Things I’ll Be Doing in 2014 (And You Should Too)

Firstly, to be clear, don’t take any of my advice. I am so often saddened by the decisions I make in my own life, and they only affect me. For this reason, and reasons of laziness and procrastination, I will not be starting a cult this year. If I did start a cult, it would probably be to teach underlings that they shouldn’t feel pressured to conform to any sort of group movement. Also to teach them how to macramé and appreciate whisky and the novels of Ian Banks, because why the hell not, best keep them busy.

Having said that, here are some of my hopes for the year ahead and the trends I foresee coming our way in 2014.

It’s going to be a magnificent year. It got off to a wonderful start because I was lucky enough to jet off to sunny places for a mid-winter break, so I am ALL about the joyousness of life now.

With an injection of sunlight most things are conquerable: so now, it’s ok that here in Glasgow it gets dark again just after lunch; it drizzles; time lurches onward damply and slowly toward February. Let’s drink beer and eat toast, because we’re all alive for another year, and if you tend to believe in the bedrock meaninglessness of life, well, there’s a lot of happiness to be found in enjoying yourself regardless.

In this spirit of recklessness, my New Year’s resolution is to start calling the fridge my Cheese Library. Join me in this. We’re all fancy people here.

Calling the fridge my Cheese Library is another part of getting older, which, actually, is proving to be alarmingly better than being younger. Obviously a great deal of our culture is slanted toward celebrating peachy youth, the perkiness of the early-twenties years. Ah, the scant hangovers, the fresh skin. Such a shame these things come hand in hand with screaming insecurities and night time dread (anybody?)

I can’t say I remotely have a clue what I’m doing, but thankfully, I feel a little more resilient now. Like morphine for pain relief: you can still feel the pain, you just don’t care anymore. So I’ve been told. Since I turned 28, so far, I’ve been mostly swimming in the sea. This year is better.

So I’ll be getting a bit older and eating more mozzarella. I’ll also be growing a moustache this year. Now this one may see a wild card, but isn’t that how all the best trends begin? Let us swagger like we’re Alexander McQueen, getting robots to spray-paint dresses, or David Bowie before anyone was onside with his space adventures. Women with moustaches. It’s going to be a thing. IT’S A THING. I know this because I saw a model sporting a jaunty moustache in a Chanel advert! No really:

Not only that, but Bjork, woman of our collective Jungian dream, began 2014 by posting this amazing picture of herself on Facebook:

(Like everything Bjork does, everyone thought they dreamt that this happened, but it really did happen). I spotted this in a hairdresser’s window recently, too. Sexy and work appropriate.

While this is something I’m hoping to achieve in 2014, in the interests of feminist acceptance of all, I take a step back and simply advise to go with whatever facial hair (or embarrassing lack thereof) you’ve got. The world is just going to have to make room for you.

At first my only resolution this year was ‘have more fun’; then once I thought about it, there was an abundance of ideas that I couldn’t resist. So along with the above, please find below a not conclusive list of my New Year’s Resolutions. Please allow these suggestions to influence the direction of your hairstyle this year, your vote, and any long-term life choices you were thinking of making:

Wear more tartan. Kilts for lounge-wear.

Only shop in charity shops. It’s shopping and recycling.

Read more poems by Don Paterson. (‘When I stand between the sunlit and the sun / Make me glass’). He’s just amazing, is all.

Visit places in Scotland. Not just because I’m broke again after my recent holiday, but because it’s beautiful and it’s right there. Also because I’m broke again.

Say yes to things. (A standard resolution but a good one).

But don’t waste any time on things you don’t enjoy, if you can help it. See: hangovers.

Be generous.

Write thank you cards.

More hair accessories, obvs.

Start a band called Our Collective Jungian Dream. I’ll play the triangle; it’s all I can play.

Lastly, this year, I must drink more coffee. I DON’T HAVE A PROBLEM. I just need it every day or I start to lose interest in life. Like turning 28 and growing a moustache, I’m just going to accept that this is who I am now.

There is some crazed hysteria floating about The Internet suggesting that healthy smoothies will overtake coffee as our addiction of choice. The Mintel website in a ‘consumer trend report’ (bleh) recently attempted to undermine everyone’s coffee regime: ‘In the coming year we will see consumers moving away from caffeine and further toward functional green vegetable drinks”, they ridiculously claimed. Mmmm functional green vegetable drinks. I’ll have a double-shot skinny functional green vegetable drink IN HELL.

Cheese, moustaches, coffee, whisky, poems, kilts, sea-swimming, river-jumping, Scottish fiction and the midwinter gloaming. It’s good to be home. Happy 2014.