Happy 2014 Dears! Don’t Put Yourselves Out.

Well my friends, it's 2014. A brand spanking new year, sitting there like a blank sheet of paper waiting for us to fill it all up. New ideas, new plots, new plans. But above all, new goals. 

Yeah.

Who the heck's idea was it for us to set a rack of guilt-inducing goals every blessed new year? I'd like to speak with that bright young thing. You know it had to be a bright young thing, because us slightly smudged old things don't think that way. We've been through the goal posts a few times and have learned to skulk around the edges of life trying not to be noticed. I mean, we're not stupid. As a religious person, I no longer pray to gain fine new attributes in life. I've lived what happens when you do that. Nope. I pray to learn from other peoples'​  lives. And trials. And "goals." It's so much easier that way.

Besides, if I just hang back and don't set any goals for the new year, then I already have a fresh unused set for the next year, and don't need to bother with it at all. I can just drink my alcohol-free eggless eggnog and watch the Times Square ball drop in peace. My psyche feels so much better that way.

And if it doesn't, if I start to feel the pressure of all the gleaming lives being lived around me, I have another technique: portable New Year's goal sheets. I carry a fat stack of them loosely in my purse so they can be dropped at opportune moments in front of people whose lives seem more on track than mine. Then I can titter and say, "Oops! I've dropped my New Year's resolutions again! I just can't seem to keep track of them all. I guess I'll need to get a trailer hitch for my purse so I can keep them with me at all times. Whoopsie! There goes my cultural refinement folder containing my recipe for Squid Ink Soufflé, along with instructions for how to milk a Caspian Sea Squid. Wouldn't want to lose that! The President would be so disappointed!"

Yeah. I totally got this. Happy Old Year, my friends! And if you just can't live without goals, call me. I've got a few extras hanging off the back of my cross-shoulder bag in their own little Airstream. You're welcome to a few.