The lead-up to Christmas this year was really fun. Nature wasn’t trying to murder us (compared to last year, when we had the Thomas Fire crawling up our butts and then the mud literally killing people), and we had enough money to throw around on superfluous things like fire wood and snacks, so we loaded up. Christmas day itself was a bit pressured. There were some sneaky “Did I spend too much money on you?” feelings and their terrible confederates, “You didn’t spend enough money on me.” So at dinner time Jack and I ended up in one of those stupid bickering whisper fights that isn’t about what it’s really about, and we ate our Christmas dinner fried chicken and waffles with a palpable chill in the air. Jackson didn’t really notice, or maybe he did and knew how to avoid the whole thing by falling asleep on the couch while we were still eating.

The day after Christmas I had to go back to work, which gave me some emotional distance from the previous day while simultaneously allowing my family to wonder if I was going to feel martyred about leaving when they had another day off. So when dinner time rolled around again and Jack was all, Are you done yelling at me? I was all, I don’t know! Maybe! Maybe not!

And then I asked myself, Is this really who you want to be? And I know it sounds really hokey but that’s all it took for me to snap out of it and A Better Me to take over and say she was sorry and grow the fuck up. The holidays trigger some childish reactions to stress in a lot of us, and since I no longer drink my problems away I need to somehow remember to invite my better self to step in when things get ridiculous. Maybe some knuckle tattoos would remind me. G-R-O-W-A S-P-I-N-E would work, if we’re going to use thumbs.

RESOLUTIONS

Jackson always says that he won’t wear anything that isn’t comfortable, and he says it with the sort of mystified air you might take on while watching a woman struggle to zip up her jeans after a turkey dinner. Yesterday one of his girl friends came over wearing a head-to-toe sloth onesie so I thought, If all the teens are doing it maybe I’ll try this comfort thing, too. I don’t want to get rid of my pencil skirts yet, but if you’re looking to throw off some unreasonable beauty standards I urge you to read this post by a grown woman who said Fuck it, it’s sneakers from now on.

“I paired my new sneakers with floral mini-dresses, with shorts, with jeans and with slacks, and instead of picking up oxfords or loafers for autumn, I just kept buying sneakers. I'd forgotten how light they were, how comfortable and how I was able to walk around without spending the following days complaining about how sore I was from simply being alive.” 

“GIMLET HOLES IN A PIECE OF PORK”

How to take awesome food photos, a useful set of guidelines by Helen Rosner.

How Peter Jackson Made WWI Footage Seem Astonishingly New. [NY Times] “The clarity was such that these soldiers on the film came alive,” Jackson said in a phone interview describing the restoration process. “Their humanity just jumped out at you. This footage has been around for 100 years and these men had been buried behind a fog of damage, a mask of grain and jerkiness and sped-up film. Once restored, it’s the human aspect that you gain the most.”

Yearcompass, a free tool that helps you look at the last year and make plans for the next one. I’m excited to sit down and give this a try.