The photo is of my calendar-planning book for 2024 – the source of my retroactive New Year’s resolutions.
Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
January 2025
Mild, steady weather – snow only on the mountains – clear and cold at night, full moon – Mars visible.
Historians say that people have been making New Year’s Resolutions for at least 4,000 years. Records exist from Babylonian times.
Contemporary students of human behavior – sociologists and psychologists note that most New Year’s resolutions fade away by March. For example: Fitness studios report a
boom in new members in January and a significant falloff in attendance by those signees in 6 weeks’ time.
We mean well, I suppose, but self-improvement is hard.
Diets, weight loss, thrift, etc. take more than good intentions.
As for me, my resolutions ritual means looking back through my daily things-to-do list for the year just passed. To consider what I actually did and to note the good stuff.
A review of what I wrote about 20 years ago is also ongoing. What do I think now? Here’s a journal posting I’ve considered and edited, based on a question asked by my literary agent.
WHAT I WANT . . .
My literary agent in New York asked, “What do you want?”
She meant she wanted to know my publishing priorities.
But the question provoked the wiggy side of my mind.
The first things that came to mind were a bit off the wall.
Before I gave her a sensible answer, I gave her the following list:
I want to play the lead trombone in the first row of a college band in the Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena on New Year’s Day.
I want all candidates in political debates to be required to appear naked onstage so that at least some objective truth will be on offer.
I want cigars to be acknowledged as a vegetable and included as a dietary supplement for all the old men in assisted living.
I want the “Starr Spangled Banner” replaced with the song, “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider” including all the motions at all national sporting events.
I want everyone who owns a dog or cat to be required to put the same amount they spend for food and care each year for their pets into a fund to support the homeless and unemployed.
I want every teacher’s salary to be doubled, and every class size cut in half.
I want my abs back.
I want all those fundamentalist people of every religion who think they will be better off in the eternal ever-after to leave for there immediately.
I want little children to look at me, point, laugh, draw me, and color me in.
I want Gummi Bears and jellybeans to replace the tasteless plastic wafers in Communion in every Christian church as a sign of joy and life.
I want marijuana legalized and given out with high school lunches.
I want a woman president.
In addition to chlorine and fluoride, I want Prozac and Viagra added to the public water supply.
I want cell phones and the entire internet shut off one day a week.
I want dancing to be required in schools and required for citizenship.
I want Louise to give me back my high school letterman’s jacket.
I want Chris Rock appointed to the Supreme Court.
I want to play tambourine with the Gypsy King’s band.
I want my books to be banned by the Catholic Church.
I want to walk out of my house some morning and discover my old Ford Expedition has been turned into a Low Rider by the Hot Car Fairy.
I want mice to shun my house out of fear of my deadly wrath.
I want cauliflower to taste like rib-eye steak.
I want a swing in a tall tree that hangs out over a river.
I want to ride a horse in the grand parade at the Pendleton Roundup.
I want to give Texas back to Mexico.
I want everything I want.
And I want somebody else to make it happen and pay for it.
That was then and this is now – but I still want some of those things – still wiggy ideas, I suppose. I can’t always get what I want, but sometimes I get what I wanted.