New Year's Resolutions

____This is how we leave the world,
____with the heart weeping,
____and the hope that distance
____brings the solving wonder
____of one last clear view
____before that long sleep
____above the weather's changes.

_______from: Cabin Doors to Automatic, Mark Haddon






Mes nuits sont plus belles que vos jours 3, Tommy Oshima

It is oft repeated on this blog that I am little confused with regards to space and time- and though it seems I have a temporary sort of fix on the 'space' problem, I still am not sure what time it is, what year it is, what part of my life i'm living- youth or old age or some belated fourth chance at a redemption i've mismanaged three times prior. With all that said, the last thing I remember is it being December 12th, 2006- that's the last date I remember with any vivid clarity. But I sense now that the cards it's been raining down from the sky are slowing, and though I kick spades as I walk, and step on hearts, soon i'll look back and see a sort of precarious house of cards somehow standing. (maybe that's the miracle of life, that no matter how badly we botch it up as we pass through, we still have this inchoate hope that if we look back one last time, we'll see a house, or... ___(and sometimes Eurydice vanishes into the clasp of black and we find ourselves standing alone, having lost the only second chance we ever earnt)

For you new readers, every year I like to write out a list of resolutions... and they are serious and they are genuine. And feasible. Be happy always, forever, no matter what sounds like a Hallmark card. The Submerged Submersible is not a place Hallmark cards come to socialize; and in any case, is not feasible.

1. one of my favorite things about the US is the 99c store. I especially like it because water is cheap to purchase there, and so our home was always full of bottles of water, which seemed to congregate around the patch of ground I slept on- so that everynight I would kick several of them into corners before I collapsed.
   
   nowadays I tend to get very thirsty at night. I don't like glasses of water on my bedside table. It is because my bedside tables (or patches of carpet next to the part I'm sleeping on) are always stacked full of books, and a cellphone that receives messages at all hours (because I am more international than James Bond and am scattered wider than the ashes of a sailor after a nautical funeral) and am sure I'd sooner or later knock the water over my books as I reach for the cellphone to check a message at 4:24am.
   
   Resolution 1 is to fill a bottle with water and put it besides my bed. I don't know why this will make sleep any easier a process than it now isn't... but I have an irrational belief this will help me.
   
   
2. The other day I watched the financial news, this after I read the finance section of the paper. Having read VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION TO ECONOMICS, I found myself feeling comfortable. I like the feeling.
   
   Resolution 2 is to force myself to read outside of my sphere of common knowledge. More politics, finance, history, Christian theology, Barthes, linguistics, Kierkegaard's the Sickness Unto Death, geography.
   
   
3. I am always pleased with myself (to the point of giddiness) when I remember the perfect word for something, or the perfect quote, or the perfect passage. Make lists of things weekly to memorize. Vocabulary lists, memorize the 8 Beatitudes of Christ, the names of the Tribes of Israel, the various choirs of angels, maps, prayers, poems, fragments of letters and passages and things i find meaningful, interesting, or funny. Here are three examples of things I bothered to memorize and that have made life better:
   
   The original title of Darwin's famous monograph was:
   The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.
   
   This is from a fragment of one of Van Gogh's letters:
   My heart is like an inferno, but no one comes to warm themselves by it, and passer-byers see only a wisp of smoke.
   
   The London Times original review of Waiting for Godot included this inspired passage:
   ...one of the most noble and moving plays of our generation, a threnody of hope deceived and deferred but never extinguished; a play suffused with tenderness for the whole human perplexity; with phrases that come like a sharp stab of beauty and pain.
   
   
4. run. ___more. ___lots.
   
   
5. (this one is unlikely to be successful, but) endeavor to shave more frequently. Especially when I'm having trouble sleeping and not eating much, the stubble really finishes the heroine chic look (minus the chic).
   
   
6. practice wanting things. ('thing' irrelevant). After I have achieved the first part of this miracle (identifying something i actually want), determine to achieve it (by telling myself the achievement of said 'want' is supposedly what people do to pass the time).
   
   
7. two nights ago I sat up listening to the Brahms violin concerto. (wow)
   find new music. always, always, find new music.
   
   
8. though i am at present imploding (disassembling all aspects of my life and moving them all a little closer to myself); not responding to emails, not answering the phone, refusing to go out, considering solitude the best company- i think i need to practice expansion. Bigger spaces. Larger circle of social contacts. More "obsequious banter". More movement. More going places. More places to go to. Spread myself a little thinner, cover more ground.
   
   
9. always have a piano nearby. i've done my time, enough is enough.
   
   
10. walk places. the other night i walked home from the city. I made it in 1 hour, at a fairly leisurely pace (which I determine based on temperature. Colder temperature means faster walking). i don't know why knowing i can walk there (or walk back from) makes me feel so comforted. Like, if all things go wrong, I can grab my jacket and scarf, say bye, and feel perfectly assured that my own two legs will manage a locomotor movement that will slow my head down, calm my breath, and eventually, get me home feeling better.
    
    
11. not dislike life so much; though i'm greatly interested in it, i find i rarely think to myself 'gee, i love my life'. Most of the time, it's 'well, this is what's happening right now. this is what needs to be done'. Which I do. I just don't have to like it- only that I think maybe I do. Like intuitively, there must be some advantage to enjoying being alive, which I'm sure I'll find out, when I manage it for more than a few months. (CLAUSE: It's not that I hate life or anything silly like that. Only it's like, you're at a party full of randoms and there isn't anybody that interesting to talk to. It doesn't mean you go home, you just kinda hang around and make small-talk with this person and that person, and even though you dislike soft-drinks and pretzels and chips, you go along with it, because it seems that's what people at this party do. They eat pretzels (which leave you feeling thirsty) which you drink with coke (which makes you somewhow certain your teeth are a disgusting brown color which makes you all paranoid), but even then... you keep chatting to this person and that, walking around, trying to find a niche. Life is that party.
    
    
12. i am too much a territorial animal. I dislike cooking if it is not my kitchen. My space. My groceries. (also, company has alot to do with it). In any case, I am tired of all these terrible restaurants. When I have my own space, the first thing I'm going to do is:
    
    BREAKFAST
    eggs. scrambled, with spring onions. 2 x soy and linseed bread, with good butter
    tea. a muffin, banana probably.
    
    LUNCH
    chicken (thigh, i like thighs best) with a tomato sauce. Gnocchi, in a small bowl mixed with olives, little balls of mozzarella cheese, (and what's left of the spring onion i guess)
    tea. a muffin, blueberry would be best.
    
    DINNER
    2 x soy and linseed bread, avocado spread thickly. Red onion. Smoked salmon. Tomato. Possibly replace salmon with: steak, sliced thinly.
    tea. a muffin, carrot perhaps.
    
    
13. think ahead.
    listen more.
    know when to pull the plug on something.
    
    
14. invest in high-speed internet... it just makes life better.
    
    
15. re-read Hamlet at some point this year.
    

there must be more. i'm sure.
but i'm over being in the house.
i'm going for a run.