Resolute.

I don't hold with New Year's resolutions. In my experience, they do nothing but make you feel bad come the beginning of February about the things you've already managed to screw up with less than 10% of the year gone. One year I promised myself I would finish all the UFOs in my craft room. HA! Fat chance. I have strata of craft projects that you could grid and chart, like an archaeological dig. I often superiorly declare that my resolution is to not make any resolutions, and along those lines, one of my resolutions for 2009 is:

Don't make promises I am not going to keep. It is rare that I do this anyway, but sometimes its easier to be nice and say yes than to hurt someone's feelings. No more. If I say I am going to do something, I am going to do it. More importantly, if I say I am NOT going to do something, then I shouldn't find myself going full steam ahead and cursing fate instead of my own cowardice.

Stop being nice when I really SHOULD be mean. When my ex and I were in the death throes of our relationship, I once caught him out with the woman he was cheating on me with. I made him come home - and bring her with - so I could read him the riot act. Before you get all indignant about the monumental unfairness of my subjecting her to our airing of grievances, let me tell you what ELSE I did: she had a cold that night, and when she came over she was miserable. So I handed her the box of tissues I had been using to mop up my own furious flood of tears, made her a cup of ginger tea, and forced her to take a multivitamin and a couple of Tylenol. Then, after the conversation (I was too solicitous to FIGHT, even though I was raring for one) I made my ex drive her home wrapped in one of our blankets. I tell this story not to garner any sympathy from you, but to illustrate how easy it is for me to subsume my own righteous rage under concern. I have to learn to harden my heart about these things, at least a little bit, so that my own brittle egg of emotion doesn't crack under the strain of someone else's sadness.

Learn to PLAY the guitar, not just hold it and strum ineffectually at random strings. Ineffectual, random plucking will now be reserved exclusively for the bass, which, as my main instrument and the love of my life, is as it should be.

Continue to not eat cookies. This is easier than learning to kickbox, and I am nothing if not lazy.i won't be eating these. no matter how much i want to.

And a final, very specific one: Say the actual word to the person it is intended for. To his face. Hopefully while looking him in the eye. Because saying words like it, or that are almost the same, is NOT THE SAME. It takes courage I don't have yet. Yet.

Et vous, mes amis? Will you be partaking of the pistachio macarons that this year offers you, or are you steadfast in your refusal on moral grounds? Leave your 2009 resolutions in the comments.