1.02.06: I Will Not Rub the Narwhal ‹ Blog

The reason of a resolution is more to be considered than the resolution itself.
Sir John Holt

I Will Not Rub the Narwhal

January 2, 2006

You know how most families like to label their members by interest? For instance: Aunt Mabel is the Cat Person, so you know you can get her anything with kittens on it; Uncle Joe’s a Car Guy, so you can get him a bag of Hot Wheels and a gift certificate to his favorite auto body shop; yadda yadda yadda, so on, so forth. Well, apparently I’m now Shipwreck Girl.

I got six — count ’em, six — shipwreck books on everything from ocean liners to the Great Lakes. As each of my relatives handed me book after huge book, each filled with depictions of death and grim stories of disaster, they all said the same thing: “We saw this in the bookstore and thought immediately of you!” My husband even pointed out the morbidly humorous chapter titles in the Great Lakes book he got me. Of course, I’m totally loving the carnage. Our digital camera is full of pictures of me looking absolutely gleeful as I pull the wrapping off yet another book of horrors. (Oh, and props to my husband for sitting the Smallest In-Law on his knee and showing her the ghastly engravings in the book my in-laws got me. “It’s like Bob the Builder, kid, only in reverse. Can we fix it? No we can’t! Ship is sinking! Now we die!” The student has surpassed the teacher…)

2006 came in with plenty of bangs, as our neighbors across the street insisted on shooting off fireworks at midnight. Those neighbors set off fireworks for every holiday — major, minor, Christian, Jewish, Hare Krishna, whatever. Of course, the loud noises triggered a flashback to the horrors of Sarajevo, and I promptly took shelter under the coffee table, screaming for my beloved diary Mimi. It took my husband half an hour to coax me out, after finally proving to me that it wasn’t my flashback, it was some girl named Zlata’s. (Turns out my diary isn’t Mimi, it’s Muumuu. Go figure.)

Loud noises and war-torn cities aside, it’s time to look back on 2005 and look forward to 2006 — preferably not at the same time, as that leads to crossed eyes. And so, the year in review…

2005 was a year of… um… stuff. It was a year of homework assignments, of puzzling over style guides and frothing over margins. It was a year of work — lots of work, as I got my first online projects and acquired the skills necessary to start my own business. It was a year of remarkable cheerfulness, as I remained relatively undepressed for the entire twelve months. Most of all — and I hate to go all Hallmark Channel on you, but it has to be said — it was a year of self-discovery. In the past twelve months, I managed (without even really trying) to discover my true talents and joys and accept myself for who I am — a goofy, giddy, clever character who, despite all her contradictory traits, is still one of the most amusing, interesting, and caring people out there. (Yes, I said caring — just because I like reading about epic disasters doesn’t mean I won’t hold you while you cry.) Not only am I liking myself a whole lot more, I’m liking other people, too — I’ve been far more sociable, online and off, than I’ve been in a long time. (Still doesn’t mean I won’t snap photos of you when your ship’s going down, though.)

So now a good year has ended, and another year stretches out before me like a giant Slip N’ Slide — a Slip N’ Slide tacked firmly to the verdant lawn of the Future, clear of the rocks of Error and Despair and well-wetted with the water of Hope, which sprays in a sunlit arc from the sprinkler of Positive Thinking. Let’s just hope that I’m not wearing the two-piece swimsuit of Personal Doubt, which has a tendency to cling to me when I don’t need it and slip right off when I do.

I did write out a list of New Year’s resolutions yesterday, but since I’m insanely paranoid and am firmly convinced that government agents sneak into my apartment and go through my papers when I’m asleep, I wrote it in my Special Romynian Top-Secret Code, which is a combination of Morse code, backwards writing, random epithets, and my own special alpha-numeric substitution. (I wish I were kidding, but I’m not.) Problem is, I can’t translate the damn thing back now that I’m done writing it. As far as I can tell, my resolutions for the new year are: