It’s about 7:30 in the morning on January 2nd. I’ve gone for the I’ve-Got-Good-Intentions-in-the-New Year-Early Morning Run. (This is necessary as I spent the entire month of December eating as if the warden was coming to walk me to the chair. Honestly, I should have just set up bowls of sugar with big spoons in them all over the house. It would have been easier and more honest.) The sky is streaked with ribbons of pink like a promise of a happy day. I’m the only person awake in my house and I have a hot cup of coffee right next to me. This is about as good as it gets. I love early morning. It’s my favorite time of the day. I love the quiet, the stillness, the idea that everything is open and possible. (Now, in about three hours, I’m going to be enduring Chuck E. Cheese in the heart of Brooklyn on a school holiday–the kind of thing that makes a girl long for a valium smoothie–so I’m grabbing whatever nuggets of stillness I can while I can.)

But back to morning and new years and new starts. I always feel as if I should make resolutions, but I never do. For instance, I bought a can of black-eyed peas to eat on New Year’s Day (for luck, a southern thang) and I just couldn’t seem to get around to doing it. Strangely enough, survey says that pizza beats black-eyed peas hands down. Oh yeah, so much for that eating better in the new year thing. But I suppose I do have a few resolutions. I need to find a house. That’s a given. (Stress much?) I need to write this book. (Stress much, part II.) But those are more requirements than actual choice/resolutions. So what would I like to do this year?

* I would like to eat more vegetables.
* I would like to be more “in the moment” instead of restless and sometimes fretful and constantly looking behind or ahead or to the side or down or up. Maybe I could just focus on here and now and be okay with that. At least for an hour.
* I’d like to be less hard on myself.
* I’d like to challenge myself to become a better writer, to take more risks even if the result sucks. Experiment.
* I’d like to say what I think/feel more and trust that it will be okay, and if it’s not, trust that I will be okay anyway.
* I’d like to see more of my friends because they make life juicy and wonderful and I miss them when I’m working so much.
* I’d like to make more time to READ and not feel guilty for just sitting down with a good book since it’s one of life’s simple pleasures.
* I’d like to make peace with my hair.
* I’d like to sing in the shower more.
* I’d like to paint my walls all the colors I love: turquoise and green, red and chocolate brown, golden yellow and cinnamon, and leave no white space. I would like to frame my kid’s artwork and put it up everywhere. I’d like to make more art. I’d like to live messy.
* I’d like to run through the sprinklers with my best friend like we did the summer we were sixteen. Sprinklers rock. So do best friends.
* I’d like to take a weekend in the city with my husband just going to museums and record stores in the East Village and eating Indian food and seeing movies and buying knishes from that guy on 9th Street and seeing a show at Irving Plaza and just generally goofing off.
* I’d like to make t-shirts that read: You can be a freak, too! Ask me how.
* I’d like to say no.
* I’d like to say yes.
* I’d like to buy those converse shoes with the Hot Wheels-looking flames on the sides and wear them to PTA meetings.
* I’d like to learn to speak fluent Pig Latin.
* I’d like to banish fear.
* I’d like to learn to drive again. (Please see above.)
* I’d like to update my live journal more often.
* I’d like to conquer that public speaking phobia. (Hmmm, that could be a subset of banishing fear.)
* I’d like to be here now.

So, what do you want to do in 2006?

I hope you all had a (fill in blank with your word choice) new year.