I don’t think I’ve ever made a set of these before. I’ve always resolved to, but then I’ve just never been able to stick with it. Ahem. This year though, everything will be different. Those twelve months have ticked by with reckless abandon - not wiping down the toothpaste tube, having more than two bourbons at a time (naughty!) and killing that small dog with my grandfather’s axe. So I guess now I should at least pretend to be reigning in my misdemeanours, to encourage a pretence that I am attempting to absolve myself of my sins. Well, here goes.
1. I will put on weight.
It’s too easy to lose weight these days - all I have to do is look at a Ryvita and I shrink to the size of a pepper pot. Seriously. Although that might be the curse that old witch lady put on me when she came round to fiddle with my dwarves and feed me smelly pommes de terre (continental). Who knows. Anyone acquainted with me will know I am already a wispy slip of a girl, who falls over in big gusts of wind, and - on particularly thin days - disappears when she turns sideways. So with my already dangerously skinny figure, (please someone comment saying “you wish” under this), I think my resolution should be to pile on the pounds. Of lard.
Thing is, everyone puts on weight sometimes, but rarely with the glamour and courageousness which I shall indulge in. Plus, according to Renee Zellweger, it’s actually a really difficult thing to do. I remember her saying that she actually had to eat way more than she thought she would to put on a bit of chub for Bridget Jones, and that the whole process really opened her eyes to how ridiculous this thin paranoia is. Obviously she has negated those comments slightly by immediately losing tonnes of weight after filming, but still.
2. I’ll get a proper job.
I’m thinking probably an astronaut, because then I can go into space and take a dog and a monkey with me, and eat that weird dried ice cream you get in space. Only thing is, you need to be really intelligent, and probably American, to do that. I am neither of those things, plus I’d miss TV shows like ‘Miranda’ too much. Although maybe I could be the ‘Miranda’ character of the ship - always falling over vitally important equipment, and clumsily flirting with the men in my company. Nah. Maybe what I should do is become a cleaner in a really good University, somewhere like Cambridge, and work there after all the students have gone home. I would forever be there in the background, no one really noticing me, but every couple of years some douchey art student would ask to take photos of me for their end of term project called ‘Hidden Stories’.
Then one day there would be this big ass maths equation written on the board outside one of the classrooms. I would have been really bored all day, and would just sort of amble past to have a look at it, and maybe start to work out bits of it in my head. Next thing I know I’ve basically covered the whole board in my workings out, and there’s this big shot professor running after me, “That’s not for you!”, he shouts. Then I wait round the corner as he checks out the working, and cross my fingers with my blood pounding in my ears, as he exclaims, “Yeah and you’ve completely ballsed it up. This is totally incorrect. What were you thinking doing this? You’re the cleaner not a ruddy mathematician! You couldn’t even be an astronaut!” Yeah so maybe I’ll just stick to Platform actually.
3. I’ll get a new hobby.
I’ve always been into dancing. Not massively. Not in a freakish way. Not in the sense that it’s the sole thing that defines me as a person, and it’s how I introduce myself. I’m not Alice De Helene from School, who basically got ‘You askin’?’ tattooed on her forehead, and ‘Then I’m dancin’ scribed onto her bum. I’m not like her, but I do like the odd shimmy. Separate note: Is there any way to talk about dancing without sounding like a Granny from Hull who claims she can still “get into her leotards?”
So I thought dancing could be my new hobby. Especially after the recent tragedy that has afflicted my life (all the weight gain), it would be the perfect antidote to my current pain and upset. Maybe I could move cities as well, as I try to keep the dream alive. Perhaps I could live with a wayward member of my family, with whom I have a frosty and grudging relationship. You know, just to up the struggle factor. I could start going to a new High School, perhaps an inner city one, which is also attended by kids who are a bit more rough than me. As in they can’t afford the muller rice with jam. They can only get the plain ones. After a while I’d make friends with a girl there, and she’d encourage me to go to the local club with her, where all the rough kids dance in a rambunctious way. Perhaps before we enter the club she’d have to give me a makeover, because I am dressed too much like a constipated Mormon. Using only my gap twinset, she would turn me into an uber babe. Then I’d meet her brother, who would teach me a different range of dancing techniques. Bizarrely he’d only give me about 5 seconds teaching on each section, and inbetween would insist on changing location, outfits, and also the weather conditions. Then he’d set the whole thing to some triumphant song he was into, and wham bam minivan, I would be an expert.
During this 2 minute collection of minute scenes of teaching, we would fall in love, despite our different backgrounds. People wouldn’t like it, they’d stand in our way - “He’s not right for you, he can’t afford jam” - but we would stay together. Until we broke up. Then I would have a big dance audition, because somewhere along the way, probably sentence 3, I decided I wanted to be a professional dancer. I’d use the skills he’d taught me, along with my previous traditional training. First go I’d mess it up, and would feel downhearted. But then I would think of him, and I would try again! Gloriously! Then he’d run in to see the end of it!
Obviously I would fail the bloody audition, because I didn’t want to get into this stupid School anyway, I just wanted a new hobby, God knows why I’m here in the first place. These leggings are really chaffing after my weight gain. And the boy and I would obviously stay separated because we’re from completely different backgrounds, and have nothing to talk about. Besides his fingernails are too long, and I stick my tongue out and cross my eyes when I’m dancing. Wasn’t meant to be.
4. Stop thinking my life is a film. A pretty boring one with no narrative structure.
Happy New Year everyone!
Bye x