I believe that if I skip my shower and wear my workout clothes all day long I will in fact burn fat and build muscle. Plus I love giving people the impression that I'm such an exercise fanatic that I don't even have time to bathe.
I believe that if I go into Target with a shopping list consisting of toilet paper, trash bags and tube socks, as long as I keep that list right there in my hand where I can see it at all times, I will succeed at walking out of that store with those three items and nothing more. Then I can gaze with smug condescension at that poor weak-willed woman's shopping cart overflowing with picture frames, cases of paper towels, an auto trash receptacle, a lamp shade or three, a customizable storage system for the garage, two classic film DVDs, a pack of 1,000 cotton swabs, toilet paper, trash bags, tube socks...hey, wait a minute. That's MY cart. I believe that the best time for cleaning the refrigerator, dusting the chandelier, scrubbing the toilets or scouring various household fixtures is right before I have to leave for a dinner party.
I believe that if I turn up the volume on the music, start the vacuum or, worst case scenario, get into the shower, the kids' bickering and name calling will actually cease.
I believe that if I keep my husband's tuxedo and my little black dress freshly dry cleaned and ready at the front of the closet then we will one day receive a last-minute invitation from Tom Hanks and his lovely wife, Rita Wilson, to accompany them to the Academy Awards.
I believe that if I talk to our new puppy as I did to my boys when they were in pre-school—"I need you to listen with your ears and look at me with your eyes" or "It's clean up time"—he'll actually understand and obey my words. (As if my boys did....)
I believe that ordering clothes from the catalogs of J. Jill (or J. Crew or J. Victoria Secret) rather than trying them on in a store will ensure that they look on me exactly as they do on the beautiful but ever-so-slightly enhanced women in the pictures.
I believe that for the 8 week duration of my cut-and-color my hair will continue to look as good as the magazine hair model's salon coiffure which my stylist valiantly tried to copy...without requiring daily treatments from three different tubes of goop, a hair dryer with a diffuser, two different sized curling irons and a special comb to make a zigzag part....which, incidentally, is the way I intend to wear it to the Academy Awards.
I believe that if I take the time to select recipes from Bon Appetit, write down the necessary ingredients on a shopping list, actually purchase said items at various markets and specialty food shops, bring them home and put them in the refrigerator then, voila! My job is done. Dinner will happen spontaneously. Of course, right before my next dinner party I'll be cleaning out the refrigerator and wondering where this rotten bok choy, quinoa and carrot juice came from.
I believe that after I say goodnight to my children, they will stay in their beds and, perhaps after reading a chapter from one of their many classic children's novels, will fall sound asleep, leaving me to have an uninterrupted and stimulating conversation with my husband while enjoying a glass of merlot by candlelight beside a flickering fire. (This, by the way, is very similar to believing in the Easter Bunny.)
I believe that if I keep a stack of parenting books on my nightstand and another two shelves worth crammed into my bookcase, then my children, simply by occupying the same airspace as such wisdom, will become angelic and obedient.
