Yesterday was my birthday.  I meant to post this then, but I got distracted organizing a drawer and then later I didn’t feel like it.  New Years Resolution #1: STOP PROCRASTINATING!!!!

The weirdest thing about being born New Years Day is that the normal reflection anyone goes through on a birthday is amplified by the fact that everyone else is doing the same thing.  Everyone celebrates a New Year with you.  In a way it’s everyone’s birthday.  I’ve been a mascot at every New Years Eve party I’ve ever attended. The pro is that everyone feels like celebrating.  The con is that – depending on how you feel about the year that’s just passed – you (and by you, I mean ME) often don’t.  Feel like celebrating, that is.

Actually, if I’m honest, I hardly ever feel like celebrating.  It’s like pulling teeth to get me to do it.  I’m a real Capricorn about it, frankly.  And by that I mean I’m a complete wet blanket who would just as soon go to work on her birthday as go out and paint the town red.  New Years Resolution #2: STOP BEING SUCH A CAPRICORN!!!!  LIVE A LITTLE!!!!

My friend, Natascha Unkart, made me Miss January for a crazy fabulous calendar she put together some years ago. It was an art project/feminist critique on American Apparel called American Appalling, (Horizontally Conceptualized Marketing). Totally wonderful and you absolutely should check it out, but for my purposes here the important takeaway is that she made me Miss January.  Here I am above looking completely gormless but HAPPY, which is how I think I should look on my birthday (well, maybe not so much the gormless part) but usually don’t, except when I’m faking it.  Of course, that’s a completely Capricorn thing to think, though, isn’t it?  I should look happy on my birthday?!  HONESTLY. W.T.F.

New Years Resolution #3: STOP LISTENING TO MY BRAIN!!!

Of course Natascha took the photograph months before she published the calendar when being happy came much easier.  I’ve been thinking about what it is about this time of year that is so strangely dark and weird for me, and I’ve come to some conclusions.  A.) The Sun is going through Capricorn which is my 12th house, so I’m not feeling particularly social B.) The Sun is going through Capricorn, which is Saturn ruled, so there is a sense of DUTY and OBLIGATION about this time of year, which is why some people hate the holidays and while I don’t, I certainly find them exhausting and by the time my birthday rolls around I never really feel like talking to another person as. long. as. I. live. again. ever. C.) Did I mention the Sun is in Capricorn?  Have you ever met a Capricorn?!  We are such sad fucks, really.  I mean, I love us, really, I do, but for God’s Sake, why on earth do we have to be so melancholy?  Fucking Saturn.  Fuck off.

New Years Resolution #4: FUCK SATURN.  FIGURATIVELY, OF COURSE.

My mum (who used to send me clippings through the mail but is now scanning clippings and sending them to me through the internets!) sent me my horoscopes for yesterday.  They’re good ones, too!  Here’s hoping they come true.  But if they don’t I have a back-up plan.  New Years Resolution #5: START CELEBRATING MY BIRTHDAY THE WAY I WANT TO, GODDAMMIT!!!

This year I realized that if I wanted to start having happier birthdays I was really going to have to start spending them the way I wanted to, not the way I thought I should want to.  ie; if I don’t feel particularly social, why on earth should I spend my birthday with anyone else?  At the last hour I got this bee in my bonnet about leaving town for a few days.  I totally had this plan to head off to Palm Springs for a couple days and sit poolside sipping on a cocktail – or two.  But then on New Years Eve I got stoned and started organizing my closets and got totally distracted and stayed up way too late.  By the time I woke up on my birthday the last thing I felt like doing was heading out of dodge for a two hour drive.  I mean, BLERGH, for realz.

So I woke up and kept organizing my closets and drawers, thinking about the last year and all that it was and all that it wasn’t.  I neglected to eat and by 3pm was really starting to feel a bit light-headed.  I had a piece of toast and started searching Yelp for steakhouses.  My thinking was that I should (there’s that word again!) at least take myself out for a nice – totally decadent – dinner.

And, at this point I’d shaved my legs, set my hair, and put on a new dress and was all dressed up.  It seemed a shame to waste such a totally bangin’ outfit on my couch and whatever movie I could find on Netflix streaming, but, boy howdy, I cannot tell you how much my couch was calling to me.  However, somehow I managed to get myself out the door and drive the few miles to the place I’d decided on.  I wasn’t feeling it when I pulled into the parking lot and handed over my truck to the valet (I hate valet!!!  #cheapasscapricorn).  I really wasn’t feeling it when I walked into the place and it was deserted and dark and actually a bit dank.  Then I sat down in the booth and a complete chill washed over me.  Seriously, I started to shiver.

I all but bolted from the place.  Got my truck from the valet and drove off.  Ann-Margret was blasting from my stereo and I had to turn her off, she was just too cheerful suddenly.  I could feel a Good Old Cry coming on, so I told myself sternly to pull off the road so if I was really going to succumb to such self-pity at least I wouldn’t be endangering anyone else.  I pulled over and just let it go.  I cried for everything the last year was and everything it wasn’t.  I cried for everything and everyone I lost this year and everything I said I would do last year at this time but somehow haven’t yet managed to.  I’m starting to tear up now just thinking about it, so I guess I didn’t really let it ALL go, but I tell you, I did my best.

