Year after year, I make those resolutions to eat less and exercise more, and remain fanatically disciplined. Until 10 am on January 1, when the last of the Christmas cake yells out to me, “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou?” And though my name isn’t, and never was Romeo, who am I to deny the beseeching tones of true love?
This year I am pinning more prosaic, achievable targets.
I will learn how to use the many magical features that my phone claims to have. I mean, they sold me the latest configuration of bits, bytes and magic carpet. And a battery that dies every 11 months, when the new configuration hits the market. I will use my apps and features to find the lost library of the Moscow Czars, auto-clip my toenails, toilet-train the pigeons on my windowsill.
I will clean my cupboards, files and friends list, and lighten my life. I will discard anything that weighs me down (especially the weighing scale itself). I will unfriend people who send me motivational quotes to live an active life when I’m cuddled up with Korean dramas and chips.
I will set rule-conforming passwords with upper-lower-italics, prime numbers, special characters, and change them every three months, and remember them later — and not fight with the chatbot when I don’t.
I will reskill and help the needy. I will offer an online course on my A-star talent — elbow butting. How to direct your elbow into paunches, spectacles or chins. How to say “Hello darling” or “I hope your teeth rot” through your elbow. Because, anyway no one knows what you’re saying through your mask.
I will grow a terrace garden, calf muscles and more sophisticated taste like that lady who matches her nail polish with her handbag. I will wear masks that match my underwear. I will never wear orange socks even just to irritate my teen.
I will detox. I will buy multiple scented candles to scare away the virus and purify the energy, though the last time everyone coughed out their intestines. Oh yes, I will detox my intestines too — by eating raw cabbage every morning — ensuring the need for those scented candles later.
I will gain inner peace. Through doorbells, whistling cookers, construction chaos, neighbours learning to sing, hallucinatory deadlines by annoying colleagues, dying batteries, starving family… I will drown everything out and bury myself in Korean dramas and chips.
Where Jane De Suza, author of Flyaway Boy, pokes her nose into our perfect lives.
