I Blog

And so it is that 2007 has come to an end, for some with the Stephen Kingian surprise of gasping their last as a Siberian feline’s bataround, for others with Christmas morning’s giddy anticipation of a potential mesotheliomic wheeze before drinking age. But for most of us the year’s end was not so much soul-crushing or jugular-shredding as canvas-hitting after the one-two punch of Yuletide consumer decadence followed by Silvestrian obliteration.

For many the post-raillery hangover lasted something of a while (I am no exception, hence the three week delay of my New Year’s post), but from the haze they emerged, sullen, weak, indebted to a tune of thousands, and yet surprisingly resolute. How fantastic that merely buying a new calendar is enough to liberate the slovenly masses from their disgusting bad habits.

In particular, the New Year is a great time to shame fat people (not that the rest of the year isn’t full of other great times for same). Not only are Americans fat to begin with, but they tend to spend the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas gorging themselves (to make it through the scarce winter, I guess) on seasonal fare that tends to be made of imaginative combinations of sugar and emulsifiers. No amount of bourbon and nutmeg will change the fact that you’re drinking heavy cream fortified with raw eggs.

Thus it is that “lose weight” is a perennial contender on the New Year’s Resolution list. My favorite incarnation of this item is a recent article on about.com that encourages resolvers to “tame the bulge,” as if our bellies were not the tumescent symptoms of American excess, but feral carnivores looming menacingly above our genitals, meekly checked by our strained belts and our “Female Body Inspector” T-shirts. Enter the new, Heraclean you, arrived to slay the beast with your sword of resolve, thereby rejuvenating your sense of self with the heroic ideals of our culture: broad chest, rock-hard abs and decisiveness. Resolve.

But really, who are you kidding?

Both you and I know that come March you’ll be bingeing again, but this time it’ll be on EZ-Cheeze and saltines instead of your crusty French stinky stuff because the gym you never go to gets an autodeducted third of your paycheck—which, by the way, only gives the smug motherfuckers who look good in spandex one more reason to pity you.

Face it: of all the things you’ll find amid the drunken throngs on New Year’s, resolve ain’t one of them. If you had it, or were even somewhat capable of it, you would be able to see your own pubic hair. So maybe it’s time to follow the experts’ advice and substitute attainable, positive goals for sweeping resolutions. Tell your friends you care, change your oil every three thousand miles, stop clicking there to claim your free iPod (no one gives away free iPods).

For my part, I will continue to drink, smoke, laugh at tragedy, curse the elderly and the handicapped, and watch Fox News. But, despite all my failures and consistent bad habits, I will make a change for the positive in 2008. I will improve my own life and embolden others to do the same. I will use my accruing weight to tip the metaphysical scale toward the just and the righteous. I will touch the lives of those around me, if but a few, in a definite and irrevocable way. I will blog.