And I guess that’s about all anyone can do, really.  And (aside from how much television I’ve watched this year when I could-have-should-have been doing something else) I have to say I really did do my best this past year.  Better than I’ve done most years recently.  I give myself about a B-. (I’m being generous, but what the hell, it was my birthday, after all)

When I didn’t have any more tears left in me I wiped my face, (thank heavens I’d decided against make-up when I got ready!!!) straightened up and started driving again.  I thought I’d try my second Yelp suggestion downtown. As I was feeling less and less like doing this whole thing at all and more and more obliged to do it I comforted myself that if I didn’t like the next place I could just go get a burrito and go home, my couch would always be there, after all.

Well, the second option didn’t work out either, but by then I was determined to keep going and fortunately Google Maps pointed me in a completely new direction.  After I’d parked my truck and was walking to the new place it occurred to me that I was relating to my Birthday date with myself in precisely the way I relate to just about everything I think would be fun or good for me – as if it were something I should be doing, rather than something I wanted to do.  What a weirdo.  But again, Saturn’s fault.  Seriously, what on earth was I thinking when I picked a birth with Saturn opposing my natal Jupiter within 17 seconds?!

On the other hand, if it weren’t for my sense of obligation and duty to myself I would have surrendered to my baser instincts and holed up inside my apartment feeling sorry for myself instead of going out to dinner 35 floors up with panoramic views of the downtown city skyline.  So, GO Saturn!  Once I settled into my cozy booth and had a glass of wine in front of me, everything started looking much better.  Actually, everything started to look very good indeed.

I’m so very glad and grateful for every moment of the past year, the good and the bad.  I’m so very grateful for everything in me that resists being happy and present and joyful and I’m so very much more grateful for everything in me that resists that resistance.

Sometimes I hate being me, but sometimes I love it.  What a wonderful, crazy, mixed up world it all is.  Sometimes I hate it, but sometimes I love it.  Yesterday there were moments I hated it, but last night I loved it.  My waitress, Norma, was such a darling, she was super friendly and attentive and brought me a New Years tiara they had left over from the night before with some beads and then she brought me a gorgeous chocolatey dessert with a candle and even a Baileys!!!  What a sweetheart.  It was so funny, you know, I wanted to spend my Birthday alone, but I realized I’m never really alone.  If you can connect with others and ever have to leave your house, you will never really be alone.

Having said that, New Years Resolution #6: SPEND NEXT BIRTHDAY IN PALM SPRINGS POOLSIDE

Seriously, I’m planning the next one.  I’ve learned my lesson.  Repent and Sin No More!  I’m not spending another birthday scrambling to create something special for myself.  I’m going to spend the next year creating something special for myself every day of the year so that by the time my birthday rolls around next year I’ll be ready for it.  I suggest you do the same.

Of course it’s entirely possible that you already DO that for yourself and don’t have the GRAVE misfortune of being a Capricorn born under the rulership of Saturn.  You might be like my great friend, Sara Brown, who is my birthday guru, a Sag, naturally, who never fails to celebrate her birthday.  Of course, she’s also a Leo rising, bless her.  According to the Birthday book, she was born on The Day of Mirthful License.  Or maybe you’re like my nephew, born on The Day of the Space Voyager.  At any rate, you might be much luckier than me, and NOT be born on The Day of the Emotional Organizer.  Perhaps you don’t spend your birthdays organizing your closets.

I hate that darned book.  But I love it.  Oh, I don’t know.  Screw it.  New Years Resolution #7: START ORGANIZING THINGS MORE FUN THAN CLOSETS!!!! (Note to self: what could be more fun than organizing closets?! New Years Resolution #8 FIND OUT!!!)

I’ve got something more fun!  A GIVEAWAY!

In honor of my birthday and because I have honestly learned again this year (what it is about lessons you have to relearn that end up being the best ones?) it truly is better to give than to receive I’m going to give away a copy of The Secret Language of Birthdays (pictured above) to someone chosen at random in my comments section.  All you have to do is post an answer to the following question: What is your New Years Resolution?

So have at it, Little Parsnips, Turnips, Space Voyagers, or whatever it is you’re calling yourself these days.  Tell us about your hopes and dreams and disappointments and don’t forget!  REPENT AND SIN NO MORE!!!!

I will announce the winner of the book a week from today on January 9th, The Day of Ambition, as it turns out, so you better take this seriously, you lot.  Just kidding.  NOT.  No, really, I’m kidding.  …or am I?!

Anyway, Good Luck and may the most random person win!!!  We’ll see you in the comments below…

UPDATE:

Hello?  …Hello?  Is this thing on?  HA!  Since only two people posted their resolutions it makes choosing someone random super easy!  A good ol’ coin toss decides the winner, I gave heads to Kristie since she commented first and Tails to Tammee since she was second, and the winner is… (two out of three!!) … KRISTIE!!!!

Kristie, I will be contacting you privately to collect your address so I can send you this bitchin’ book.  I really truly hope it’s kinder to you than it’s been to me.

Peace out, 2013lings!!!