Resolutions

I don't make a list of resolutions. In my head are a few. I'm going a bit against my natural impulse by noting here what they are. However I'm feeling very positive today. It was a very quiet day and nothing unusual happened but we do have a new year and can a person whose last name is "Calender" ignore important yearly landmarks? Of course not.

The one resolution that has been ongoing since 1960 is to try to read 100 books this year. I just wrote about reading books a couple of posts ago so no more need be said.

An abiding resolution, which usually get broken, just as the same resolution is broken by hundreds of thousands -- maybe millions -- of other people every year, is to lose and keep off ten pounds. I have, upon quite a few occasions, lost them, but they reappear. Losing isn't easy, but "keeping off" is a real bitch.

Going along with that, as it also does for many of those millions I just spoke of, is maintaining an exercise routine. I often smile when I see people in their 30s and 40s diligently running, going to gyms, swimming, biking, whatever. It's wonderful that they do it. Many more should join them. Exercising truly does become more difficult as one ages. I do not have any movement limiting problems except a familial congestive heart condition that means I cannot run -- but I don't want to run anyway. I can walk and do and will and wish I could every day as I do nearly every day in the summer. I could have done so today -- but it was gray and uninviting and I was doing other things and lazy. I NEED to stop being lazy. And my resolution is to stop being lazy. Some days the weather will make it impossible to get outdoors, that's okay. I just want to go out and walk somewhere when I can -- at least a mile and if it's going to be anything less, then walk as fast as I can. Big resolution, big caveats.

The important to my ambition and ego resolution is that this will be the year I write the biography of a man whose life I've been researching since 1995. Fifteen years of research and I know all I need to know and a great deal more than I can cram into a readable book. I've started many times. I had a very good first chapter last October and was moving into the second chapter when my computer disappeared it. It was gone, truly gone. When the Apple Store genius was unable to find it in any corner of my data, I said, "Damnit, I've got to write it all over again." [My internal reaction was more colorful.] He said, "It'll be better the next time." Easy to say. I didn't believe it. I've rewritten the first chapter and I think it IS better. It's far from perfect but I've found, at last, that I don't have to make it perfect -- and can't -- but can make it satisfying and then can move on. So, this year, I will write the whole book. I WILL. That is a firm resolution.

So there are four resolutions, one has the usual "I'll try" in it, two are knee-jerk resolutions and the final one is firm. I will not be giving updates on any of them. I am not a parolee checking in with the police officer regularly because I am my own officer.