Airplanes are better than buses. Obviously.

That’s why we pay premium prices. Because planes have wings. Planes are glamorous. There’s champagne on them, and freshly baked cookies, and those face towels so hot the smiling flight attendants need tweezers to hand them to you to burn your face off while you recline and stretch out. Planes get you to far-flung places in record time, on time. Bless those Wright brothers for giving us the miracle of flight.

Maybe the only thing that makes buses better is there are hardly any middle seats. And whilst the seats don’t recline on most buses, you are never sitting with a stranger in front of you reclined into your lap at an angle that allows you to see how many fillings they have, which is nice.

Also, if someone sitting next to you on a bus is eating Thai takeaway with garlic – which happens fairly often now on planes because they actually don’t serve champagne or cookies,  or any food at all really unless you’re in Business Class – you can open the window.

In fact on a bus if someone sitting next to you on a bus ate Thai food with garlic the night before and farts – which also happens fairly often on planes because the glamor that used to be on planes seems to have been sent to a remote destination on a one way ticket – you can open several windows instead of just having sit there and wonder who was responsible, like some kind of airplane Thai food fart game of Clue.

Also, you can bring a bag on a bus – because you know, you’re traveling and will need clothes – and there will be no extra charge. On a plane, bringing a bag with clothes is extra.

On a bus there are also no overhead storage bin wars you need to fight , or stampedes you have to endure to get to the storage bins first, again, because bags are free. Hell, on a bus bikes are free.

On a bus there are also no strict uniformed attendants yelling at everyone who did not find an overhead storage bin/lost the war to surrender their bags to be checked – now at miraculously no extra cost.

Tickets on buses are easier too actually. When you buy a ticket for a bus, you will actually be able to take the bus. There’s none of that selling you a ticket and then telling you the bus you planned to take – and have a ticket for – is oversold.

They will also not tell you that because it’s oversold, you have to take another bus even though you paid hundreds of good dollars for a ticket at a very particular time because you needed to be somewhere like, um, a wedding which is generally scheduled for a very particular time. Airlines say “oversold” like the say “arm the doors and cross check” – it’s just how they fly and make money.

Speaking of money, tickets are also less when you take a bus. And the price you see is the price you pay. On a plane the price you see is usually about $50 more once you get into actually booking it because they don’t account for your bags, the chances you might want legroom, a meal, Wi-Fi, and of course sitting at an emergency exit is a privilege…

On a bus there also aren’t any of those strict uniformed attendants donning surgical gloves constantly demanding you help clean the bus, whereas on a plane you have to help clean all the time, otherwise apparently the plane will be late for the next group of people who have been oversold and actually won’t all be able to get where they want to go.

On a bus you also don’t have to sit through Virgin America’s painfully long sung safety video, or any kind of crew jokes at all really. Bus drivers are beautifully humorless. (Anyone else think someone at Alaska Airlines bought Virgin just so that humankind need never sit through that thing again? Thank you in advance Alaska for changing it.)

Also, when the bus gets to where its going, you will have your bags at that same destination. They will not be traveling separately to Wichita for the weekend.

Granted, a bus takes a long time to get anywhere, but I am not advocating we all start to take buses. Obviously. But am I saying planes should be called what they are now? Buses with wings? Maybe.

I think if the Wright brothers made it to heaven, they wince every time a plane goes by now. This is partly because they invented flying – flying for heavens sakes and we still don’t know both of their names without googling them as one entity – but mostly I think they wince because what was once a genuinely miraculous endeavor – has had all the joy removed. Airline companies have turned flying into a banal mode of transportation, wedging us into such tiny seats they have to use the free shoe horns they hand out in Business Class to wedge out us back out, and then charging us for that pleasure, and every other. And that’s if we even get on the flight.

Flying is an amazing way to get to hard earned holidays, much missed families, places of work and new adventures to eat real Thai food. That’s why people used to hug and cry at Arrivals. Now it’s out of sheer relief they are actually there.

