those who were seen dancing

Do you make resolutions or set goals for the year at some point each year? And if so, what do you or the world gain from that process?

I've gone a long time without setting any kind of Gregorian new year resolution. Mostly I think that tradition results in pretty self-absorbed goals, as if there's a standard menu we tend to choose from, you know: "lose x pounds", "run marathon", "quit smoking" and the occasional "give to charity". They're generally about making individuals feel goal-oriented, with some imagined happy future in mind. They turn evil, too, when people but aside the goals they weren't all that passionate about and then berate themselves for "failing".

Not that resolutions can't be broader-reaching, or that they can't mix altruism and feeling good about oneself. The conventional ones, though, really do trend towards me me me me. I feel like they cross a line between a desire for goodness and just overwhelming, grasping desire for the future, for something more, something that once had will just translate into another more.

For awhile, I set goals each year around my birthday, which is frankly the same thing but with less recrimination. Still pretty selfish. Still very imaginary-future-oriented. I'm trying to shift my thinking towards things I want to hold, or pay attention to, without getting all spun up about some projected outcome. Like, give everything to what I'm doing right now (including forgetting to give everything), or seeing people more clearly or more gently.

I'm curious what others do, mostly because you know, you're interesting and I wonder what you think. So, what do you think?

A TWOP recap of a True Blood episode I haven't yet seen offered me exactly the perspective I needed tonight.

I love this culture. This living in a place and time where people root out the allegory in what could be simple melodramatic entertainment.

My self-imposed coaching assignment for this week is to try out a daily spiritual/connectedness/whatever you want to call it practice that works for me. It's shaping into a small, simple collection of physical acts (being on the porch and the air is a big one, as is the pure physical practice of morning warmup), a moving but seated meditation that's sortof offering to the world, and a reading I do each day at the office to connect work to something deeper.

It made me curious, if you'll share: what are your personal practices? What do they mean to you?

Hey! Apparently I'm painting again [See user icon on this post. My style continues in a primary-school expressionist wanky self-portrait vein, as you'll see. It's the next big thing.].

I haven't painted in at least a year. Or, well... six months if you count the painting of the art that is now my tattoo.

Also, one person in the entire world believes that I can be butch. Which is related to this because I? Am rocking the paint-covered overalls and flannel shirt look tonight. TOTALLY BUTCH. I swear. STOP LAUGHING. I'm tough and arty, dammit.

I feel like everyone loves me today!

Everywhere I go, there's no line and people are smiling. Work was totally chill (if sadly lacking in Dickensian prose). There was no one in the Taco Bell (hangover food, though I'm not exactly hung over) drive-thru at lunch! In Short Pump! I got into and out of a Lowe's filled with happy people in about 3 minutes. An entire line of people patiently waited for me when I got the wrong thank you card for my colleague and had to go pick out another. I just happened to have cash on hand as I was driving down Broad St by VCU, so I got to stop at Aladdin (which was emitting the yummiest smell ever). They tried to get me to stay, and when I didn't, they gave me free cake.

And, guess what?! To the Earth will be TWO next Monday! We're a toddler.

I called The Ex yesterday to wish him happiness with the whole getting married thing. As I hung up I said "I love you" without even thinking about it. And you know, I totally meant it. You know, in the sense that love is a verb and a choice; I want his life to be happy and challenging and full.

This is, for me, the magic of singleness. I don't know if I was too young, too afraid, too dead or what - but I really didn't get this idea of love, especially not in the little ways people change you. And now I'm all adobe car, bumped and reshaped by the people and things that I run into. I probably was before, too - just didn't know enough to be glad of it.

I can't really put into words why I'm still so much more absorbed by the events of Pennsic than by the events of my life here now this week, but it's there somewhere in a sense of love/loved from the soles of my feet to somewhere just beyond my head.