New Year's Resolutions. Those three words have such a negative connotation. We always think of them and think of things we need to give up or suffer through. Weight loss, smoking, drinking, procrastinating. Honestly, starting anything on the first day of the year is silly. First off, you're most likely coming down from a strenuous night of partying. If not, you have a day most likely filled with football or TV marathons and it's such a nice day to relax. This is not the time to start things. Plus the football playoffs start, so guys, five days of eating cottage cheese is wasted if you spend the last two devouring wings and beer. Every year I say I'm going to get in shape. Every year I do. I get into a bigger oval. There was a time when I had rock hard abs. Not on my stomach, I knew this girl named Abbie. I called her Abs...she was actually a statue, not a real girl. Nevermind. This year won't be that year. This year, my resolutions are all things I'm going to do more of.
The first resolution is to treat myself once a month to something special. It's going to be food for the most part. I want to try a few restaurants that I've been wanting to visit and this year I'm doing it. One of these nights, I'm going to walk through the Kilt and keep going. Right across the street. I have meant to go to Jackie's Bistro for years to try the sweetbreads in Calvados. The escargot. Hell, I may go more than once. I want to go to the Tarry Lodge, which friends of mine came from raving. I of course want to make another trip to Peter Luger in Brooklyn, both for the porterhouse, but also for their infamous beef burger. There are a few others, but I won't bore you.
My second resolution is to keep in better contact with those that matter to me. I've been horrible about keeping up with certain friends. Some live far away, an excuse that many of us use, but with all the technology, is this really a valid one? My good friend Brett and I haven't spoken in ages. Our lives have changed over the year and a half, but I don't know why the phone call has become hard to make. There are others. Many others. Others that get a Facebook post and that is all. The effort must be made. These people are important.
Make my apartment, if I can call it that, a better living situation. As of now, clothes litter the floor, dust collects quickly and sometimes has born on dating from a different season. I shower, I have a kitchen sink being empty fetish, yet the ability to draw in the dust and then not be able to read what I wrote a month later doesn't bother me. I know. My TV had become so dusty, I originally thought American Idol was in black and white this year. I'm not proud. I'm single and male. My bed is to small for guests, if anyone is interested. My mattress is on it's last legs and I'm usually so lazy, I don't even put sheets on the bed, just wrap myself in the comforter. Any single ladies, I hope you've stopped reading by now. I need a new computer, maybe a laptop. My current desk takes up about 10% of my entire apartment. It's ridiculous.
I also have a strange resolution. I'm going to make other people accountable for their actions. I have lost count of the number of times people have asked me to do something on a weekend evening and then cancel on me last minute. Not only is this rude, but it also has on many occasions left me out of plans I could have had with others. People think, because I'm content in going out in the town I live in that I don't have alternative plans. I have found that this frivolous act of cancelling has cost me dearly this past year. Maybe a date, maybe a chance encounter. One never knows what is missed, but I lazily let these actions go. I also think that when people criticize others, they should be able to back it up. I have a rule, don't say anything you won't be able to back up. Sure I tell secrets, we all do. When that trust is betrayed though, I can back it up with facts and instances. Most people can not. I do not fabricate gossip, ever. I share things with people I trust. That trust is often betrayed and I am left having to defend myself. I rarely throw the person under the bus who betrayed me. That might end in 2010. I know the last one sounds harsh, but it's not meant to be negative. I also feel that if people feel the need to tell me my shortcomings, they better be ready to listen to me tell them theirs.
Become smarter. This isn't a resolution. I pride myself on my ability to debate topics. I try not to reproduce some silly thing I read in Wikepedia or a news website. I try to gather information from multiple sources and come up with a clear vision of my beliefs. I waste a lot of time arguing with people who aren't as interested in truth or facts. I've had some lively debates this past year via Facebook and I've enjoyed them immensely. Two people in particular have challenged me so, that at time, I've questioned whether I am right or wrong. That is powerful stuff and the kind of mental stimulation I crave. I want more. See my note about my friend Brett. He's one of those stimulants I miss most.
I'm going to do more with my brother and his wife this year. I love my brother more than anything in the world, but we are different people. I tend to tell him how he should live his life, when the realty is, I hate that myself. I will try and enjoy his company and accept him 100% for who he is. He is not me. Thank goodness, the world doesn't need two of us. It probably doesn't need one of us, but it's stuck with me.
I am not an avid traveler. This year I want to go somewhere, at least once, I have never been. it could be to freaking Toms River, NJ to watch a baseball game, I don't care, just somewhere. I want to soak up everything that place has to offer. It may be a museum, it may be a park, it may be a drive-in movie theater. I don't care. I live in a place that seems to have stopped time from moving. Nobody changes, nobody leaves. I fear I am becoming, or have become one of them.
