A couple of years ago, I started posting resolutions and goals on my blog about which I would report every month or so for the first few months of the year, after which I would forget about them entirely and never mention them again.  This year, 2009, was the first year that I got into a really strong habit of posting updates to my resolutions…even if that update was to state that I was giving up on them or failing.  Well, I’m nothing if not passionate about self-improvement.  (Shut up.  Just keep your smart-aleck comments to yourself.)  I closed down my resolutions last month due to my completion, closing, or utter failure on each of the 10 resolutions upon which I had decided. 

I don’t see the need to wait until January 1st to come up with my next list of resolutions, however.  All resolutions are is a way of codifying the fact that you, as a person, are not okay with yourself as you are.  And I’ve never been accused (to my face anyway) of having a self-image that is too positive.  Without something official to work on, I’m sure I’ll just stay around the house all day and night, eating bon bons and watchin’ my stories.  ("Wesley, go get daddy his Ben & Jerry’s container.  I don’t wanna miss the Last Chance Workout.")

So, in no particular order, here are the resolutions which I will work on between now and the end of 2010 (or until I give up, whichever comes first.)

1) Learn Spanish

People think that the Chinese or the Japanese are the ones who will be taking over America when the entire government collapses under the massive debt, inefficient bureaucracy, and inept leadership in the next ten years.  This is not the case.  The United States will be taken over by Mexicans.  They’ve been hiding sleeper agents (disguised as illegal immigrants) all around the country for decades.  And you know how they’ll take us over?  Food.  The Mexicans have been controlling our food sources for years and years.  We think they’re just picking the apples and running the fry station at Jack-In-The-Box, but they’ve secretly been injecting mind-controlling drugs into our food chain since the late 30′s.  And I for one want to be ready when our Latino overlords descend on the country to pay us back for Speedy Gonzales cartoons.  That’s why I’m going to learn/re-learn Spanish this year.  The goals is to make it through all three courses of Rosetta Stone Spanish.

2) Experience New Things

Once you become an adult and start working in the corporate world, it becomes increasingly difficult to depart from your rut of daily activity to expand your horizons and enrich your life.  And the older I get, the less willing I find myself to try new things.  So this year, I want to have at least one new experience a month.  Some of these things may be things that I have always wanted to do.  Some may be things that I’m fairly certain I won’t like.  Some will be things that I’ve been taught my whole life are stupid and should never be done.  I have a few things planned that I want to do or try, and I’m going to leave a lot up to spontaneity.  It should be fun.  And possibly disastrous.

3) Tap, Tap, Tap My Troubles Away

I love to tap dance.  Love, love, love it.  It was the first dance class I ever took, and one of the only ones I’ve ever enjoyed.  (I’m not a great dancer.)  I T.A.’d a tap class when I was in college.  I’ve tapped in several shows, including Crazy for You, and the mother of all tap shows, 42nd Street.  I haven’t put on tap shoes since I retired from performing, and it’s one of the only things about it that I miss.  Seattle is a surprisingly solid tap town, and in January, I’d like to start taking a weekly tap dance class.  Doing so will help in multiple ways: I will have a chance to be social and meet new people, I will get exercise, I will get to do something I love to do for fun and not for work, and I will get to be one step closer to my ultimate goal of being an old-timey black song and dance man…like Gregory Heinz, but less dead.

4) Pay off those DAMN credit cards

I started off 2009 with six credit cards.  I paid of five of them, and closed two, leaving me with three zero-balance cards, and one card with a remaining balance.  Then I started a business and charged up several thousand dollars worth of equipment for said business, including a $950 microphone, a $1700 CD duplication system, websites, business licenses, etc.  And I bought a bunch of home decorating stuff as well.  So now I have four cards…two are zero balance, one has a $2,200 balance on a $2,500 credit limit, and the other has a $4,950 balance on a $5,500 credit limit.  This is the year.  On Monday, I’m closing out the two zero balance cards, credit rating be damned.  I don’t need the temptation.  Then I’m working on the lower balance card, which I will close as soon as I get it paid off.  The last card will take me a while, but I’d really like 2010 to be the year that I get out of and STAY out of credit card debt.

