THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 31, 1995 TAG: 9512290062
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: HE SAID, SHE SAID
SOURCE: KERRY DOUGHERTY & DAVE ADDIS
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
KERRY SAYS:
Hope springs eternal, Dave. I don't know why, but the minute I hang my new calendar I feel like I've been given a second chance.
It's almost 1996 and I'm awash in hope.
Maybe this really will be the year I get in shape, lose weight and floss every day.
Maybe I will practice the piano, keep the house clean and not repeat favorite outfits more than once a week.
Maybe this year I'll be transformed into the perfect mother who never loses her temper and as a result is surrounded by sweet, eager-to-please children.
Maybe this is the year I'll refrain from threatening to jam my 5-year-old into the blender and punch the frappe button if he doesn't stop whining.
Maybe this will be the year I keep my desk neat, write thank-you notes on time and finally remove all the clutter from my life.
Who knows, this could be the year I ditch you and win a Pulitzer.
I've got to ask you, Dave, is all this resolving just a female thing?
Steve never makes any New Year's resolutions - none that he'll admit to, anyway.
As a result he doesn't know the futility of spending the first week or two of every January fruitlessly trying to be perfect.
Clean-slate syndrome doesn't take hold of him at all. He doesn't spend the first few days of every year stiff and sore from exercise and weak from lack of food.
He takes this year's unwanted Christmas gifts and tosses them on top of last year's with no apparent urge to sweep the clutter from his life.
He looks in the refrigerator and doesn't feel the need to toss out the chocolate syrup and replace it with fresh fruit.
He isn't setting that alarm clock 30 minutes early, to give himself a little more time to get things done.
In short, he seems content with his imperfect self.
I figure this is one of two things at work. Guys either are more satisfied with themselves or just too darned lazy to do anything that smacks of self-improvement.
Jan. 1 is a day away, Dave. You have more than a few bad habits. What are you planning to do about them in 1996?
DAVE SAYS:
I'm planning to do just what I did yesterday, Kerry. I'm going nuke some popcorn and watch football until linebackers come blitzing out of the backside of my eyelids.
I suspect Steve will be doing the same thing, so if you're looking for him to make some annual resolutions, pick another date. Guys seldom wrap themselves up in New Year's resolutions because Jan. 1 is little more to us than a day off work made better by a lot of good college bowl games.
In most relationships women are the keepers of the calendar. They're the ones who mark the birthdays and the anniversaries. Y'all are much more aware of the passing months through the changing images on your calendars.
Men are more likely to notice the passage of time through the changing images on ESPN. New Year's Day has no sense of closure for us because football season is still alive, the playoffs are just beginning.
Maybe Super Bowl Sunday would be a better day for men to assess the past year and make plans for the months to come. Or the night of the final game of the World Series. Or the end of trout season.
My personal day of reckoning comes on April 15. That's when I look at my 1040 form and give mournful voice to an annual plea: ``Where in the name of heaven did my money go? And how could I possibly owe them another $3,875.14?''
On New Year's Eve you lift a glass of champagne at midnight and whisper a hopeful toast to better days. At midnight on April 15 I knock back a tumbler of scotch and curse a government that won't let me charge depreciation on my pool cue or deduct the perfectly reasonable expense of overhauling my scuba gear.
So if any of my habits are grating on you, Kerry, be patient with me for a couple of months. Send me a list of them, in triplicate, on greasy carbon-copy slips of tissue paper. That way they'll look just like government tax forms.
Its likely I'll assume they're new federal advisories that I must abide by or face a stiff fine and lengthy prison sentence.
It may not be as sentimental as a midnight rendering of Auld Lang Syne, but I guarantee you'll have my undivided attention.
by CNB