01 January 2007

Watson, Other Ear!

So, last night was surely my quietest New Year's ever, but no harm there.

I'm not normally inclined towards to making of resolutions - it's been more than a decade since I've made one, after all. I think that, like promises, they're best not made, as that way they can't be broken. I don't break promises. I have a lot of failings, but that's not one of them; more than fourteen years having passed since I've broken a promise, I think my conscience is pretty clear on that front.

Still, for the craic, and with a view of giving this year some direction, though not starting for a week, as there are things to be done in the meantime, I reckon it's fair enough for me set out with a few New Year aspirations. Well, no, aspirations is a bit of weedy word. How about targets? Or missions? Anyway, here goes, in no particular order:

1. Finish That Which Must Not Be Named.
2. Learn to drive, with a view to getting my license by the summer.
3. Don't let the weather stop me from cycling.
4. Pray more, and try to go to the odd weekday mass again.
5. Return to Greece, visiting Marathon, Thermopylae, and Plataea, and watching the sun set from the Areopagus again.
6. Read The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Moby Dick, Don Quixote, Foucault's Pendulum, and the Jane Austen, Dashiel Hammett, James Branch Cabell, P.G. Wodehouse, Charles Dickens, and Fritz Leiber books that wonder why I continually negelect them.
7. Draw again, and complete a 24-Hour Comic.
8. Set foot on at least one new continent, and maybe climb a mountain, fire a rifle, or fly in a plane flown by a friend while I'm at it.
9. Finish the war, and win, at whatever cost, because - as already established -- I'm Batman.
10. Send one of my Christmas cards to everyone on my list.
11. Make a fresh start, and remember that the shortest way to Tara is via Holyhead.
12. Swim, though not as far as Holyhead.

Should be a doddle, eh? Realistically, though, I reckon if I manage even a few of them -- especially the first one! -- I'll have done pretty well.

Happy New Year.
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