5) Be More Social

I have spent so much of my life alone trying to hide from the guilt of my life that I’ve isolated myself from pretty much everyone.  This is the year of change for that.  This will tie in closely with #2, as being more social will get me out and doing more of the new things that I would never do by myself.  I’m hoping that doing so will also help me find some more friends, or perhaps, some more-than friends, if you catch my drift.

6) Write Music

I need to get back to writing music.  Again, with the whole Gay/Mormon/Failure/Unhappy/Hiding Myself game that I’ve been playing for the last several years, it’s no wonder I’ve stopped writing songs.  How can I possibly write any songs that are honest and speak to what’s going on in my heart and in my life, if I’m worried about how various groups are going to react, or worrying about how to reword what I really want to say so it won’t give away more than I really want it to.  The self-censorship process consistently deals death and destruction to creativity.  I can’t write the songs about faith anymore, because I don’t have it.  I can’t write songs about losing my faith because I’ve got to put on this act of being the good little boy.  Well, now that the situation has changed, those restrictions no longer apply.  My goal for this year is to write at least four new songs, and produce them to at least solid demo stage. 

7) Get in Shape

I’m really sick of being doughy and lumpy.  I’ve come to peace with the fact that I’ll never be one of the beautiful people, and that if anyone ever falls in love with me, it will be because of my personality, my brain, and my abilities, with physical appearance being a fairly distant fourth.  That being said, I just don’t feel healthy anymore.  I eat too much junk food, too much fast food, and too much food in general.  I sit in front of a computer all day, then I come home and either sit in front of the computer or in front of the TV.  I eat ice cream as though failing to eat it will cause a slow, agonizing death.  I want to feel healthy again.  I want to be able to walk up two flights of stairs without getting out of breath.  I don’t need to be buff and smoking hot (although I won’t complain if it happens by accident), but I don’t want to get heartburn whenever I lie down.

8) Get Luke Trained for Therapy Work

I’ve been planning on doing this since before I picked up my puppy from the breeder.  I want Luke to do therapy work at nursing homes or hospitals.  He loves people so much, I just need to get him trained.  Plus, doing this will help me with…

9) Be More Giving

Let’s face it.  I’m a selfish ass.  EVERYTHING I do, I do for me.  It’s one of the unfortunate side-effects of being alone all the time.  When you’re isolated from your fellow men, you forget that other people have needs.  Instead, I just spend all my time and money thinking about me: My job, My new business, My food, My leisure time, etc.  I’ve spent the last two years getting an MBA.  I’ve spent all of my time since then working on getting this new business off the ground.  But I need to be more giving with myself and with my money.  One of my co-workers asked me if I’d be interested in donating to a charitable cause, and so I wrote a check for an amount that seemed reasonable.  I mean, I’ve spent easily that much on dinners at nice restaurants before.  I’ve spent significantly more than that on clothing.  But you’d have though I had donated a kidney with the response I got back.  It didn’t seem like that big of a deal to me, but it was a huge deal to my co-worker, and I later realized, to the people that the donation was helping.  I really have been blessed with a lot–not that you’d be able to tell with the way I bitch and moan on my blog.  It’s time to give a little more.  Maybe, if I can even get into shape (see #7) I can do a run for charity or something.

10) Get to Bed Earlier

As I type this, it is 12:50 AM.  In fact, nearly every blog post I write ends up hitting the internets well after midnight.  I do most of my best writing late at night when everything around me is quiet.  Unfortunately, I also get up every morning at 8AM to go to work.  I’ve been operating on between 5-7 hours of sleep a night for the last two and a half years.  It’s got to stop.  I have some ideas on how I can affect this change, and surprisingly, they involve spending more time relaxing.  I’m sure I’ll talk about this more later, but it’s late, and I need to get to bed.  (I’m starting today!)

11) Open Ended…

I’ve come up with 10 things upon which I would like to improve this next 14 months.  But I’m sure that these aren’t going to be all that I want to work on during that time.  I am also mulling the idea that, regardless of the date, I will always have 10 items on my resolutions list.   So, as I close a resolution, whether by success or failure, or by lack of continuing interest, there will always be a list to work from.  I’m not sure if I like that idea, or the idea of marking things off my list as I complete them until everything is done.  I’ll need to think on’t. 

