a very ominous assignment, with overtones of extreme personal danger

cleanfall was excellent! and the steelers are going to the superbowl! and we have a new president!

moving on.

actually, this is sort of related. excitement, enthusiasm, joy... these are generally good, healthy things. pleasant, for the most part. hype and hysteria -- these are not good things. these are annoying, distracting, abrasive things. also, they are often fake, or at least short-lived. most importantly, excitement and enthusiasm tend to get a lot more done than hype and hysteria, which tend to just lead to backlash when the honeymoon phase is over.

which leads me to this: now that the WOW IT'S THE NEW YEAR hype is pretty much over, i've got a brief bit to say about resolutions.

i never make resolutions by new year's day. this is for two reasons. one, new years eve usually sucks. with very few (and lovely) exceptions, this holiday and i have an extremely poor track record, so i'm seldom in a mood to be contemplative and reasonable. two, and more importantly, just on principle i try to give myself about a week before really settling in on what i'm serious about -- otherwise, getting all caught up in the rush of Starting Afresh, i make very earnest promises to myself that i simply cannot fulfill.

this year, it took a little longer than a week.

don't misunderstand -- i didn't dislike 2008. it wasn't a bad year. but it was, to be blunt, the year i didn't graduate from college; the year i didn't get a job; and the year i moved away from a bunch of people i very much love. without being melodramatic about it, i can admit that it's a bit boring and lonely with all those things piled up together. so settling in on a few solid, doable resolutions took a little more time than it did when i was, i don't know, twelve.

(also, my impulsive reaction when people asked about my resolution was to say, "get my shit together." could have had devastating consequences in the long run. obviously, cleaning up my language and being less flippant aren't major priorities at the moment.)

there are three.

one: i will (continue to) pay more attention to my physical wellbeing. waking up and going to bed at vaguely reasonable hours, exercising (read: walking around squirrel hill instead of driving), flossing. not difficult. four years of acting like i'm indestructible is probably enough.

two: i will read more, and more often. for pleasure, i mean. this doesn't count textbooks and news and things i read to edit. if you're wondering, i'm going to reread house of leaves, followed by the subtle knife, and then... we'll see.

three: i will write more. or create more, or something. translation, painting, whatever. i think part of the reason college has been such a torturous experience is that i've been desperately trying to play academic for the past four years, and i truthfully just don't enjoy it that much. i'm a writer. i've been a writer. i will be a writer. granted, writers tend to be really exquisite liars (and by that i mean we're all in denial), but by not doing what i know i'm supposed to be doing, i've allowed my capacity for writing to atrophy. it's much more difficult now than it was two years ago, let alone four, let alone six. the backsliding stops here.

Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books. Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the book-worm.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

this whole adventure in blogging would be part of number three, by the way. a small part.