Hello, Campers!
January 7 has come and gone, so we will not wish you a Happy New Year, Campers. But we will proffer a tentative, “how you doin?”
We sincerely hope everyone has shed the 2022 detritus like a shell, and, like a freshly hatched locust, you are ready to loudly annoy everyone with incessant chirps of newly found prosperity. We encourage any boisterous manifesting (lying) necessary to push you toward your goals!
Now that we are a few weeks into 2023, we decided to publically take stock of the individual resolutions we both manically typed into our notes app while seated on departing flights after being home for the holidays.
Please like, share, and subscribe! We are excited to get even more lost with you in 2023!
LYLAS,
Marilyn and Sam
Sam’s Resolutions Check-in
1. Be hot and skinny: Two different things. Neither is a healthy goal to have but does provide the illusion of health. I am doing dry January. Another illusion of health. I tend to see signaling that others go dry to “reset” themselves emotionally. The illusion of mental health. Maybe to “reset” their gut health, a common brand of annoying for my generation. The delusion of health. I am doing it to drop weight and suspect most are, too. I am the type of someone who desires compliments such as “You look great!” because I look skinnier than you remembered me to be. That may make you think less of me. Less of me is, in fact, my goal.
2. Make way more money: Not to pay off my credit card but to afford plastic surgery.
3. Become Instagram famous: To be able to obtain a real career in any real profession. Only interested in achieving this resolution while never posting on social media
4. Post on IG: To get subsequent “how have you been?” texts from exes.
5. Meet the following: Untimely demise (jk), Adele, Padma Lakshmi, Michaela Coel, Natasha Lyonne, Naked Lee Pace, Magan Mullally, Chef Alex Bornecelli, the often shirtless Australian influencer I’ve had a crush on since 2014, Jessie Ware, Ingrid Michaelson and Sara Bareilles (sp?) and sing “Winter Song” as a trio and cry, Jane Krakowski (sp?), Nia Vardalos (sp?), Trixie Mattel and Yekaterina Petrovna "Katya" Zamolodchikova, Allison Janney and The West Wing cast, Kirstie Alley, Katherine Heigl (but only if on set for a Grey’s reunion episode), Sandra Oh (not exclusive to a Grey’s set), any man who has shown peen (real or prosthetic) on HBO in the last 5 years, Quinta Brunson, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Chessy, Lindsey Lohan, Hillary Duff, and Selena Montgomery (Stacey Abrams when she’s being a romance author instead of saving our democracy). Just women, unclothed men, and The West Wing cast.
6. Read more: I actually listen to audiobooks, which is reading. If you disagree, you misunderstand the purpose of books and are actually bullying me. I read more (yes, listen to audiobooks more. Lay off, bro!) if I go on Hot Girl Walks. So I’ll plan to do more of those things, too. Be hot, girly, and able to walk. In that order.
7. Learn about wine: More than watching Somm in 2013. Josh wine doesn’t taste like “garden hose.”
8. Go to restaurants: Of Top Chef contestants
9. Date and kiss more boys: In public
10. Drink less in public: Could cause issues with 9.
11. Become famous enough to write a cookbook: This would be just a side project, of course, but would result in me being a guest judge on Top Chef.
12. Apply for Survivor?: Do we think Jeff Probst has ever made out with a contestant or a man?
a. Be the first contestant and/or man Jeff Probst has ever sexed up.
b. During afterglow, ask him about his plastic surgeon.
13. Finally purchase Jessica: Jessica is the cat I have been talking about adopting for several years. Not a cat already named Jessica that has been waiting for me, but a cat I’ll adopt and rename Jessica whether she has the personality of a Jessica or not. The ongoing bit about a future cat named Jessica and the wistful daydreaming of possible pet parenthood, however, are desirable comforts themselves. Off the top of my head, neither involve interacting with poop or having people say “fur baby” in any reference to me. Because I am baby. Fur or otherwise.
14. Accept that no one thinks I’m stealing things when I visit their store: Which, in actuality, is accepting that I look too old* for anyone to assume I would be committing petty theft.
*Note: Delete upon completion of Resolution 2 and 12b, resulting in Benjamin Buttoned face.
15. Minimize Secondhand Embarrassment: Specifically, that induced while trying to enjoy TV. While scripted characters are more bearable than reality TV personalities, neither is easily endured. Anxiety programming is everywhere and I can’t keep clicking ahead 10 seconds for entire episodes! Look at me! My make and model of homo requires a strong working knowledge of Real Housewives that I lack. Something has to change.
