Resolutions, Shmezolutions.

The concept of the New Years Resolution has never made sense to me.  I've always been of the belief that, the louder you announce your intentions, the less appealing they're going to sound, and the less likely you are to follow through with them.  Another reason I think New Years Resolutions are doomed to fail most of the time is that people make them in order to try to fix what isn't broken in the first place.  It seems to be a phenomenon that is particularly prevalent amongst single women, who are trying to render themselves unrecognisable in order to find love.  This is, of course, complete bollocks, so voice of radical dissension that I am, I have decided to turn the concept on its head.  So sit back, eat that extra Tim Tam, crack open a beer and enjoy reading through the list that I call my New Years Shmesolutions.

I WILL NOT give up my favourite foods.  I don't smoke, I don't gamble, and the fact that my credit rating is somewhere south of Hell prevents me from any 'therapeudic commerce' that my take home pay can't fund.  Chicken Byriani doesn't cause cancer, I don't have to fork out a month's rent to pay for my Junior Mints habit, and in my eyes the few extra centimetres around my waste directly attributable to my weakness for crusty baguette with brie and olive oil only makes me more attractive.  Newsflash: They don't call 'em love handles for nothing. 

I love Bailey's.  Deal with it.  Let me clarify something: I'm not a drunk.  I rarely drink alone, I don't bring alcohol home if my son's in the house, and I don't drink to get blotto.  Not intentionally, anyway.  I am that rare individual known as the one drink screamer.  In layman's terms, this means that it only takes one standard drink to take me from zero to chatty.  To explain the reason I adore Bailey's, I ask you to imagine combining a bowl of Coco Pops, a cup of cream and a generous slop of alcohol in a blender.  That's what Baileys is; a grown up chocolate milkshake.  Some men may be put off by the idea of a woman drinking, but seeing as these are usually the men who are also non-plussed at the thought of a woman swearing, having independent thoughts and talking back, I think we can all agree that they are no big loss.

I don't have to be a lady.  I dress more Hippie than (Audrey) Hepburn, I have no problem asking a guy out, and my Twitter and Facebook friends will tell you that I love a dirty joke.  I could resolve to be more refined, but what for?  Any guy I might win over with a ladylike facade is bound to be disappointed the first time he hears me swear at idiot politicians on TV, or has the misfortune to be inhaling when I am suffering digestive distress after eating Thai food. 

I like being a sixteen year-old in a thirty-nine-year-old's body.  My son and I have eerily similar taste in You Tube videos; most of my clothes come from Jay Jay's or Cotton On, and you won't find Celine Dion on my iPod.  Life's short enough as it is without forcing yourself to prepare for the grave before the halfway point.

As far as I'm concerned, I AM cool.  Confession time: I'm a dork.  I only go to the beach to read on the sand, I collect ceramic elephants, and my chief exhilarating pastime at the moment is decorating and furnishing a dolls house I bought from a discount store.  Hardly the list of hobbies one might expect of a single woman under sixty, but the traits listed above more than make up for it.  Besides that, they keep me calm and anyone raising teenagers alone will tell you that sometimes getting your geek on is the only thing preventing you from going online and ordering a mother load of horse tranquilisers. 

Trying to change yourself in order to get a man is the same as trying to change a man once you've got him; futile and fool-hardy.  Unless you're a damn good liar, the only resolution you should be making come New Years is to not make any more resolutions.  On that note, I'd like to wish all my readers the happiest of holidays and a wonderful new year.  I'll be taking a break from blogging for just over a week, in order to spend time with my son and indulge in all of the dalliances I mentioned in this post (and hopefully more). 
Cheers!  

Baking it and faking it.

To counteract the residual effects left over from being involuntarily celibate for almost three years, I have discovered a brilliant distraction: baking.  No, this does not involve getting kinky with a wooden spoon and dessert products and strutting about wearing nothing but an apron, (PLEASE, for the sake of your mental and physical well-being, get that image out of your mind this instant).  It's more a case of tricking my brain into releasing endorphins by undertaking an activity that requires light physical labour, skilled hand movements and to-ing and fro-ing over a period of sixty minutes or more in order to produce something that gives me a brief high, warms me up and makes me sleepy.  Okay, so you can't spoon with a tray of blueberry muffins, or engage in post-feast pillow talk with a devil's food cake, but there are other benefits to baking.

