Resolution

I tend to think of New Year's Day as a holiday that's even more arbitrary than all the other arbitrary holidays. It's nice to have a day off and, I suppose, an excuse to get so drunk that your friends would all disown you if they gotten been similarly plastered celebrate, but I'm not much of a drinker to start with, and I have even more reason for moderation this year, as indicated by a conversation that I had with b&c last night.
TED: So our flight Thursday morning is early?
B&c: Five-forty.
TED: Umm.... You mean am?
B&c: Yeah.
TED: Is this some sort of sick joke?
B&c: I told you the time before!
TED: How many times?
B&c: Numerous times.
TED: Right. You'd think after I'd forgotten the third or fourth time, you'd have figured out that it was pointless to remind me. Seriously, 5:40 am?
B&c: Seriously.
TED: Is the airport even open at 5:40? Are we flying out of Dulles?
B&c: I don't know, and yes.
TED: Damn. We're going to have to leave here at ...
B&c: Some time that won't make it worth bothering to go to sleep. But we can sleep on the plane.
TED: Right. Because that always works out so well.


I probably will try to get at least a few hours of sleep, perhaps by celebrating the new year on Greenwich Mean Time. But of course there's packing and all that, so I'm not overly optimistic. On the plus side, though, I'll likely be tired enough to sleep on at least one leg of the flight, especially since I was up before 6 this morning so that EFU could practice parallel parking before her road test (which, hooray, she passed). And being exhausted when we arrive in San Diego bodes well for my plan to get to sleep early so that we can make the most of the available daylight when we go hiking in the desert. Which, I reckon, is about as good a way to start a new year as any.


I don't generally bother much with new year's resolutions. I mean, I'm all in favor of resolving, but I prefer to emphasize the achievable over that which stretches me. Normally, I'd get around to making my resolutions for the year later in the year, like maybe in December. Just today, for example, I resolved not to eat any brussels sprouts in 2008. Most people would have considered that an achievable goal, especially for me, if I'd resolved it on January 1, 2008, but why take chances?

Still, life is all about change, so for 2009, I thought I'd go out on a limb and make some resolutions now. This is not an easy step for me as it involves some of that introspection thing I'm always hearing about, and not spending too much time analyzing myself is one of the few resolutions I've managed to keep every year since 2001 or so. But, what the fuck, I'll give it a go. You'll notice that most of my resolutions come in pairs. If you're going to do more of one thing, you have to do less of something else. I'm pretty sure that's one of Newton's laws.


1. Eat less, drink more. Through exhaustive analysis (i.e., I just pulled it out of my ass), I've determined that my physical and mental well being would be better served if I replaced about 500 calories of my daily food intake with about 250 calories worth of alcoholic beverages. Most likely wine. I hope to get off to a good start on this one when we're in California, where one can buy wine in the supermarket. I realize this is true in much of the country, but it's not true in Maryland. I reckon the legislature keeps things this way because Maryland is otherwise such a nice place to live that if you could get wine in the supermarkets, everyone would want to live here.


2. Cruise less, fuck more. I'm already doing pretty well in this area, but I want to continue to cultivate my pool of fuckbuddies and FWPs so that I don't have to waste time searching. I know some people say it's the thrill of the chase, but my (admittedly limited) experience with hunting indicates that there's not all that much chase: there's a lot of getting up way too early in the morning so you can sit around in a tree or a duck blind waiting for something to come near enough for you to kill it. Hunting is a terrible metaphor for the pursuit of sex, and, really, unless you're into something involving fluids, sex is not nearly as messy. The guy who shoots even the largest load is easier to clean up than the guy who shoots even the smallest squirrel.


3. Observe less, interact more. I've lately come to believe that my normal policy of emotional detachment has begun to work against me. It was necessary some years back when I was going through hard times, but I figure that things are now going well enough that I need not be overly concerned about people letting me down. The practical implication is that I should expend somewhat more effort staying involved with people I like. I haven't been very good at that for the past eight or ten years.


4. Fuck my partner more, fuck other guys more. (There are certain areas where balance is overrated. Sorry, Sir Isaac.) It looks like b&c will be traveling less this year, so the first part of that should be easy. Which, obviously, makes the second part correspondingly harder, but maybe I just need more fuckbuddies who can host. They're out there somewhere. As a corollary, I also want to jerk off more.


5. Porn: buy less, make more. Well, I did get a video camera for Christmas after all. But I also think that I want to start writing more porn. It's significantly more work than writing erotic non-fiction, but it's fun. I didn't really buy very much porn in 2008, but it shouldn't be any effort to buy still less in the coming year.


Whoa, five resolutions? Ambitious! Though not, I suppose, nearly as ambitious as they would be if I felt any obligation to actually keep any of them. Still, they all seem like worthy goals. I'm sure that if I were to ask b&c or the kids, they'd come up with goals that might generally be considered even more worthy, but then I reckon that I could come up with some pretty good resolutions for them, and since I'm keeping my mouth shut, they can return the favor.

I hope to continue posting over the next week or so, but -- if I can manage to do so -- it'll probably be a lot of pictures of the desert and such, so most of you probably won't want to bother reading. So let me take this opportunity to wish all of you the happiest of all possible New Year's Days. It is my sincere hope that 2009 brings you health, prosperity, and (at least) half again as many ejaculations as you enjoyed in 2008.