Looking back at 2007: What have I achieved? Um…

Well, according to my resolutions… 

Never drink aga… Nah.

Yes, this one was a joke. I make funny. Ha ha. Yes.

Take full responsibility for personal finances, which include, but are not limited to, an enormous student debt, excessive food expenditures, and current lack of freelance jobs. No more waiting to be rescued by people who have no interest in rescuing me.

I’d say I did OK in this regard. Didn’t mean that I didn’t ask to be rescued at all. Thank you, Anna, for being my friend and saving my bum.

Do at least twenty freelance assignments each season.

Dismal failure in terms of quantity. But it’s the quality that counts. Right?… Right?

Finish the writing project I started. No more nancying about due “artistic insecurity” and other pointless crap. I am in charge of my own career. I and no other.

Big project remains unfinished, but lots of little ones have been polished off, and will be sent on their merry way into various slush-piles in 2008. So it’s not all as horrible as it may look.

Stop switching directions each time a new writing style beckons seductively.

Score.

Stop being so damn afraid of meeting new people. Case in point: Last night I was pretty much dead-set against going to the party with the actors: “Oh they won’t like me, oh I’ll have to impress them, oh it will be terrible.” I’ve had the best damn New Year’s Eve in the entire history of my pathetic little life, surrounded by strangers. If I had stayed within the safety net of people well-known to me, I would have watched cheap pop shows on the television and gone to bed, stuffed and stiff-jointed and bored, around 3 a.m. I have, as of now, seen the light.

I am now required to meet new people all the time. Score score score.

Smile each time the alarm wakes me up in the morning. Smile and say, “thank you, God, for allowing me to take a job which humbles me greatly.”

I switched jobs. The previous one did teach me a lot. You can’t argue with experience: good, bad, and in-between (and most of life’s experience seems to be in-between).

Never allow myself to run out of seamed stockings, or live without a good pair of pumps.

A dismal failure on that account. A travesty, really, because seamed stockings, especially when worn with very conservative clothes, make me happy. I did invest in a really good set of heated curlers, so HA! As for pumps, having been unable to find a good pair, I have consoled myself with all manner of jeweled flats. Will 2008 finally be the year for pumps? I think so, yes.

Take more walks.

A roaring success on that account. Spending months at a time in Kiev certainly helped, in that regard. Also, now that the weather in the Gulf is more or less normal, am succeeding rather nicely here too.

Learn to cook.

I am not yet a Cook, but have graduated to being the Cook’s Lovely Assistant. I know how to make mulled wine now too. Don’t laugh.

Be good. Be good. Be good.

I’ve been good 2/3’s of the time. Not a bad record, I would say. A record that stands to be improved in 2008, after all,

I am a Rat, and next year is My Year.

Hear me squeak!