking up the cold, tooth-gnashing sameness of long, old, regular January. It should be around about now, definitely after the 20th but before the 31st, and it should celebrate millinery. This is because I happen to look great in hats, and more people should wear them, ( like this!) so that I can justify buying myself lots of different ones and stacking them in colorful, artsy boxes in my closet, and proving to all my superior hat-wearing ability.* Ritualized consumption of nacho cheese and fine lager should also be involved.

Addendum to #4: Find a milliner in need of a muse. Something about my ridiculously tiny head, perhaps its ridiculous tiny-ness, has inspired more than one bored friend to attempt balancing things atop it. I think this curious head-magnetism is part of the secret to my hat prowess.

5. Stop making my car invisible to everyone else in bad weather. Apparently when the world is rainy and fog-covered, my car is the exact color of rain and fog, and I become this Un-car, this moving void through which pick-ups with too damn many tires are tempted to pass. This makes me tense, and contributes to the gravel-like texture of the muscles in my neck.

6. Get rid of the gravel-like texture of the muscles in my neck.

7. Keep things like this away from me when I should be concentrating on being productive. (I'll save you some time, oh Lord, on this link: don't click on any of them, just read the captions. The captions and the pictures are way funnier than the actual act of crying, or in most of these cases, faking crying, while eating. The concept itself is interesting though-- when was the last time I cried while eating? The disclaimer at the bottom of the page claims that it's good for you, and in a philosophical sense, I'll buy that-- expressing grief while nourishing the body is an act of hope, like, yes things suck right now, but if I continue to fuel this body and propel it through life, maybe the suck will let up. Ah-- now I remember: Kettle Corn, and because of fleeting, bittersweet nostalgia.)

So now that I've laid out all my requests in a sensible order, I plan to sit back, power down, and wait it out all Buddhist-like and calm, just letting things flow through me.... like all this congestion and rain...