The Process of Writing “The New Year's Blog”

I walk determinedly into my room, not taking care to shut the door behind me. I put my popcorn and water on the floor next to my bed, grab Stuart, clear the clothes to the back of my bed, and sit. I open Window's Media Player and My Photos, in case of inspiration blockage. This moment has been long awaited and long shirked.

The shirking began probably a week ago. “Mm. I should probably write a New Year's blog. So much work. Later...”. Then on New Year's day: “I should probably think though 2006 and consider what could go into a New Year's blog. Or... sleep”.
Today was worse. The mental nagging continued as I wandered around the streets of North Portland and the Pearl with friends from near and far, looking at sculpture lamps, mixed media with resin, robots on the Burnside Bridge. In conversation I heard that two of my friends had posted lovely and interesting New Year's Blogs. Crap. This was almost worse than being behind on my Christmas cards (which I did mail... January second). To make matters worse, the topic of New Year's resolutions came up over superb espresso in Albina Press. Oh dear. I haven't come up with a good one of those, either. And here we are, four days into the new year. Last year's was to not steal music. (For the first time in my life I kept a resolution. So this year's had better be good.) Reading more and shopping less were mentioned: beneficial, yes, but no cigar. More reading is not good – I have to do it anyway. Less shopping is surely not an option. There's always the classic “more exercise” or “be healthier”, but that's just normal aspirations – not special or specific enough for New Year's. Vowing to climb at least once a month would be cool, but finances and health are too sketchy to be relied upon, putting too many constraints on that option. I thought of choosing to not watch TV or something along those lines, but that involves unnecessary and difficult social awkwardness, an idea of which I like of about as much as taking a science class – oh wait, I am. Emily said she was hoping to read more biographies of good Christian people. Something spiritually enriching would be smart. I could try reading more Christian books... but extra reading for an English/Art History major is kind of a bad idea. Abbie wants to “wear more art”. I could take that to mean sew more, but I will probably do that anyway. I might take it a step further and learn to crochet, maybe. Daveo resolved to “blog more”, which, obviously, I have done a pretty good job on with the exception of the last few weeks. I considered resolving to be more nice, patient, generous and/or considerate. But that's not quantifiable enough. Or maybe I just didn't want to.
Nothing seemed worthy, so I laid off thinking about it.
Later this evening, as I stood in the kitchen making popcorn and talking to my mom, I tried to think of what I could resolve to that would be that I could put a time frame on (as in, daily, weekly, monthly), would be enriching, something I don't already do, and something that would be remotely possible. Then I remembered that on Sunday, Dave had challenged us to read the whole Bible in 2007. Perfect. A resolution at last.

Now for the blog. What to do, what to do.
I open my photo folder for inspiration. Photo blog year in reviews are cool. I have my photos organized by year, season, and events in which I took a lot of pictures.
Winter: Snowboarding. Christmas.
Spring: Josh's visit. Spring break.
Summer: South Carolina. Mt Vernon. Ft Stevens. Canada. Schreck's visit.
Fall: Halloween. Thanksgiving.
Winter so far: Christmas in the South. (Soon to add: Adventures with Daveo.)
What does that show me about the year in review? That my life revolves around Josh, traveling and holidays, and that winter comes twice a year. We all knew that.
I could write a “best of/worst of”. Too much work. I could write a “what I did this year essay”. Boring. So here I sit, eyes growing dry and bleary as I type and ponder, taking the occasional break to chat with my sister or look around the room and wonder at how I can continue to misspell “occasional” and have to spell check right click fix it.

Maybe I'll just leave off at 800 words, sit back and start my year off relaxing with my Wodehouse Companion, plotting how to read all 92 of his books as soon as possible, and let you look over the last 12 months of blogs in the archive if you really want to know how my year was.