happy new year! (AM)

It is the dawning of a new age.

Today I am 24 years old. Twenty-four. 12^2. The birthday is hardly noticeable. Now that I can legally drive & drink (not simultaneously) there aren't really any irritating restrictions imposed on me because of my age, and I'm already starting to lose track of how old I've become.

The impact of my advancing age is entirely contained within my psyche. In recent years I've begun to think more seriously about what I am doing and where I am going and how close (or far) I am from becoming the person that I ultimately hope to become.

And so, a few resolutions for my new year:

1. Stop biting my fingernails-I resolve to do this every year and so far, no luck. This is probably more an exercise in self-conciousness and control more than anything. If I can't advance out of the oral fixation stage, Freud says I may be doomed to a life of passivity, gullibility, immaturity and manipulative personality. (But what does he know...)

2. Think before I speak/act/freak out/turn into a raging lunatic-It's incredible how difficult this is for me. I have a tendency to fly off the handle at the drop of a hat (how's that for your daily idiom overdose?) and sometimes little things like rationality and dignity are lost in the haze of my imagination. Whew, I need some sort of Zen Guru...

3. Progress-I need to get this show (my life) on the road (both literally and figuratively, but for the sake of simplicity, lets deal with the figurative first). This is a pretty broad goal, but I hope in a year's time (eek, the dreaded quarter-century!) I will be in a completely different place. With any luck I'll be back in school, but financially that's unlikely. A new location would satisfy me for a while... I need to live in a place where a person can really live--not just survive.

4. Travel-(here's where I literally take my life on the road). I need to get out and about and see new places and experience new cultures and be in a place that is completely different from where I am to get a little distance&perspective. I really want to go back to Europe. Germany, Spain, Amsterdam, Czech Republic, Turkey, Portugal, France... all of them call to me incessantly. I would also like to finally take that cross-country road trip that I've been dreaming of since high school.

5. Eat healthier/Be healthier-Yeah, yeah, I know. But this is an important one for me this year. It's difficult to live in a small space on a small budget with a boy who likes (and can easily metabolize) nachos and pasta and pizza and eats a lot of it. I'm not sure that I will ever be able to decline a heaping tray of nachos (our specialty: chips, spicy refried beans (veggie), jalepenos, hothot salsa, guacamole and a whoooooole lot of Cabot cheese... how could you ever refuse?) but a little bit of physical activity and a few big heaping SALADS to counteract the cheese binge would (I think) do wonders.

I think that's going to have to do it. I don't want to burden myself with too many unrealistic expectations. I think if I can accomplish only #2 I'll be off to a really good start. And maybe just one more...

6. Fill closet with lots of lovely new things! (within reason...)

My Color Scheme for today is REDREDRED! I love it! The red lip, the red shirt, the red shoes... the red birdhouse behind my head..! (I once received a catalog with an insert that recommended what colors you "should" wear based on your skin tone. One of those colors was red.) Tonight, depending on what K has planned for us, I will finally have an occasion worthy of my red velvet H&M dress. Yes! Happy Birthday to me and Happy Hump Day to all of you!

(red thermal: TJMaxx; jeans: GAP; red shoes: Chinese Laundry - Marshalls; scarf: vintage Anne Klein, thiscouldbeyou on etsy)