Ben’s Blog

I almost got a away with avoiding my first resolution of the year,
with in the first three weeks. That would have easily been a record
for me, but thanks to a little bird, or more exactly, a little
ornothoboic friend, I was caught before that the decaying corpse of my perennial personal promise disappeared in the shallow grave I dug for it in the backyard.

Last year I actually had my first true resolution, which was not only made nowhere near New Year’s, as it happened sometime during the summer, but was the beginning of a whole new approach to resolutions. This first resolution, the epiphany that began this whole new theory was, “Always have champagne at home, always.” (Note that repeating the word always is important, otherwise your not taking yourself seriously). One, you never know when you might have something to celebrate, and why not have a resolution that’s easy to keep, makes both you and everyone who comes over to your house happy, and is not devastating to your psyche when you fail. I mean who doesn’t think having champagne around is a good idea. Like having a buddy to join in on the misery while you try to quit smoking, get in shape or lose weight, having a resolution that everyone wants to get a piece of will provide enough positive peer pressure that you are much more likely to follow through. I’ve even found myself celebrating for no apparent reason, if only to show off the fact that I’ve been able to hold up my side of this deal, with
myself.

After such a success, I began thinking about what else I could do to start enjoying resolutions. It became clear that one of the reasons that this first sparkling promise worked, was it’s spontaneity. I didn’t worry about the fact that I wasn’t drinking enough champagne all year, then promise myself that I would, miss a day, and then never drink champagne again. It popped into my head, I picked up two bottles of Champagne the same day and put them in the fridge. So why not take it one step further and start coming up with as many simple, happy, no pressure “resolutions”, perhaps even one a day, not unlike those dopy, brick shaped calendars you get around the holidays that will leave you with that vocabulary you always thought you should have, and by “you”, I mean “I”. Now I could see this daily ritual getting a little out of hand, so I had to add the first rule to what was turning into a new personal game:

Rule 1 : The resolution “Today there are no resolutions”, is acceptable.

while we’re at it, let’s start adding rules so everyone can play.

Rule 2: You get extra points if the resolution is likely to attract converts. For instance, “Once a month I’m going to eat so many oysters, I’ll be able to buy Manhattan with all of the shells”

I’ll continue working on the rules to this Resolution game. As a
matter of fact, that will be Thursdays resolution. Spread the word…..

Here we are at the start of a journey to try to change my writing style from that of a socially awkward teen, to that of a semi-
articulate adult. They say, whoever they are, that the way to learn to write better is to write more. I’m not convinced, based on the same argument that if you let a million monkeys bang on keyboards that you’ll eventually see the Gettysburg Address, does not mean that most of what you’ll end up seeing on their tiny monkey screens won’t resemble the same crap said monkeys spend their time flinging during their smoke breaks.

In any case, I suppose I have to start somewhere, and this is as good a place as any. I truly hope that if anyone does end up reading this that a) they’ll end up with a smile on their face and b) they’ll actually send some feedback because I’m sure that I’ll probably get tired of doing this as soon as I realize that even monkeys don’t find it interesting.