New Year's Resolutions

What do you want out of life? That's what new year's resolutions are really about, right? With the first day of 2016 rapidly approaching, I take a good, hard look at what I'd like to change about myself, as well as what's important. Actually, fuck that. Here's a stupid list of things that I'd like to do during the thirty-first year of my life.

1. Spend more time drinking better beer. I was raised on the High Life, and I still drink it religiously, and just like religion, I drink it more because I've always drank it rather than because I truly believe in it. I don't want to turn into one of those beer snobs, I just don't want the majority of the beer I drink to be High Life, Miller Lite, or Pabst. This resolution sounds doable.

2. Stop wasting time on the Internet. Jesus, this one is going to be difficult. Every time I click a link to Cracked, Fangraphs, or Rock Paper Shotgun, I get a little dopamine fix. I can spend hours shifting between a handful of websites, not really reading anything, just scanning the pages, my ADD doing its thing. What the hell happened to our brains? Somebody ought to go back in time and assassinate Al Gore, terminator-style.

3. Get back in touch with my creative side. It's been ages since I wrote a song, or completed a story. Apophenia sits on the back burner, waiting for 2016 to arrive so that I can try to push it to literary agents. Since I finished it, I haven't started on a real project. My horror story Wolf wrote itself into a hole. There have been a few short stories and poems, but nothing really substantial. Is it important that I write? I know it is. It has nothing to do with publishing a book or developing an audience. It's about trying to capture how life really is, for this one person, during this particular time. Without art, we are all just automatons going through the motions.

4. Break the two-twenty barrier. And do it without becoming a huge lard ass, or getting a dad-bod.

5. Get my dog Napoleon a new hair cut. Little guy needs his tail fur recrimped.

6. Destroy the deer infestation that threatens my livelihood and my future, no matter the costs.

7. Reestablish that the price truly is right.

8. Never watch another Adam Sandler movie again, unless someone is pointing a gun at my head.

9. Start a religious cult with the dual purpose of taking over the world and making as much money as possible.

10. Discover the meaning of life. Wait, I already did that. You're supposed to procreate, therefore spreading your genetic material, and then you are free to check out. Done!

11. Make the Pointless Podcast the most popular thing on Youtube. I guess I'm going to have to start inserting laughing cats and/or more boobies into my audio-only podcast.

12. Complete The Brothers Karamazov.

13. Finish my upstairs bathroom.

14. Get a new cat, one that doesn't shit in the house.

15. Think of a manly-man's name, one that goes well with Sauerhage.

16. Give the Goon a life that's worth living, the poor bastard.

I give up. That's all I got.