January 12, 2003

Last week, I pretended to be a vegetarian. Not in practice--just to politely brush off the nice lady trying to sell me steaks from the back of her truck. Under normal circumstances, I might jump at the chance to buy cheap (if somewhat suspect) back-of-the-truck steaks, but it's my first year paying property taxes and I've extended austerity measures until the end of January (no penalties if you pay before February 1).

Lucky for me, or I'd be on the phone ordering that Ronco Showtime Rotisserie from the infomercial that's on now. You can only inundate a gal with so many shots of succulent meat, roasted to a turn, before she caves and buys your stupid machine. Even without the machine, I would like some of those meat rubber bands. They're very handy, as is that crazy elastic meat netting they slide around the pork roasts or stuffed chicken breasts at the meat market. I'm going to have to investigate.

My 2003 arrived without fanfare--I only noticed it had happened when I muted the Buffy rerun I was watching to figure out what that popping sound outside was--but I had my pennies on my windowsills and I ate my black-eyed peas and greens and cornbread the next day, so all's well so far in 2003.

Except, of course, that I still have some unfinished business from 2002, to be expected. I haven't finished Sue's or Jason's Christmas presents, although I suspect they'll be worth the wait. (Judging by her reaction, Kelly Sue's was.) I was technically supposed to wrap everything up last week--the 10th marks the end of my official previous-year grace period. But as I am chronically late, I feel pretty good if I can TCB by the end of January. That parallels my considering myself on time if I'm within 5 minutes, but being relieved if I'm off by just 15. More often it's 30 or more.

But that's all in the past! It's 2003! Well, actually, I'm not going to really put my ass into being on time this year, but I have started to wear a watch. Hopefully, I'll get a better understanding of the concept and I'll be primed for promptness in 2004.

Monday marks the start of my first post-grace-period week of the year, which means that's when I truly have to start observing my ANNUAL MASTER TO DO LIST. I'm glad I get today off, because it's far too wet and cold and gray for me to give any real consideration to showering or leaving the house, so no yoga again today.

Naturally, I wasted a good deal of time and Liquid Paper refining this year's list. I've learned my lesson. No, the lesson is not don't waste your time at obsessive list-making. The lesson is do your obsessive list-making on the computer and don't commit it to paper until you've gone through all twenty drafts and catagorized and alphabetized it.

Huzzah! Huzzah! New year! New list!

12.18.02