Resolutions

Based on the sorry way in which 2006 went. Boy am I glad that farking year is over.

Never drink aga… Nah.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.Do at least twenty freelance assignments each season.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.Stop switching directions each time a new writing style beckons seductively.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.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.”Never allow myself to run out of seamed stockings, or live without a good pair of pumps.Take more walks.Learn to cook.Be good. Be good. Be good.

In case you’re wondering

The New Year is a much, much bigger deal here than Christmas (which the Catholics and the Protestants celebrate on the 25th of December, and the Eastern Orthodox on the 7th of January, by the way). Christmas is more reserved – aimed solely toward spiritual reflection and the singing of hymns and the like.

The New Year is the time to give presents (or wait for Father Frost and his comely, sparkling Snow Maiden to drop them in your lap), see friends and family, and eat, eat, and eat. And drink. And be merry. So Merry New Year, actually. That sounds more appropriate than Happy New Year, if you’re here, that is.

There are fireworks already

My cousin is dragging me to a party at her theater after midnight, which may go well, or may not, depending on whether or not a bunch of drunk kids will poke their fingers at me and say “dirty American,” or mercifully pretend I am not there if they’re only half drunk.

It’s only when I leave the relatively warm, safe circles of my family do I begin to see how problematic my position is in relation to my hometown and home country.  And I began to understand this, funnily enough, well before I ever decided to become an American citizen.

There are little snow-grains blowing in the wind, and the cat is purring, and the city is noisy and tense all around me, and I think about the grave of my other cousin, in the darkness, where there’s only the wind in the trees, not far away from here. If the cemeteries were safe, I would have liked to spend New Year’s Eve there, with candles for light and vodka for warmth.

And who knows, who knows, what kind of year 2007 will be? Let’s hope it’s a good one, and all that.

Blogstroll Before Bed

Ali Eteraz continues to play the pheonix (that’s his new site, in case you’re wondering). And he makes appearances on the airwaves now too.

Litbrit on Shakespeare’s Sister has more on Saddam’s imminent demise and what it ought to mean for Americans.

Litlove, on the other hand, is spoiling us with her favourite reads of 2006. Of course, I think that Tom Wolfe has gone senile and I Am Charlotte Simmons is a pile of sexist rubbish, but it’s always refreshing to read a different take on it.

Hedonistic Pleasureseeker celebrated National Drunk Blogging Day (I didn’t try – it would have probably turned out into a National Drunk, Miserable, and Drooling Day, considering my awful mood) in style.

Solnushka recently did something very interesting: She compared Russian and British drinking cultures.

And, for dessert, here’s Wolcott: doing what he does best, being Wolcott.