1.  Sharing a plate of chocolate chip cookies and a cup of coffee with a friend who is going through a bad break up says 'I'm here for you.' Attempting to regale her with tales of the limitless ways the new marathon man in your life satisfies you three times a day says 'Sorry you couldn't be there, but check out our wicked slide show!'  

2.  Cleaning up is fun.  (Delving into this one any further will have me teetering over the edge of the already tenuous P.G. 13 barrier I have erected around this blog, but you get the idea).

3.  You can discuss the virtues of hand whisking over electric beaters with your Nan.  Initiate a discussion about similar uses for your hands in a different setting, and you're likely to put her in the coronary ward.

4.  Baked goods are terrific fundraisers.  Donating a hot guy wrapped in a festive tea towel to the school fete might bring in a lot of dollars, but it'll also make your next parent teacher night a tad awkward.

5.  A basket of goodies is a great way to welcome someone to your neighbourhood.  Having a hot naked guy 'hand deliver' them might make your septuagenarian neighbour's decade, but may prove problematic should she decide to send over her husband in an act of reciprocation.

Yeah I've drawn a pretty long bow with this one, and let's face it, it's complete bull honky, but if donning an apron and pretending I'm Nigella for a couple of hours takes my mind off the fact that the only item of furniture around here that squeaks is the beleaguered kitchen chair on which I sit my expanding arse to blog, so what?  It's fun, it's cheap, and I'm saving our glorious nation thousands of dollars a year in pharmaceutical bills.  Furthermore...piss off.

     

Taming the hazel-eyed monster.

Everyone has certain personality traits they aren't proud of.  Mine is jealousy.  Whether it became part of my nature organically, or grew there from the seed of the ever so slight sense of entitlement my mother unwittingly nurtured by making my room look like Toyworld to make up for the fact that I was an only child, the hazel-eyed monster has been with me for as long as I can remember.  It lays dormant most of the time, now that I am a (ahem) 'responsible adult' (snort), but there are still occasions when it threatens to come out of hibernation.  Engagement parties and weddings, births, and couples over the age of eighteen showing public displays of affection are occasions when the climate is particularly well suited to the re-emergence of the creature of covetousness.

While I might look happy outwardly, holding my champagne glass aloft and toasting the happy couple alongside a hundred or so other close friends and family, inside I'm wondering when the damn speeches are going to be over so I can get to piling my plate full of comfort food from the buffet table.  While friends of the bride speculate in hushed tones as to what the groom had to hock to buy her a rock that big on his salary, I'm standing there thinking It could have come from a Kinder Surprise for all I care, point is, she has a man who worships the ground she walks on and all I'll be going home with is a purse full of canopes.  My mother's habit of bailing up mums in shopping centres and enquiring as to their baby's name, weight and sleep patterns is usually endearing, if a little embarrassing.  At the wrong time of the month however, a time I like to call 'Oestrogen Equinox,' my mind wanders back to when my son was a velvet-complexioned cherub whose face lit up whenever I entered the room.  The sight of people holding hands and looking at each other starry-eyed brings home the realisation that the last man to look at me like that was in his early sixties, and he wasn't looking me in the eye (see 'The dirty and the indifferent').  At times like these, I find that the best course of action is to focus on the positives.  Having no fiancee means I won't have to do eighty sit-ups a day in order to fit into a dress I'll only wear once.  Having no husband means I won't have to play referee between family members who will only sit in the same room for weddings and funerals.  And having no more kids means that it won't be long until my weekends are mine again.

