There are two places where I dread to be: A mall parking lot in December and a health club in January.

I've been going to my gym for nearly a year, and it's changed my life. I'm stronger, thinner, and I even have earbuds that seal out the excruciating music.

I've perfected that 1,000-yard stare you need to gaze out at passing buses and rain for the better part of an hour while on a stationary bike or elliptical machine, and my locker-room routine is smooth as the dial on my combination lock -- especially when I can miss the lunch-time rush.

You find a rhythm: You get your little corner of the locker room, not too close to the showers to avoid the sudden appearance of something frightening. You might have to wait half a minute to use the nearest hair dryer, but in the practiced ballet of the gym rats, you can fit smoothly between the tattooed Zumba devotee taking off her Uggs and the stringy spinning queen buttoning her blouse while she ogles the soap-opera hunk on TV.

But that's all over now. It's every athlete for herself. The locker room is a hive of elbows, towels, sneakers, ponytails, parkas, tramp stamps and bras strong enough to launch a fighter jet off an aircraft carrier.

The only comforting thought I have as I pull open locker after locker trustingly stuffed with the clothes of lockless newbies is that most of these people will be gone by Valentine's Day. I just need to make it till then without tripping over a water bottle or breaking the flow of a sun salutation by smacking someone in the head.

I got to my first yoga class of the new year early, because I knew real estate would go fast. I have deeply mixed feelings about yoga classes. I do a lot of my yoga at home to minimize distractions, but a good instructor can fold you up in exciting new ways, and "Om" is no fun by yourself.

Still, yoga at the gym has shortcomings, especially when the newly resolute come crowding in. The mat-to-mat intimacy is one. Suddenly, there aren't enough blocks or straps for the poses you can't get into without prosthetics. People keep tiptoeing in late, complaining about the parking, while you're trying to sit in the dark with your eyes closed and triangulate the source of that deafening Darth Vader gasp.

And here's the dirty little secret that everyone is supposed to be too serene and centered and inwardly focused on breathing through their knees to admit: At some point, one finds oneself staring at someone's bottom and asking questions that should never be asked.

The first rule of yoga is to honor your body, whatever its limitations, and never compare yourself to others who may be in the same room wearing much more flattering pants. But this is America. The questions begin with, "Why can't I get my back to relax and lie flat like hers?" and lead inevitably to "Is that what I look like?" Depending on the scenery, answers range from "I wish" to "I am backing out of here right now while the lights are out."

Meanwhile, would-be bodybuilders on the other side of a thin wall are yammering and guffawing and flinging around weights far too heavy and noisy for the first week off the Barcalounger. I can't even contemplate the pileups in the step-aerobics classes or the casualties in the panicky mosh pits of kickboxing. The horror. The horror.

Couldn't we come up with some kind of staggered resolution implementation schedule? Why does everyone have to start a new life Jan. 1? How about your birthday? The first day of spring? Daylight-saving time -- you have to check your smoke detector anyway, and as long as you're standing on a chair you could announce that you're giving up drinking or learning to play the Pan pipes.

As for me, I can survive at home for a few weeks; instead of duct tape and bottled water, I have an emergency kit with candles, sticky mat and Krishna Das CD. I'll be back when there's an empty locker to stuff Darth Vader in.