New Year's Vague Intentions

I have never been a resolute person. Opinionated? Sure. Passionate? Absolutely. Resolute? Um, not really. Well, let's give Noah* a chance, shall we?

[Busy pause.]

No. He's way too complicated. Oh heck. As long as we've stopped, let's take care of that asterisk right now. All my life, I've been thinking that Daniel Webster wrote the first American dictionary, but it turns out that Noah, called The Father of American Scholarship and Education, became associated with dictionaries because of the modern Merriam-Webster dictionary that was first published in 1828 (but under a difference name).

Roget's Thesaurus will be quicker, and time is important. I mean, this very evening is New Year's Eve so this blog has to be disseminated to the masses by then or the consequences will be unthinkable.

Resolute: determined, purposeful, decisive, firm, steady, constant, fixed, unswerving, unyielding, flat-footed (goodness!), resolved, convinced, strong-willed, decided, steadfast, persevering, persistent, adamant.

The antonyms are more my style: weak, changeable, unsteady, faltering, purposeless, aimless.

You see, then, that New Year's Resolutions would be folly for me, guaranteed failures. That's not to say that I won't scramble up on any bandwagon that'll have me. I was perfectly sincere when I signed up at Curves. I absolutely believed I'd show up and work out three times a week, even if my foot hurt or I had a cold or I was too busy with Christmas preparations, even if I have to pay for it whether I show up or not.

Therefore, I have developed New Year's Vague Intentions, which work much better for me. It's not that I actually institute any changes, of course, but at least I feel better about the whole thing. I'm pretty sure that I let "Intentions" be plural just to march along nicely with "Resolutions," but the truth is that I only declare -- well, mutter, sotto voce -- one. I don't want to feel overwhelmed.

This year's Vague Intention is simply to Eat Breakfast. I want to eat a meal within an hour of rising. I've already been awake for three hours and I've still not eaten. I'm told that my body is, as we speak, preparing for me to wander in the wilderness -- surely aimlessly -- for weeks, so it's conserving energy for that event by slowing down my metabolism to the coma level. I'm helping by moving only from my chair to the couch, so, between us, we've probably burned about four calories so far.

So yeah: Breakfast. Soon.

I mean it.

See you next year!