The new me

Every weekend I think next week is the week when everything will change.

Next week will be the week I'm productive and focused, write clever things in my blog, knit brilliantly, and floss every day. I will make simple, yet inventive meals that just happen to be healthy, do yoga every day, and make everyone around me laugh (but not in an obnoxious attention-hogging douchebag kind of way). My life will look like a Real Simple photo spread, only more indie and less pastel. I will, of course, have fabulous hair the entire time. Starting next week.

On some level, I do realize that change is incremental and expecting to radically change my life overnight is unrealistic. I realize there are no shortcuts or quick fixes, so I should just keep plugging away at making simple, positive changes in my life.

But sometimes I buy fashion magazines anyway, because the covers tell me such sweet little lies. Take this month's issue of Glamour, which promises to deliver

- Private sex advice no one else will tell you

- Sexy dresses for your shape

- And, most importantly "The lazy woman's guide to a better body" AND "How to look like a pro did your hair every single morning."

Dude! All kinds of filthy dirty sex secrets that other people know BUT ARE NOT TELLING ME, how to be thin without exercising, and how to look good in the (mercifully brief) period before my half-assed exercise program whips me into shape, with perfect hair the entire time??? It would be downright irresponsible not to shell out the $3.99 to find out.

So I spent a shameful hour or two of quality knitting time yesterday reading Glamour, and this is what I learned:

Regarding the filthy, dirty sex - my lady friends are a salty group. Glamour's got nothin' on them.

"Fabulous dresses for your shape" actually wasn't bad, but they didn't have any recommendations for the shape that is squidgy around the middle, despises pantyhose and half-asses the leg-shaving come winter time. Imagine. I really was initially encouraged by the cover line "Not a size 4? So what!" But it appears that Glamour only goes so far. Most of their recommended dresses are only available up to a size 14.

The "how to get thin while being lazy" exercise program recommends, among other things, doing squats while watching TV, doing curls with your grocery bags and running up and down stairs for five minutes at a time several times a day. Now If I were the kind of person that did anything other than eat and drink beer while watching TV, I would BY DEFINITION, not be a lazy woman. And running up and down stairs, willingly, more than once? They clearly have no concept of how profoundly, gleefully lazy I really am.

And finally (and most crushingly) the hair: as I have long suspected, the secret to salon-perfect hair is an amazing number of hair brushes and products, combined with the upper arm strength of a Russian weight-lifter and the precision of a fighter pilot, plus significantly more time than I have ever spent even on special-occasion hair. Most days I consider it a miracle that I've managed to leave the house without forgetting something crucial, like my pants.

Glamour magazine, you've lied to me for the last time. I see through your dirty tricks and your tangled web of lies. I hereby declare myself immune to your siren song.