Do this. Don't do that. Can't you read the sign?

I'm a bit of an idiot. I decided to possibly add a fifth resolution to my already-a-bit-too-large list of New Year's resolutions. I was going to foolishly attempt a new fitness goal.

I am not in bad shape at all. I would argue I am in quite good shape. I do, however, have very little upper body strength and thought I may have more than my fair share of "arm days" as I think the gym speak goes. So I did some pathetically adjusted push-ups and planks. And I felt a bit exhausted, but all well and good.

And then, the next morning, I was in traction. I'm being a bit melodramatic, sure, but I could barely move them. It seriously hindered my working day. I kept a stiff upper lip about it, but right then, I threw that idea out of the window.

You see, I do high intensity interval training, so I can typically handle that whole "no pain, no gain" mantra. But this was something akin to trauma. So, no more of that business. Nuh-uh. Unsubscribe.

I know I'm like a dog with a bone, so I may still periodically have a crack at it, perhaps the day before a civic holiday so that I can lounge it off. But the reality is that a concentrated form of that level of arm routine daily is just not feasible right now. I'll have to forgo being Michelle Obama's body double for a little while longer.

Besides, I have some other things to focus on.

Resolution #1: Reach 65% fluency in French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Russian

I am pretty proud of myself. I can see my goal of 65% fluency peeking around the corner and waving at me. And look at that! It's wearing a beret. Yes, this month, I went from 48% to 54% fluency in the language of Madeline and Miss Clavel. My Spanish jumped even higher -- a whole seven percent! -- to leave me at 49% fluency. That's almost half! My Italian went up one to 18% and I learned another level of Russian, leaving me at 5 out of the 78. And my German held steady at 30%. How do you eat an elephant, my friends? One bite at a time.

And I've also veered a bit off course, in all honesty. I've caught some episodes of Signing Time, a children's program meant to teach toddlers and pre-schoolers how to sign. As in, American Sign Language. And I've been picking it up for some time now through other sources with roughly two years of ongoing practice, at least weekly if not more frequently. I now have a partner with which to practice this language. And make no mistake -- it is a language all its own, with its own rules for grammar, tenses, syntax, and the like. Every new "sign" I learn feels like a massive enrichment, possibly because of the frequency in which I use it. So, yes, add ASL to that yawningly long list of languages I'm gaining fluency in, but please, oh, please, don't set any goals. I'm following my own pace with this one.

Resolution #2: Raise guitar proficiency by at least 25% on six songs

I did practice, but I think I've hit a wall. Maybe it's the wall of sound? Frankly, I don't even know what that is, so that just might be the wall I've hit. I don't even know where I'm going wrong. I can feel "My Girl" getting easier to play, but the scores are not reflecting this change. "American Girl" also felt a little simpler until I learned some more notes, but still the scores showed a 1.5% increase in mastery. That's it. One point stinking five percent. Whoop-dee-doo. My goal is 55.8% for this particular song, so it's hard to not be defeatist. Not to betray the metaphor I lovingly conjured earlier, but this elephant here has a particularly fat ass.

Resolution #3: Clear my backlog of unwatched films and TV boxsets

I must declare it family sitcom month because, boy, did I fly through a few seasons of those. First, my husband and I finished off Mike and Molly, which petered out not with barely a rumble. For a show that started about two overweight people finding love and working through their issues together, I did notice the series diminish itself to merely a husband-and-wife-bickering motif more than a few times. The end was a quick wrap-up, certainly, with a shorter episode run than previous seasons. Oh, well. If nothing else, I can scratch it off my list.

My husband (then-boyfriend) bought me the first two seasons of The Middle because I raved about this one episode in which the family's slacker teenage son is tasked with taking care of a robotic baby for parenting class for a week and does an expectedly piss-poor job of it. But the lengths he goes to allegedly to sooth the baby is what made me laugh. And it still does today.

Anyway, I had those two seasons for an eternity. Really, four more seasons came out in the span of time from the lovely gift-giving gesture to me actually watching it. My husband joined me on the couch and, against all odds and protesting remarks that he won't like this show because it's got Patricia Heaton in it and he didn't like the yelling back and forth like they did on Raymond (another show he allegedly suffered through), he actually took to The Middle. He sees himself in Mike, the husband character, on the show. And I'm starting to see myself in Frankie.

This is a common theme I've noticed. At what point do we watch shows and movies and stop relating to the younger, hipper ones and realize we're the boring, middle-aged fogies? I'm not middle-aged yet, not for a stretch. I'm not even being delusional about this -- it's really math. But I've noticed that, with time, I rewatch those things I love and realize that I'm not so much Ferris Bueller as his parents or Molly Ringwald's parents or even the janitor and principal (ugh) in The Breakfast Club. Well, maybe not all that. But with sitcoms especially, I notice this phenomenon. I watched that debut season of Home Improvement this month, too. Instead of relating to Brad, Randy, or Mark, the ones whom I am closest to age with, being a child just on the later years of the cusp where the eighties met the nineties, I relate to Jill, Al, Wilson, and sometimes Tim. But when did this happen? This was not always the way. Is this the sign of growing up? And how did it happen so suddenly? It feels like an about-face, almost as if I unknowingly compromised my values. I wonder if everyone feels this way or if I'm just some crazy, sitcom-loving coot. Six of one, half a dozen of another.

Alas, that was all in terms of sitcoms for the month. In more of the dramatic territory, I watched a movie called Manchester By The Sea, which is only redeemed by Michelle Williams. As all painfully mediocre things are: My Week with Marilyn, Dawson's Creek (her and Grams made it all bearable), Oz the Great and Powerful, Dick, Halloween H20 (I'd argue that one was a touch worse than mediocre) . . .

