Not drinking.

Unless you count tea.

Not eating

Unless you count vegetables.

7-eleven is my favorite restaurant.

So, if I can do a 10 day raw food cleanse…

Anyone can.

Plus it’s Dry January.

My only joy is coffee.

Coffee isn’t raw.

But I’m only human.

I survive Dry January by avoiding humans.

A year ago we celebrated New Year’s with friends.

They got Covid.

We didn’t.

We got survivor’s guilt.

After that we avoided fun.

And kept Dry January going until June.

But then we went to Italy.

There was wine.

And cheese.

And I was reminded that wine and cheese beat Netflix.

There are 900 churches in Rome.

I tried to see to all of them.

There’s a church that has the finger of Doubting Thomas.

It’s like the Christian girl’s Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

My Jewish husband isn’t so church obsessed.

Yet we remain married.

After Italy there was Ireland.

The son of my oldest friend (oh she will love that) was getting married there.

We landed in Dublin and hit the Temple Bar, with it’s 450 kinds of whisky.

We made the whisky and Guinness (when in Dublin) stumble back to the hotel around midnight.

The elevator door was closing.

A polite person held it open.

Then the polite person says…

“Dorothy?”

For the love.

It was Randy Jackson.

When I was on TV I covered American Idol like it was the House Speaker Vote.

Randy was in Ireland shooting “Name That Tune” .

My new show idea was  ”Who’s in That Elevator?”

I searched every elevator for Bono.

The wedding was in an enchanted forrest.

We were encouraged to wear wellies.

I asked “What’s a wellie?”

I was told…”Don’t you watch The Crown?”

They‘re those big rubber boots the Queen used to wear.

We walked through the squishy woods to a tiny chapel.

There was a woman playing the harp.

She said with a brogue “Where’s the Vogue shoot?”

I thought we had more of a Taylor Swift vibe in our gowns and boots.

The wedding was one of the most romantic moments of my life.

And I wasn’t the one getting married.

End of summer we went back east to visit family.

Then I went back to school.

I teach Broadcast Journalism at Chapman U.

My old TV crew got together at an event for the artist known as Jillian Barberie.

And I took a quick trip to Napa.

We suprised a friend with a birthday trip.

A  kidNapa.

Good thing I ended that not drinking thing.

This was November.

But the best part of the year was still to come.

My son got engaged.

He got a fiancé.

And I got a daughter.

Actually 2 because she has a twin.

With my son’s blessing we watched from a discrete distance.

At sunset, on the sand…

She said yes.

We took endless photos.

The ring with the champagne, the ring with our chicken wings.

Now that I’m not eating wings (or anything)

and not drinking…

I have (too much) time to reflect on what I learned last year.

I finally learned how to wake up.

Not a metaphor.

I mean I actually learned how to wake up.

For 2 decades of morning TV my alarm was set for 4.

My first thought every morning was…

fuck.

Now I try to have my first thought be…

“Where would you have me go?

What would you have me do?

What would you have me say,

And to whom?”

It’s a prayer from A Course in Miracles.

I try to mediate for 5 minutes (sometimes 2).

And then spend 10 minutes sucking a Wordle.

The other thing I learned last year…

I can live without wine.

But not without coffee.