Vocal Fry, Frugal Fatigue, and Eggnog Eschtalogy’

Wow… one more holiday to go: Eastern Orthodox Christmas. For us multiple faith families it a long season of gratitude and joy… and partying. With close friends and fmaily who are Jewish and then the Western/Eastern Christmas seasons which only coordinate once in w awhile, it’s just about from Thanksgiving through the first week in January that is a festival of one kind and another. I welcome it every year. It puts a totally different spin on the shortest dark days of the year.

And in the midst of those religious holidays, the world rolls over into a new year.

The days of 2011 were a mixed bag for me personally. The challenges of the recession the experts say is over were overwhelming for me at times. But on the other hand, I experienced some of the sweetest relational reunions ever all because I decided to have the courage to reach out one more time to people I thought had chosen to absent themselves from my life. It made bearable the one enormous loss I had to face in my life this year.

So what’s a girl to do with 2012, the brand new clean slate stretched out before me?

I’ve decided to let three pop trends guide me through the next time zone.

The first is a speech pattern called vocal fry. You’ve heard it. It’s how Bill Clinton and a whole bunch of girls like Kim Kardashian let their voice go way down low and kind of growl their way through their lower tones while speaking. I used to call it ‘sitting on your vocal chords’. It’s not good for them, your chords, and can damage them severely at worst. But… it’s hit the cool factor and now I hear it all the time. It’s my perception the person uses it when they’re trying to posess more power than they feel like they have at any one particular time.

So… the lesson I carry forth into the new year is …….I will not do anything that is cool if it’s going to hurt me. Simple enough. I’m not really into being cool but every once in a while I get caught up with appearances and that resolve will be a good check for monitoring overindulgence of that which is trendy.

OK. So. Second phenomenon is Frugal Fatigue. The pundits came up with this phrase as an explanation for why people are spending money again in the malls. They say people are just getting tired of being frugal. It’s an act of rebellion. I’m promising myself not to rebel against pinching pennies twice.

Third pop story that will drive us all to nausea…the end of time as we know it according to the Mayan Calendar.

There was a night not long ago when I made the mistake of taking a cup of egg nog to bed with me to savor as I read and watched ten minutes of a favorite film before I drifted off. Sure enough, two hours later I’m sitting upright in bed trying not to heave. It definitely felt like my world was coming to an end. After chastising myself for stupid indulgences ( see points one and two), I started thinking about the end of the world. That happens when you are willing yourself to not go hug a toilet.

Here’s what I came up with. It may be that we are all gone on 22 December 2012 like the Mayans are predicting. Or it may be that the world stumbles on for endless days to come. With that in mind I created a win/win.

In the year 2012 I’m going to live everyday as if it were the last I was ever going to live. I’m going to throw my best efforts into everything, work harder and play more than I ever have before. That way, if I wake up the day after the world was supposed to end, I’m going to be more ahead of my own game than I’ve ever been. See? Win/win.

So, on my mark, getting set… ready, steady, GO!!

Happy New Year.
Love, Deborah