Strange Thoughts of a Strange Man

As last night’s light dusting of snow prepares to melt on the first day of 2010, it is time for me to blog my resolutions for the year ahead in what has become a tradition over the past few years.

As part of the tradition, let’s first look at last year’s resolutions and see if I had any success. In 2008, I resolved to …

• Lose weight
• Stop the grow/trim/shave cycle with my beard
• Finish my novel
• Spend less

2009 was pretty much more of the same. Did I succeed this time?

• Weight loss. Yes and no. I have rejoined the gym and I did lose a bit of weight. I have probably regained the weight in this Christmas week alone. My blood pressure scare in 2009 has made me more determined, however, to press on with this and I aim to eat more sensibly.
• Beard. Well, no. I’m still growing and trimming and shaving my beard like there’s no tomorrow. I think I just have to conclude that I am indecisive. I will have a longer beard in the winter (as I have now). I will trim it occasionally when I get annoyed with a bit that is patchy or grey. I will cut it down to a goatee when I think faffing around with the trimmers is too much bother. I will accidentally trim too much and end up shaving the thing off. And then, when I get cheesed off with shaving I will grow it back again. Such is life.
• Novel. I was going to resolve this year to give myself one more chance to write the novel and to give up with it and never write again if I fall by he wayside but I can’t do that. However much or little I write or however successful I am or am not at it, I have to face up to the fact that I am a writer. It forms my way of looking at the world. I can’t watch a TV show or read a book without unconsciously breaking down the plot and extrapolating where it is going. I just need to apply that skill to my own novel. I have been working at the novel in 2009, trying to reshape that elusive chapter one into a form that grabs the reader by the collar and drags them into the world that I have created. I’m nearly there, I think.
• Spend less. Aha! I have had a degree of success with this one out of necessity. As well as having a little less money coming in, I have also had the spectre of Graham moving out to cater for. He hasn’t actually moved out yet but I have had to make sure that I can afford to not have his rent money to count on. I have cut down my spending a great deal to the point where I was actually able to save some money last year by more than the amount I get in rent. Part of the success has been in learning to say no both to myself and to people wanting to help me spend money. I have also shuffled things around in my accounts – consolidated loans and moved my mortgage to somewhere cheaper. I intend to keep up with this now that the silly season of Christmas is out of the way.

Additionally, I want to do a few other things …

• Use the internet less. I spend way too much time with my face in my laptop looking at utter rubbish. This needs to stop. Well, it needs to be reduced. There are better things I can be doing with my time – see above under Novel.
• Drink less tea. This is an odd one, I know, but I do drink a lot of tea. OK – it is very weak tea and probably contains less caffeine than a bar of soap but I seem to spend half my time at work either in the kitchen or in the loo and then wonder why I can’t sleep at night.
• Try to get less angry. A lot of things set me off and I need to try to not let them, especially if I can’t do anything about them. If I can change something then I should do that and not get angry about it first. It rarely helps.
• Related to that is to speak when necessary. Often I don’t, preferring to avoid confrontation or not expose myself to ridicule. However, things sometimes need to be said and, if they do, I should say them.
• Clear out the rubbish I have accumulated in my house. There’s tons of shit I don’t need in my house that can either go to the tip or on eBay. I need the space and if there is any money to be had then that’s a bonus.
• Decorate my house. This has to happen after the rubbish clearing and when Graham has moved out. I need space to decorate.

Well, that’s about enough. I could add that I want to invent time travel, fly to the moon and cure all known diseases but there are only 12 months in 2010 and I don’t want to exert myself.

Labels: 2010, Resolutions

I make resolutions every year. I just checked my blog for last year and found that I am about to make the same resolutions as I did last year. My resolutions a year ago were to lose weight, save money, finish my novel and be consistent with my beard.

The only one of those I kept was the beard. I have not shaved it off or trimmed down to a goatee all year. I should be proud of that but it was more luck than determined effort.

I still need to save money. More so now than last year. I have £6000 on my credit cards. That has accumulated from the holiday to New York in 2007, the holidays with David to various parts of the UK last year, the work on my garden, a VERY expensive service for my car and my recent Travelcard purchase. And does anyone feel safe with their job right now?

I still need to lose weight although, on a positive note, I have not put on any more weight than last year and I still wear the same sized trousers. One of my planned savings, however, will mean me cancelling my personal trainer and possibly my subscription to the gym. That will make weight loss rather more difficult. Gosh, I might even have to eat less. What a thought!

And then there's my novel. I very nearly just gave up on the whole thing a few months back. That all-important first chapter wasn't falling into place as I wanted it to. Then I realised I didn't want that as a first chapter and that I didn't know my main character well enough. I know where I want to start it and I have thought more about the character so I feel in a slightly stronger position to write about her. Unfortunately Tace Holgate's back story might take the entire novel in a different direction. That means I'll have to rewrite the whole thing!

Labels: 2009, Money, Resolutions, weight loss

1. Lose weight. I weigh sixteen stone and wear trousers with a 40-inch waist. A year ago I used to be fifteen stone and wear trousers a size smaller and even then I thought I was overweight. David's mother's first words to me on Christmas day were "you've put on weight". This has got to stop.
   My Dad was fat and, as I have mentioned before, both he and my grandfather died of heart disease. I would like to delay that for as long as possible. My goal therefore, is to lose at least a stone by the end of the year. Preferably three. Probably this is immensely unrealistic and I'd do well just to keep my weight from increasing further but I need tell the world though this blog and therefore give myself a feeling of commitment.


2. Regrow my beard. Big deal. I lose and grow beards all the time. However I think I'm a bit too old for that. I should either have a beard for a decent period of time or be clean-shaven for a decent period of time. I should not cycle through beard and goatee twice in three months as I have done recently.
   I would prefer to have just a moustache but (a) I am too lazy to shave every day and (b) they just aren't that good a look these days.


3. Finish my novel. Yes, I know. I have been writing the bloody thing for nearly three years and if I'd really wanted to get it finished then I would have by now, right? Well, not quite. It's true that I allow myself to be distracted but I have been working on my first three chapters and I am very close to having them in a form that I will feel happy sending them out to a publisher. My friends in the writing group liked the improvements I'd made. I just need to do a little polishing and write a decent synopsis. Then I will send it out. I also need to integrate the new chapters into the rest of the novel but that will come a little later. My immediate goal is to send the chapters out. I will do that before the three year anniversary of the start of the novel has passed.


4. Finances. I like my current job but I know, at 43, that I cannot remain a programmer forever. I am terrible at keeping up with new trends in technology and I am beginning to feel out of date and stupid at work. I need to start investigating other ways of making a living. That might require changing my life in other significant ways to reduce my outgoings. Spending less on stuff I don't need, for instance, or maybe getting a smaller house.

Labels: Beard, Health, Keepsake, Money, Novel, Resolutions, weight loss