Until December 1st, then.  Now it’s bed time.

Well, the summer will be winding to a close shortly, and the year is more than half over.  I’ve have a bit of a change in perspective over the last couple of months, and some of the things that I thought were going to be important to me, no longer are.  As a result, I have closed out a couple of my long-standing resolutions, not because they are completed, but because I just don’t care about them any more. 

1. Graduate with a 4.0 GPA – COMPLETE

2. Make it through the Hal Leonard Guitar Method Books 1-3- COMPLETE

3.  Buy a pair of 32-waist jeans and be able to button them

I was doing pretty well on this for a couple of weeks.  I lost nearly six pounds in two weeks, then gained five pounds in a week, then lost three.  Minor progress, but not as much as I would like.  It was driven home recently, however, that I really want to get a slightly more, shall we say, defined body back.  During our insane hot spell, I went out to the lake and dove in off the dock.  (Funnily enough, Luke didn’t know what to do when I dove into the water.  Despite me treading water and calling for him to come into the lake he just stood on the dock pacing back and forth and whining. )  After I climbed out of the lake, I was walking back to where I put my shirt and Luke’s leash, and I was passed on the dock by my neighbor who is a personal trainer.  He has the kind of body that makes people like me want to slit their wrists, then hang themselves from the rafters.  Even if I were to spend six hours a day in the gym for the rest of my life, I’d never look like this guy, and I’m okay with that, but I realized that I really hate looking the way I do right now.  It’s all that sitting at the computer that my life has become.  So despite my fast food foray of the week (I ate out every day, because it was WAAAAY too hot to cook) and the peach pie that I absolutely had to make today since peach season is only about three days long, I’m heading back to the diet again.

4. Spend less than an average of $50/month on dining out. - CLOSED

5. Cut grocery budget from $400/month to $300/month. - CLOSED

New this month, I have decided to close this resolution. I am making a substantial amount of money more now than I was at the beginning of the year (thanks to Resolution 1), and I have discovered that shopping healthily and shopping cheaply rarely fit together well.  I think I have proven that I can do this, and now that I’ve proven I can, I’m choosing not to.   Is that a cop out?  Do I really even care? Film at 11.

6.  Find a new job – COMPLETE

7. Make it through the whole year without buying another computer. 

So far, so good.  I think buying a computer for my parents really drained me of the will to buy another one for myself.  Plus, I’ve just found myself so uninterested in buying “things” right now.  My apartment is packed to the gills, I’ve have all the technology I need, and a whole lot more I wanted.  And then, I’ve got a ton I thought I wanted, but never use.  I’m so busy with work, with Open Book Audio, with Luke, and with the daily grind of trying to keep my apartment livable that I just have very little drive to go on my epic shopping sprees like I used to.  (Also, I realized how much more fun it is to spend other people’s money, so I’m just going to wait until my parents come up to visit me, and let them buy me all new clothes.  :) )

8. Pay off all my credit cards…again.

No spending on the cards this month, but the payments haven’t been spectacular, either.  I’m more interested in using my extra money for #9 (and the truck of love).  Still making far more than the minimum payments though.  At this rate, the cards won’t be completely paid off by January 1, but they’ll be pretty close.

9. Build a 3-month rainy day fund

Doing well.  I’ve managed to save quite a bit of money over the last six weeks.  I’m also going to be getting epic overtime over the next month, so I imagine I’ll have quite a bit saved up very shortly.  Of course, some of this will be used for the aforementioned truck down payment, but the goal is to still leave enough left over for this rainy day fund.

10.  Write a novel - CLOSED

I was hoping that, once I finished school, I would go back to having the kind of leisure time that I often dream about, but find I rarely want.  Sure enough, once school was done, I delved into Open Book Audio right away.  In the last two months, I’ve recorded two audio books, built a web store, recorded a podcast, did a fair amount of graphic design for CD covers, etc.  I really want OBA to take off, and start making money, and I’ve decided that I am going to postpone my participation in NaNoWriMo for a year.  I really don’t feel guilty about this at all. The NaNoWriMo idea is cool, and I think I could be capable of writing a good novel, but I really want to start getting this business on it’s feet.  I like doing it.  I’ve found that I’m really quite good at it, and I think the potential exists for it to be the sort of work that is both financially and artistically satisfying…especially if I’m the one who owns the company.  So, the novel is postponed until Resolution 2010 (or later), and those resources will be re-allocated to Open Book Audio, for the purposes of getting this business making some money.  (More coming soon on that.)

