Unfortunately, January was only semi-successful. My two month goals were:
1) Give up caffeine
2) Make some headway on pursuing writing for a living
My “ongoing” yearly goals were:
1) Call my sister once a week
2) Read a classic
Well, now that I look at those all typed out, I’m thinking that I should call January only semi-failure-laden. I *mostly* gave up caffeine, in that I don’t think of myself as a caffeine drinker anymore, but I still drank a fair amount of caffeine. It went kind of like this: I would be really good for 5-7 days in a row, only to be waylaid by a monster headache of indeterminate origins, during which I would cave and have a caffeine unit. And then my headache would usually magically vanish. There was a stretch of time a few weeks ago where I had a mid-level headache for FOUR DAYS STRAIGHT, and during the entire thing I drank nary a caffeinated beverage. I kind of want a medal for that feat, to be honest. But then, when the whisperings of a headache started two days later, I thought “oh hell no” and promptly drank half a coke and felt much better. So, there were some victories and some defeats. I think I’m winning some battles, losing some battles, but eventually I will win the war. I just didn’t manage to do it in January.
As for writing for a living...heh, well, that was a FAILURE. I mean, I looked up the titles of a few recommended books about writing a proposal, but then I neglected to DO anything about those titles. I emailed a few people, including Mean Rachel (hi Rachel!) and asked them how they did what they did. I have a color-coded list of things I need to do, I just don’t have the time in which to do them. So, that resolution is also a work in progress, heh.
I did manage to call my sister once a week, GREAT SUCCESS, although we only talked about twice. Next year I should get her to make a resolution to answer her phone and/or call people back 100% of the time instead of the 50% she’s currently at.
I started but did not finish a classic, The Count of Monte Cristo to be exact, so that is another half-success, half-failure. D recommended that I read this book, which I already owned, because he remembered it as being very exciting. It’s kind of exciting, I suppose, if you’re into adventure stories, which I am not. Also, I have NO IDEA where the copy I own came from, and I don’t have any guesses, other than a time machine from 1965. The translation is kind of strange in some parts, like it was fed straight into Babelfish and not cleaned up before it was printed. The dialogue is stinted and the sentence structure comes straight from something like a Dear Aliens, Earth Humans Be Talking In This Manner handbook. Anyway, my excuse for the failure of this resolution is that 1) I will finish it, once I’m done reading this other book that’s from 2010 and much more interesting and 2) hey at least I tried. February is another month, another book.
Speaking of February, which is superfrugality month, I am being super frugal! Well, we’re only 2 days in, but so far I’ve been successful in not spending superfluous money. January was kind of an indulgent month, in which we went out to dinner a lot, got drinks with friends, and generally spent like we’re upwardly mobile yuppies. Since D is most likely going to be in grad school soon and living off a laughably low stipend, we’re trying to quash lifestyle inflation instead of letting it balloon out of control and become the norm. Superfrugality month could not have come at a better time. I’ve told most of my friends that I am going to focus on fun free things, and they’re pretty game and/or understanding, so I don’t think it will be too hard. We’ll see how I feel around mid-February.
