2012 Goals, Short List Edition

So I’ve finally stopped hacking like Chekhov and popping Mucinex as if I’m Burroughs popping hash. Which is a relief, because if I added one more simile to that terrible chest cold, I’d've exploded from sheer reference.

Good morning! We made it into 2012. (Insert obligatory Ancient Mayan Prophecy joke here.) Once again I survived the holidays, a feat made easier by the avoidance of vast tracts of People Who Stress Me Out. Oh, and by the application of said vast tracts of time to hanging out with the kids and the dog. Best therapy around.

I suppose it’s time for the yearly list of Goals Instead Of Resolutions. I like “goals” much better; it sounds achievable and more active than “resolutions.” I can “resolve” just about anything, and escape actual implementation. (Committees and office work taught me that.) Goals, though, somewhat demand to be broken into small achievable bits, then hammered relentlessly until dead and tossed into the pile of “Done!”

This perhaps says a lot about my personality.

I have a very short list of goals for 2012. Here it is:

* Continue my habit of reading one poem per day
* Find a new historical era to research for fun
* Learn to say “It makes me tired,” and move on
* Make all my deadlines for contracted books
* Attend at least one Krav Maga class
* Keep running and climbing
* Get that zombie cowboy trunk novel into reasonable first-draft shape
* Work on the second Steelflower book (Shh! You didn’t hear this one…)
* Be as decent as I can every day, all day
* Accept that the cat will try to sleep on my hands while I am typing, and get over it

There it is. That’s it. I can’t figure out whether I’m being realistic or lazy. I like to think keeping the goals small and pretty-much-achievable saves me from a death-spiral of guilt and self-recrimination down the road. I mean, because adding another death spiral to my life has been done so many times. It’s getting boring.

And now it’s time for me to suit up and take Miss B for a run. She has been expressing, in several long-suffering sighs and small whines, her need for some damn action instead of just sitting around typing. Silly puppy.

Over and out.

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