Examples of secondhand embarrassment to reduce: When Austin Butler talks; When husbands weigh in on designs on HGTV shows; When White Lotus characters do anything; Broadcast journalists. Indeed, my secondhand embarrassment triggers extend to all TikToks, comedians doing characters on IG, captions written by people with abs*, “mental health” memes, “mental health” influencers, most front-facing IG stories, all teenagers in public, wedding toasts, Disney weddings, Disney adults, people who always have their water bottle, socializing in activewear, politicians, Spare by Prince Harry, Taylor Swift lyrics, and, most acutely, flashmobs (which, like a roach, survived lockdown and crawled onto the stovetop of life for a comeback). But I believe in setting achievable goals only (see 1-14), so just Austin Butler and Lisa Rinna exposure therapy for me, for now.
*Note: When I get hot and skinny, I will likely acquire abs. My captioning will be suspended at that time. Happily.
16. Be interviewed: Because I wanna feel important. Topic yet to be determined. But the topic won’t be an issue as I can always have an opinion. All of you who started those podcasts should be running out of real guests by now. This is a passive-aggressive request to be on podcasts in an effort to not be offended by the current lack of offers.
Marilyn’s Resolutions Check-in
You know how it’s sometimes better to know what you don’t want rather than what you do want? That’s where I’m currently living. Instead of focusing on the goals I will keep for myself in 2023, I am trimming the fat. Here are the resolutions I have already abandoned with abandon –
Meditate in the mornings: The drills and construction machinery outside my bedroom window begin promptly at 7 AM. I can’t figure out how to train my ears to interpret the sounds as binaural beats or Tibetan singing bowls, so meditation will just have to wait until after the 18-story apartment building is complete. It will probably eclipse the sun, which will make my bedroom more like a sensory deprivation chamber in its darkness – this bodes well for my future meditation practice.
Look at my phone less: I forgot how to work after being offline for the holidays. The anxiety I feel now that I am expected to, once again, trade my labor for money has ramped up to the point where I wake up panicked that I undoubtedly fucked something up due to my smooth-as-a-marble brain. Thus, I immediately reach for my phone and navigate myself to my inbox to surely confirm my fears, while my inner voice screeches to remind me I am not, in fact, the New Jan Brady after all.
Abstain from drinking in January: After staying in my hometown through the first week of the month, January is no longer dry. It’s not soaking, either. It has more of an…unfinished basement damp quality. The basement is boring, though, even if I’m sleeping somewhat better. Am I sleeping better?
Go to yoga more often: Everyone else seems to have this idea, too, and I simply can’t get into my yoga studio due to all of the mats already being spoken for. Unless I sign up more than a day in advance, which I don’t, because this is New York City and what if something better comes along? Just kidding, nothing better is coming along because I am 30-something years old and it’s usually around 30-something degrees outside lately and everyone seems to be participating in arid desert January.
Waste less time watching reality television: The amount of time I witnessed people watching televised sports over the last month made me realize that there need not be any shame in my own Bravo game. Sports matches are reality television! Bravo shows are slice-of-life documentaries! It’s all about perspective. I do wish I could earn money from watching reality television the way people do from sports betting. Vegas, what are we doing to solve this problem?
Spend less money on clothes: Listen, I love thrift shopping. I will rip a purple stickered tag off of a moth-bitten, musty sweater with a yellowing label and dive right into it, unwashed. In New York City, there are no thrift stores. At least not like the kind I grew up with in Kansas, with their bag sales and tag sales and nothing over $7 practicalities. There are “vintage” stores in New York, where places that smell like palo santo and Diptyque candles made of money charge $50 for a Fashion Bug blouse from 1999. So I have no choice but to swing in the opposite direction and hit BUY NOW on an over-budget, olive print Rachel Antonoff dress.
Make the bed: If I could just insert a picture of my two cats cuddling on the unmade bed here, I would (I know I could, but I implore you to use your wild imaginations instead). Only a heartless beast would disturb them! Seeing them both peacefully snuggling brings me greater joy than hospital corners ever could. If my bed is a reflection of who I am as a person, then I am content to be a chaotic, tangled, cat lady, I guess.
Put away laundry immediately: I had pristine intentions with this one and even attempted to follow through. But in doing so, I remembered that my one Polly Pocket-sized Brooklyn closet cannot house all of my not Polly Pocket-sized clothes (I stopped resolving to become the size of a small plastic doll around eight years ago).
Practice Tarot: Growing up with a mom who kept a Rider Waite deck within reach, I have always aspired to be someone who can rattle off the meaning of the Four of Pentacles reversed. I recently started getting TikToks about spiritual psychosis, though, and I have to assume the algorithm knows me better than I know myself. It would be too heavy a burden on my Jello-soft psyche to know that the Four of Pentacles suggests I have placed too much value on material things. Instead, I’m going to buy a Magic 8 Ball and hope my spherical oracle friend only speaks the truth. Will this tactic steer me toward manifesting my wildest hopes and dreams for 2023? All signs point to yes!
2023 Resolution: 2 Week Check-in by Marilyn Hayward Haines (@marilynhayward) and Sam Beasley (@sbeas)