Thoughts (???) for the New Year

1.  Make No New Year’s Resolutions: Last year I made three serious ones – the kind that change one’s life; and three easy ones – the kind that just make life a bit more fun and comfortable. Didn’t get through any of them. For example, a hard one: Go to the gym every day. Why are New Year’s Resolutions so extreme? Before last New Year’s Day, I went to the gym one day a week. Why not try to be more consistent instead of perfect? That was a hard one and unattainable. The easy one was floss at least twice a week. I don’t have to leave the house, not even my bedroom, but I couldn’t do it. Instead make a list. Lists are suggestions while resolutions are stout, promise-like. And once I make a promise, I generally go back on it (probably need to see a therapist).

Shit, that sounds like a resolution.

2.  Figure How Many Items I Should Have on the List: Certain numbers come to mind: seven – for each day of the week; twelve – one for each month; twenty-four – for each hour in the day; sixty – one for each second in a minute. Then I think, why can’t it be 37, a prime number. Or 39 for the number of women I’ve slept with. Or nine, because that number means nothing to me.

Numbers: I hate them, but they’re easy as an out. Most everyone hates them too. Except when you manipulate them rather than the other way around.

3.  Make a Difference. I’m not sure what that means, but when the year ends, I’ll figure out how I’ve done it, not if I have. That’s the problem with resolutions: they must be done. I’m not sure of the right word for what I’m doing here, but I’m calling these words a “list.” Lists are suggestions, not requirements. Think of grocery lists: it’s what I need – want? – but I rarely follow it to the letter (no pun intended, except it was).

See what I’m doing here: playing semantics. If politicians can do it, why can’t I?

4.  Things to Stop Doing on a Regular Basis: 1. Chew hard food hard. Makes my jaw click. Let saliva do the work it’s paid to do. 2. Check cell phone for time when I know what time it is. Every time I do that, I see, for example, “It’s 2:07” and lo and behold, it’s 2:06. Close enough. I don’t need to check. So, why bother, but I do. 3. Get so upset when a car cuts me off when switching lanes. Anger does nothing. I want to punch the guy – it’s always a guy – in the face, but I’m alone in my car yelling at a person who can’t hear me.

Interesting how I start with stupid stuff and then get to what matters. Why can’t I just start at the important stuff?

5.  Stop Calling Men Who Are Strangers Bud: That’s not their name. My father didn’t do it. My grandfather called everyone Butch. I have no idea why. I’m assuming that Bud is short for Buddy, so it’s supposed to be a term of endearment, but it doesn’t come off like that. Ever. So why do I do it? I wish I knew. What I do know is that people rarely respond, and once, a guy in front of me in the checkout line at a convenience store slapped me when I asked him for the black plastic conveyor belt divider. I said, “Sorry, Bud,” and the cashier laughed at me.

Lessons are hard to learn. Even pain doesn’t always do the trick. I’m tired of pain. Of any kind.

6.  Don’t Ever Eat in a Restaurant Shaped Like a Boat (Unless It’s Actually a Boat): There’s a restaurant down the street from where I used to live that had a corner that came to a point. It was painted red near the sidewalk, next came three feet of blue and then white up to what should have been the roof but was a conning deck, or whatever the control tower is called on a ship. (1.1.24 – 248 – 566) A cheeseburger sub platter cost $15.95, for example, while across the street in a diner that looked like an ole restaurant cost $12.95. Both looked and tasted the same. It had to be the ambiance.

One always pays for superficiality – always – financially or otherwise.

7.  Determining Women that I’ve Loved, Truly, Deeply, Madly: Five. Make that four. I must define love because now that I’m truly in love – this one feels much different than the previous ones – can the previous ones count? That doesn’t even account for the subtracted one. That’s because I know that in that one relationship, the woman said she didn’t love me. But she didn’t say that she didn’t either. Can it be love if it only goes one way? Sounds more like stalking particularly when I can look back at the relationship. I initiated everything. No wonder she called me a barnacle: she said I clung too hard and, when she got remotely close, I cut and infected her.

There’s a theory in math that I violate in love: if A equal B and B equal C, then A must equal C. Not true outside of graph paper and a math class.

8.  My Five Favorite Rock and Roll Albums: 1. Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen; 2. Blood on the Tracks by Bob Dylan; 3. Perfectly Good Guitar by John Hiatt; 4. Dead Letter Office by REM; and 5. Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf. A Favorite’s List is always suspect. There’s so much left off. It’s like trying to figure me out based on five choices when I have thousands to pick from. I’ve got to put something down. Think about picking the number nine. Same sort of thing.

Don’t try to figure me out. It’s hard and ultimately not worth it.

9.  What Is the Meaning of Life? Isn’t that what everyone is always doing, without admitting to it? I know God damn well that’s what I’m doing. Trying to do. Doesn’t work. It’s like the Garden of Eden. It’s a great idea in theory, but if life were perfect, what would be the point? Or golf. If I played a flawless round, then I would’ve mastered the game. That’s what we are trying to do here: master the world around us, but it always – and I mean ALWAYS – masters us. Always. We struggle and even before we die, we suffer. Deeply and profoundly. It sucks, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else doing anything differently.

You feel me?



The End