I’m not saying we need warm cookies on every trip, but maybe they can just try to keep some of Orville and Wilbur’s* dream alive.

Yes I googled their names. With theWi-Fi I paid extra for on a plane.

I quite irrationally hate exclamation marks.  I mean, I quite irrationally really hate exclamation marks. Do you see how I wrote that? No need for the loud downward stroke and its perky little period friend who sits below it.  You can actually say what you need to say without it.  Without the wild enthusiasm.  Without the ruckus and hullabaloo and written yelling.

 You can also say what you need to say without – I can barely even say this – two exclamation marks. Now it’s not because I’m some kind of pedant that I hate them.  I’m no English schoolteacher with a too-tight bun and too much time since my last lay who feels the need to tell everyone to only use it after an exclamation or injection. No, no it’s not that.  Then what you ask?  It’s just a form of punctuation.   Surely there are greater things to expend hatred on – like the idea of Donald Trump as POTUS and bloggers who are famous who are not me and towels that are no longer really white and backpackers and the butts of strangers that rub against you in public transport and uni?  (Uni is mermaid poo and you know it.) What would make someone hate a form of punctuation with such deep-seated conviction?

 Well, it’s the people who use them. Now let me give us all some exclamation mark amnesty here.  We all use them.  The language of social media and texts – or short message systems means we all scatter them round when we are “Late!” or “So happy!” or can’t think of anything to say on someone’s timeline other than “Happy Birthday Jonathan!” Just “Happy Birthday Jonathan.” would admittedly be a bit of a grim greeting.  You probably wouldn’t be invited to the party and you wouldn’t be able to say “Yay!” when you RSVP.  So relax, you can say “You’re looking so young Sue!” all over any sms or social media communication to me and I will not hate you or your perky punctuation.  Whatsapp me now.  And thank you.  I’ve been working out. See I what I did there?  I just said thank you, period.

I believe my dislike is for the perpetually overly effusive people who simply cannot help punching away at the top left of their keyboard, like they have either lost control of their emotions, or have not stopped to consider the array of other adult reactions they could have.  The ones who live as if everything is a text. 

 You know them too.  They are the ones who send emails marked “URGENT!” when in actual fact they should be labelled “LOWEST PRIORITY IN THE WORLD”. And yes, they also use CAPS with the exclamation point.  That’s written screaming.  Anything so urgent you have to scream it should probably be said in person. To 911. 

They are the People Magazine of people who send mails that say, “You won’t believe this!”, and you don’t because it’s really not that hard.

They are the one’s who get snippy and write things like, “We have discussed this!“ and “How dare you?!!!”  They also love the combination question and exclamation.   They are the one’s who send the emails that read, “Cute!!!!” and you find yourself hoping their saccharine overload sends you into a diabetic coma so you can be freed from their noxious sentimentality.  Or they send “This is hilarious!!!!!!!!!!” and it never ever is. Come on, what could possibly be so funny it was worthy of eight exclamation marks?  I mean that’s a pretty big set up there so you’ve got to follow with something so damn funny.  Not even Donald Trump, greyish white towels and all other more famous bloggers and backpackers and strangers’ butts being thrown into a giant pool of uni would be eight exclamation marks funny.  In fact for eight exclamation marks I actually want to die laughing, collapse, having run out of air.  In fact this blog post serves partly as my will, if you send me something that is eight exclamation marks funny I want my name to appear in a paper with the headline “Girl Dies Laughing!”  That’s right, with an exclamation mark.  But I digress. 

 My point is exclamation mark users are a type.  Or maybe we have all become this type.  With a short emotional range of “Stressed!” and  “Busy!” to “So freaking excited!” and “Yay!!!!”  Maybe its because we live out loud now and being successful, having an opinion, or being fabulous and having a fabulous time are all we care to share.  I do wonder if we can’t all just calmly get along without what starts to come across as feigned enthusiasm, or perpetual aggression.  What if it took more than just two words to say how things are? What if we took the time to write a whole, thoughtful sentence? Or maybe actually just spoke to one another? Said what we needed to say in person? What if we let one another in not just on the exclamation points of our life, but just life?  That’s my question. And my kind of punctuation.  