I really can't fathom Casey Affleck's Oscar win. His performance was better in so many other things. The character that was written for him is a big part about a man who is suffering major loss that he never quite got over and being foisted into a position where he essentially has to return to the scene and face it all over again. It's a good part, no question, but it would have been so much better conveyed in more capable hands. What Casey emoted, what gave Casey gave, what Casey imbued the role with was nothing. It was a mumbling disaster; his facial expression remained relatively neutral and he burned just above zero calories. At least Michelle Williams seemed to care and, you know, realize she was acting in a movie. She put the effort in and it shows, but not in a giving too much of herself way. She put exactly in what was needed to get across what was written down on paper. And I appreciate that. I haven't much else to say about Manchester By The Sea other than it was not for me.

Oh, and dramatic television series! I almost forgot. I've tried rather desperately to get Hubby Dearest to watch Grey's Anatomy with me. It only took two years short of a decade, but I got him to watch the second episode. Of the entire series. The other day. First, I had him rewatch the pilot because, my goodness, it's been eight years. It's time for a refresher.

His main gripe back then was that he couldn't handle the gruesomeness and viscera of surgery, which is commonplace in a show set in a hospital that isn't Scrubs. And yet he didn't cringe when it happened this time. In fact, he didn't seem to notice it at all. With age and Game of Thrones, we all gain the stomach for the ol' scalpel play. But still, I think it's going to take another eight years to get him to watch the third episode. I swear he'll like it; I'm not trying to exercise some sort of mind control, maniacially pinning his eyelids open like that dude in A Clockwork Orange.

I genuinely believe he will enjoy the characters in this show and their respective arcs of development. I know how fond he is of Christina Ricci and think he will love the two-part bomb episode, too. Still, I think he has an aversion to all things Shonda Rimes. He finds the adoration of Olivia Pope laughable on Scandal; no, really, he has literally laughed at it. Speaking of which, I'm behind on Scandal; I haven't seen an episode since that pesky midseason finale. Hold on, Netflix, Mama's coming.

Resolution #4: The 2017 Super-Mega-Ultra-Neo-Maxi-Zoom-Dweebie Chelsey Cosh Reading Challenge™!

This month, I was spoiled. I had so many options, so many books to read, such a variety to choose from, that I could not settle on one and just get through it.

I'm chomping at the bit to read Bryan Cranston's memoir. I'm dying to know more about what happens in After You, the sequel to the freaking amazing novel Me Before You (please read the book and don't bother with the film; I'm not being a purist so much as I'm trying to save you from ruining a good thing). I've read a couple of Gordon Pape's finance books. But most importantly, I took a chance on something suggested for me on Goodreads: Jennifer Wright's It Ended Badly .

As the subtitle suggests, the novels move forward through history's worst romantic dissolutions, starting with the Romans and ending with Elizabeth Taylor's love triangle. The book is great, humourous and informative and just plain fun. I love it. And my husband who is quite taken with Anne Boleyn -- and has been for some time -- loved her chapter, along with the rest. It's a fascinating look at romance through the ages. History is many times not fun or funny, but looking at it through Jennifer's scope adds a touch of the droll.

This book fits none of the prompts for my reading challenge. So you can see the massive efforts I have made in rectifying that.

I read one for my reading challenge. One.

But I don't care. Reading is supposed to be fun and I don't give a hoot if it doesn't fit some prescribed list. This month, I deviated and I deviated badly. What of it?

Now you may be asking, what was the book you got through? I read Brokeback Mountain. I mostly focused on it because it was unbelievably short. Like, under fifty pages. Yes, I knew if I was going to make any short of breakthrough this month, I was going to have to drop that bar and aim low. Real low. Forty-four-pages low. But, boy, Annie Proulx can capture so much in so few words.

A beautiful and understated story, Brokeback Mountain is a great novella, no question. I saw the film first, which is a big no-no, forever altering my personal perception of the characters, the locations, the tone, and even the plot. The film was so moving. It touched my heart and soul deeply the first time I saw it and continues to with every viewing, deep enough that it's difficult to forget what I've seen and reimagine it all to appreciate Annie Proulx's source material.

Still, her writing is meaningful and her heart is pure. You can feel the nature around her characters, which I feel is a big part of her writing -- you know, the details of the trees blowing in the wind, the type of tree it was, and so forth. You also feel the nature of her characters, which I think is probably equally significant to her, especially in this case, and that is not to be ignored. Although I may not read this book again, I don't regret it for a second, and considering its brevity, I do recommend everyone give it a shot. You're not going to walk away from it unchanged.

So, despite that, what remains after that crappy showing, Chelsey?

Hmm? What does your book-reading struggle hold for you? As you can imagine, a heck of a lot.

#1. A memoir published last year: The Princess Diarist, by Carrie Fisher

#2. A memoir published this year

#3. A book about or set in Scandinavia

#4. A book about or set in Australia

#5. A Black Quill Award winner

#6. A book about a mother-son relationship

#7. A Goodreads choice award winner

#8. A sequel to a book you loved

#9. A screenplay: When Harry Met Sally, by Nora Ephron

#10. A classic work of gay literature: Brokeback Mountain, by Annie Proulx

#11. A winner of an Edgar Award: The Grown-Up, by Gillian Flynn

#12. A book most people read in high school but you did not

#13. A work of Gothic horror

#14. A play written by Shakespeare

#15. A play not written by Shakespeare

#16. A book of essays

#17. A book based on a blog: Hyperbole and a Half, by Allie Brosh

#18. A book written about the future, but that future is now our past

#19. A graphic novel

#20. A classic romance novel

#21. A book with a transgender protagonist: Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides

#22. A book written by a woman of colour

#23. A book about a murder

#24. A banned book

#25. A book about science

I'll do better, my liege.

Until next time, happy reading!