Wednesday, January 04, 2006
I have been musing over the question of New Year's Resolutions. Here are some preliminary ones I've been thinking of:
1. Be more physically affectionate. I am so hungry for physical affection and yet so susceptible to profound humiliation. This means that I am not nearly as touchy-feely as others are to me, and as I would like to be to others. I probably come across as quite stiff and unfriendly. So one of my resolutions is actually to kiss someone who goes to kiss me, rather than just offering my cheek or turning it into a hug instead.
2. Get my career shit together. It is beginning to dawn on me that I am never going to be financially secure in the lifestyle I have now. So in 2006, I have two choices. Do I refuse to compromise, make a proper go at earning a living doing the sort of jobs I love, and possibly end up in an even worse financial predicament? Or do I crumble and get a'proper' job that I hate, but that pays the bills and looks good on a CV? After all, it's only recently that Westerners began to believe the idea that work has to fulfil you. Before that, people had no illusions and they did their crap jobs because that's just what work was meant to be: crap.
I mean, I had a job interview today for a media and communications position at a large and well-known professional association. It wouldn't be particularly exciting work, and I doubt I'd have fun with my co-workers the way I have in the past. There are no lunch spots nearby. And I certainly wouldn't have time for the creative and intellectual endeavours I've always enjoyed. I walked away from the interview feeling as though I'd been released from prison. But it would be a Grown-Up Job. And I would be an idiot to refuse if it were offered to me.
3. Start a band or do something else musical. For a while I have been toying with a live show based around my bodily function concept band, Piss Shit & Vomit. I just haven't had the money to do it. And, as most people would know, I love ridiculous concept band ideas. My housemate Natalya has vowed to record a Gregorian chant album of girl-pop covers, my favourite being "Crazy in Love". There is also the magazine band. Surprisingly, Jeremy was not up for the Jewish supergroup The Roaring Morties, in which he got to be the token goy. So we'll have to think up something else. It would be a shame to waste our considerable collective musical talent.
4. Don't let my mother's bourgeois aspirations for me dictate my happiness. This is my resolution every year; and every year I fail and am unhappy because I let my mother get to me. Penny thinks my inner conflict over this is the source of my unhappiness: on one level I reject the idea of being bourgeois; but I also want to please my mother, and she really just has my future economic security at heart. And after all, she has had many more years to inculcate me than I have had to form my own opinions.
5. Find someone to love who loves me back. This is also my resolution every year, and its failure every year makes me even more unhappy than my failure to please my mother. In 2005, I think I came closer than ever and was also further than ever. I am trying to imagine new kinds of relationships beyond the lame "platonic/sexual" binary, and I'm trying not to approach people cynically. I want to think the best of people. Oh, I really hope this works out. I don't want to be hurt again.
1. Be more physically affectionate. I am so hungry for physical affection and yet so susceptible to profound humiliation. This means that I am not nearly as touchy-feely as others are to me, and as I would like to be to others. I probably come across as quite stiff and unfriendly. So one of my resolutions is actually to kiss someone who goes to kiss me, rather than just offering my cheek or turning it into a hug instead.
2. Get my career shit together. It is beginning to dawn on me that I am never going to be financially secure in the lifestyle I have now. So in 2006, I have two choices. Do I refuse to compromise, make a proper go at earning a living doing the sort of jobs I love, and possibly end up in an even worse financial predicament? Or do I crumble and get a'proper' job that I hate, but that pays the bills and looks good on a CV? After all, it's only recently that Westerners began to believe the idea that work has to fulfil you. Before that, people had no illusions and they did their crap jobs because that's just what work was meant to be: crap.
I mean, I had a job interview today for a media and communications position at a large and well-known professional association. It wouldn't be particularly exciting work, and I doubt I'd have fun with my co-workers the way I have in the past. There are no lunch spots nearby. And I certainly wouldn't have time for the creative and intellectual endeavours I've always enjoyed. I walked away from the interview feeling as though I'd been released from prison. But it would be a Grown-Up Job. And I would be an idiot to refuse if it were offered to me.
3. Start a band or do something else musical. For a while I have been toying with a live show based around my bodily function concept band, Piss Shit & Vomit. I just haven't had the money to do it. And, as most people would know, I love ridiculous concept band ideas. My housemate Natalya has vowed to record a Gregorian chant album of girl-pop covers, my favourite being "Crazy in Love". There is also the magazine band. Surprisingly, Jeremy was not up for the Jewish supergroup The Roaring Morties, in which he got to be the token goy. So we'll have to think up something else. It would be a shame to waste our considerable collective musical talent.
4. Don't let my mother's bourgeois aspirations for me dictate my happiness. This is my resolution every year; and every year I fail and am unhappy because I let my mother get to me. Penny thinks my inner conflict over this is the source of my unhappiness: on one level I reject the idea of being bourgeois; but I also want to please my mother, and she really just has my future economic security at heart. And after all, she has had many more years to inculcate me than I have had to form my own opinions.
5. Find someone to love who loves me back. This is also my resolution every year, and its failure every year makes me even more unhappy than my failure to please my mother. In 2005, I think I came closer than ever and was also further than ever. I am trying to imagine new kinds of relationships beyond the lame "platonic/sexual" binary, and I'm trying not to approach people cynically. I want to think the best of people. Oh, I really hope this works out. I don't want to be hurt again.