Yes, I’m writing about the Oscars and they’ve already happened. And yes, you’re already tired of talking about them. I’m sorry, it’s just that I only recently managed to stop feeling guilty about everything bad that is happening in the world, and emerge at the keyboard. No, I’m not talking about bad films that won. Good films won.  No, I’m not talking about bad things like the Mani-Cam being missing from the red carpet. I’m talking about the bad things happening in the world every Hollywood star who stepped up to the mic told me about. Didn’t you know people are marginalized, dying, mistreated and our planet is irreversibly ruined? That’s why everyone dressed up in couture and stood – sometimes with their one leg showing – and smiled on the red carpet.

The Oscars are traditionally one of my favorite nights of TV. I’ve always loved watching this ceremony for a number of reasons. One reason is that I get to be opinionated and yell at the TV the way people who understand sports do. My knowledge of sports is incredibly poor but my yelling at TV abilities are remarkable, so its important I flex these yelling muscles annually. The other reason I love the Oscars is I allow myself to drink champagne while doing this yelling – “Come on! Leo scooped out a horse, where’s his prize?” – whereas most other nights for budget reasons I drink merlot, or for health reasons I drink spritzers. (Note: Never drink merlot spritzers.)   I also love the Oscars because I genuinely love the movies. I’ve loved movies since way before you could drink wine in the theaters. And in spite of the fact that theaters have that carpeting in them that makes you wonder how that many colors ever landed up in one place.

But this year, instead of feeling that love for the movies and yelling, “No really, Leo scooped out a horse and made it into a bedroom!” I felt guilty. Instead of watching the Oscars to celebrate the people who found stories and then travelled to far away places, fought actual bears, lived other characters, remembered actual Aaron Sorkin lines and came back with wonderful, magical moving stories about the human condition, I just felt guilty.

I felt guilty about the amount of white people in the room and that I was watching them.  I felt guilty about looking at the dresses – how superficial of me! I felt guilty about calling the actors who are women actresses. I felt guilty those actor women, and all women, aren’t being paid enough or equally. I felt guilty about the environment. I felt guilty about Native Americans. I felt guilty about war.  I felt guilty about abuse.

It was like all the joy I had consumed – with as much vengeance as the buckets of popcorn I ate while I watched the movies that were nominated – had to be given back on Sunday night. I almost put the champagne back in the bottle so I could save it for the day when everything is fixed. But once a bottle of champers is open…

Now, I’m a woman, from South Africa, who has worked in the corporate world. Believe me the issues of  race, gender, and the heating up of the planet are all things that I know well.  I’m proud to have been one of the voters who changed my country, and proud to have tapped on the boys ceiling of salaries to ask for equal pay. I know the changing temperatures. It’s not that I don’t care for these issues.  And it’s not that I don’t think the global stage shouldn’t be used for great causes, but Sunday felt like I was put in the Imax theater of guilt. Surrounded by every cause, looming large with pain in Dolby Stereo. With no popcorn because not everyone has popcorn in the world.

Every actor and singer seemed to appear just to tell me the sad thing they were against/for/starting/stopping. And my concern is that it became a mish mash of noise. Whose cause is bigger,  Leo’s, Kevin’s or Gaga’s? And that does no good for any good cause. I guess I’m saying if I turn off at the sound of every tin rattling for support, I’m probably not the only one.

The irony is that movies already do so much.  This year I considered the pain of school bullying more by watching ‘Inside Out’, I learnt the plight of Native Americans more by watching ‘The Revenant’, felt the pains of war watching ‘Shok’, understood the harshness of sexual choices watching ‘Carol’, was reminded of the deep and unfinished history of racism watching ‘Hateful Eight’, felt the horror of abuse watching ‘Spotlight’ and ‘Room’, saw the grips of drug abuse watching ‘Amy’, remembered the great economic inequalities watching ‘The Big Short’.

