I’ll be glad when January is here and New Year’s Resolutions aren’t taking up so much airspace. Yeah, maybe I’m a little jumpy. I’ve had some experiences where the Universe hears me being all resolute about something, or making pledges, and decides to mess with me. I’ve learned my lesson.

January of 2018, for example, found me noticing that Iron Chef’s delicious and caloric concoctions and our sampling of things like fried pickles and buckets of beer had surprisingly enough added some girth to my waistline. Also, the prospect of turning 50 had me thinking about a new look. My friend Lizard insisted a pixie haircut would make me look 49 again. Some gentle readers know that hair has never really been my strong suit (remember the Hair Beast?), but I had every reason to believe that this superficial change was well within my power.

The weight was stubborn. A pound or two would leave and then come back days later, hungry like a cat that’s returned after a few nights of roaming. The hair wasn’t working out either. Moving towards a pixie incrementally isn’t the right thing to do. By late spring, I looked like Edna from the Incredibles.

But by August, with a little help from the chemo, the weight just melted off. So, actually, did the hair. I totally knew better. This wasn’t my first rodeo with the smart-alecky universe.

A few years back I was visiting the Sawtooth Botanical Garden because they had a Tibetan prayer wheel that had been blessed by the Dalai Lama himself. My photographer friend Blondie was taking pictures of the so-called Garden of Infinite Compassion, so we spent quite a bit of time there.

I must have not followed the instructions all that well because after I did a few laps around the wheel, thinking about infinite compassion and other things like hummus, I immediately got shingles…in my eyeball. (I am not making this up. You can read my bestselling eye witness account “Compassion Can Be Dangerous to Your Health” for yourself).

Don’t worry — I’m incredibly optimistic about 2020. I’m just a little hesitant to match wits with this trickster coyote of a Universe. Especially now that I have this cool pixie haircut.