Just a thought ...

My 2006 will end with a hellish series of double-shifts that will likely lead me to pursue adventures in which I almost certainly will drink heavily during the three days off I'll enjoy ringing in 2007. Ah, I do love New Year's.

I usually hate resolutions because they're almost certainly annually redundant and doomed to fail. I'm pretty sure I've listed quitting smoking at least half a dozen December 31sts—and I think this year was officially my mere decade anniversary of making people at Camel very rich.

I swore off making resolutions quite some time ago, but ... boy-oh-fucking-boy didn't they just start springing to mind this recent holiday season. Man, when you start a rare afternoon off by dedicating your afternoon to getting all of the water off the flooded basement floor before Dad gets home—and then Dad gets home after you dumped twenty or so buckets into the drain as evidence of your efforts only to watch Dad walk over to the drier south wall area, jiggle a plug, and then inform you that it appears the "suck pump" (Whatever the fucking hell that thing is ...) wasn't completely in the socket.

Oh ... well, fine then.

You feel stupid for spending three hours that could have been fixed in say, uh, fifteen minutes. Maybe ten.

Then you really feel stupid for looking at all the crap you've been leaving on the floor—again. "Didn't I swear to leave the sketchbook on the dresser from now on, you know, the last time this happened?"

I'd elaborate more if 2006 allowed it, but I've got shirts to iron. I now see why the second question of that interview—at this breakfast place nearly two years ago where my current boss nonchalantly asked, "Have you ever worked for Greeks?"—still strikes me with a certain "We warned you" sense of I having should known better.

So I'm compiling my list and wondering if there's more guilt in not fulfilling pointlessly declared resolutions than there is in just simply setting an enormous amount of basic achievements instead.

"I'll eat better."

"I'll get out more."

"I won't let a girl convince me to shave my chest again unless she's really going to make it worth the emotionally painful sense of self-embarrassment."

2006, I won't forget you. But 2007, I can hardly wait to get knowing you.