READING BETWEEN THE PINES

Most of the headlines you’ll read today and over the next month will fall into two nap-inspiring categories.

Category One: Old News You Could Care Less About

Articles in this area might include:

“The Year in Review: Top C-List Celebrity Divorce Attorneys” (or)

“The Best and Worst of Men’s Fall Fashion, Evolution of the Trouser Sock” (or)

“2011 in Retrospect, Why the Whole Year Sucked”

To all of that and many more I say, so what?

2011 is over.  G-O-N-E, and we should all move on with our lives.  We need to forget the past and look intently toward a bright future, which, if you’re lucky, includes a video camera in your bathroom because you’re a super star.

We must also take a serious look at who we are as individuals, and where we want to go.  Like, to the store to get some milk because the only non-congealed item in the fridge at the moment is leftover miso soup.

Finally, we should make a serious effort to let go of bad habits, like endlessly surfing Facebook for pictures of our high school ex-boyfriend, and embrace good ones.  Namely?  Stalking him in person.  Which brings me to the second category of yawn-inducing headlines.

Category Two: “Inspirational” Articles That Make You Feel Bad About Yourself

Some of these riveting captions could be:

“Man Up!  Daily Advice From Someone Much Cooler Than You” (or)

“Powerful Living: 10 Tips to Help You Get Over Your Lack of Cash” (or)

“30 Day Challenge: Live a Better Life by Pretending to be Someone Else”

The sheer volume of random musings, strangers, family members, and that teenager who bags your groceries telling you who to be and how to get there on the first day of a new year can be overwhelming.  Paralyzing even.

So I’m going take a different approach and advise you to just stop.  Breathe.  Send the kids to your creepy basement to count boxes, and reflect on the value of being idle.   Make a PowerPoint to-do list of how many hours over the next day you can spend accomplishing nothing.  Adhere yourself to the sofa, turn on the T.V., and watch endless reruns of Jersey Shore while you Google cast bios and thank your parents for giving you bad hair.

Let’s face it, a new year can be long, and there are 366 days in 2012 (Gotcha!  It’s a leap year.  Bet you didn’t know that.), so you can afford to waste one.  Like an understudy in a play, the girl’s JV field hockey team at school, and anything labeled fat-free, today doesn’t even exist.  You’re no further behind your seven-habits-of-highly-annoying-people next door neighbor than you were yesterday by sitting this one out.  Technically, you might even find yourself a step ahead.