As an answering-service operator, I will make every effort when answering a subscriber’s telephone to avoid sighing in a manner which suggests that in order to answer said telephone I have been compelled to interrupt extremely complicated neurological surgery, which is, after all, my real profession.
Being on the short side and no spring chicken to boot, I shall refrain in perpetuity from anything even roughly akin to leather jodhpurs.
Chocolate chip cookies have perhaps been recently overvalued. I will not aggravate the situation further by opening yet another cunningly named store selling these items at prices more appropriate to a semester’s tuition at Harvard Law School.
Despite whatever touch of color and caprice they might indeed impart, I will never, never, never embellish my personal written correspondence with droll little crayoned drawings.
Even though I am breathtakingly bilingual, I will not attempt ever again to curry favor with waiters by asking for the wine list in a studiously insinuating tone of French.
Four inches is not a little trim; my job as a hairdresser makes it imperative that I keep this in mind.
Gifted though I might be with a flair for international politics, I will renounce the practice of exhibiting this facility to my passengers.
However ardently I am implored, I pledge never to divulge whatever privileged information I have been able to acquire from my very close friend who stretches canvas for a famous artist.
In light of the fact that I am a frequent, not to say permanent, fixture at even the most obscure of public events, I hereby vow to stop once and for all telling people that I never go out.
Just because I own my own restaurant does not mean that I can include on the menu a dish entitled Veal Jeffrey.
Kitchens are not suitable places in which to install wall-to-wall carpeting, no matter how industrial, how highly technical, how very dark gray. I realize this now.
Large pillows, no matter how opulently covered or engagingly and generously scattered about, are not, alas, furniture. I will buy a sofa.
May lightning strike me dead on the spot should I ever again entertain the notion that anyone is interested in hearing what a fabulously warm and beautiful people I found the Brazilians to be when I went to Rio for Carnival last year.
No hats.
Overeating in expensive restaurants and then writing about it with undue enthusiasm is not at all becoming. I will get a real job.
Polite conversation does not include within its peripheries questions concerning the whereabouts of that very sweet mulatto dancer he was with the last time you saw him.
Quite soon I will absolutely stop using the word “brilliant” in reference to the accessories editors of European fashion magazines.
Raspberries, even out of season, are not a controlled substance. As a restaurant proprietor I have easy, legal access. I will be more generous.
Success is something I will dress for when I get there, and not until. Cross my heart and hope to die.
Ties, even really, really narrow ones, are just not enough. I will try to stop relying on them quite so heavily.
Unless specifically requested to do so, I will not discuss Japanese science-fiction movies from the artistic point of view.
Violet will be a good color for hair at just about the same time that brunette becomes a good color for flowers. I will not forget this.
When approached for advice on the subject of antique furniture, I will respond to all queries with reason and decorum so as not to ally myself with the sort of overbred collector who knows the value of everything and the price of nothing.
X is not a letter of the alphabet that lends itself easily, or even with great difficulty, to this type of thing. I promise not to even try.
Youth, at least in New York City, is hardly wasted on the young. They make more than sufficient use of it. I cannot afford to overlook this.
Zelda Fitzgerald, fascinating as she undoubtedly appears to have been, I promise to cease emulating immediately.