A Resolution!

Happy 2011!!!

No offense to 2010, but it wasn't exactly a year full of growth, excitement and life-changing revelations.  In fact, I closed out the year in the same way I began it-- living in my mom's house, working in a field unrelated to my major, and single.

I did, however, get a nine-cent raise a couple months ago.  So there's that.   

So, when life gets stagnant, you have a few options.  First, you can wait for something to happen to you; for instance, Baz Lurhmann catches your eye at Target in East Tennessee and immediately casts you as Jordan Baker (for the record, one of my favorite characters in all of literature) in his new The Great Gatsby movie.  You then live happily and fabulously ever after. 

To be honest, that's my preferred method.  Not only does it involved the least amount of work, but the next time you watch something like The Lizzie McGuire Movie (*cough* not that I ever saw it, of course), you can't scoff and say, "That's so unrealistic! Not even kids can buy into this dreck!"  because you lived it.  You are THAT GIRL.

However, unless you actually are Lizzie McGuire, changing your life requires actual action on your part.  This is a little trickier, because as awesome as it being That Girl Who Stumbles into a Lucky Break and Lives Happily Ever After, it's equally un-awesome to be That Girl Who Changed up Her Life, Only To Fail Miserably and Live Unhappily Ever After, and then Die.

Which leads us to the resolution conundrum: to pursue something that could conceivably make your life better, but probably won't kill you.  So, this year, I'm taking the advice of my mom, friends and hairdresser: I'm going to try to stop lying.

Everybody lies.  I know this.  However, most people limit their lies to the basics, like, "Have you lost weight? You totally look like you've lost weight."  Or, "Oh, no, officer, was I speeding? I wasn't paying attention because I'm on my way to visit my sick grandmother."  Even the occasional, "Sorry I can't pick up an extra work shift.  They're testing my leg for radon." 

My lies are better than that.  I can't quite explain it, but sometimes when I'm talking, the most absurd things pop out of my mouth.  One of my favorites happened a couple of years ago, when I wrecked my car into a ditch and needed a new tire rim.  The guy at the auto shop told me it would take four days or so to get fixed, which was completely unacceptable, since I had to go back to college in two days, and my school was five hours away.  I probably could have told him that, and he would have accommodated me.  However, before it occurred to me to be honest, this story came out.

"Sorry, that won't work.  I'm a personal assistant for Reba McEntire, and if I'm not in Nashville by Saturday in time for the CMTs, the entire world will implode."

I can't explain why that happened.  Gun to my head, I'm not sure I could name a single Reba song.

OK, that's a lie.  There are a couple on my iPod. 

But to make the story better, the guy believed me.  I got my car back the next day, went back to school, and proceeded to tell crazy stories to grocery store clerks and study group partners.

Lying is fun, and occasionally profitable.  It's not, however, particularly good for one's karmic reservoir, and mine probably needs all the help it can get.  So, for the next 365 days, I'm going to try REALLY REALLY hard to quit lying.  I'm going to document my efforts on this blog.  And while I love myself, and have an almost delusional sense of self-worth, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to succeed, not completely.

Therefore, whenever I lie this year, I'm going to record it.  So if I'm talking to you, and I tell you that I brought a gunshot victim back to life by singing the score to Wicked (side note: I work in an emergency room.  Much, much more on that later), check here to see if it was true.

It quite possibly could be.