For New Years…well…I’ve turned into a bit of a grinch. This is a holiday that seems to always get so blown out of proportion…and always seems to let down in a way. One of those nights when the “getting ready” part is always WAY more fun than the actual event. The clock strikes midnight, and maybe you get to kiss someone, but other than that, you don’t feel any different, and I always expect to.

Then there are the Resolutions. The funny thing is, we could decide to change ourselves for the better at any point in time. But January First, of a new year, for whatever reason, seems like a day when we can actually make it start to happen. Better than a Tuesday in March, better than a Friday in August. I’ve even found myself in past years saying things like, “oh, well, I’ll just keep (insert bad habit) until New Years, then I know I will REALLY turn it all around.”

Inevitably, we fail at these resolutions somewhere around…oh…I dont know…January 10. We forget what we said we’d do or not do everyday, and life resumes. The next year rolls around and we laugh sheepishly as we re-resolve to act on the “resolutions” we made the year before.

So this year I just hung out with family, drank some wine, ate some pizza, and ended up watching a few movies by myself (The Young Queen, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I highly rec both) until 4am. I knew it was midnight when my phone vibrated and I got a “HAPPY NEW YEARS!” text message from one of my students. Sigh. But I woke up today, 1/1/11 at 11am…ish…without a hangover, in a warm bed at my aunt’s house (I’m too cheap to turn on the heater at my house :)) and got dressed and began the day with coffee and a four mile walk and the resolutions to do the following:

Simplify life.

I gathered four bags of things to take to the Goodwill. Organized shelves and closets. Took a bubble bath. Ate delicious chocolate without thinking about the caloric consequences. But just because I wanted to.

Go outside every day.

I get stuck inside at my job…waking up when it’s still dark, coming home when its dark…having no idea if there was hail or UFOs or rainbows all day. So I braved the cold and drizzle and went to my favorite park and I saw puppies and geese and couples holding hands and I slipped in mud and the air tasted like clouds.

Write something every day. Every single day.

I have always, always dreamed of having a book published or selling a screenplay or reading something in a coffeeshop. These fantasies always end in a life that finds me in a robe most days, looking out over a body of water (ocean preferred, but I’d take the Mediterranean), with a coffee during the mornings and a wineglass during the evenings by my side, waxing poetic on the dailies of life, typing click clack on a fabulously tiny and lightweight and super fast Mac. I love writing. I love when it makes people laugh or think. I love that it helps me digest life and that when I look back at things I wrote a long time ago, it helps me to remember how I felt, and people I met, and I can see big lessons more clearly because I recorded the details. And like any exercise for the body, good writing is an exercise for the mind that requires constant practice. So. Every day.

And here is where I will try to do that. I’m not going to promise myself something witty or interesting every day. Just a record. And I want to keep a list of every movie and book I consume. I don’t watch TV, except for gLee, but oh I love books and movies…my challenge to myself is to stop reading the same ones over and over, (Jane Eyre, Ramsey Scallop, Ferdinand) and expand my mind. I shall try.

Okay? So here is Day One! I’m doing it on a real fancy blog site, because I think that will hold my interest. Love new gadgets!

one blog down. threehundredsixtyfourandaquarter to go. Is it a Leap Year? Sigh.