Fixing the future

Hurrah! Perplexed and confused by the predictions for next year, another magazine - that shall remain nameless for purposes of not being hated - has the solution.

So. To be a better person in 2009, it is necessary to do the following:

1) Light a candle every day, It's life affirming. As is being surrounded by flowers. Buy some. Pick some. Look at them. Take time to contemplate life, write down what you think. It achieves the realisation of the authentic you. Then in order to recover from the shock of this, move on to...

2) Plant some seeds. No, not cress. Seeds of action. Take a small step towards a goal. Because you'd have never thought of that as a way of making things better. But if you think of it as a seed and plant it in fertile soil and nurture it, then you'll get confused and end up with some tomatoes. And how could you not be cheered by some tomatoes? But still, sound advice, take steps towards betterdom.

3) Feed your tomatoes. No. Sorry. Add nutrients to your life. These are the things which give your life purpose. Do more of them! Make time for them! No, really, that will help. Do nice things: feel nice. Light the candle again. Have some bruschetta.

4) Nurture: tell someone you love them. I like this one, it is good advice. Everyone should tell other people the positive things they like about them. You think it, you tell them in your mind or when they're asleep, you don't say it because it's odd. Weirdly, the better you know someone the harder it is to tell them you love them. Tell them now. Properly. So they hear you. Give them some Baby Bio.

5) Growing strong roots: look after your body. Do exercise and stuff. Don't be a sloth. You know all this, right? Yeah. A grow bag may help, but equally well might not. Acknowledge that you're not perfect. Unless you're perfect, in which case feel smug. But for most people, go easy on yourself. Don't expect too much. Watch a bit of TV. Light a candle.

6) Do a spot of weeding. Get rid of all those rose bay willow herbs. Or alternatively, rid yourself of the negative self beliefs that get you down. Advice here is to take something you are scared of, something that you believe you can't do and try to do it. Example given is if you hate speaking in public, find something you care about and talk about that. Uh huh. Not likely. Nuh uh. Oh no. Not on your life. Next?

7) Model yourself on people you admire. Steal their clothes. No, don't do that. But think of how they act and try to act like that. Not sure how this relates to being the authentic you, but hey, it's not my advice, I'm not so keen on plants.

8) Take up landscape gardening. Create a wondrous garden of your weed free plants of confidence. Expand your tomato plantation. Create seed circles of positive people and look back over your horticulture and consider all you have achieved. Make them into soup.

There's some good, if bonkers and rather obvious, advice in there. Go tell someone you love them, go easy on yourself, remember you're a womble and that gardening purges the soul. Or something like that. Go do something you've never done before.

Who or what I am

This is weird. I'm turning into someone that's completely alien to the person I was until very recently.

Most noticeably, why am I turning into a vegetarian? Why? How has this happened? How can I go for 32.5 years happily eating everything that doesn't look like a pet and is conventionally edible, then suddenly bam, I don't like meat? That does not make sense. Fish I've been struggling with for a while, both from the point of view of fish rights (why is it less cruel to kill a fish?) and from the fact that it suddenly started to taste all fleshy, then bacon suddenly became vile. My mum was talking about lamb, and there is No Way on this planet I'd eat it. Tonight I had a expensive and perfectly cooked piece of roast beef for dinner, nearly gagged when I was carving it, and had to force it down, only because it was expensive and I'm having palpitations at imagined lack of iron. That pretty much leaves chicken and turkey which I fear have a very limited life on my menu. All very nice and all, but I never do anything unless I do it with boundless enthusiasm and I live with a vegetable hating carnivore. And it's a little disturbing, I was a fairly gung ho omnivore until very recently and I am not the sort of person that follows popular trends, the fact that it's more common now thanks to Hugh Furrily-Witteringand Jamie Oliver is usually precisely the thing that sends me off to the abattoir (so to speak).

Having never disliked men in any way shape or form since before I can remember, today I have turned into a man hater. This is the singularly most unlikely thing ever to happen to me, seriously. Prior to today I was much more into silencing feminists, now I'm having these disturbingly feminist-ish thoughts. No reason either, if I'd been unceremoniously dumped or something, that would possibly explain it, but no, I just have a new personality. Not one that hates men to the extent of liking women I may add. Just to clarify.

In addition to being unable to write, I appear to also have forgotten how to read. I can't do it. This is unfortunate and may well severely interfere with my studies, which won't matter in the fullness of time, I'll no doubt wake up tomorrow with a passion for gardening and won't care tuppence about transport any more.

My imagination, paranoia and hypochondria are still intact and functioning as normal, there's still a little of me in here.