Happy New Year's!

[cleolinda]

So: I have two questions for you:

1) What are you doing tonight? (Or, if you're already past midnight in your time zone, what did you do?)

I'm watching the Twilight Zone marathon* and maybe I'll find something alcoholic later, but I doubt it. I think there will also be some really good frozen pizza (I'll have to look and tell you what kind it is). For some reason, I am completely content to do this almost every New Year's.

Oh, and I also want to do a little more cleaning this evening, maybe a couple more loads of laundry. I know that sounds crazy (if you know me), but I like the idea of going into 2009 with a little symbolic housecleaning.

* You know what I love about the Twilight Zone marathon? No matter how many episodes I actually get to see, no matter how many marathons the Sci-Fi Channel gets in during the year, there is always one episode--at the very least!--that I have never seen before.


2) What are your New Year's resolutions (if you have any)?

I'll tell you the truth: I don't. This is going to sound terrible, but I am not good with deadlines and I am not good with goals. Like, psychologically, the idea of I am supposed to accomplish this just makes me shut down. I mean, in terms of long-term goals. So basically, I make resolutions and I don't follow through on them and then I feel terrible. So what I'm going to try to do instead is make some lifestyle changes. Just, you know, I'm supposed to do this every day, and if I don't, well, sucks to be me because I'm still supposed to do it tomorrow as well. I mean, nothing too terrible--drink more water, for example. I'm quitting Mountain Dew for this express reason (it helps that lately, it hasn't tasted very good to me). To be honest, this particular lifestyle change is motivated by vanity: my complexion's totally gone downhill since I started drinking soda again. Maybe it's the caffeine and/or sugar; maybe it's the water I'm no longer drinking instead. I don't know, but I have a feeling more water can't hurt.

So it's that kind of thing. Another reason I'm cleaning is that my workspace is so trashed that even I can't stand it now, so once I get it straightened up, you know: put in an effort to keep it that way.

(Something else I want to do is waste less time on the internet. I mean, yes, I spend a good deal of time online; fine, whatever. But if I find myself just faffing around with nothing to do, surely I can kill time more profitably offline? Read a book or something? Learn to knit like I keep wanting to do?)

I will say this: I notice that I get the most accomplished when I follow--well, "the beat of my own drummer" is probably too cheesy a way to put it. "Follow my bliss," maybe. Which is not to say that you can just shunt the hard work or the discipline aside. But I notice that the best things have happened to me when I was just doing something because I loved doing it, with no thought of anyone else noticing. I mean, there does come a time (and it's most of the time) when you have responsibilities and things that have to be done. (Someone once defined "dharma" that way--not specifically as "duty," but as "that which must be done." I like that, somehow--the zen sound of it strips away the eat-your-vegetables baggage of "duty.") My point is, though, that I think I've done a pretty good job of following my bliss this year--maybe too good a job, at the expense of the discipline part. So I've got to look for a way to balance bliss and discipline, because I'm coming to realize that I can't function without the former, but I don't get anything done without the latter. So, you know. Something for me to think about.

Comments

[mollywobbles867.livejournal.com]

1. I'm at home with my family and a few family friends. I'm going to snack too much and drink too much.

2. I don't make resolutions either. I am going to go back on the diet I was on before Christmas food invaded my house. And it wasn't really a diet...just a lifestyle change. I do want to find a job in 2009, one that I can see myself doing years from now. Following my bliss sounds good. That was a friend of mine's yearbook quote years ago. Time to do it, I suppose, instead of being afraid all the time.

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

Writing fanfic and rewatching the new Watchmen trailer you linked.

I've pretty much given up new year's resolutions too. It's just a bunch of unrealistic expectations.

[rorqual.livejournal.com]

For the evening - sitting on my backside on the couch, half-watching tv and half-reading, and drinking tea - until about 9pm, when I will get ready and go out to a party with pretty much everyone I'd want to be at a party with - woo hoo!

