New Years Resolution

I made one!

I know it's a little late, but I have trouble thinking of resolutions for the New Year because I pretty much live the way I want to. I already eat healthy and keep a clean Rachel-den. Living in New York gives me plenty of exercise and I have no desire to lose weight (I'd have to buy new bras again--what a nightmare). I could make the resolution to work more on my writing, but hell, I make that resolution every morning, and some days I meet it, some days I don't.

So what could I resolve to change about myself? What new habit could I cultivate? What old habit could I break?

The answer came to me last weekend. The BF has been out of town for the past couple of weeks, traveling to different cities to do field studies for his thesis. When he was pau, we decided to celebrate with dinner at a fancy restaurant. (We had a coupon!) The food was excellent. I got ratatouille with polenta and ate every morsel. The BF wasn't done with his meal, so I folded my hand in my lap and stared at his plate.

I stared, and stared, and stared.

"Do you want some?" he asked, cutting me a slice of chicken and putting it on the edge of my empty plate.

"No thanks, I'm stuffed," I said. "Take it back."

He went back to eating. I went back to staring at his plate.

I stared, and stared, and stared.

Suddenly I became aware of what I was doing. I was staring at his plate while he ate, and I was doing it out of habit.

"Do I stare at people's plates when they eat?" I asked him.

He paused.

There it was. That dreaded pause from your significant other, while they work out of the quantum mechanics of a question guaranteed to produce a painful answer. It's like Schrodinger's Cat. Either I'm going to be pissed that you tried to poison my cat, or I'm going to be pissed that you killed my cat.

"You can stare at my plate," he said.

Which was a great save on his part, but my resolution had come into creation in that pause. I really need to stop staring at people's fucking plates while they eat. I have no idea how or when or why I picked up this habit. But I bet other people find it creepy and weird, and as long as we're being brutally honest, I don't need any help in that area. I'm plenty creepy and weird on my own, I don't need to broadcast it quite so obviously.