This year, my new year's resolution is to write here at least once a month. But this blog has always had a very intentional "jokes only" tone of voice, and I'm not feeling particularly funny as of late. I'm feeling angry and afraid and hopeless and frustrated, but not funny. Not especially. 

So I'm in a bit of a bind here. Do I make like a reality TV star and stop being nice/start getting real? Start baring my soul on here, dumping my anger/fear/hopelessness/frustration on to the hundreds upon hundreds upon thousands of you that read this blog? I tried that. It didn't feel right. I'm not really a bare-r! 

Then I tried to fake it. I started a new list of blog ideas on my phone. I tried to write about all the weird activities my incredibly noisy upstairs neighbors must be doing at six a.m. on Saturdays. But that didn't really feel right, either. Not yet. So I drafted it for later.  For now, I'll aim somewhere in the middle. 

So here's a list of ways I'm trying to find that middle:

1. Boxing. Well, kickboxing. I've been doing this for awhile, but this new gym I'm going to has actual punching bags as opposed to just a very large wall of mirrors and the instruction "aim for your own chin." I'm working on my Michelle Obama arms while I mourn the departure of the Obama family.

2. Volunteering. Or trying to volunteer, more accurately. It's surprisingly difficult to find charities in NYC. I know they're out there, but so far, all the open tabs in the world can't help me find one that actually needs my time. I'm waiting to hear from Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America, the Brooklyn Public Library and Girl Scouts. I'm still googling in the meantime.

3. Watching The Bachelor. God, it's so good. It's really the perfect TV show.

4. Donating to organizations I'm passionate about. I set up monthly recurring gifts for Planned Parenthood, NPR and the Southern Poverty Law Center. I'm also making an effort to attend more marches and protests. It's not enough for me to amplify voices and causes online. I need to actually lend my actual voice to make change. I know I'm incredibly late. But I'm here.

5. Eating soup. I made this one last week. It was great! 

6. Spending time with people I love. My friends started a Sunday supper club. That's where I got the soup recipe! Really cannot recommend it enough. Here's the link again, just for fun!

7. Taking long walks. I've always loved to take long walks as a form of self-care. It feels even more important now. 

8. I bought this stress ball. The one they mailed me is hot pink and has this odd sort of nipple shape on it, so it looks like a boob. It's so much better that way!

So here's to finding a balance between fury and funny in 2017. Stay strong, everyone.

About a month ago, I tried to start running again. Not very far, and not very fast, but just a mile here and there when it’s not too hot or cold or wet or dry or sunny or dark outside.

On one of these runs, I decided after a tortured 6 minutes to just stop running and eat sushi instead. The hostess sat me at the sushi bar, which is the best place to sit alone because you can eavesdrop on everyone. After I ordered, a man sat next to me and announced to his date (and the entire restaurant) “I don't look at menus, and I’m ordering for us.”

And so began the most obnoxious conversation I’d ever overheard. I started to live tweet it because I’m a monster, and before long, there were a LOT of people paying attention. Like thousands of people. By the time I left the restaurant an hour later, my original tweet had more than 400 retweets and over a thousand likes, plus enough replies to send my poor iPhone battery straight into a coma.

There's a couple on their first date at this sushi place and the guy announced "I don't look at menus. And I'm ordering for us." Girl.

— Kelly Fine (@KellyeFine) November 17, 2016

Then the articles started. First I was on Mashable. Then Thrillist, the DailyDot and Elite Daily. Then a slew of UK publications like The Sun and the Mirror. Then the UK verticals of Huffington Post and Cosmo, and eventually their American counterparts.  I was interviewed on air by the UK radio station Capital London (London’s number one pop music station!!), and George Takei shared the story on his Facebook page. The New York Post did a dramatic reading.

BroBible called me a “fucking loser man,” and commenters across the web called me the C word. Not “cool,” but the other one. 

In total, my first tweet has more than 300,000 impressions, and the entire chain garnered 12.9 million. I went from having a modest (but faithful!) 1,000 followers to nearly 4,000. It was...bizarre.

I’ve been tweeting for six years. I’ve worked on so many projects I basically begged people to look at, (by the way, have you checked out Faux Ho Ho yet?) and it was eavesdropping that finally got noticed. If I’d known beforehand, I might have spellchecked. Such is life.

When I texted my mom to tell her I went viral, she replied “Is that good? Drink lots of water!” Stay thirsty, my friends.