Maybe I’m saying I can make up my mind without an A-lister telling me to do it on Oscar night. Maybe I just like making up my own mind what I will support in dark theaters with bad carpeting.

Now there’s a cause. If I ever make it to the red carpet expect to hear about raising funds for more neutral palettes in the movie theater carpeting world.

See you at the movies. I’ll be the one in the dark with the merlot.

Are you as confused as I am every time you’re handed the menu at a restaurant? Of course you are. Delicately sprinkling words we’ve never heard of across a single white page to make what we’re being offered to eat a complete mystery that’s dusted, drizzled and deeply steeped in pretension, is all part of today’s most important culinary revolution. If you’re not digesting a ladle of new words with every meal description you’re really not eating out.

It seems that’s why restaurants exist now.  To challenge your verbal palate. And to make you feel really quite small for your lack of knowledge as they stare down at you, and I don’t mean because you’re seated and they are not.

Luckily I always leave quite sleepy, with my belly full,  so I forget the humiliation enough to go out and do it again. Isn’t it great there’s no grudge that can’t be smoothed over with duck fat?

If you’re scoffing, you’ve clearly not eaten out recently, or you’re eating at Denny’s which is delicious so that’s fine, but hear me out. Restaurant menus have become complicated. They look like someone stole the judges’ scorecards at a spelling bee and then handed them around. Satiated with big, verby things they seem to go to greater and greater lengths to tell you what has been done to the food items you will eat.

Gone are the days when a breakfast menu, for example, had eggs – fried or poached – with toast and bacon. Now eggs are “coddled”, which sounds a little rude to me in all honesty. Surely coddling is something you should not do to unborn chicken? Or, eggs are “shirred”, which sounds like drunk stirring from the Keith Floyd School of Cooking where the first ingredient was always a bottle of wine in the chef. I’m certain it’s something more complicated than that. And then these eggs come with a mushroom conserva, merguez, or yoghurt chermoula. I know what a mushroom is.  I know yoghurt is. Is Chermoula where that nuclear disaster happened?

Chefs hats off to these restuarants though, because they are swimming upstream like the salmon with agro dolce, abamelle and arroz negro they are serving. Yes, I have no idea what those things are. Or if that’s the correct spelling. (For all I know they could be chopping up the dictionary and just making up new pretend words).   I say this because while every other printed medium tries to stay away from big and strange words, purposely making things shorter for a population whose singular reading matter is Facebook posts, restaurants are saying screw it – my short words not theirs – and making you wade through lengthy descriptions of assations, brunoises, gribiches and escacbeches.  Leaving us all Googling what these words mean surreptitiously under the table like school kids cheating on our math papers.

Now I know you’re probably thinking I should stop dining at pretentious restaurants, and you’re right. Denny’s is great, and grilled cheese is pretty easy to say. But I do challenge that notion. Even the simplest of neighborhood restaurants seem intent on making you learn a word of the day.  And if they can’t find a fancy term for how they are cooking something, they will go to great lengths to ascribe the exact geographic locations of your tomatoes, chickens and cocao nibs. They will place a “from the region of…” in front of a sugar cube if they have to. And honestly most of the places sound a little like they’re from ‘Game of Thrones’.

Let’s talk about asking the wait staff about these words/locations. I figured out that as a rule of thumb the greater the number of words on a menu you do not know, the higher the likelihood that you will be made to feel like an utter yam for asking, an Oliver Twist saying, “Please Sir can I have some more simple words to explain what you’ll really be doing to my eggs back there”.

