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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

This is THE Year

My butcher Frank wants me to get a life. All this, predicated by the fact that for the first time in our four-year relationship of Saturday morning shopping, I handed him cash.

This was the year, I explained to him. The year that I pay cash for everything. Pay down my graduate student loans. Take my vitamins. Make time for friends and family. Gain more muscle. Take off fat.

I then asked him to weigh the pork and the chicken breasts (oh yah, I’m also avoiding red meat) into discreet six-ounce portions and wrap them separately. And date them. Frank laughed, even as he tore extra sheets of butcher paper from the roll. “You young guys,” he said to me. “You start off thinking you have to do everything. Once you get older, you realize you should enjoy yourself.”

Got me to thinking, maybe I’m being too extreme. Maybe he’s right. And then I thought better--self-restraint is the new black. Bring on the discipline, baby, this is THE year!