old lame song

I’ve always wanted to be one of those people who are unique, different, renegade even. I want to go against the grain, do my own thing, raise my beer and yell out “It’s My Life” at a Bon Jovi concert and actually mean it. But at the end of the day, I’m not really all that different than any other married twenty-something professional woman trying to make a go of it in this rat-race, expensive little metro I reluctantly call home.

In that vein, instead of a self-righteous and high-minded blog about how New Years resolutions are passe and trite, how self-improvement should be a constant and it’s irrational and arbitrary to pick the first of the year to make a fresh start, I’ll start off my blogging re-entry with a long and boring post about my run-of-the-mill and ever-so-common resolutions.

1. Get a job. A new one, that is. One that doesn’t make me grit my teeth in boredom and frustration; one where I’m appreciated either by the people for whom I work or by the constituency I serve, be that people or animals or the environment or social justice or bookstore customers. I’ve decided that thankless jobs can be rewarding if your supervisors appreciate your efforts, and jobs in which your supervisors ignore or (worse) deride you can still be enjoyable if you’re working for something that matters to you. My current job fits neither of these descriptions, and it’s time to buckle down and make a change. Enough of the bitching already. Get ready, world—here comes my resume.

2. Reduce my enviromental footprint. I did an online quiz recently (www.myfootprint.org) and learned that if everyone lived like I do, we would need 4.5 planet earths. I’m pretty sure this is a lower number than average given that I take public transportation daily, but there also wasn’t an element that factored in my bizarrely high level of garbage production. I do not know WHY we fill up our gigantic trash can every week. I do not know HOW we manage to produce such a freakishly large amount of crap every day. What I do know is that everything, everything we depend on is a finite resource and if the annoyingly warm winter we’re experiencing is any indication we are causing environmental chaos at an alarming rate. I do not wish to have to move to Canada just to escape tropical Christmas weather, so I am going to do whatever little tiny things that I can to try to stem the tide of ecological destruction that our country seems so intent on pursuing. I will begin with a more consistent recycling effort, swing through some of those fancy flourescent light-bulbs that last a million hours, and perhaps end up with all-natural home cleaning products. I have more research to do. But perhaps I will save one or two trees for your children to enjoy.

3. Save money. I have never suffered any delusions that I am anything other than white trash with money—thanks to my hard-working husband I live in a tax bracket far removed from where I would be if I depended on my own dumbass choices. Because we are comfortable, it is easy to get TOO comfortable and forget that the gravy train may not always run on time. This year alone I’ve gone to some 20 concerts (Bob Dylan being the high point, Rascal Flatts being the low), fled the country twice, bought a massive TV, and developed a first-name relationship with the friendly Lebanese Taverna takeout people. However, given that I’m looking for jobs in non-profits, our poverty alert is constantly at Orange and (cross your fingers for me!) right now is hovering at Red. It’s time to start acting like a grownup and begin socking it away for that day hopefully soon when I make absolute crap money and love it.

4. Learn to dance. I do not know how to make this happen. But if anyone has any ideas, I’m open to anything that will allow me to get through the Summer 2007 wedding gauntlet (five and counting!) with at least a little flair.

There are others, of course, too personal for the internets, but that’s a start. Maybe by the end of this year I will be someone entirely new—a hippie, a vegan, a lobbyist, a student. Maybe I’ll be all kinds of broke. Maybe I’ll be lighting candles with rolled up dollar bills. Sometimes I wish I could see into the future: maybe I’d’ve worked a bit harder on my 2006 resolutions if I could look ahead and see that I’d be the same person, sitting on the same couch, bitching about the same problems, one year in the future.

Probably not.
At any rate, here we go…