New Year

The end of the year is particularly a new beginning for me because it is not only the start of a new calendar year, but also because my birthday is at the end of the year. Inconveniently surrounded by holiday festivities, it does nonetheless accentuate the sense of a new beginning.

I have mentioned the big life lists? I am working on my list for this year.

1. Visit three foreign countries. (Scotland in the spring will be the first one.)

2. Take a pottery class, begin sculpting again.

3. Fit into some unrealistically smaller size of clothing. You know, the sort of size that leaves people saying, "Oh, dear. Where did she go?" when one turns sideways.

4. Write a book. Not a published work. Just something that long. Why do I blog? Because my average writing endeavor is the length of a blog. It's an attention span thing.

5. Simplify my life. i.e. less stuff. Fewer bills/debts. Fewer worries. Fewer irritating people. The people will, no doubt, be the trickiest to dispose of. Does anyone know the trick with acid and a bathtub? I've heard it's effective.

6. Finish reading everything on my "Seriously if you're going to keep thinking you are an intelligent, evolved individual then you must read these books" book list. This would be easier if I stopped adding to the list. At least long enough to allow myself to catch up a bit.

7. Take yoga or learn to meditate or some such thing and become a more centered individual. I'm very scattered. If my thoughts had physical manifestation they would appear as odd little orbs buzzing to and fro about my head and periodically zipping off into oblivion. Makes it very tricky to get anything done.

8. Write a will (I've been meaning to do this for YEARS) and get life insurance. It's very irresponsible to die and leave everyone else to clean up your mess. Not that I intend to die, but from what I remember of my biology classes, it appears to be inevitable that it will happen at some point. That being the case, I'd like to plan the party.

9. Take more risks (...preferably after writing the will and getting life insurance.)

10. Complete a sufficient number of paintings to constitute a reasonable body of work to show in a gallery. And then attempt to do just that.

So there's my list. I'll keep updating it as the year goes on and hopefully cross lots of things off. Except the disposing of irritating people part. Because that would be considered evidence.