Yesterday, just a few hours before my 18 year celebration of clean and sober living, I was thinking about the accomplishments in my life and feeling pretty good about them. Besides being a semi-excellent mother and happily mediocre wife, I've also achieved other great glories over the years, like rekindling my romance with running.

Another goal conquered? I quit smoking 13 years ago. Did I ever mention I used to be among the smoking? Except I started for a very original reason: I was trying to fit in and be cool.

And another great feat? I stopped eating meat (I made that one rhyme on purpose - my intelligence and wit know no bounds!) It's been about nine months and I'm feeling great. Also, I think pigs like me a little more. When I'm at the farm they only urinate in front of me now. No more defecation; they save it for the nasty bacon-loving omnivores.

Yep. It's pretty wonderful being The Maven. Just look at all I've done! It's amazing! Why, if you add it all up, I'm... I'm...

"Hi, my name is The Maven. I'm a sober, drug-free, smoke-free, vegetarian jogger!"

Oh, shit.

I am officially the most boring person on the planet.

I'm going to have to do something to spice myself up a little. Make myself cooler and more full of greatness instead of only tofu. Because, frankly, I'm not doing a lot to make people comfortable around me. What are we going to talk about? So many topics are things I can no longer relate to: drunken barbecues at grow-ops, for example.

Not to mention my house has been insanely clean lately. Perhaps "insane" is the wrong word, because we've not yet entered OCD country. It's just tidy, and I clean a good portion of it every day to maintain it. I believe that's known as 'upkeep' and is what most people do, but I only recently joined their ranks after leaving the 'only clean up when it starts to smell like a corpse or if you break a tooth tripping on something' club.

Also, I'm officially in the process of writing my childhood memoir, which I've been putting off forever because, well, my childhood was rather sucktastic in places.

Most places.

And on the days when I trudge up something rather yucky and expose it on a page that will hopefully be published for all to see, I may be rather untalkative.

So, this year, if all goes as planned, I will be a socially awkward, tidy, sober, drug-free, ex-smoking, meatless, health-conscious published author.

...Hear that? It's the sound of my social life deflating.



On the plus side, I managed to find a coffee mug that nicely matches my phone. Awesome, right? It ups my street cred a little, right?

... Right?

I'm desperately grasping at straws, here.