So, that’s the resolution tracking.  With 5 months to go, I have 3 completed, 3 voluntarily closed, and four still in progress, but going well.  We’ll see how drastically my world view has changed 30 days from now when I write my August resolution about how I’ve decided that I’m going to become a vegan, quit my job, and live exclusively on my credit cards and savings to “screw it to the man.”  I’m such a dirty hippie. :)

I bet you didn’t think I’d keep up my resolution tracking did you?  Well thanks for the vote of support, jerk.  I guess I showed you.

The sun is finally shining, the grass is green, the orange and palm trees sway…oh wait.  Wrong month.  May has been a tough month overall, what with having to miss much of the nice weather in work and homework, being sick over Memorial Day weekend, etc.   However, the resolutions are coming along.  Shall we?

1. Graduate with a 4.0 GPA

I have 25 days left of school as of tomorrow.  In my final class, I’m currently sitting at a 99.7%, and my “thesis” of sorts scored a full 100% on the grading rubric.  So, unless I screw this up royally, I full expect to graduate with a 4.0. 

2. Make it through the Hal Leonard Guitar Method Books 1-3

Completed!

3.  Buy a pair of 32-waist jeans and be able to button them

As mentioned previously, I recently joined a gym again.  I’ve also stopped buying ice cream, started eating more leafy greens, and am doing my darndest to stop eating out so much.  This resolution has become increasingly important to me because I recently went clothes shopping and after three hours of shopping, I couldn’t find anything that looked decent on me.  The lumpiness that is Matt is not so appreciated.  So, now that a few of my others are completed I think I’m doing pretty well.

4. Spend less than an average of $50/month on dining out.

CLOSED in March because…well…because I wanted to.

5. Cut grocery budget from $400/month to $300/month.

I haven’t counted, but I believe I’ve done this.  I’ve been much more frugal this months…and have been trying to get back to cooking enough on the weekends to last me for most of the week.  I’m going to estimate that this is a pass, but it hasn’t been independently verified as of this time. 

6.  Find a new job

Looking in earnest.  With only four weeks left until graduation, I’m getting pretty desperate to find a job that utilized my new skill sets.

7. Make it through the whole year without buying another computer. 

Doing very well.  Not really even all that tempted, thanks.

8. Pay off all my credit cards…again.

Ka-ching!  I have four credit cards:  Merrick Bank, Capital One, Dell, and Circuit City (which, due to the unfortunate demise of said chain, is going to become a Best Buy card shortly) and, at the beginning of the month, each card had a fairly significant balance on them.  In an effort to meet this resolution by year’s end, I sold all of my stocks (making approximately a 120% return on my investments in three months) and use the resulting gains to pay off the Dell, Merrick Bank, and Circuit City cards.  Currently, I only have $1400 remaining in credit card debt, and it will all be gone.  I haven’t seen how much my student loan payments are going to be when they kick back in this fall, but if they’re bearable, I should be able to handle paying of the last card by year’s end.  Just in time to fill them up again with Christmas presents..  KIDDING!

9. Build a 3-month rainy day fund

Not going so well.  I determined that it was more important to pay off the credit cards than it would be to save money.  So I took my investment account and paid them off as previously mentioned.  I have enough for a month’s rent saved right now, but not much more.  Increasing that amount will be among my chief concerns in the coming months.

10.  Write a novel.

On Hold until November

April is here, and with it, something I’m calling “Throat-Slitting Weather.”  That’s right, the weather continues to be so miserable (still in the 30s and 40s, gray, and rainy) that I just want to slit a throat.  Whether mine or someone elses, I don’t care.  Just as long as someone bleeds.

