Not the most exciting NYE in my life, but not the worst, either.

So, my resolutions for twenty-ten:

1. More unpredictability. I like to think that a guy who occasionally throws on a pair of wigs and records himself singing a showtune duet is zany and spontaneous. Not so. After 16 months apart, my mother was able to guess what I’d be wearing when I got off the plane (and it was an outfit she’d never seen before). To those who know me well, I’m boringly predictable. My goal in 2010 is to do more things that are out-of-character.
2. Run at least one half-marathon. Maybe more.
3. Explore more of New York. I’ve spent way too much time cooped up in the dorms and locked up on campus. I need to get out and do a bit more and see parts of the city I haven’t yet seen. Especially museums and shopping.
4. See more live theatre, take two. The only one of last year’s resolutions that I regret not meeting. Of course, compared to 2009, “more” just means “any” – but I’ve got to make it happen.
5. Make time to keep in touch. This first semester of law school has been hard to keep in touch with even my closest friends and family. I need to adjust the balance to allow a little more time for emails and phone calls and texting and IMing and blog commenting and whatever else.
6. Find an apartment I want to stay in for at least a few years. I generally like being a bit of a nomad, but it wouldn’t kill me to find a place this summer and settle in until at least the end of law school. I don’t have to put down permanent roots, but I should feel comfortable buying things that are meant to hang on the wall.

I’m not making any resolutions about law school achievements or goals simply because I would have to reassess based on what happens after grades are posted and how I do in the summer internship search. I might not know until February where I need to focus or redefine or improve.

1. Leave Cincinnati. Done, obviously.
2. Own less. Also done. Although I haven’t yet succeeded in reducing all my belongings to a pair of duffle bags, I have dramatically reduced the amount of junk I’m dragging around with me. I’ll probably continue to shed stuff as I move again this summer.
3. See more live theatre. Fail. I’ve been too poor and too busy to get to see any shows, but now that I’m in New York, I’ll try again next year.
4. Write more. Maybe. It’s hard to measure, but I think I’ve done more writing this year than the year before.
5. That dating thing, yeah. Sure. There have been dates this year, which is an improvement over 2008. Let’s leave it at that.
6. Kill the giant squid in the bathroom. That mofo is dead.

Although I deliberately left off the “quit smoking” and “lose weight” resolutions last year, I did both.

I still need to do some more thinking about the resolutions for 2010.

I have pre-written several of these posts (the ones that are most list-like), and they are scheduled to be delivered at set times this week. I’ll also be trying to post additional thoughts about memorable aspects of the year in between the pre-planned stuff.

It seems like a good place to begin our look back at 2008 is with my list of resolution from December 31, 2007. Let’s see how I did:

1. Take the LSAT in June and score at least 165. +
   Done! Scored 169.
2. Take proactive steps to improve my credit rating by the end of the year. +
   Done! In fact, I’m one $765 payment away from having a clean bill of health for the first time since college. Anyone got a spare $765? I’m good for it! I’ll show you my credit report!
3. Re-start my gym routine and take off the 20 lbs I put back on in 2007. ½
   Done(ish)! I don’t know if I’ve lost the 20 lbs, but I started working out pretty seriously through the spring and summer. I admit I haven’t kept at it as well in Cincinnati, but I don’t think I’ve gained weight, either.
4. Apply to law schools in the fall. +
   Done! No acceptances, yet, but we should be really close.
5. In 2007, I went on one bona-fide, non-ambiguous date. In 2008, I will go on at least three. X
   Not done. Not a single date, actually. Some anonymous sex, sure, but no dates… unless you count all the times I’ve been out with my heterosexually-paired roommates as dates.
6. Maintain a positive outlook at work. X
   Well, I quit the job, publicly criticized my boss, and moved across the country, so I think we’ll call this one a failure. On the other hand, right to the very end I believed that I had the power to affect change in that workplace, so that was some positive (or naively wishful) thinking.
7. I will remember that there is more to my life than work. Much more. Things that are more interesting to discuss with my friends and loved ones. +
   Done! I’ve definitely made progress. While I still talk about work (whatever job I’m at) a bit, it’s not nearly the dominant topic of conversation it was last year.
8. I will take advantage of my fancy new health benefits in 2008 by visiting the dentist and getting routine medical check-ups. ½
   Saw the doctor a few times and got caught up on my vaccinations, but never did go to the dentist. I did go to a chiropractor for several weeks, though. I guess this one is half done since I lost those fancy health benefits when I left the job.
9. Quit smoking. ½
   I quit in April, started again in late September, quit again last week. I’m not sure I can technically claim success on this one, but not for lack of trying.
10. Keep my room cleaner by ending my pack-rat tendencies – toss out old clothes, junk mail and stupid knick-knacks. +
    You know, moving across the country in a rental car is a great motivator to de-clutter your life. My room needs another cleaning right now, but it’s bigger and I have less clutter than when I wrote this last year, so I think we’re calling this a success.

