It's been AWOL for my blogging life for days now... perhaps this is a good sign, being busy in the real world?

Actually - other than working - Stewart and I spent time sitting around trying to restructure those same old resolutions in the form of newly-created words, which began with great promise when I proposed that we also make those words sound like tasty alcoholic beverages. Gymnotonic! It makes mere exercise sound like my very favorite cocktail! The next dozen or so resolutions would be a snap. I envisioned a New Age-like article on changing one's life through a bartender's vocabulary. We could chat up Oprah, telling her that this is a post-The Secret world, and we have the scoop on the sequel, which is this: make virtuous changes by rephrasing them to sound like something fun and bubbly.

Of course, we couldn't think of a damned thing for Resolution Number Two. So we wrote clever made-up words which pleased us very much - and yes, I really do plan to Unlard and all the rest - but the original theme fell by the wayside.

But special thanks to Wells, who was buying cigarettes at my counter and tossed off "Artini" in honor of the painterly Stewart.

Most of our evenings were spent watching old movies, which included: Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors, a pair of Hitchcock films, Strangers on a Train and Vertigo, a terrible biker film called Black Angels, a boring stoner video called Scrapple, and the undefinable eighties fantasy Teen Witch.

By tomorrow, the Real Changes begin. I hope.

NTD