Proof resolutions are for the sober.

Way back in the day, when I was in my 20s and living a carefree if not rather terrifying existence in sunny southern California, my roommates Maria, Valerie, Tiare and I threw a "Broken New Year's Resolutions" Party. I recommend it. We held it around the third weekend of January, and pinned a big piece of butcher paper to the wall and put colored markers in a bowl on a table next to it. Then when people came in, we encouraged them to write their own resolutions that had been broken already. We started the list with some pretty tame ones (stop eating chocolate, one foot on the floor at all times, stuff like that) and as the evening went on, and the beer and liquor flowed, things got a little funnier and a little crazier and then when it was all over we had a great souvenir to laugh over for years to come. It was a great party idea, and people really got into it. I cannot imagine where that butcher paper is now, destroyed most probably, but I would love to get a look at it again.

I have never been one for resolutions, before or since. So when Marsha sent me a Happy New Year email on Tuesday, you can imagine my surprise when she said, I haven't had a drink or any chocolate yet, how about you - have you had a cigarette yet?

I'm sorry.

What?

Yeah so as it happens, the night we went out for Rhonda's birthday, apparently Mark, Marsha and I made some resolutions. Mark and Marsha were going to quit drinking for a month and go to the gym, and I was apparently going to quit smoking. Turns out there was even a pinky pact hanging out there. I don't even remember it (doesn't everyone block out completely insane, horrific events in their lives?). Which isn't surprising when you consider the amount of booze imbibed that evening. You know, and the complete disregard of food of any kind. After a really long 12 days of work.

I of course tried to weasel out of it by saying, surely there is some kind of clause in the pinky pact that says if you are completely hammered it doesn't count (and don't you just love the swearing off of booze when you are shit-faced? I mean, not WHILE you are drinking, but you know, for years afterward). I explained that I had already smoked considerably on Januarys 1 and 2. I told her I just bought a carton and I certainly wasn't wasting THAT. And then I said, the difference is that you and Mark can start drinking again on February 1 - what would I do, "get" to start smoking again? It doesn't work that way. If you quit, you quit. I was clearly getting the raw end of the deal.

I am not sure how many more email excuses I sent her before I realized she'd stopped answering me hours before.

You know, I want to quit smoking, I really do. I just don't have much success with it right now. It's a lot harder than quitting booze, let me tell you. So I plug along, and feel like a jerk, because they quit drinking and I haven't held up my end of the bargain. Well, Marsha anyway. Maybe Mark, I don't know. Surely there is a Becky out there that can answer me. I don't want to rat anyone out, I just don't want to be the only one that blew the pinky pact.

The pinky pact, by the way, I have no recollection of.