Coming up Roses

Happy New Year! I just love New Year's. As I said yesterday, back in 2010, it's silly to get so excited about a new year when it's just another day, but I love the promise of newness that each year brings. The official character of New Year's is a baby, and like a brand-new baby, a new year is a clean, unblemished slate, one that hasn't yet grown into an obnoxious three-year-old who screams in your ear when you're trying to write a blog post.

But when I think of New Year's, I don't think of babies, I think of roses. See, I grew up in Pasadena, California, home of the Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl game on New Year's Day. And on New Year's in Pasadena, it's roses, roses everywhere.

When I was a senior in high school, I participated in the rite of passage of trying out to be the Rose Queen. I have a copy of my official tryout picture, but it's part of a beautifully-scrapbooked page my mom made that I don't want to wreck, so instead I just took this crummy picture of the whole page:

That's my official photo on the right. Sadly, I didn't make it beyond the first round of try-outs, but everyone who tries out gets to go to the Royal Ball. The photo in the upper-left is my neighbor Debbie helping me get ready for the ball. See, Debbie has two sons, and she always felt jealous of my mom getting to help a daughter get ready for a dance. Now, let me say that dance-prep was not my teenage self's strong suit (I look fat in this! My hair is ugly!), and so my mom was more than willing to throw her annoying daughter at any willing participant. That's how Debbie got the job of doing my hair, and I'm sure after that she never wished she had a daughter again. (See how useful I was?)

The photo in the lower left is my with the guy I asked to be my escort for the ball, who also happened to be my crush from approximately 6th grade to 12th grade (with periodic breaks in between). As a fun aside, I received a birth announcement just yesterday from him and his wife, who just had a daughter in November. She's super cute.

Anyway, the two best things about the Royal Ball were that: (1) They gave out free Baskin-Robbins ice cream sandwiches, and (2) We all got a Nordstrom-brand rose-scented body wash as a favor to take home. I loved that body wash. I am still on a quest to find a body wash like that one.

Well, I'm off on a tangent. The point is, I'm from the City of Roses, and so New Year's makes me think of roses. Now that I live in Illinois, January is such a bleak month, and it's nice to bring a little color into your life with roses. Hence my current blog decor. And I bought some roses yesterday at the grocery store:


I like the little baby roses, too. I bought these for somebody else, but I'm not saying who because it will ruin the surprise.


So, it's New Year's, and everything is fresh and new and promising, coming up roses if you will. And in the spirit of new beginnings, I, like most people, have made some New Year's resolutions. I decided not to make one about weight loss this year, even though that is a constant goal of mine. It just seems too pathetic to make that same resolution every year. With this year's resolutions, I decided to think a little bit outside the box.

My first resolution is to build myself a little office in my basement. Bill got me this book about stand-up comedy, one where various comics give advice, and Jerry Seinfeld's advice was to force yourself to sit down and write for one hour a day. I realized that I don't even have a dedicated space to sit down and work. If I'm going to be serious about my craft, even just as a creative outlet, I need a desk. Unfortunately, this is the only space available to clear out for an office:

Not only is that a giant disaster, but clearing it out involves decisions. See that bassinet there? Getting rid of that involves a serious emotional choice, the choice to never create another person to sleep in a bassinet again. But, you know, not really, because if I got rid of it and then for some reason had a need for it in the future, the need to acquire a bassinet would be the least of my worries.

Anyway, so after I get the area cleaned I can go to Ikea and get a desk, and then decorate my area with little kitty pictures and flowers and stuff that I can't put up in my otherwise masculine household. Plus my New Year's resolution every year is to get that basement cleaned, and maybe the promise of my own office will motivate me to actually do it this year.

My second resolution is to be less angry and resentful. I could write a 75-page diatribe on resentment, but suffice it to say that I have a lot of irrational resentment, and I'd like to work on getting rid of it.

My third resolution is to swim three times a week. In general, I think I do a good job of getting to the gym. I go 5-6 times a week, and I'm doing the whole trainer thing so I can get in my recommended 2x a week of strength training, but the casualty has been swimming. I don't think swimming is the best workout for me because my body has become efficient at it, but it's the best workout for my mental health. Now, the thing is, if I'm trying to do twice a week with the trainer, and twice a week on the treadmill, and once a week with spin, and oh yeah I'm also signing up for yoga, I can't add in 3x a week of swimming unless I double up on workouts some days. Doubling up has not really worked for me in the past. It's too hard to drag Nathan to the gym daycare twice a day, so if I want to double up I have to the workouts back-to-back. I'm not quite in shape enough to work out for two hours straight. I think my only hope for doubling up will be to swim on the days when I work out with the trainer, so I can do cardio and strength training on the same days. We'll see. (Because you're always really likely to achieve a goal when you take the attitude of we'll see.)

Okay, well, those are my resolutions. Happy 2011, everyone!