New week's resolutions

1. For the past month I've been telling myself that R's bike has more storage than mine. That if I had a bike like his, I could keep my training gear in it and go to the gym every day. That I would go on my way back from work. So I borrowed his bike last week as a pilot. On the weekend I had to admit that the pilot had been pulled before it was ever aired. (I gave him a look which was somewhere between shame and sheepish but deep down I really didn't care ... I just wanted the bike for another week.)

So this week I need to do run the pilot. Again. By having more junk in the trunk, I will wind up with less junk in the trunk. The irony.

2. Book my Bangkok Botox Bisit. The internet has already guaranteed me total facial paralysis for under $150. I see no reason for the internet to lie so I will do as it says.

If all turns out well, I will continue making regular "little trips to Bangkok for work". I will even tell people in the office that "I'm going to Bangkok for work" with a po po poker face. If all doesn't turn out well this time, I will tell them I have Bell's Palsy.

3. Become more annoying at work. I'm going to start by using this.

4. Stop taking Valium to sleep. There is no reason I should be taking Valium every night. There's plenty of Xanax in the fridge.

I should be cycling more often (a different type of cycling than Resolution 1).

5. Drink white wine on my balcony at sunset, mainly because this is what it looked like yesterday. (This Resolution is only allowed on the same day that Resolution 1 has been successfully followed.)

Yesterday

6. Arrange Vietnamese lessons again. Hoa has been dumped recently due to my travel, then due to my potato visitors. Then due to more travel. This week I'm bringing her back.

This week when she laughs at me for making a mistake, I will laugh with her. If that doesn't work, I will naively mispronounce my new vocabulary words so that they sound like other, offensive Vietnamese words I already know.

7. Start the new diet which I invented last Friday while on my way to work in a cab (refer above to Resolution 1 to explain why I was in a cab).

I'm only going to eat things that I don't like, eg order things on the menu which contain seafood or mushrooms. I know that this diet cannot fail, so expect that it will.

8. In Vietnamese the word for cat is mèo and it is pronounced the same as we say "meow". (Cute, eh?)

The word for meat is Thit and it's pronounced "tit".

There is a restaurant near my house which advertises "Thit mèo" out the front. This means what you think it means. So if Resolution 7 fails, I will go and order a meal from said restaurant. This is a personal threat to myself which should keep me on track with 7.

9. Babysit my potato colleague's cats when she goes away for a few days. This is completely unrelated to Resolution 8.

10. Be proactively friendly towards The Evil Milkmaid. This Resolution will be the hardest of all. I haven't told you about The Evil Milkmaid yet because I've been saving it up. I'll tell you this much though: she's evil. And another thing: she's a Milkmaid. I think we understand each other right?

Being nice to the Evil Milkmaid will slowly kill me from the inside. If morality had lungs, this would be equivalent of smoking cigarettes.

11. Ask the old potato that I work with more questions about when he was here 35 years ago, serving as a soldier in the US Army.

His perspective is very interesting ... he says that Vietnam changed his life in terms of returning home bruised and focused to "make something" of his life.

He is doing a lot of volunteer and fundraising work whilst here ("I want to give back as much as possible to this country"). People in our office are still mean to him though, which is nice because it's not just me.

12. Be nice to the lovely staff at the Highlands Cafe on Ly Thuong Kiet when they fuck up my order. Because they will fuck up my order. Even though I give the same feedback every morning.

If you mispronounce "thanks ladies" it comes out as "thanks dickheads". I've done it before and they have giggled at my innocent gaffe.

This week I will not be giving any further criticism. I will simply call them dickheads as I depart and we will all giggle - each thinking the other is a fool. My victimless crime.