Reader, I [am making plans].

I had some random fact kicking around my head that it takes 7 days to form a habit, so I came up with the ingenious plan to blog for 7 days straight to get myself back in the mind set of blogging every day or so. Then I googled and found out it's actually more like 21 days to form a habit. But I knew that wasn't going to happen.

Each year around this time I set some form of goals for myself. New Years Resolutions never work for me, but wanting something by my birthday does. Most years it's giving up Diet Coke. One year it was hydrating (which led to an awkward hour really needing to, to put it delicately, use the little girls' room, while sitting in an ex-person's house hoping he didn't come home while I tried to support my friend talking to her friend, who happened to be the ex's younger brother). Now that I've listed those two, that might be it. No Diet Coke. Drink water. Done. And not the goals for this year.

After a day of the law school auction (it's for a good cause!) and a night of running errands--some of which were necessary--I declared to my roommate that I was going to stop the shopping. Unless it was necessary. A sale on pencil skirts counts as necessary. Another cake stand is not necessary (unless. . . nope. I really should have stopped at 20). So that's goal number one. Mostly do-able, I think. No more baby clothes for people not having babies (i.e., me). No more fabric purchases--I have enough for the projects I'm not working on right now. No more books I don't have time to read (the ones I have time to read, on the other hand. . . I make exceptions for visiting writers, etc.). You get the idea. Somewhere in that conversation I also listed eating out, but I love eating out and as a single person, it is almost a necessity sometimes. But I can definitely cut back, so I'll try that.

The other goal is some amorphous plan to walk more. I walk--up and down the stairs of the law school, through the parking lot(s), through the grocery store aisles--but I don't really walk. On Friday I decided to embrace the "work out" room of the clubhouse attached to our HOA and try out the treadmill. It wasn't too awful, so until the sun comes back, I'm going to try to head over there to give my body something to do other than sitting in front of a computer screen/book/professor. We'll see about that one.

The last goal is new, but I think just as important as my finances and physical upkeep. It's to write, several times a week, on this blog. I forgot that when you're blogging, you think differently. I don't mean the type of thinking that goes something like "I'll do this super cute thing and then post it on my blog and people will love me." That's what my Facebook account is for. I mean that I start experimenting with phrases and language and writing patterns. It pretty much always sounds like this, but there's a thought process involved.

I had a conversation with my roommate's mom on Friday (it's silly to keep calling her "my roommate" when she has a name* and by the way, her mom is visiting from Michigan, so she's been hanging out with us, and she's lovely) about blogging and why people blog. That's a different post. But it reminded me of a professor/mentor/poet asking me why I blogged--she thought I was wasting valuable writing space and work time and brainpower blogging. I can understand that point of view. But this week, as I've started blogging again, I've found myself going from my blogging voice to my poetry voice. It's like I'm shifting around the language in my head to make room for law school, for blogging, and, I hope, poetry. It's time to begin. . . (cue Imagine Dragons song).

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I've debated creating a cast of pseudonymed characters for this blog. April embraced the 'nyms, which is why I'm still writing as editorgirl. I think it's important to my identity as a blogger. But what about the people who are new to this narrative? And is this whole narrative new? For now I'll let her be "my roommate" and see what she says about me telling you her name. Same goes for law school classmates and siblings. Brave new world, this blog. Let's see how it goes.