Thats 5/10 accomplished, 3/10 partially accomplished, and 2/10 that I think I failed at. All told, I’m rather proud of my results. I never could have envisioned that I’d end the year 3 time zones away from where I started it, earning about a tenth of my January salary, but I’ve been pretty good about planning ahead for my life this year.

I’m going to give myself another week to decide what (if any) resolutions I’ll be setting in 2009. How about you, did you meet your 2008 resolutions?

Jennifer called me at work today just to tell me that she had fallen in love with Bitstrips. She also uploaded this comic to Facebook. I guess being turned into an ashy-colored flamer is payback for my character design of her looking like an angry drag queen who was 60% boobs.

I met with my new personal trainer today. He’s a big guy, sounds Austrian (I think – I’ll ask next time I see him), and showed me that he was in the middle of reading Arnold Schwartzenegger’s book The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding. He is going to pump me up. The kicking of my flabby girly-man ass begins on Thursday.

• For one thing, I’m meeting one of my new year resolutions. I said that this year “I will take advantage of my fancy new health benefits in 2008 by visiting the dentist and getting routine medical check-ups.” Well, I still have to make the dentist appointment, but the physical is scheduled for Friday morning. Maybe she can help me with some of the other goals (e.g. quitting the smoking).
   
• Since my job involves occasional bouts of graphic design, sound editing, video editing and the like, I’ve been agitating for over a year to get a Mac. Also, my work computer is so fraking slow that it takes 30 minutes to boot up (I’m not exaggerating). Well, the budget got approved this year and our Fin/Ops director asked me to tell her the specs I wanted. After turning in my request (it’s going to be a sweet machine), she came up to me last week and asked if I’d heard about this thing called “MacWorld.”
   
  “Yeah,” I replied innocently, “what about it?”
   
  “I just thought that before we ordered your computer, you might want to go down there and see if there’s something better coming out.”
   
  So, I just registered to attend next week’s MacWorld Expo. It’s for work. Honest. Even though I will still probably order the same computer anyway.
   
• Aside from those activities, I also managed to go book shopping today rather than sitting at home watching TV all day. After hitting the Valencia corridor, I sat in Mission Dolores Park and ate some lunch in the mild weather we’ve been missing for the past few weekends.
   
• I’m totally ODing on two albums this week. The original Broadway cast recording of Xanadu and the soundtrack to the movie Juno. Xanadu is fun for the cheese and the hunky Cheyenne Jackson. Juno is filled with quirky songs played on the acoustic guitar using 3-or-fewer chords and indie chicks.
   
  My favorite part of Xanadu is the bits of dialogue that make it onto the recording. “Huzzah!” – “I will wear legwarmers and roller skates” “You shall be as current as today’s headlines.” - ”I know what let’s do.” “What let’s?” “What let’s use our muse powers…” It’s a bad habit of mine that little things set me off and make me want to wander around speaking in declaratory statements a la Greek gods.

Therefore, I shall end this blog, and it shall be done forthwith!

Maybe I should back up a bit. I’ve always had a fairly vague sense of what I wanted to do with life, but I rarely stopped to evaluate exactly how I was getting there. Then, about two years ago, I got tired of bouncing from job to job almost by accident, of working seasonal contracts or in small businesses without any kind of benefits or great opportunity for advancement. I made a plan to move to San Francisco and be much more picky about the kind of offers I would accept.

The fact that I was able to make the change by focusing on smaller goals (i.e. saving money, finding a place to live, job hunting, etc.) proved to myself that I could take charge of my life.

In the last year, I’ve been able to observe a great number of workplaces and take stock of my talents and make some decisions about what I want to do when I grow up. Realizing that I need to set intermediate goals, I’ve decided that there will be resolutions this year. However, all these resolutions come with the caveat: failing to meet these goals does not mean I am a failure. I give myself permission to make mistakes or change my mind.

1. Take the LSAT in June and score at least 165.
2. Take proactive steps to improve my credit rating by the end of the year.
3. Re-start my gym routine and take off the 20 lbs I put back on in 2007.
4. Apply to law schools in the fall.
5. In 2007, I went on one bona-fide, non-ambiguous date. In 2008, I will go on at least three.
6. Maintain a positive outlook at work.
7. I will remember that there is more to my life than work. Much more. Things that are more interesting to discuss with my friends and loved ones.
8. I will take advantage of my fancy new health benefits in 2008 by visiting the dentist and getting routine medical check-ups.
9. Quit smoking.
10. Keep my room cleaner by ending my pack-rat tendencies – toss out old clothes, junk mail and stupid knick-knacks.

So, there’s my list, for what it’s worth.