Frances Whiting: The only NY resolutions you’ll need for 2021

It’s suffice to say that 2020 didn’t quite measure up to expectations, so let’s go easy on ourselves come new year resolutions for 2021. Here’s mine, writes Frances Whiting.

One of the nicest things about having a long-running column is looking back on older ones, and seeing how things have changed, or grown. Or how very, very wrong we can be.

And when I say “we”, I mean me; consider this paragraph to a column I wrote about this time last year, as the introduction to my annual, Remotely Achievable List …

“Well hello, hello 2020! This is it, isn’t it? This is our year, our time.”

Yes, I think it’s suffice to say that 2020 didn’t quite measure up to expectations, and had I known what was coming I might have turned down the enthusiasm a tad, but there you are. And here we are again, barrelling our way towards 2021 – face masks and sanitisers at the ready, but still with a little hope in our hearts. Because that’s what humans do, isn’t it? We push on even when we don’t feel like it – hell, often when we least feel like it.

So, I continue my tradition of compiling a Remotely Achievable List for next year, wherein I eschew grand and inevitably futile New Year’s Resolutions for something a little more, well, achievable.

REMOTELY ACHIEVABLE LIST 2021

Columnist Frances Whiting. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

FINISH MY SENTENCES

It has become very obvious to my family that I am increasingly incapable of finishing sentences and it is up to them, mostly my
12-year-old daughter, to fill in the blanks. Ergo, we have conversations all day, every day, that go like this …

Me: Dammit, I can’t find my …

Daughter: Phone

Me: Has anyone seen my …

Daughter: Keys

Me: Has anyone fed the damn …

Daughter: Dog

BEFORE WATCHING LOVE ACTUALLY WITH MY DAUGHTER, REMEMBER THERE IS SOFT PORN
IN IT.

It’s the same thing every year, isn’t it? You get out Love Actually for a bit of holiday bonding, a bit of Christmas cheer for the whole family to enjoy, and too late you remember there is a whole subplot featuring two British porn actors pretending to go at it like pasty jackhammers. You then spend the rest of the evening trying to explain the adult entertainment industry to your children.

BECOME A ‘BATCHER’

So, you know how you get home at night and then you have to cook dinner, which is the very last thing you feel like doing? And then when you do, everyone says “Not spaghetti bolognese again”, and hates it? Well, the latest food craze is “batching”, where you cleverly make all the meals you need for the week in big batches, and then pop them in the freezer. That way, when you get home at night, all you have to do is choose a meal and thaw it out. Everyone will still hate it, but at least you won’t have to make it from scratch.

LEARN HOW TO TAKE A COMPLIMENT

I am increasingly tired of people, especially women and most especially me, being unable to accept a compliment and batting it away with some self-deprecating comment such as “Really? I think it makes me look a little washed out.” In 2021, when someone says to me “You look really nice in that dress”, I will nod and say “Straight fire”.

STOP TRYING TO SPEAK LIKE MY TEENAGER

Cease and desist using the following terms: “cap”, “flex”, “salty” and “straight fire”.

HAVE HIGH HOPES

I do, I really do – for all of us.