So, are these all just pretty ordinary ingredients, and cooking methods, and farms, and writers have just got in on the game, realizing the print medium is dying so they are having their last word suppers all over menus? Or are chefs watching too much ‘Chopped’ and feeling like they have to find the next way forward with an egg? Or – and this is my favorite theory – are English professors slipping through the backs of kitchen doors and saying, “Look, they are sitting still, at a table, they can’t leave until they get an exorbitant bill, let’s teach them some new words. Their brains have been coddled for too long.”

I like my theory. Or maybe I’m hoping as human beings we will continue to evolve our language beyond “likes”, “cutes” and “LOLs” so when we do go out for dinner we sound smarter than the food we eat. Or maybe I’m trying to divert my immense annoyance at the mental hoops I have to leap through to earn my dinner. Maybe I’m just “hangry”. Ha, take that new word, fancy restaurant. And bring me some damn coddled eggs. With chermoula. And a gribiche.

I’m sorry I have not posted recently. I was consumed with the fear that my own death would be usurped by the death of someone more famous than me. And recently there has been a fair amount of famous dying occurring.

I was born the day before Christmas. My entry into this world was overshadowed quite heavily by someone substantially more famous than me. Every year I try to pretend I can hold my own, but You Know Who always comes with the promise of a day with gifts and gammon for everyone, and I’m put back in the shadows of the Christmas tree. So, because I’m competitive, I’m hoping for a better exit.

Don’t worry – I know how much you love this smart, witty and thigh-slapping funny blog – I’m very well and have no immediate plans to leave this life. In fact it’s quite the opposite. I’m feeling positively alive with the idea of getting more famous than mega blogger “The Bloggess” or  Gwyneth Paltrow and her “Goopers,” so that when I do in fact die, I am the most famous person dying. You don’t get a lot of shots at this stuff. Your big moments are really your birth, hitting legal drinking age, maybe a wedding, likely a divorce, and then your demise. You have to make sure you’re doing these things well folks.

Let’s explore this more.

January 10^th saw the passing of the great David Bowie, aged 69 years old. A brilliant man who achieved the very highest levels of artistry, cocaine taking, and elegance. His passing was too soon. The world is still mourning. Just turn on the radio and see if you can find a Taylor Swift song to cheer you up, and you will land up crying to “Starman” again.

January 14^th saw the passing of the great thespian, Alan Rickman. How did that go, reaction-wise? I’ll tell you because Alan can’t, bless him. It went not so great. I got a BBC news alert on my phone informing me of the news with a short obituary, but the coffee shop chatter went as follows:

Barista: “Did you hear the guy from Harry Potter also died, also aged 69?”

Customer: “Dumbledore?”

Barista: “No, not him the other guy. Freaky right?”

Customer: “Do you have Stevia?”

Despite Rickman having made over thirty amazing films and appearing in countless theater productions, his death had an “also” in front of it. As though he was following a trend he just couldn’t help but get into. Or if you felt like an alternative to “also” mourning Bowie you had another, slightly more obscure British choice, but obviously Bowie’s death was the main stage event.

See my point? The only thing worse than dying is dying when someone mega famous does. As if death isn’t unfortunate enough already.

This “also” happened to The Eagles founding member Glenn Frey. When he sadly passed on to the big Hotel California in the sky this week, “Desperadoes” got sandwiched between David Bowie medleys. He had many more songs than that, but he died around Bowie time so his tequila sunrise faded into obscurity. The only thing worse….

So, all this brought on my paranoia. I actually have this  fear whenever I’m catching a flight in LA, and there are celebs on board too. I always sweat back there in economy thinking about the headline if the tin bird goes down, “WILL ARNETT AND OTHERS CRASH.”  I really, really hate being relegated to “others” status.   But that’s what I would be. Someone who was “also” on board. Dead gen pop. I mean, if Alan Rickman and Glen Fry were relegated to B list celebrities posthumously on the red carpet leading up to the pearly gates, I don’t stand a hope of even getting into the party. Right now I would be standing outside hoping I still have a way with bouncers and winking at St Peter. Or I’d be texting other dead people who are already behind the gates to see if I couldn’t somehow score a VIP bracelet so I don’t have to wait in line. Mortifying.