The other day, while Facebook stalking, I looked at the website of a friend's friend. This was a young girl, obviously quite talented in photography, as well as quite beautiful. I looked at the images of people, places, even every day objects. What I saw in these pictures wasn't the beauty of a shadowy face or a dazzling sunset, but I saw the view of the world from someone else's perspective. It was quite beautiful. It also made me quite sad, because I realized that I've lost that ability to view the world in different ways. To see the beauty of a building or a cloud. It wasn't long ago, I stopped to admire these things. I know it's not too late to get back.
News Years Resolution in a nutshell: Brooklyn here I come!
The first resolution is to treat myself once a month to something special. It's going to be food for the most part. I want to try a few restaurants that I've been wanting to visit and this year I'm doing it. One of these nights, I'm going to walk through the Kilt and keep going. Right across the street. I have meant to go to Jackie's Bistro for years to try the sweetbreads in Calvados. The escargot. Hell, I may go more than once. I want to go to the Tarry Lodge, which friends of mine came from raving. I of course want to make another trip to Peter Luger in Brooklyn, both for the porterhouse, but also for their infamous beef burger. There are a few others, but I won't bore you.
My second resolution is to keep in better contact with those that matter to me. I've been horrible about keeping up with certain friends. Some live far away, an excuse that many of us use, but with all the technology, is this really a valid one? My good friend Brett and I haven't spoken in ages. Our lives have changed over the year and a half, but I don't know why the phone call has become hard to make. There are others. Many others. Others that get a Facebook post and that is all. The effort must be made. These people are important.
Make my apartment, if I can call it that, a better living situation. As of now, clothes litter the floor, dust collects quickly and sometimes has born on dating from a different season. I shower, I have a kitchen sink being empty fetish, yet the ability to draw in the dust and then not be able to read what I wrote a month later doesn't bother me. I know. My TV had become so dusty, I originally thought American Idol was in black and white this year. I'm not proud. I'm single and male. My bed is to small for guests, if anyone is interested. My mattress is on it's last legs and I'm usually so lazy, I don't even put sheets on the bed, just wrap myself in the comforter. Any single ladies, I hope you've stopped reading by now. I need a new computer, maybe a laptop. My current desk takes up about 10% of my entire apartment. It's ridiculous.
I also have a strange resolution. I'm going to make other people accountable for their actions. I have lost count of the number of times people have asked me to do something on a weekend evening and then cancel on me last minute. Not only is this rude, but it also has on many occasions left me out of plans I could have had with others. People think, because I'm content in going out in the town I live in that I don't have alternative plans. I have found that this frivolous act of cancelling has cost me dearly this past year. Maybe a date, maybe a chance encounter. One never knows what is missed, but I lazily let these actions go. I also think that when people criticize others, they should be able to back it up. I have a rule, don't say anything you won't be able to back up. Sure I tell secrets, we all do. When that trust is betrayed though, I can back it up with facts and instances. Most people can not. I do not fabricate gossip, ever. I share things with people I trust. That trust is often betrayed and I am left having to defend myself. I rarely throw the person under the bus who betrayed me. That might end in 2010. I know the last one sounds harsh, but it's not meant to be negative. I also feel that if people feel the need to tell me my shortcomings, they better be ready to listen to me tell them theirs.
Become smarter. This isn't a resolution. I pride myself on my ability to debate topics. I try not to reproduce some silly thing I read in Wikepedia or a news website. I try to gather information from multiple sources and come up with a clear vision of my beliefs. I waste a lot of time arguing with people who aren't as interested in truth or facts. I've had some lively debates this past year via Facebook and I've enjoyed them immensely. Two people in particular have challenged me so, that at time, I've questioned whether I am right or wrong. That is powerful stuff and the kind of mental stimulation I crave. I want more. See my note about my friend Brett. He's one of those stimulants I miss most.
I'm going to do more with my brother and his wife this year. I love my brother more than anything in the world, but we are different people. I tend to tell him how he should live his life, when the realty is, I hate that myself. I will try and enjoy his company and accept him 100% for who he is. He is not me. Thank goodness, the world doesn't need two of us. It probably doesn't need one of us, but it's stuck with me.
I am not an avid traveler. This year I want to go somewhere, at least once, I have never been. it could be to freaking Toms River, NJ to watch a baseball game, I don't care, just somewhere. I want to soak up everything that place has to offer. It may be a museum, it may be a park, it may be a drive-in movie theater. I don't care. I live in a place that seems to have stopped time from moving. Nobody changes, nobody leaves. I fear I am becoming, or have become one of them.
The other day, while Facebook stalking, I looked at the website of a friend's friend. This was a young girl, obviously quite talented in photography, as well as quite beautiful. I looked at the images of people, places, even every day objects. What I saw in these pictures wasn't the beauty of a shadowy face or a dazzling sunset, but I saw the view of the world from someone else's perspective. It was quite beautiful. It also made me quite sad, because I realized that I've lost that ability to view the world in different ways. To see the beauty of a building or a cloud. It wasn't long ago, I stopped to admire these things. I know it's not too late to get back.
News Years Resolution in a nutshell: Brooklyn here I come!
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