In other news guess what?  I’m getting married.  Oh wait.  April Fools.  (A prerequisite of marriage would be spending time in public and/or interacting with other people.  And since that’s not happening…)  Speaking of fools, it’s time once again to spin the wheel of misfortune and see how Matt’s resolutions for 2009 are going.  March was largely a month of ruts.  Let’s break it down:

1. Graduate with a 4.0 GPA

Thus far, I’m still at a 4.0.  I finished my first Project Management class with a 99.7%.  I’m now in the fifth week of my advanced PM class and maintaining 100% thus far.  This class ends in three weeks, then I have a week off, then I start the very last eight-week class of my entire program.  Yes, Virginia, there is a graduation date.

2. Make it through the Hal Leonard Guitar Method Books 1-3

So, I got a little stuck on this one.  I spent nearly entire month working on the same few pages (I’m really sick of The Entertainer.)  So, I did what any normal person would do when they get stuck.  I outsourced.  I started guitar lessons last weekend.  The teacher basically had me skip over what I was working on, and move straight to the end of the book.  I figure several months of guitar lessons will be equivalent to teaching myself the last 20 pages of Book 3.

3.  Buy a pair of 32-waist jeans and be able to button them

Like my life in general, my weight loss has plateaued.  Most of it is due to my complete and utter failure of Resolution 4, which I closed last month.

4. Spend less than an average of $50/month on dining out.

CLOSED in March because…well…because I wanted to.

5. Cut grocery budget from $400/month to $300/month.

I’m going to mark this as a general fail for the month.  And I blame it on a single word: Costco.  I renewed my membership at Costco this month and spent a little extra than I normally would on groceries to stock up on some of the non-essentials in bulk.  But, instead of shopping every week for groceries, I’m now going to Costco once every two weeks, and then making a quick trip to get perishables (milk, bread, fruit) at the regular grocery store.  (I mean…there’s no way a single guy could get through a five-gallon container of milk before it went bad.)  So, I think that next month, I’ll actually do quite well.  This month, not so much. 

By the way, did you know that Costco sells gummy vitamins for adults?  They’re like nutritious fruit snacks.  They’re awesome.  My whole life, my mother has gotten on my case about taking vitamins.  I could never get into it…especially with her vitamins.  They’re these nasty horse-pill-sized tablets that get stuck in your throat, cost $150 a bottle, and turn your urine Mountain Dew yellow.  (Sorry mom, but you know it’s true).  These are $10 for a bottle, and they’re yummy.  Now my biggest problem is only taking two a day, instead of eating the bottle in one sitting, which is what I would do if they were regular fruit snacks (I have a serious weakness for fruit snacks.  Note to self: blog the story of stealing fruit snacks.)  Anyway, Costco Gummy Vitamins are a big win.  Worth the membership fees just to get the vits.

6.  Find a new job

On hold.  I sent out a resume recently, but I don’t expect to hear anything.  I’m searching casually, but I figured I’ll wait until I get back from vacation after my graduation before I really start looking.  Plus, with the economy being what it is, I’m a little hesitant to spend energy job hunting.  To quote the Simpsons, “That’s a bigger waste of effort than Ricky Martin’s girlfriend.”

7. Make it through the whole year without buying another computer. 

So far so good, but it was a close one.  I started convincing myself that I needed a new computer that was dedicated entirely to studio work.  If my new business takes off, that may eventually be the case, but not yet.  And not on credit.

8. Pay off all my credit cards…again.

I’m doing really well with two of my cards, not so well with the others.  The problem is that I put so much money toward paying down the cards that I end up not leaving myself enough for emergencies that arise, so I end up putting purchases back on the cards until the next paycheck comes.  However, I’ve been making a KILLING in the stock market the last six week (I’ve made a 60% return on investment in six weeks!), so if that streak keeps up, I should be able to use the proceeds of my market hopping to wipe out the credit cards once and for all. 

9. Build a 3-month rainy day fund

This would be going quite well were it not for the $2,500 tax bill that will be due in about 9 days.  I worked nearly 40 hours of overtime last week, which would have made a HUGE dent in this goal, but alas, the IRS wants to take my money. Ah well.  Maybe next month.

10.  Write a novel.

On Hold until November