New Year's Resolutions (Why They're a Waste of Time)

1. Have more sex.
With eventual aim of becoming good at it. But realistically, that's like devoting my time and energy to getting hit by fewer meteors.

2. Get a new (well-paid, non retail) job.
Actually any job that I'm not ready to chuck within 8 months, with colleagues that aren't total flakes, would make a nice change. The problem is, I've spent my whole working life up to this point in dead end shop jobs because those are pretty much my only option. Finding an actual vocational position somewhere would mean going back to school, and I'd rather still be wearing the polo shirt and namebadge ensemble and filling shelves when I'm in my 80's (entirely plausible, if the Tory's have their way) than set foot in another place of learning. So this one doesn't wash either.

3. Get a place of my own to live.
No dice without that fat salary from that fantasy job. In the current financial climate, a retail worker needs to be grafting a good 50 or 60 hours a week to maintain a comfortable living standard and run their own home. Yes, lots of people manage- my mother and I included- with benefits, but again, we've a Conservative government and their very real and active plans to dismantle the welfare state to consider. In fact, scrub this one and go with 'Don't count on benefits ever again'.

4. Make new friends.
Hmm, and maybe once I've mastered this I'll solve my financial problems by selling the secret to other lonely, disaffected people with blogs.

5. Actually meet some of my current (online) friends.
Those in the US and Finland, not very likely, however there is a chance of meeting two others at the SFX Weekender this February (won't actually be attending the event; the prohibitive cost was a large factor in the dissatisfaction with SFX that lead me to abandon the online forum and eventually the magazine itself). That's assuming I actually have the petty cash to afford the trip to Pontins in Prestatyn. If so, it'll be the closest thing to an actual holiday I've had in years, and certainly the most glamorous!

6. Take less shit from people in general.
In the last 24 months, I've actually been regularly treated like shit by co-workers, customers and even a few 'friends', and most of the time I've barely questioned it. I've been far too accepting of very shoddy treatment from my fellow creatures and badly need to stop listening to the little voices in the back of my mind telling me not to expect any better.

7. Learn to play the piano.
I could say guitar, but that'd really be flattering myself.

8. Start writing again... Make serious effort to turn occassional hobby into a career.
This would entail convincing myself once and for all that I do have some modicum of talent, and of somehow honing my craft to the point where not every sentence is grueling uphill struggle, so that my work output is a tad higher than one short story every 6 years. Also probably wouldn't hurt to brush up on that punctuation thing.

9. Girlfriend.
Not managed to make this one happen for any of the last twenty-five years, but I've got a good feelin' about 2012!

10. Blog more.
Possibly just commit my thoughts to paper aeroplanes and launch them from the roof, thus in all likelihood significantly boosting my readership.


"Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind..."