For the rest - I don't make resolutions either, for similar reasons - having a List, and a Deadline, just makes me want to shirk it ("Just one more cookie! *Then* I'll stop!") It seems to work better to just try and be a little more conscious of what I am doing, and if I want to be doing it ("Do I really want to read more articles online about Brangelina? Well...now that I mention it....")

Water is a good plan. :)

Happy New Year, Cleo!

[demonoflight.livejournal.com]

1) Nothing at all because I have no friends. 2009 looks about as shitty as 2008 from this end.

2) If I say "I'm going to try to lose weight", I'd just be lying to myself.

Happy new year, Cleo.

[lkmadigan.livejournal.com]

Tae kwon do class, dinner, some Doctor Who with my son, an East Coast New Year's Eve ... and zzzzzz ...

Happy New Year!

[gorgeousnerd]

1. I'm playing Rock Band at home with my immediate family. I have a month full of events circulating around my little sister's wedding ahead (and my birthday, too), so a low-key New Year's is exactly what I need.

2. I don't make resolutions, either. I have informal goals that I usually make at the beginning of every month that are more incremental, and one of the first ones I ever made was to let it go if I didn't get what I was "supposed to" done. It's probably the one I've kept the best, too.

Having said that, I want to exercise more, write more, and hover online less. But I've been working on those over the past year already.

Happy New Year's!

[stringertheory.livejournal.com]

I'm going to my first ever New Year's party at a local club that my friend manages. I'll be there for around six hours with the coolest peeps and the best mix of music around. Should be great.

I don't do resolutions, either, for pretty much the same reason. I am going to try to do the 101 in 1001 (more on that to come). We'll see how that goes.

Here's to a better 2008 (and no more broken things :D).

[selannia.livejournal.com]

"...there is always one episode--at the very least!--that I have never seen before."

I was just thinking that 10 minutes before I read your post!

I'm staying in, making Chex Mix and enjoying being in charge of the television remote.

No resolutions. I gave them up for Lent.

[dramedy.livejournal.com]

Currently I'm battling on eBay for some DVDs, and after nine, when this auction closes, I'll probably log off, putter over in my PJs to my friends apartment (she's out of town and left me her keys) and just watch the telly and drink till midnight and then sleep.

[anne-jumps.livejournal.com]

Whoever is that ginger in your icon?

[arielchan.livejournal.com]

1. Going to my favorite bar alone and wishing for adventure to come of it. (I'll probably get my wish)

2. I don't do resolutions.

[istoo.livejournal.com]

Happy new year. :)
Hope you have a great one.

[manekikoneko.livejournal.com]

I am also watching the Twilight Zone marathon. I broke down and looked up the episode guide on Wikipedia, because I kept saying, "Who is that?!" and I couldn't put names to faces (it turned out to be, for instance, James Coburn, or Orson Bean). Of all the TZ marathons I've ever watched, there seem to be the most new-to-me episodes in this one, which is very nice.

I want to start exercising again in 2009. I'd have started already, but I have to wait until I get back to school next week in order to have facilities; in the meanwhile, I've been baking cupcakes. Why not? I don't bake at school, might as well have a final fling.

[thelovely2.livejournal.com]

1. I already celebrated with my family, the old Russian way... Which is a LOT of liquor.

2. I'm pretty set on finishing my book... or at least coming very close. I think this is one resolution I think I can deal with. Oh, and then there's getting through the year at the Uni with good grades.

[thelovely2.livejournal.com]

Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR! Hope you have a good one :)

[trillianastra.livejournal.com]

1. Writing a Torchwood/Stormwatch fanfic and listening to the Chicago soundtrack.

2. I don't really do Resolutions any more. I've tried in the past, and I never keep to them.

[silverblade219.livejournal.com]

1. Nothing really. Just watching tv with my mom, as there is a snow storm outside with extreme wind...

2. I don't usually make New Year Resolutions (though sometimes I would lie when someone asks me and make up something...)

