Thursday, January 10, 2008

New Year's Resolutions!

If you have somehow made it through the first few weeks of January without seeing anyone's banal and hopelessly optimistic dreams for 2008, then congratulations. Now allow me to Oswald/Grassy Knoll on your parade. And if you thought that I wouldn't stoop to using a concept that was probably invented to help businessfucks move gym equipment, then clearly you don't understand the abyssal depth of my intellectual laziness. Because the fact is, I'm not a very impressive human being, and there are plenty of self-improvement projects for me to choose from. Just a few:

Eat Better - I'm pretty sure it's on everyone's list, but this resolution can rarely be as absolutely necessary as it is for me. The human body is fucking remarkable. My diet is entirely devoid of any nutritional value; I might as well be eating mud. But somehow, I continue to exist and function at a level that only a few could deny is above retarded. I can't even begin to grasp the physiological process that turns my death-wish diet into life-sustaining neurotransmitters and fluids and whatever. It freaks me out. It's like throwing a bunch of fertilizer into the air, and then by the time it hits the ground, it's a shiny red bicycle. And even though you should probably just be happy with your good fortune, you can't help but look down every time you ride it and feel paranoid that it's going to fall apart and turn back into shit at any moment. I don't want to have my arm turn into a Chipotle burrito and fall off next time I throw a football.

So we're back to "Eat Better". I'm no nutritionist, but I believe that this involves eating healthy foods more often, and just as importantly, eating absurdly unhealthy foods less often. Fast food needs to go. Besides, what's faster than an apple? You're right, The Flash is. But, um, McDonald's isn't. So obviously there is to be no McDonald's unless they're giving away Flash toys. This shouldn't be too tough, because while I'll cop to the occasional McDonald's trip, in the aftermath I always feel as bloated and disgusting as the Olsen twins probably feel after eating anything. This one's doable. Moving on.

Learn to play guitar - That’s right - Mine ears have heard the glory of the strumming of the chord. This resolution is perfect because it represents the synthesis of several smaller resolutions, the first of which is to “Capital-R Rock by any means necessary”. Also, “Find a cool excuse to die young” and “Get more girls to like me or at least think that I have emotional depth”. Anyway, by this time next year I hope to be bothering those around me with constantly flubbed renditions of their favorite songs, due both to my poor technical skills and the incorrect tablature that I got from some website. All of this means that years from now, you may remember 2008 as the year you killed me in a fit of frustrated rage.

Continue to resist hiking trips - This resolution differs from the others on the list, in that it does not involve a change, but rather a continuation. This does not in any way detract from its importance, though. People love hiking, and Colorado presents plenty of opportunities to explore beautiful scenery while taking in some fresh air and escaping the day-to-day drudgery of city life. It's all very tempting, and I've given in before. The problem is that I occasionally forget an important fact: I fucking hate hiking. I hate bugs, I hate brush, I hate boots, I hate photo-ops, and I hate ascending things (be they hills or hierarchies). When I was younger, I used to go sledding down at Arrowhead elementary (my alma mater), which was half-a-mile away. The trip there was fine, and so was the sledding, but the trip home fucking sucked. I was tired, my extremities were numb, my nose was running, and then I had to stumble home in my awesome but cumbersome one-piece snowsuit, dragging the goddamn sled behind me. The same principle applies here. Trudging home all tired and bug-bitten as it gets dark after a hike takes what little fun there was to begin with, murders it, and buries it up in the Flatirons, to be repeatedly trod over by future hikers but never, ever found.

This isn't to say that I hate exercising. I grew up playing all kinds of sports, each of which beats the shit out of hiking. I think I just need the competition. For all its natural splendor, carved over hundreds of millions of years, at the end of the day you just can't talk shit about nature's personal hygiene, and "In your face!" means nothing to a mountain goat. Anyway, I hope I can continue to resist hiking's siren song. It sounds sweet, but all that's there are jagged rocks. I'll leave the hills to Bigfoot and letter-bombers.

Live - I don't mean "Live" as in "Dance as if no one's watching" or "Lose yourself in the moment, you own it, you better never let it go". I mean "Live", like "Be extant at the end of 2008". It seems easy, but I want it on the list because I'll either accomplish it and be happy or I'll fail and it'll look eerie whenever someone looks at this again. If I don't make it, tell that girl with the dyed black hair from Humanities 2000 that I loved her. She might pretend not to know who I am. That was our thing. Also, my family. I loved them, too.

Stay in contact with people - You know how when you're playing with a baby you can hide a toy behind your back and the baby acts like that toy has magically disappeared from existence? That's adorable. But when a 22-year-old acts like things that aren't in his line of sight don't exist, that is unacceptable. I suck at staying in touch. So, for 2008, I will try to be less like a baby. That means accepting object permanence and keeping tabs on the whereabouts of friends, and it also means going potty like a big boy. The baby food stays, though. It's healthy.

Dance as if no one's watching - Because they really aren't.