A scene shows a woman with two heads, both appearing calm, against a background of window blinds.

Wishes a-plenty for 2020

By Nancy Ford

OK, gang, we’ve had almost a month to get used to writing 2020 on our checks. But does anybody still write checks in this high-tech, low environmental impact days of online payment and direct deposit?

More importantly, how are you doing with those resolutions?

It’s an unfortunate fact that once we get into the shank of January, resolutions for the New Year often fade into obscurity. It’s not that we don’t want to keep these pledges for personal, professional, and even global improvement. Why is it so much easier to pass the gym and get in line at the Whataburger drive-through while flicking the ash off a Marlboro Light with one hand and holding a decoy plastic Starbuck’s coffee cup full of Budweiser in the other?

And “resolution†is such an imposing word. It’s so demanding and absolute, usually imbued with almost inevitable unattainability. Maybe we should drop “resolution†and adopt the more user-friendly, aspirational term “wish†as we navigate 2020. By the end of this year, I wish for:

• Drive-through chicken as tasty as Chick-fil-A but without that foul, foul aftertaste of hate and attempted deception. And let’s talk about those CfA waffle fries. Popeye’s, if you would drop those Cajun fries and jump on the waffle bandwagon, you’d put your top competitor out of business faster than you could say 1 Timothy 1:10.

• Some new material from our favorite bawdy British balladeer, Adele. It’s been too long. Yes, we’ve seen that she’s lost a substantial amount of weight to the point that the tabloids are concerned for her health. Sure, Adele is all svelte and sleek due to her commendable weight loss. But has she also shed her ability to write lyrics that reduce her defenseless fans to blubbering piles of sad when her music comes floating through the grocery store aisles? What could be a better auditory 2020 treat than an entire album from Adele that can be enjoyed with reckless abandon and emotional confidence, no matter if you’re yearning for your soul mate or if she’s cuddled in your arms?  

• Cauliflower crust pizza available from Domino’s. It’s true — cauliflower crust pizza is actually quite tasty. Would Oprah lie to us? No, she would not, except perhaps about the true nature of her relationships with Gayle and Stedman. But I digress. Cauliflower crust pizza is good, and if Domino’s would add it to their menu, it would save me the labor of making a trip to Costco’s frozen food aisle just to buy a veggie two-pizza pack. Yes, that really happens. I swear, sometimes I don’t even know who I am anymore.

• While we’re talking about healthy eating, how about if some forward-thinking agro-scientist got to work on developing a bag of fresh spinach or lettuce that reflects the same staying power and level of commitment as a bag of Oreos? Oreos don’t maliciously turn into brown, smelly slime in three days. OK, admittedly, we don’t know this to be entirely accurate, because how often does a bag of Oreos last more than three days?

• Sarah Paulson. No, not to become her partner. I’m not old enough. (How often do I get to say that?) I just want more Sarah Paulson in general. It’s not a secret that this gorgeous actor/lesbian’s name pops up in my musings on a not infrequent basis, but let’s think of it as admiration rather than an obsession. I’ve been a fan since her brief but memorable appearance as the progressive photojournalist Bunny Yeager in 2005’s The Notorious Bettie Page. Who among us would argue that the world doesn’t need more Sarah Paulson? Sarah Paulson movies. Sarah Paulson TV shows. Sarah Paulson breakfast cereal. Sarah Paulson toothpaste.

• Hypoallergenic cats that are cute and huggable, but not like those weird-ass Sphinx cats that look like Tolkien’s genetically mutated nightmare. Little more explanation is needed here: I love lesbians. Lesbians love cats. Cats make me sneeze. Do the math.

• Friends available on Netflix again. Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Chandler, Ross, and Joey just seem more alive and there for you when the rain starts to pour when they’re streaming than they do when they’re coming in through a DVD.

• A Michelle Obama presidency because, dammit, the current administration has gone low — way, way, way too low — for way, way, way too long. It’s past time for us to go high again. You didn’t really think I could do this whole column without getting at least a little political, did you?

• World peace and an end to hunger. Because it’s not all about me.

But seriously, Sarah Paulson.

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