New Year. New You.

“New year. New you,” the advertisement read. In a testament to the absurdity of the statement, the sign’s lower right hand corner was peeling off and someone had drawn a small penis in the blank, white space that remained.

“New year. New me,” George said aloud. It sounded so simple. This was the year, his year. He would take life by storm, grab his existence from the anonymous universe and march stoically toward the dizzying heights of great success in life, love and looking fabulous, of course. But, thirty-six days into the new year, George didn’t feel like a new him, he felt like an old, out of shape, tired, same old him with a hole in the bottom of his left sock.

What would it take to be the new him? A new job? Joining the Soul Cycle cult? A juicing regimen and a series of exfoliating herbal facials? That all sounded like work and anything herbal always made him sneeze. Well, not exactly anything herbal per se.

His stomach rumbled. The old him was hungry. Approaching Second Avenue, George spied a new “froyo” outpost. The name froyo was so dumb. Besides, frozen yogurt was for single girls on their way home from the gym not hip, cool guys with a life. No, hip, cool guys with a life chose to forgo froyo and dragged themselves into the same pizza place that the same old them had been going to for ten years and ordered two regular slices and a beer.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would be the new him. A total overhaul. He took a sip of his beer. Okay, not a total overhaul, just some key positive changes. Nothing rash though. Maybe a few solid improvements. Well, more like a couple of good, achievable modifications… Or one, yeah, one thing he could really accomplish.

George bit into a piece of crust and looked out the window. That was it. Tomorrow he’d get new socks.