venta

Well, it's a new year and all that, which means it's time for some internal bookkeeping. I just like writing the word "bookkeeping" because it and its friends are the only words in the English language containing three consecutive double letters. Or so

quantumboo told me once, anyway.

I have noticed that whenever anyone labels a cut "personal waffle, of no interest" that seems to be the one way to guarantee everyone reads it. However, this is personal waffle, of no interest. Don't say you weren't warned.

Last year, I resolved to:

1. Make more time for music, in particular find myself access to a piano.
2. Make more time for writing.
3. Think more about what I was doing.

1 has been, more or less, a flat failure. I have not got off my arse and located a piano, nor have I dug out the oboe all that often. My best effort has been towards learning to play the concertina my parents gave me last March, but even that's been a bit weak of late. No points for me. Could do better.

Even fewer points for me, though, on number 2. I have made exactly no progress with any writing, other than the occasional gig review demanded of me by

kneeshooter. As a feeble excuse I can offer the information that my laptop was out of action for a large chunk of the summer, but that won't really fool anyone.

Oh, actually, that might not be quite true. A Friend (whose name is removevd to protect the guilty) and I did finish a draft of a Mills & Boon novel, written between us, which we submitted. I think that was in the early part of last year. It was awful, but then they're meant to be, aren't they ? It was rejected immediately, so must have been doubly awful. I'm not sure I really consider that to be much of a literary achievement, but it was, I suppose, technically me stringing some words together.

3 has, at least, fared a little better. My metric of success was deemed, in last year's resolution post:

If, this time next year, I can feel that I've made decisions rather than have them happen to me, and that I've made them correctly, I'll count it as a success.

And yes, I think to a large extent there has been some progress there, in countless little ways, and one or two big ones. Thinking turns out to be much harder work than I expected, and far less comfortable (in the short term) than just drifing through life going where people push you. However, I'm hoping that in the long term it's a good thing.

I also noted down a resolution that I wasn't comfortable writing about - no progress there, and it's carried forward to 2005.

So, what shall I resolve upon this year ? I'm thinking just two will be enough, since one of them's something of a catch-all.

1. Carry on Thinking. It's still easier to do something because I know someone wants me to, or to ignore problems that come sidling up. It's still easier not to dig around in my own subconscious to find out what I really feel about something. But I think it's important, and worth nagging myself to keep on doing.

2. Make the time to spend by myself doing Stuff. Ideally, this will be writing and music, as carried forward from last year. However, I'm allowing the idea that other things might catch my interest as they pass. This, of course, requires me to keep the tedious life-admin in check sufficiently that when I have an evening at home it's free to actually get on with things more interesting than paying the gas bill and hoovering the stairs. I think I'll count it as a success on this score if I can point to a number of finished projects at the end of the year, and say I learnt to play that sonata, I wrote that short story, I took those photographs.

On the other hand, the handy resolution generator which was floating around a few days back suggests this:

In the year 2005 I resolve to:

Spend more time surfing porn at work.

Get your resolution here

So if you hear I've been sacked from work: the interweb made me do it!