Things To Modify

Every morning, when I get to work, I flip my writing pad to a fresh page, and jot down the tasks I need to accomplish for the day.

Now, as I look into the mirror and find myself wobbling dangerously in various places, I have decided that I should put together a different kind of list - a list of things I simply must do and can no longer avoid. I don't like the word "resolutions", since it is now February anyway, and resolving to do something is completely useless if you don't actually do it. Instead, I've come up with a far cleverer plan to deceive my own procrastinating, lazy, and stubbornly anti-activity psyche.

I intend to list here, the things I usually do for the day, and to try and modify them to healthier, more fulfiling activities.

Things I Do

1) Wake up an hour after the alarm clock rings
2) Pay $75 to go to a gym less than half a mile away, but don't actually go there
3) Shower, but don't clean bathroom (well, not often enough)
4) Eat lunch out, almost always topped with cheese (cheddar)
5) Follow up lunch with a sugar cookie (calories, calories, cavities, cavities - sheer poetry, eh?)
6) Accomplish tasks somewhat slowly (although I think I have remedied this one a bit), and consequently end up staying a great deal longer at work than I really should be
7) Drive home and agonize for about an hour over what type of junk food or indulgence to finally give in to
8) Eat junk food and re-read Harry Potter for the 700th time while doing so (no offense, Ms. Rowling, but your being more addictive than nicotine or even the aforementioned chees is NOT a good thing)
9) Spend hours talking on the phone with close friends
10) Spend lavishly, exorbitantly and entirely indiscriminately on gifts for close friends and indulgences for self
11) Avoid visiting the dentist (because obviously, he will tell me to stop eating that sugar cookie)

I Will Henceforth

1) NOT snooze beyond 15 minutes after my alarm rings, even if it is freezing
2) Dangle mental carrot of Jennifer Lopez's body on a stick and sleepwalk to the gym to get one like it for myself
3) Clean portions of the bathroom (cleaned sink on Friday *pat pat*)
4) Cook dinner at home, and not buy anything other than yogurt and veggie chips to supplement home cooked food
5) Eat peppermint/chewing gum instead and drink plenty of water so that there is no more room for cookie calorie cavity
6) Continue to concentrate on the task at hand, knowing what needs to be done next, and go at them like a machine, thereby keeping evenings to self
7) Drive home and think of Mummy endlessly, until I am sick with longing for her cooking and am forced to cobble together some semblance of it
8) Eat aforementioned home-cooked meal and read, but anything BUT Harry Potter, until I get some time to myself or book 7 comes out
9) Say hello to everybody, and keep in touch, but tell them that I have things to do, and will talk to them later
10) Live within something known as a budget, which sounds ominously like hatchet or mallet, but can't be too bad if it helps me save more money
11) Make an appointment with the dentist, which I can't avoid, and if I can't have sugar cookies, tough


Anybody want to bet I won't last 3 days into this?