I’m long since past making a singular New Year’s resolution. These grand proclamations are usually decided in an artificially powerful mindset (champagne) on New Year’s Eve. Nowadays I set a modest list of goals and projects to, well, at least consider all year that don’t involve absolute denial of vice or unsustainable fitness regimes. And then I wait two weeks into the new year to actually list them:

1. Upgrade my work-at-home wardrobe to be respectable enough to answer the door for UPS.
2. Pickle something. Radishes maybe.
3. Officially launch my new website.
4. Try some new varieties of ramen.
5. Summit Mt. Baldy. And I don’t mean ride the chair lift.
6. Repair the burn blister I made in my Formica countertop last January.
7. Cut back on my daily consumption of Hansen’s Diet Ginger Ale.
8. Participate in float decoration for the Tournament of Roses Parade.
9. Pursue unusual color schemes—which do not include “marsala”—with vigor.

So far, I am working on, but have not yet implemented, #1. My order from Kohl’s is expected to arrive tomorrow.