As with any great fear I’m working on it though. And I’d encourage you to do it with me. We should all resolve to not be “others”.  I’m obviously going to keep writing this blog to achieve my greatness.  And I also have an unsound but brilliant business plan which involves tearing up all the inspirational “Live Today like its the Best day Ever!!” type motivational posters in the world, and replacing them with posters that say, “Live like you might die on the same day as Kim Kardashian”. There’s a challenge.  They’d be very nicely designed and wouldn’t have a sunset or Kim Kardashian on, but I think the stern tone is what we all need if we plan on coming out on top before we go six feet under.

Truth is, there is no real winner here, but we should at least all aim to exit better than when we entered, right?  And try to leave greatness behind, of whatever kind. Just like (in order of their passing) David, Alan and Glenn. Thank you, and rest in peace, gentlemen.

It should be simple. “Sue this is Pete. Pete this is Sue”. But this introduction thing, it is not simple.

Faced with said Pete I don’t know if I’m supposed to shake hands, hug, shake hands and hug, shake, hug and back pat, air kiss once, air kiss twice, triple air kiss with actual facial contact or get real air. Or, if I should just offer my hand, nod and say in a low voice “Pleasure”. Okay I got the last one from ‘Downton Abbey’ so I know I shouldn’t do that one, but still you see my dilemma. When introduced to a stranger in the workplace I have no idea what to actually do. With my limbs. With my body. What trajectory should it be on?  A lean in? And with just the upper body, right? A pelvis should always stay out of a first introduction. It’s like I become a marionette being controlled by a drunk puppeteer reenacting ‘Fight Club’, and somehow there is always proboscis damage and an awkward entanglement with a person I know nothing about but their name.

“Pete. Nice to meet you”. And now I hope I never have to see you again.

So, I’m calling for international standards for Introductions and Greetings. ISIG. Or #ISIG. You can make it trend on my behalf, all good. Or you can post my blog up everywhere. Also very, very good.

My International Standards for Introductions and Greetings will be like the International Safety Standards but I’d argue will be more important  – after all dying of embarrassment during an introduction is always worse that actually dying because you have to see the people again and there are no after funeral snacks.

Of course I’ve looked into this standardizing thing in quite some depth. Actually I just found one website, iso.org. This is a body of people who standardize everything from levels of water purity so we don’t all die of bilharzia, to country abbreviations. Apparently everyone not using ‘.fr’ when referring to France is an equally huge issue. Merde! Everything that is standardized then gets a cool code, like ISO 9000 for example. Once my standards have been passed I’m hoping for ISO 1999, which is my favorite Prince song.

Let me back up a little. Or introduce my argument if you will.

Men have a greeting. The firm handshake. Every other time they meet they repeat this ritual. And as the friendship and camaraderie grows, or as bourbon flows, the handshake becomes a hug of sorts, eventually with loud patting on the back as if they are mutually burping one another in a sort of baby man action otherwise known as the “bro hug”.

Not the same for women. As young girls we aren’t taught to firmly shake hands when we meet someone. I was taught to say, “Nice to meet you”. Or to hug. And so when we step into boardrooms there is confusion because there are no rules. I’ve gotten a handshake out of men. But it never maintains, perhaps because there’s no roadmap to the “bro hug”. And I refuse to hug just because I’m a girl. And honestly, I meet a lot of people I would really rather not hug.

I’m not saying this is your fault good Sirs. I’m saying there are no standards. #IGIS/ISO 1999. Believe me, women being introduced to one another is an even greater disaster. We bungle handshakes and “Downtonesque” greetings. And then there’s always one effusive hugger with one less effusive one, stiff as a surfboard wondering when they will be released (me).

The very act of introducing people to put them at ease with one another is being overridden.

