2010: Living in the Future

From The Desk Of: Joel

Happy New Year's! Robyn and I got back from a rather epic holiday adventure on the East Coast, and have had a rather nice day spent running errands and trying to endure the bitter and uncommon cold here in Urbana, Illinois. (A very big thanks to everyone who let us crash on their couches, by the way!) I go back to work tomorrow, and get to have more adventures chasing the darling children around the room.

When I was a kid, I used to despise New Year's because of the whole "New Year's Resolutions" thing. My attitude towards the situation was heavily influenced - some may say inspired - by Calvin's belief that the world should change to fit my needs, not the other way around. I'm perfect just the way I am; if other people didn't agree, then that sounded like their problem (not to mention, shortsightedness!). But as I've grown older, more mature, larger assed, I've come to see what everybody's been talking about all these years!

Now, I happily embrace the holiday as a chance to take part in the time-worn tradition of refashioning one's self anyway you choose! It doesn't matter how often you've failed in the past, or how completely against your nature your New Year's Resolution happens to be, you can still accomplish anything if you but set your mind to it!

So, with that in mind, here a few of my resolutions for 2010:

1) Write. Write every day, whether in a journal, on a blog, a cocktail napkin, whether it's the deepest insight ever known to mankind or just flat-out copying out of the phone book. But, yes, write every day.

2) Get better at correspondence. This is one of those resolutions that I've made year in and year out and have never come close to fulfilling, but, then again, that's another wonderful thing about New Year's, isn't it? Still, I am and always have been terrible at responding in any timely fashion to letters, e-mails, facebook messages, telegrams, homing pigeons, whatever. If you are one of those many people who have written me in the past several weeks, months, or years, and have never received a reply, I am terribly sorry. I resolve to respond.

3) One word: