A little late, but welcome to 2020! I hope your journey here was exactly how you imagined it would be! If you’re anything like me, you fell into a snack and champagne induced coma at 20:00hrs and had a what-the-damn-feck-where-the-heck-am-I moment at midnight when the fireworks started going off. Also, I have to say starting 2020 in a pool of drool (at least it was mine this time) with crumbs in my hair is not the way I imagined seeing in the New Year…but it is what it is. *Shrugs*.

Anyway, did anybody make any resolutions this year? Is this still a thing people are doing? I only know one person who made a resolution (to lose a few lbs) …starting for sure tomorrow…predicatbly it’s been tomorrow for almost two weeks now, and I’m not feeling confident about their resolution. Myself? I did not bother. I know I’ll throw myself into it for January, and by February 1^st I’ll be acting like I don’t know what the hell a resolution even is – come March, I begin systematically defriending and disowning those who remind me of the thing(s) I promised to do this year, and stress eating because…well because it’s a random Tuesday, so no. I’m not doing it anymore.

The great thing is, I discovered (and it’s a little bit judge-y), I can still make resoultions. It is possible to make resolutions for other people (whether they know about it, or consent to the follow through….this is a different issue entirely). I’ve thought of a few of things I personally (as in this affects me currently and regularly in my daily life) would like to see some people doing more/less of in the upcoming always. Just always.

This year (and always), I am making it a resolution for some people to:

• Be considerate upstairs neighbours: Specifically, my upstairs neighbour (is it everyone’s upstairs neighbour?). Please make it a resolution to stop doing whatever the damn hell it is you do that wakes me with a start every night convinced I’m experiencing an earthquake somehow occuring at the same time as a (terrible) disco. And by the way, can you explain exactly how it is you accomplish this level of apartment-shaking noise when I’ve been inside your near minimalist home and there’s nothing there which should make my apartment shake the way it does at 1:00am, or ever. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
• Look up every 10 steps: Technology amazing. Listen,  I can completely relate to being involved in a text war, urgently having to forward a new meme on WhatsApp, having to respond to work-related DM’s, or everyone’s favourite on the YouTube…floofy kitten videos (!!!). But when does it stop being just checking my messages while walking down the street, and start being something resembling natural selection?  We’re resolutioning to Look up…at least every 10 steps. Look up from your device to make sure you’re not about to step in doggy doo. Look up to make sure you’re not blocking the pavement/stairs/walkway. Look up to make sure you haven’t stopped directly in the path of oncoming traffic or are about to fall down a manhole cover…just…Look up!
• Just do it: That book you’ve been talking at people about writing for the past 10 years? That exercise regime or diet you’re definitely going to start…tomorrow? The instrument or language you’ve always wanted to learn…but…Game of Thrones…… Just do it. Make it a goal this year to not be the one that induces eye rolls and guttural sighs in your loved ones because you know what bitch? They’re tired of hearing it. So, pee or get off the pot.
• Focus on personal hygiene: If you plan on using public transportation…or um…working in close proximity…with other people and lifeforms, make it a resolution to shower more than once a week. Wash and change your clothes when they smell a little funky. There comes a point when even the best deodorants can mask the stench no longer. I call this the ripening – when the BO begins to ferment and fuse with the artificial scents being layered on top. My nostrils do not appreciate the ripening. No one’s…nostrils appreciate the ripening. Scents are not miracles in a can. That is what soap is for. Please use the soap this year, or work from home.
• Please stop wearing half a bottle of perfume at a time: If you’re the type of person who uses half a bottle of perfume/cologne/anything scented when you leave the house, please stop. If I can taste you before I can see you, it’s too damn much and my nostrils do not appreciate this. No one’s…nostrils appreciate this. A single spritz is all you need.
• Wear weather appropriate clothes: We all know that one eejit who looks out the window, sees snow, hail stones or various other indicaters of cold weather, and decides it’s shorts and spaghetti top season. And when it’s 30 degrees Celsius and the heat is distorting the air in front of their face…that’s the perfect time to break out the knitwear and a parka. 10 minutes after you get outside, you have to listen to ‘can I borrow your gloves?’, or ‘how do you know if you have frostbite and hypothermia?’, and ‘I think I’m getting a heatstroke’ and other such self-induced nonsense. The madness must stop this year.
• Keep it 12a with the PDA’s: I get it. You’re in love. Aww/Eww. But can we keep it 12a in public please? Just between us…I think I may have witnessed the conception of new life on the Northern Line. I’m not talking about a kiss here or there, or that handholding couple. I mean those grinding-up-against-each-other-complete-with-sound-effects couples who forget they’re in public. And with pervy people with smartphones walking amongst us, aren’t you people worried about ending up on a softcore porn site? Is this why the people are falling down manholes while staring at their phones? Either way, make it a resolution to keep it in the bedroom (or at least any part of the house you live in) this year m’kay?

So please. The madness must stop. Let’s leave that nonsense in 2019 and create a happier 2020 for all.

Happy New Year. 🙂