Goals & Resolutions (Revised Version, Take One)

couldn't write all of it at one time. i'll have to take another swing at it.

Friends,

I planned on having a long post, elucidating on each of these posts last night. But by the time I came home last night, sipped a little champagne and blew out Emily's birthday candles, I fell my tubby as asleep on the couch, meaning I couldn't get to it. This morning, any number of blockages kept me from the keyboard. Bad way to start the year, particularly with these resolutions/goals. I'll get back to this thing tonight, but here's my list in no particular order.

1. Obtain new employment
As much as I enjoy saying sexual explicit things to strange men and other vagaries on top of the other benefits of my job, I'd really like to do something else. I haven't been as vigilant lately in my search, sadly. Haven't really found much of anything in the area to be honest, particularly in the English teacher vein. Plus, I'm willing to bet with all this boogeyman economy, I may not get too lucky. Got me worried about my small potatoes teaching gig I landed last semester. I never signed a contract for this upcoming semester, so I might not be going back to that. I don't know yet. Anyway, all this kvetching boils down to I need to get more vigilant about the hunt.

2. Lose approximately 5 pounds a month for the whole year (more would be better)
This weight loss shit has just got to stop. Right now, sawing off the gut with a steak knife seems reasonable. Before I left for Granite City, I weighed around 265. Missed four days of working out all told and now when I weighed myself, it was 276. What. The. Fuck. Did I really gain 11 pounds in 4 days? How the hell is that possible? It's not like I was home slurping vegetarian lard or overeating like mad. Something is just not making sense. Tomorrow I'm buying a new scale, like the Mercedes Benz of fucking scales. I'm done with these cheapo Wal Mart numbers. But even at my low end weight, losing 5 pounds a month would be good and needed, desperately. I'm just running out of ideas here with this weight loss. I started up with those slim fast shakes again, and just like before, I started getting dizzy spells from what seems like way too low calorie count. Can't do that, I don't think. Maybe I need to endure the dizzy spells. No more booze, clearly (not that I was drinking a lot anyway). No more anything touched with grease from the obvious occasional indulgence in french fries on down to the apparently fattening faux-chicken nuggets from Morning Star and popcorn and eggs. Work out harder, too, which I suppose means getting up even earlier in the morning regularly to bust my ass. Use heavier weights. Goddamn.

3. Finish the Appleknockers rewrite
The hardest part of this will be finding the time. I've been really good at figuring out what's wrong with the draft I have. But getting it into action? I gotta make the time. That's really what this one is all about. Making time to write along with all the other pulls on the time. I write better at night than in the morning, so plugging away at night is what I need to do. Probably won't get much done since I need to be getting up so early in the morning to work out harder and longer to make some progress. We'll see how this goes, but writing that novel, getting it to a place where I could be proud of every page, every sentence will require a lot of sacrifice. Not enough talk about sacrifices you need to make to write, particularly while writing around these here "real" jobs. Wish I wrote faster. And, I'll see what I can do, but redoubling myself to writing that novel may very well spell the end of this blog. Sacrifice and prioritize, sacrifice and prioritize, right?

4. Be more disciplined in all things (writing, book diet, finances, food diet, exercising...)
5. Be more assertive, direct...less timid
6. Make better use of my time
7. Travel more, as often as I can
8. Be more useful around the homestead (cleaning and such)

That's it for now. Time for working out.

viva el mustache