Resolutions 2014

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If you want to know how I feel about New Year’s resolutions in general, please see the above illustration. “Foo” says it all.

But I love the idea of resolutions. What could be nicer than making a fresh start? Suddenly “next year” becomes “this year,” and we have an entire nice expanse of time before us, like a yardful of untrodden snow.

So let’s make us some resolutions!

1)    Stop complaining. Foo. No chance.

2)    Be healthy. Easier said than done, but there’s no way 2014 could be worse than 2013 from a health point of view. If I can manage to keep my organs from actually dropping out of my body this year, I will be doing okay

3)    Appreciate the good things more. This might actually be doable. Today’s bitterly cold in Providence, for example, but the sky is a lovely blue. Why not appreciate the lovely blue sky, even while cursing the weather?

4)    Maximize the love in the world. As a deeply flawed person, it amazes me that people actually like me, and I try whenever I can to return the favor. I already tell Partner several times a day how much I love him. I am also lucky enough to have friends – Patricia and Apollonia – whom I truly love, and who express their love for me in various oddball ways. I have always appreciated this, and after my illness I appreciate it even more.

5)    Work on the family history. This has been going on for over twenty years; I leave it and come back to it, mostly assembling records and keeping track of marriages and deaths. It’s fun and instructional, which brings me back to it, and incredibly tedious, which drives me away again.

6)    Practice my ukulele chords. Every day. I promise.

And finally:

7)    Be a better person.

Foo.

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The pitfall of correspondence

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My only resolution for 2013 was that I'd try to answer my correspondence more promptly. Several times over the past years, I’ve left letters and emails unanswered for months. Why? I don’t know. I’m lazy. I’m shy. Personal relationships (even via correspondence) take a lot of energy, and by the time I get home from work, I don’t have all that much energy to spare.


But correspondence is traditional. Victorian ladies wrote letters by the bushel. My mother spent time almost every day writing letters; she wrote to her own mother once a week, and fretted if her mother didn’t write her back immediately. “Grandma’s mad at me,” she’d say nervously. She bought little twenty-nine cent pads of letter paper, about six inches by eight inches, and filled at least three or four pages per letter. I have a bundle of letters she wrote to me over the years; I don’t like rereading them – they bring back too many memories of my foolish youth – but I like keeping them. Maybe, after I’m dead, someone else can read them and chuckle over them a bit and then throw them away.


Anyway: so I “resolved” to answer my correspondence. And I had some free time between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Perfect! I answered one or two every day, and soon I was free and clear.


Except that people kept answering me.


Now I remember the problem with correspondence: it never ends. Now I just have a whole bunch of additional emails to write.


What to do?


Keep writing, I guess.


Oh god here comes another one.


Why am I so popular?

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