Welcome to 2008

HAP---py new year. That's the way the Mizz has been saying it all day. I think that's the way Franny taught him to say it. It's fun to hear, but it's even better since he has no idea what he's talking about. He did note that "Mama turned de cawendar," but I'm pretty sure he doesn't know what a calendar's for either.

Our evening was pretty uneventful. I live with a toddler and a pregnant woman. What were you expecting? I did end up staying awake until the new year, but that's only because I couldn't fall asleep through the fireworks that started around 9:30 and continued until about 12:30. These weren't some big city event downtown or anything; just lunatics in my neighborhood with lots of explosives and booze but not so much sense. They do this for pretty much every holiday. They aren't picky. At least it was muted by being cold. They pull out all the stops for the 4th of July. For the morning of the 5th, imagine a battlefield where someone has removed all the bodies but nothing else.

Speaking of new years, have you made your resolutions yet? Do you ever? Why?

I typically don't bother with resolutions. If I haven't decided to make these types of decisions or actions before, I seriously doubt that doing it to celebrate an arbitrary calendar event will make any more difference. "I'm going to exercise four times a week!" (Until I don't, which will be next week. Then I've broken the streak and it's over.) "I'm going to really get myself organized this year." (Or more likely, I'll probably just neaten up the stacks of paper on my desk and label a couple of folders. Then I'll go back to doing things the same way I've done them for the last umpteen years.) "I'm really going to buckle down and learn to play the guitar this year." (Because this has worked out so well for the last 15 years. Maybe if I really mean it this time...) The problem with these kinds of resolutions is that they are well-intentioned, but if just deciding to do them was all I needed, I would have done them already. For this reason, I have never bothered with the resolving thing and have ended up in pretty much the same place without the internal guilt.

However, even as I'd been getting salty hearing people ramble on about new year's resolutions on the radio and in ads and whatnot, a little philosophical seed apparently got planted in my head. For whatever reason (Maybe it's the 2nd kid on the way; who knows?), this seed has made me get to thinking about what really matters to me and what I like and dislike about the way I'm going about things. And I've come to realize that there are really very few things that actually matter to me. I care about maintaining healthy and happy connections with my family and friends. I care about providing the best support (in every sense of the word) for my family that I can. I'd like to leave things a little better than I found them, both in my immediate surroundings and the world in general. And I'd like to keep myself in good enough shape (both physically and emotionally) to be able to do these things for a very long time. (I'd like to meet the Mizz's grandkids, and still be coherent enough to understand it.)

Anyway, I decided that I need to resolve to live my life and make decisions always keeping these things in mind. I spend a lot of time spinning my wheels; maybe not wrecking my life, but not always making headway either. I want to do things more purposefully. The things I do should improve my life, or at least not make improving it harder. I guess I just want to be a better person, but not in the cheesy, undirected way that line is usually tossed out. If I remember what's really important, then when the time comes, getting more organized, taking better care of myself, and maybe even learning the guitar should work themselves out, along with all sorts of other things, much of which I'm certainly not even contemplating yet.

(This all looks very cheesy and trite now that I see it printed, but I've been rolling this around in my head for a while and I feel much more sincere about it than I've felt about most things in a while. Certainly more sincere than it looks written out. Seriousness and sincerity are not my strong suits. Sarcasm is more my speed.)

This isn't really meant as a new year's resolution, although it was some of that crap that made me get to really thinking about it, so by the timing, I suppose it counts. I intend for this to be more of a forever resolution. If Google can have "Do no evil," then I can have this.

Or maybe I could just do like usual, and resolve not to start eating Brussels sprouts.