It’s that time of year again!  The time when everyone resolves to lose weight, quit smoking, save money, integrate organization into their chaotic lives, etc.  While these goals are certainly admirable, I’ve found in trying the above for several years running that all it accomplishes is a crushing sense of defeat somewhere around January 16th when I’m sitting in a pile of Weight Watchers cookbooks I bought for $35, up a pound and a half at my last weigh in, cigarette in hand, trying to remember where I put my shoes.

(Side note – Statistically, the third Monday in January is the saddest day of the year.  The resolutions are broken, the weather is miserable, and there’s no holiday until Memorial Day unless you’re a teacher.  Or, um, have no job.  Which, incidentally, doesn’t help.)

On that note, this year I have only one goal: find a job.  Preferably one which does not make me want to stab myself in the eye with a fork.  But as this is less of a resolution than a necessity, I’ve compiled a list of things that might make us all much happier, should we all choose to abide by them.

Please note – I am NOT EXEMPT from being a part of the below categories.  While not all of of them apply to my life, the majority likely do.

 Stop. Watching. The. Kardashians.

Seriously.  Enough is enough.  “Kendall’s Sweet 16,” “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” “Kim and Kourtney Take New York,” “Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami,” “Khloe and Lamar,” and the list is apparently going to go on and on and on until we STOP THE MADNESS.  It is our own fault that this insipid girl and her entire family is able to make millions and millions for absolutely no reason.  In addition, we are perpetuating a very bad cycle that tells young girls, “If you’re somewhat pretty and have money, you don’t have to be anything else!  Just continue being as dumb as a bag of fish and people will pay you!”  There is simply no reason these people are famous save for an obviously fabulous publicist and the fact that WE KEEP WATCHING THEM.  If they take over the world, I’m blaming you.

While We’re At It, Let’s Just Not Make Any More Reality TV.

Can you get on board with me on this one?  Because as it stands, the ratio of reality TV to new concepts is about 17/1.  The categories are Weight Loss, Talent, Eating Scorpions, Marrying Someone Rich, and Trivia.  That’s it, folks.  No need for 15 subcategories under each heading.  Pretty soon we’re going to have “Fat People Eating Only Bugs to Survive While Meeting Their Millionaire Spouse, but Only If They Can Name All Of The State’s Capitals While Walking on a Tightrope,” and that is the day my head will explode and all of our world leaders give up completely.

(Edited: I forgot the teen moms.  But they need to go, too.  See also, “Kardashians – People to Stop Glamorizing.”)

Baggy Pants or Skinny Jeans: Pick a Style, Boys.

I understand that fashion trends come and go.  I also understand most people over 30, myself included, will not understand or agree with these trends.  I’m okay with this.  I get now why my parents used to cringe in the 90’s and why my mother wanted to burn my overalls.  While I want to shave every young man’s head I see with Justin Bieber’s haircut, I understand it is fashionable, and they will laugh at themselves in years to come, just as we do when looking at those pictures of the “Wall of Bangs” that was known as the late eighties/early nineties.  But I simply cannot get on board with skintight jeans, fastened with a belt securely underneath the rear end of a ninety pound teenager.  HOW DO YOU WALK??  Be a hipster, be a gangster, but please pick one.  You can’t do both.  Because I’ve walked behind you, and the fact that you have to shuffle because your pants are ridiculous slows me down.

Let’s Cut Back on the Facebook, Shall We?

Now, anyone who knows me is laughing at this.  I love Facebook.  A lot.  I get a majority of my news from it, keep up with old friends and acquaintances, and post many a vapid thought on it.  I am “that girl” on Facebook quite often, and for the most part, I’m okay with it.  It’s an indescribable, primal urge that requires me to post a picture of where I’m at and who I’m with on the rare occasions I go anywhere, as though if I don’t post it, it didn’t actually happen.  Now, as addictions go, it’s not a bad one; it’s free, it’s not (physically) unhealthy, and doesn’t hurt anyone.   But now that it is one step away from putting a chip in me and posting my comings and goings without my knowledge,  I’m getting scared.  I’m not saying to stop Facebook, as I have no intentions of doing so.  I am saying to stop adding features that may or may not publicize the fact that I’m in my bathroom.

Let’s Go Back To Naming Babies Actual Names.

Here’s a few celebrity baby names from 2011:  Genesis, Gemma, Arlo, Hattie, Colt, Weston, Spike, Xander, Milo, Clover, Haven,  Indiana, Arabella, Kase, Bingham, Cree, Aleph, Cleo, Bear Blu, Kannon, Moroccan, Coco Reese, Ever, and Locklyn.

Never mind that I want to put the parents of said children in a pillowcase of porcupines (extra sharp ones for the p’s of Clover, Cree, and ALEPH,) but seriously?  These are barely words, let alone names!   Let’s just all get past the “oh so original and creative” names as well as the Tyler/Taylor/Aiden/Aidan/Madyson/Madison/Skylar/Skyler-I-have-no-idea-if-you’re-a-boy-or-girl mess and go back to Johnny and Bobby teasing Jennifer and Sarah on the swingsets, shall we?  Because giving your child a name like the above sets the bar WAY TOO HIGH.  They absolutely have to be the coolest kid in school or else they’re going to get the shit beat out of them with a name like Bingham.  Sure, they may grow into it and it’s a fabulous name for an actor but the middle school years?  Are going to suck.  A lot.

No More Wearing Big, Stupid, Outfits in the Name of “Art.”

I’m sorry, but a meat dress?  Is not art.  It’s just not.  It’s fucking disgusting.  I’m happily willing to admit that I’m not an artist, and I have enough self-awareness that I realize that just because I don’t like or understand something doesn’t make it stupid.  But there are some things that are just stupid.  And that meat dress was one of those things.  The outfits Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj wore at that one awards show (I can’t find the pictures.  Google searching “Outrageous Outfits, Nicki Minaj,” surprisingly did not turn up what I was looking for,)  that made them look like a three-year-old on hallucinogenics dressed them also fall in this category.  NOT ART.  You’re beautiful. You have a fabulous body.  You can wear anything and look stunning.  Don’t pick something that makes you look like a goddamn fruit salad.

(Edited: Apparently the meat dress was last year.  My point remains the same.)

No More Rappers for Five Years.

With the exception of Pitbull (and Nicki Minaj, actually,) everyone that has emerged in this genre since Eminem has pretty much sucked.  Talking fast to a beat does not make you a musician.  Yelling “YEEAH” in the background of a good beat does not make you a musician.  It makes you lucky.  Let’s stop giving these people money, yes?  Because I’m tired of hearing three variations of the same damn song every fifteen minutes.   All of you, think of some new shit, get some new beats, find some new words, and then we’ll buy your stuff.  Stop recycling.  You don’t even have to pull your pants up, just be original, for God’s sake.

Thoughts?  Am I just getting old and intolerant?  Or would my suggestions make for a better 2012?