icebluenothing

I don't generally make New Year's resolutions. I didn't this year, either. The last time I did, I think was in 2000. It was finally the gosh-wow Future, and I was turning 30(!) that year, so I felt a certain amount of cultural pressure to do so.

I put the resolutions up on my website, intending to put up a follow-up page a year later, tallying up how well I did. Well, I never got around to it.

Better late than never: Here's my Y2K resolutions, and how they turned out.

Get a physical examination -- "Here's another confession: I only ever go to a doctor when I'm in actual pain. As a result of that, by this point, I have at least half-a-dozen minor little physical complaints, all the little slings and arrows that flesh is heir to, none of them even remotely serious enough to see a doctor for, but in combination .... Besides, it's simply a good idea to get a complete physical every so often, and I haven't done it at all in my adult life. Time to change that."

I didn't manage this in 2000; I didn't even get around to it in 2001. Procrastination is part of it, but it was also due to the fact that I didn't have medical insurance. I'm finally on Basic Health, and I've been to a doctor now, and -- dammit, I realize as I'm writing this that, actually, I still haven't had a proper physical examination. But I have seen a doctor about the things that were bothering me, so I'm going to say that counts. Status: Done

Learn Style Sheets -- "Okay, this is a relatively minor thing, nothing only a fellow geek would care about, but I still want to mention it here. Style sheets are the modern, proper way to determine the "look" of a web page; using the <FONT> tag is so 1996. I call myself a professional web designer, and I still don't know how to use style sheets, and that's frankly a little embarassing. By this time next year, I expect to have converted every single page on Bloodletters so to use style sheets."

Yeah, I've done this. It wasn't a big deal. I'm not really even sure now, in retrospect, why it ever even seemed like a big deal to me. It's not brain surgery. Status: Done

Get a driver's license -- "Okay, here's the big one. I'm nearly 30 and I can't drive. Well, okay, not legally. I can drive; if I needed to drive someone to the hospital, I could point a car toward one and arrive in one piece. But the point is, I don't have a little chunk of plastic that says I can drive, and that's what's important. Aside from being able to stop relying on public transportation and the kindness of friends, this means I might actually be able to start feeling like a grownup."

Again, I didn't get this done in 2000, but I did get it done in 2001. And yes, it's been just as amazing and wonderful a change in my life as I thought it would be. Status: Done

"And along with getting a driver's license, I intend to .... "

Get a car -- "Wouldn't that make sense? Being allowed to drive would be one thing, but actually having the ability to drive would be even nicer. Being able to go wherever I want, whenever I want to, is an amazing luxury that so many of my friends take for granted, and oh, I want it. And I can actually finally afford it, too, so why not?"

A-heh. Ahhh, listen to that voice of youth and inexperience, spoken in those hazy, halcyon days of the never-ending summer of the dot-com era. Now, see, these days, I sure can't afford to own a vehicle -- but all the same, I'm still damn glad I own one, and damn grateful to my dad for buying it in the first place. Status: Done

Visit Catriona -- "Catriona Finn is the best friend I never met. She found my webpage and sent me e-mail telling me how much she liked my site and my writing. Always one to fall for flattery, I struck up a correspondence with her, and she really seems neat. She wants me to come visit her -- she lives in Ireland! This is deeply terrifying to me -- traveling to a distant country to visit someone I've never met. But at the same time, it sounds like a grand adventure to me. I don't know if I'm the kind of person who can do something like this. But I want to be. And I do so want to meet her. Don't know if I'll manage to do it this year. But I intend to at least have concrete plans, and money set aside for the trip."