I really do want to fall in love again, but coveting what other people have is like holding a Weight Watchers meeting at Pizza Hut; all you come out with at the end is guilt, depression and three kilos that you need about as much as an extra uvula.  Jealousy is the Big Brother of emotions; it serves no useful purpose other than to debase and humiliate people, making them ponder doing unspeakable things in order to win a prize they only value when they see other so-called winners.  To sum up, my advice the next time you feel a twinge of envy working its way out is to get the hell over it and change the channel.                                              

Angry Arthur.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that my son and I are very close, and he will always come first.  Anyone considering friendship or something more with me is informed of this early on.  While I don't define myself by my role as a mother, I do adore my child and put him into consideration with every major decision I make, including inviting a man into our lives.  My mother was always very careful about choosing the kinds of men she dated, and was quick to send them packing if it looked like they were having difficulty understanding the mother-child dynamic.  Arthur was your typical Aussie alpha male; loud, jolly, and always quick with a dirty joke after seven or eight beers.  His bombastic nature took me back a little, seeing as I was only five at the time, but he made my mum happy, and that was the important thing.  It didn't hurt that he had a ten year old son who I thought was the best thing to come along since Ernie first captivated me with his crazy Muppet laugh on Sesame Street.  Because my parents divorced when I was three, the only males I had had any interaction with up to that point were my uncles, and they were cool.  Jokes, trips to the movies and the beach, and days out with my cousins were the highlight of my holidays, and Uncle Ken and Uncle Simon were the standard by which I judged all men.  Unfortunately, for Mum and for me, Arthur did not meet this standard.

I soon came to realise, young as I was, that drunk Arthur and sober Arthur were two different people.  Drunk Arthur was funny.  Sober Arthur was as mean as a rabid junkyard dog with it's foot caught in a bear trap.  Patience was not a virtue to which Arthur subscribed, and what seemed to particularly incense him was my lack of coordination.  On a day at the beach, I noticed the contemptuous snarl on his face when I stumbled along in the wet sand.  I picked up on his resentful tone when he and my mum were discussing my sleeping habits.  Mum somehow missed these and dozens of other hints as to his ill will towards me, but it was before a Sunday drive that she got an eye full of the real Arthur Fitz.  I was sitting in the back of Arthur's car and we were all ready to go when Mum realised she had forgotten something.  For my five year old self, fastening a seat belt was the equivalent of solving a five hundred piece jigsaw puzzle, so Mum was always the one to make sure I was safely strapped in before we went anywhere.  On this particular day, for some reason, I decided to give it a crack.  I fumbled around for ages trying to get the clip to fit inside the slot, my cheeks burning with the effort.  The clinking and scraping of metal on metal must have irritated Arthur's detoxifying brain more than anything else I had ever inadvertently done, because it was at that moment that I really bore the brunt of his angry arseholery.

'Clip the bloody thing in properly!'  He bellowed.  I shrunk back into my seat, trembling hands still clinging to the seat belt.  Then Arthur looked out the window, and his expression changed.  Mum had seen everything.  Needless to say, we did not partake in an afternoon drive that Sunday, and my mum refused to take Arthur's phone calls from then on.  The memory of Arthur Fitz and his allergy to me is one of the things that has shaped my approach to dating as a single mother.  Adolescent mood swings, selective deafness and all, G is the sun around which I revolve, and until such time as I become utterly unnecessary and uncool to him, any other planetary bodies wishing to occupy the same solar system as me will need to keep that in mind.             

Why chocolate can sometimes be better than love (she said in jest).

Ever wondered why you feel like you're on cloud nine when you eat chocolate?  No, Cadbury's, Hershey's and co do not slip a certain plant-derived secret ingredient into the mix, but cocoa does contain a compound called cannabinoids.  Yes, you read that right; cannabinoids are a compound similar to cannabis that induce a similar euphoric sensation, albeit a milder one.  That's one explanation for my nocturnal eating habits, but I think there's more to it. 

CHOCOLATE IS ALWAYS THERE FOR YOU.  You've had a day that would test the patience of the Dali Llama, and all you're getting from your so-called loved one is shrugs and well-worn platitudes.  You go home, slam the front door, and throw open the pantry to see if you can rustle up some comfort food.  Finding nothing but tomato sauce, baked beans and two minute noodles, desperation is turning to despair.  Then you remember your emergency provisions.  Slowly, and with the reverence of a child pilfering the coveted last chocolate chip cookie, you reach up to the top shelf and take down the Tupperware treasure chest that holds your rich, delicate bounty, (and Kit Kat, and Hershey, and M&M's, etc).  With your very first bite, placation starts to waft over you.  Troubles?  They don't exist.  All there is is chocolate and happiness. 