Add cultural affectations to all this. The European kissers, two if you’re Italian (I think) three if you’re Dutch (straight up time consuming and certain to create nose damage if both greeters are not well prepared), Middle Eastern wide air kissers, and then Japanese card exchangers. Can you imagine first day of work at the UN? “Oh sorry Angela Merkel, did we just kiss on the mouth? I was going for an air kiss, my bad.”

Let’s standardize friends! Pick something. I propose we begin with a handshake in boardrooms. Offer your hands. Teach your daughters. And teach your sons to shake their hands. Girls let’s embrace this. And let’s all get into one big hug when the International Standards for Introductions and Greetings or ISO 1999 is passed. Or #ISIG is trending at least. Yes? Pleasure. Mwah. Mwah.

Like, it’s an epidemic. And it must be stopped. It’s not even like a contagion, it is an actual contagion. It is inside all of our mouths, and it spews out like, every five seconds before words, after words and even like between words, so that like sentences don’t even like make sense. So rampant is its infestation that if you sit, anywhere in the English speaking world, and tune into the buzz of conversation around you it will be almost all you can hear. Well that, and me bitching about it.

“Like” has taken over, friends. And as is the case with any disease it does not discriminate. It first affected  “Clueless” teenage Valley Girls, but now it has taken hold of everyone from professional working adults, “So like, the client said he like hated it all,” to accountants, “Is your business like S-Corp or C-Corp”, to medical doctors at the ER, “Like, is it is your knee or your hip that hurts most?” Listening to you hurts, Doctor.

I believe it’s time we put “like” back into its correct grammatical box for once and for all, before its stronghold kills all other words. Or Earth explodes and other planets news headlines read, “Like, the end of the human race.”

This year we eradicated Ebola. In 2016 we can eradicate this Ebola of words. And we don’t even have to wear hazmat suits, which is great because outfits that don’t show the waist are generally unflattering. We can kill “like” like we merrily killed pigs for gammon this Christmas, drank wine and said, “I do rather like Christmas!” (Note: Similarity is one correct use of “like”. Enjoyment is the other correct grammatical use of “like” Easy!)

Of course, there are serious things that we could change in our lives for 2016. Reaching greater mindfulness, exercising more, donating to Ebola health carers, subscribing to the awesome new blog elephantinmyhead.com, but maybe its time to take on something different. Or maybe I’m just bored with all the other resolutions. My inbox is already as distended with emails from gyms, yoga centers and juice bars as my stomach is from eating too many pigs with wine. They are all offering a new me. And the old me knows none of it is truly sustainable. Plus, the one yoga place I like (again, correct usage) I once did a shoulder stand at and farted coming out of it, rather mortifyingly, so I can’t go back there anyway.

I figure ridding yourself of “like” is easy. Mainly because I looked at the Global Language Monitor (GLM) and there are currently 1,025,109.8 English words available for your use. Yes, even without “like” you get 1,025,108.8 words. There’s even an .8^th of word if you just need a tiny one. Google’s algorithm counts just 1,022,000 words, but that is still a shitload. And yes “shitload” is one of the million odd words per Merriam Webster you can use.   Best of all, the GLM says there’s a new word created every 98 minutes, so if you’re at a real loss, wait for one coming freshly baked out of the English language oven. Or, make one up of your own. Web 2.0 became a word back in 2009, so the bar is decidedly low.

Who is with me? We’ve been throwing “like” around the same way we did “um” when we were teenagers lying about why the sherry bottle is empty. We are grown ups now who are capable of great things – algorithms for counting how many words we have, disease elimination, blogs called elephantinmyhead.com, creating S-Corps, knowing the difference between knees and hips, drinking with ham. We can do this. There’s even a wikihow if you need it. That’s how serious this is. On the same site you can learn how to save a small child from choking you can learn to lose the “like”.

I’m saying no to “like” in 2016. And I plan on taking down “cute” the stronger I get. But I’m taking it one day at a time, as with any resolution.