Last year I made a New Year's resolution to watch more t.v. I know, that sounds like I'm all fancy like my dog, Jasmine Cavendish-Palmer, and am too busy doing righteous important things to watch t.v., but that isn't the case at all. I waste more time than the average human playing Sudoku and solitaire and such, and clicking links of headlines that I only read for a few paragraphs, and so on. TV-watching is an upgrade in so many ways, but mostly it is better because it allows me to also knit because it's hands-free. Knitting, on its own, is kind of boring -- you need a companion who talks (not just one who sheds), or a tv show. The other thing about increasing my tv is that I could understand more conversations and references and even be able to contribute a little.
So, I resolved to watch more tv, and lo and behold, I did it! Go me! I watched Mrs. Maisel and Grace & Frankie and I'm starting to watch Gray's Anatomy. I even watched a few episodes of Trailer Park Boys which I find hilarious, but I watched one with R. and he kept looking at me and saying, really? You like this? And I knit more than I have since college.
So I thought I'd resolve to write a little more in 2020. Which doesn't take much. More than almost nothing is just a tiny bit. Aim low, I always say. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.
It's hard to write lately, because the big dark cloud of Trump, who may be ruler til the end of time if he gets his way. He's a cruel stupid man who cares little about anyone else and does all that ramblefuckery that's embarrasing and terrifying. And climate change. It's all big and dark, and my little world has been a bit dark lately too, and mostly I try to write towards the light -- take what's happening, and turn it around and around until I can love it, and then write about that. And it's hard to do that right now.
So I'm starting this second day of 2020 with a little diatribe about cleaning. I just learned this thing about cleaning, like, last week, which is that you can't just do it once. You have to be ON it all the time. Over and over, day in, day out, you have to clean. It's like breathing -- you can't just stop for a few days or you die. And you also have to be fussy and careful as you go along, and try not to spill and always eat at the table and don't let the dog on the couch. And even still, you have to CLEAN all the freaking time, and a lot of it is vacuuming which is loud and scary because one false move and you could suck up something important, something you care way more about than having a clean house, and then you either have to be all zen about it and say goodbye to that thing, and act as if having that special thing sucked up was meant to be, and there's a lesson in there somewhere. Or you have to root around in the horrible bag of really tight dust. How does the dust get so tight inside the vacuum? I mean, it's like, insulation but really, really horrible. (It's been so long since I've written that I had to think about commas just then. Where do they go when there are two "reallys"?). Or sometimes the vacuum grabs a tiny end of yarn and in less than a second, an entire knitting project is sucked up, unraveled and wrapped around that roller thing. Grr.
The second thing I'd like to say is that I'm offering a service of sending you your New Year's resolutions
in the mail in about April. Wouldn't that be grand? I keep telling people about it, and saying how I achieved my goal of watching more tv, and people look away and no one so far has taken me up on it. But it's a solid offer.
Anyway, Happy New Year to everyone. May this year bring some brightness and joy to all.
2. I saw a recipe for roasted chicken in the NYT the other day, and the pre-ramble to the recipe said,