(PS, I recently friended your journal because it is interesting :))

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

We eat fondue, chicken wings, and watch Dick Clark. Also booze.

Tomorrow, we eat pickled onions and black-eyed peas for good luck. Well, I don't. These are my father's stupid traditions. I don't eat beans. I do eat pickled onions, though.

[julietvalcouer.livejournal.com]

1. Wandering the 'net, about to log off and go write.

2. I have goals (in my LJ.) But whether I will accomplish any? We'll see.

[redteekal.livejournal.com]

1. Saw in the New Year hearing the pool party going on next door (what other kind of party is there when it's 86 degrees at midnight?) and watching Season 3 Supernatural.

2. Lifestyle changes I'm making - Drink more water, (I'm ok soda wise - Diet Coke Caffeine free addict), less time on the computer - or should that be just make what time I do spend on the computer far more productive? And develop a regular exercise routine. Step One to all this is to check out this Follow Your Bliss link. Have a good New Year!

[secretnthewings.livejournal.com]

1) Being dragged kicking and screaming out into the streets of San Francisco with my friends, that I may watch the fireworks, freeze my tits off, and hopefully not be vomited upon by strangers.

2) Hmmm...maybe be a little more of an active participant in my own life this year. Yeah, that sounds good.

[gannet-guts.livejournal.com]

1. New Years was yesterday for me, so I went to a friend's party with her boyfriends family, where much rum was had and pool antics happened. I totally would have stayed home and watched a Twilight Zone marathon if we had them.

2. I don't make resolutions much for the same reason as you. I feel guilty if I don't follow through, and while I work well to deadlines, I get that paralysing fear that "it" won't be good enough or I will have accomplished nothing. So, no resolutions for me1

[setauuta.livejournal.com]

1. Game (All) Night. My husband and I (well, more him than me, really) host a weekly board game night on Wednesdays, and since most of the folks have tomorrow off, we'll just keep gaming until people get sick of it or, y'know, pass out mid-turn (which, incidentally, is HILARIOUS to watch, heh). It's also our 5 anniversary of our first date (what, I'm a sap, shut up), so we'll follow our usual ritual of dinner at Black Angus (not the exact one where we had our first date, as that's now a...blood bank, I think? It was a casino for awhile...) before the gaming at the local game store.

(So! Many! Parentheses!)

2. I've got some stuff outlined in my most recent entry. They're more things that I want to get done or need to get done, but will they get done? ...maybe? I joined the 101 in 1001 community that's spotlighted right now for about half an hour, then realized I was panicking at the idea of 1) coming up with 101 goals and 2) having that kind of deadline LOOOOOOOMING over me. Plus, two-thirds of the entries I saw were along the lines of "OMG, I'll totally be, like, 20, when I finish, OMGWTFBBQ!!1!" I'd be 30 at the end. Yeah, not my community.

Long comment is looooong. Sorry! I give you a dancing GIR to make up for it.

[yourradiogeek.livejournal.com]

1. Just gonna chill with hubby tonight. This is probably our second NYE together in seven years, so just hanging with him will be good :)

2. Get a passport. That was my resolution this year, but I traded it for eating better and exercising...the last of which I've gotten out of the habit of doing. Oh well. That's why I never make it a resolution.

[misslucyjane]

I am at home, watching movies. There might be pizza later. I haven't decided yet.

A few years ago someone recommended you frame resolutions in terms of I want... rather than I should... and you'll be much more likely to keep them. So there will be I wants. Tomorrow, though.

[potatotree.livejournal.com]

1) Today is my 21st birthday, so whatever it is, I'm not going to remember in the morning. HOLLA.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Heeeeee. Happy birthday!

[twilightbloom.livejournal.com]

1. I've been sick the last two nights. I've been watching a marathon of Project Runway and have a couple movies. I will watch the ball drop at midnight.

2. My resolution is to rid toxic people out of my life. And to continue on the good growth process I have going.