My approach to New Year's Resolutions is pretty much the same as most people's: I decide that "This will be the year I ___________," and then I try to carry that out in the course of the year. But I probably differ from most people in the things I decide to do: I focus on experiences I want to have, accomplishments I want to complete, and books I want to read alongside the little daily discipline items. This list is printed out and posted on the door in my apartment, so I see it every day, and I check each Experience and Read item off as I complete it, and try to use the Discipline ones to keep me honest. I've made these Resolution Lists for the last three years, and they've resulted in some of the happiest, most challenging, and most interesting experiences of my life -- walking all the Manhattan bridges, for example, and reading Lolita, and knitting, and lots of cooking dinners for friends. So here is what I want To Do in 2006, with explanations where necessary:
Live deeply, joyfully, passionately, and well.
Discipline
Memorize all of the legal three-letter Scrabble words.
I've got the twos done, but I need the threes to be really competitive.
Clear out my manuscript backlog to within three months.
Oogh. Usually I compile a separate list of work Resolutions, but this is important enough to make the personal List this year.
Answer all personal correspondence within two weeks.
Save two thousand five hundred dollars.
Keep the couch uncluttered.
My apartment isn't messy, it's cluttered. If I can preserve my loveseat as a clutter-free zone, it would be a good start to conquering the whole thing.
Stretch for two minutes every day.
No regrets, no excuses, no fear.
Floss.
I make this Resolution every year, honestly, and I never keep it. But maybe I'll change.
Experience
Have a three-course dinner party for six people.
Dine at Per Se, Gramercy Tavern, Babbo, and Peter Luger Steakhouse.
All lovely New York restaurants I've always heard about and thought, "Oh, I'll go there someday." Well, someday is 2006! If you'd like to come with me, just say the word.
Attend twenty-three dance performances, gallery shows, concerts, plays, or readings.
I go to a lot of movies, but I don't think I see enough live performance or fine art, and usually when I do make the effort to see such a thing, like going to MoMA or Cassandra Wilson or Pilobolus, I come away challenged and moved. I want to have more of those experiences this year, and I chose twenty-three as a doable prime number.
Revise the Bad Novel to a state of readability.
This would be my NaNoWriMo novel, which I fondly refer to as "the Bad Novel" because that gives me permission for it to be less than perfect. I wrote the NaNo stuff all out of order, in lots of random chunks, and not really paying attention to language at all, so first I'm going to put everything in order and fill in the holes, and then I'll pretend it's someone else's novel and edit the hell out of it. Yay! One of the things I learned from doing NaNo is that as much as I enjoy writing, I'm always going to be an editor first, so I'm not taking this entirely seriously and therefore having a lot of fun with it.
Run a half-marathon.
And maybe *the* Marathon, if I get in.
Knit a blanket.
Ride a bicycle along the Brooklyn shore.
One of the things I've always wanted to do: Rent a bike from the bike shop below my apartment and ride it from Park Slope to the Verrazano-Narrows.
Learn to juggle and apply eye shadow.
Though not at the same time.
Read
The Iliad
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
These two have both appeared on previous Resolution Lists and not been read. So this year.
Invisible Man
Watchmen
On Beauty
And these last two (by Alan Moore and Zadie Smith) are cheating a little because I really want to read them -- I don't need Resolutions to make myself do so. But Watchmen pairs nicely with The Iliad as two stories about groups of men fighting large, futile wars; and On Beauty chimes with Huck Finn and Invisible Man in thinking about how personal relations can be influenced by race (which is one of the subjects of the Bad Novel). So I put them on the List for thematic wholeness, and easy accomplishment.
It will be a year of Big Projects, Big Ideas, and much happiness, I hope. And also flossing.
Live deeply, joyfully, passionately, and well.
Discipline
Memorize all of the legal three-letter Scrabble words.
I've got the twos done, but I need the threes to be really competitive.
Clear out my manuscript backlog to within three months.
Oogh. Usually I compile a separate list of work Resolutions, but this is important enough to make the personal List this year.
Answer all personal correspondence within two weeks.
Save two thousand five hundred dollars.
Keep the couch uncluttered.
My apartment isn't messy, it's cluttered. If I can preserve my loveseat as a clutter-free zone, it would be a good start to conquering the whole thing.
Stretch for two minutes every day.
No regrets, no excuses, no fear.
Floss.
I make this Resolution every year, honestly, and I never keep it. But maybe I'll change.
Experience
Have a three-course dinner party for six people.
Dine at Per Se, Gramercy Tavern, Babbo, and Peter Luger Steakhouse.
All lovely New York restaurants I've always heard about and thought, "Oh, I'll go there someday." Well, someday is 2006! If you'd like to come with me, just say the word.
Attend twenty-three dance performances, gallery shows, concerts, plays, or readings.
I go to a lot of movies, but I don't think I see enough live performance or fine art, and usually when I do make the effort to see such a thing, like going to MoMA or Cassandra Wilson or Pilobolus, I come away challenged and moved. I want to have more of those experiences this year, and I chose twenty-three as a doable prime number.
Revise the Bad Novel to a state of readability.
This would be my NaNoWriMo novel, which I fondly refer to as "the Bad Novel" because that gives me permission for it to be less than perfect. I wrote the NaNo stuff all out of order, in lots of random chunks, and not really paying attention to language at all, so first I'm going to put everything in order and fill in the holes, and then I'll pretend it's someone else's novel and edit the hell out of it. Yay! One of the things I learned from doing NaNo is that as much as I enjoy writing, I'm always going to be an editor first, so I'm not taking this entirely seriously and therefore having a lot of fun with it.
Run a half-marathon.
And maybe *the* Marathon, if I get in.
Knit a blanket.
Ride a bicycle along the Brooklyn shore.
One of the things I've always wanted to do: Rent a bike from the bike shop below my apartment and ride it from Park Slope to the Verrazano-Narrows.
Learn to juggle and apply eye shadow.
Though not at the same time.
Read
The Iliad
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
These two have both appeared on previous Resolution Lists and not been read. So this year.
Invisible Man
Watchmen
On Beauty
And these last two (by Alan Moore and Zadie Smith) are cheating a little because I really want to read them -- I don't need Resolutions to make myself do so. But Watchmen pairs nicely with The Iliad as two stories about groups of men fighting large, futile wars; and On Beauty chimes with Huck Finn and Invisible Man in thinking about how personal relations can be influenced by race (which is one of the subjects of the Bad Novel). So I put them on the List for thematic wholeness, and easy accomplishment.
It will be a year of Big Projects, Big Ideas, and much happiness, I hope. And also flossing.