Hi.

Don't ask me what happened to the fall. Or the holidays. Or the month of January. I've no idea. In my head, I've written a thousand blog posts, but my memory doesn't preserve them long enough to set fingertips to keyboard so there's my excuse explanation for the absence. Yes, I recognize it's become a problem of perpetual sorts. I briefly considered a voice recorder, but I quickly squelched that idea because I loathe few things more than the sound of my own voice. Wait, that's not quite right—I loathe few things more than the sound of my own voice on a recording. Ha! Here all week, folks. (But only because the week is nearly done, and that's probably as long as this blogging roll will last.)

I swear I try.

I have no clever transition so let's just move forward. Tonight I was slumped over in bed—eating a bowl of Trader Joe's fake Rice Krispies for dinner, half-watching silent TV, half-surfing the Internet—when I suddenly became aware of the Frank Sinatra song playing on iTunes shuffle. "Strangers in the Night." And then it hit me: Bubble bath music. It's January—no, actually, January is nearly over. One more Month of Me done. Except I haven't really gotten a proper month full of slothing and no commitments and—hello—bubble baths. While listening to Frank Sinatra. Ooh, and drinking lots of Conundrum White Blend.

These people, the ones older and wiser than me, the ones who said the older you get the quicker the time starts to fly? Turns out they were right. And aging along with my seemingly current obsession of becoming the most over-committed person in the state of Alabama is a toxic blend for my already overly caffeinated system, my friends. That's why the theme of this year is Chill Out. I was only half-joking to one of my friends when I told him my New Year's resolution was "don't make any new friends." It's nice to have lots of friends. I'm not ungrateful. Nor am I patting myself on the back for having acquired those friends—it's not really about me, it's the natural progression of doing new things and meeting new people. But when I'm unable to keep up with those good friends I care about, unable to be a true friend to them, I begin to wonder what the point is. The numbers game, it's not so fun to win it.

Luckily Amanda has stepped in to fill the role of social secretary. Not in the sense that all requests go through her. That would be awfully presumptuous of me. No, instead she'll basically step into my sister's position of being the boss of me. Stop me from taking on too much. Help me learn to say no. Or hella no, as the case may necessitate. Or maybe just say no for me. So please direct all the tough questions to her. I'm going to take a bubble bath.