This never happened -- partly, I'll admit, because the dot-com money ran out, and the idea of being able to afford a trip to Europe became fairytale-like to me. Also partly because Catriona and I are both terrible correspondents, and we fell out of touch. I saw her mention me recently on a webpage, though, so I know she still thinks about me. That's good to know. I wish I could have gone to see her. Maybe I still will, someday. Status: Not Done

No more calendars -- "This is a strange little resolution, but a serious one. I've always had calendars. Every year, I receive one for Christmas, or I buy one myself, and I faithfully put it up on the wall .... and a couple months will go by, and I'll remember to change it to the current month. And then another couple of months will go by .... By the end of the year, I'll find that I've really only looked at the damn thing, like, four or five times in the whole year. And I never use it. If I need to know the day a particular date will fall on, or keep track of upcoming events, I can do that better using a computer. A calendar just hangs on the wall, forgotten, and takes up valuable wall space that could be better filled by art. Calendars. Feh. I'm done with them."

Yeah, I've held to this. Even though my family keeps giving me calendars at Christmas even though I've told them not to; I just get rid of them. I've put a lot of work into refining my private on-line calendar, too, for even better scheduling I can access from anywhere. Status: Done

Start taking my art more seriously -- "This is a big one, too. I haven't even entered any of my artwork in convention art shows in -- how long? A year? Two years? Longer? This is ridiculous. Admittedly, I started making my artwork in the first place simply to amuse myself, and never really have started taking it seriously -- but other people seem to really, honestly like it. If I do have a talent for this, then I'm wasting it. And that's not right. I've got to start getting it back into convention art shows. And out into the real world, too. I need to start looking into opportunities for artists."

I've completely dropped the ball on this one. Haven't been in any more art shows since I wrote these words; haven't really made much art, either. In fact, I bet most of the people who know me these days don't even know I make art, and have never seen any of my little found-object sculpture collages. I seriously need to correct this. Status: Not Done

Start being more professional about my writing -- "Okay -- I seem to have the actual writing part down (although admittedly, I could stand to teach myself the discipline to do it a little more often). But now I need to master the other half of the craft, which is to get the damn stories out the door every once in a while and out to editors to try to sell them. It seems almost that now I have sold a couple of pieces, I've stopped trying -- the urge to get published is gone, because I did it. I know I can do it. So I've been resting on my laurels. It's time to stop. It's time to start sending my stories out again."

I've mostly dropped the ball on this, too. I've made a few token efforts toward it, like joining HWA, but nothing serious. Again, I need to take steps to correct this. Status: Not Done

Make my Doctor Who film -- "Okay, fine. This is deeply, deeply geeky. Yes, you may laugh. But my first exposure to the great British science fiction program, Doctor Who, wasn't a real episode of the program at all, but an amateur film made by local fan Ryan K. Johnson. I don't know if his was the first, but there have been many other fans who have made their own homebrew versions of the show. I've been wanting to do this myself for years. I already have, taking up room in my parents' garage, several large props that I've built for this project, including a full-size TARDIS. (If you don't know what that is, don't worry -- it just means you have a life.) I have a script, half-written, that I'm really happy with. I need to finish the script, and make the film. And this would be a wonderful year to do it."

*sigh* Yeah, it would have been. Turns out, of course, that making an amateur film is an endeavor that takes both Money and Spare Time, and oddly enough, having both of these things at the same time doesn't seem to happen in my life very often. I still really want to do this, even though, to be honest, I can't remember what "half-written script" I'm talking about here. Status: Not Done

Try to spend more time with Cheryl -- "Now, this would be something that getting a car would be awfully handy for .... Cheryl is my older sister. In fact, she moved out when I was still very young -- I barely remember having her home at all. Ever since then, I've felt like I've never got to spend enough time with her. I really, really should correct that. If you do anything in this life, it should be making sure you spend enough time with the people who matter to you."

If you've been reading my journal, you know I've done well by this resolution this past year, spending a month with my sister back in August. Not quite what I'd originally pictured -- I imagined myself going down more often for an afternoon here and an evening there -- but I'm happy with the result. Status: Done

Keep writing -- "Fairly self-explanatory, I think."

Yeah -- I've done some more short stories and a novel since then, so yeah, I've done okay at that. Status: Done

So, in all, that's seven resolutions accomplished, and four not accomplished. Not too bad, I don't think.