CHOCOLATE IS ALWAYS PRESENTABLE.  It's a fact that human beings let themselves go as soon as they begin feeling comfortable in a relationship.  The well-dressed, clean-shaven guy you once knew, who put deodorant on before and after jogging, dropped the handsome gent facade like a cockroach on fire a month after you gave him his own set of house keys.  Not so with chocolate.  It's never loses its silky smooth finish, and always intoxicates you with its rich, sweet aroma whenever you peel off its crisp, shiny robe.

CHOCOLATE GIVES WITHOUT THOUGHT OF RECEIVING.  Give and take, who needs it?  With chocolate in your life, you need never feel guilty about receiving the pleasure to which you are entitled again, much less feel obligated to return it.  Health regulations, public and private decency, and the law in some countries, prevent you from completely replacing a mate with chocolate, but when was the last time you were able to say that the dessert you got at the end of the meal was a fitting reward for the truly heroic couple of hours you put into the main course?

CHOCOLATE TASTES GOOD.  Speaks for itself, really.

CHOCOLATE DOESN'T HAVE RIDICULOUS STANDARDS.  So you don't wake up looking like a supermodel.  So you're no Nigella Lawson (nor do you HAVE to be).  So you were fired from your job for calling your bosses know-it-all cousin a steel wool-headed bitch.  Whether you're Miranda Kerr or Phyllis Diller; buxom food maven or cranky gruel server; polite team player or unemployed union rep with an axe to grind, chocolate is always ready and waiting with a sweet, velvety Hershey's Kiss that melts your heart, sets your thighs ablaze, and lights up your soul like a fireworks display on Chinese New Year.   

You'd better not cry.

I adore Christmas.  Let me just put that out there right now.  You will not find another person in this world with a more chronic case of the holly-jollies than me.  From December the first to the twenty fourth, I live the life of a manic elf with a Benzadrine addiction.  I hop around the house, draping every surface and inanimate object in tinsel; I make enough shortbreads and truffles to put even the healthiest person into a diabetic coma; and I spend hours perusing store shelves to ensure that every gift I give represents the receiver's personality and taste to a tee.  In short, I'm a poor man's Martha Stewart.  But like late season hay fever, this condition doesn't last.  The place you are most likely to find me on Christmas night, once my son has gone to bed, is curled up on the couch eating my fourth helping of plumb pudding and wondering where it all went wrong.  I'm not unique; Christmas is statistically the time of year when depression and suicide rates are at their peak.  Don't worry, I plan to stick around and confound people with my self depricating ways for the next fifty years or so, but I do share the dubious honour of feeling about as wanted as cheap fruitcake once the last carol has been sung. 

What is it that triggers this horrible affliction?  In a word, anticipation.  Love is something we are told is the be all and end all of existence from when we're too young to know how to spell it.  The princesses in the fairy tales we were read back then always got their man.  Or rather, he got them; all the princess had to do was make a wish and wait to be rescued, (don't even get me started on why that incenses me so much).  Christmas is equally as well-hyped.  Kids are told that if they're good all year, they'll find exactly what their little hearts desire under the tree.  We realise of course that this is a complete crock once we reach adulthood, but it doesn't stop us from believing it until we rip off the expensive wrapping and find a ten dollar Chanel no 5 knock-off that smells like toilet deodoriser.  The truth is, if you build up an experience too much in your head, you will only be twice as gutted if it doesn't happen.  That isn't to say that it won't, and I'm not suggesting that you surrender all hope of finding someone who will cuddle up with you on the couch and feed you truffles, (am I alone in that fantasy?).  I am simply saying that just telling Santa what you want will not guarantee waking up to find your perfect guy under the tree, wearing nothing but a strategically placed festive ribbon.  Us grown-ups have to work for what we want.  Go out, socialise, make new friends.  If nothing else, you'll have other people to swap Surprise Santa/Kris Kringle gifts with, and that sure as hell beats post-holiday indigestion.