January 1st is here again, and with it, the grand schemes and broken promises that we call “New Years Resolutions.”
How did last year’s resolutions work out for you? Mine was to outlive 2017 without becoming completely cynical. I know that seems pretty flippant and blandly absurdist, but dude, did you see the news this year? If you came out of the last year without having burnt out the empathy centers of your brain, you deserve an award.
So, instead of a list of resolutions, of promising to alter my habits or behavior in such a way that I end up feeling bad about failing, I’m posting four things I want to achieve. This way I can check back around this time next year and see how I did.
1) Start Something and Finish something in the same year.
This is a bold one for me. I generally work on the “Primordial Ooze / Stewpot of The Gods” creative method: On low heat, keep throwing stuff in a pot until something edible turns up. Or, you know, you create life. This year, I am typing the first words of a project today with the goal of having it published, even self published, by year’s end.
2) Learn how to sell myself.
I come from a family where self-aggrandizing was a sign of a poor story teller. We’re sort of a self-deprecating lot. We tattle on ourselves for comedic affect, and there is nothing like a good story of poor-planning and self-inflicted injury to liven a family gathering. With On Both Banks coming out this year, I’m going to have to really get out there and put on a show. Sell the Author. Sell the Book. I can do this without self-aggrandizement, and hopefully without setting the kitchen on fire again, neither.
3) I grok the flavors for mixing my own chili and barbecue seasonings. I want to learn the same for sweet and savory curries. I mean, a premixed curry powder in a jar is convenient and all, but is a poor facsimile for what I can get at the food truck two blocks over. Crap, now, I’m hungry…
4) Do not succumb to the Curse of Greyface. As you get older, it’s tough sometimes to remember how to dance, especially when balancing a farm on your back, so to speak. The last couple of years, I’ve looked up a few times and went “Oh! Oh HELL no!” Ran to the closet, threw on my most garish clothing, and spent the day doing all the things I would have done anyways, but this time doing them fabulously. Do everything fabulously. Be vengefully fabulous. But do not inhale glitter. Pneumonia is nobody’s friend.
So, 2019 me. How’d I do?