december, for me, is both a great and a shitty time of year. it's great because, well, presents! and tiny fat children getting excited about presents, and snow, and explosions of christmas lights everywhere, and starbucks' gingerbread lattes, and layers upon layers of blankets, and baking cookies, and the smell of woodsmoke, and that cold, crisp air, and i could obviously just go on forever. it rocks.

but december can also be a downer of a month - not because of the rampant consumerism, of which i love to partake, or the shitty d.c. weather, or the stress of the holidays and absolutely everything coming to a head, on top of your head. it's the retrospection of december that i abhor. everyone's making long, terrible lists of the best this and the best that; people are regarding the past year as if it's a monster looming in their review mirror, ready to eat them as soon as it's discovered to the full extent of how they've wasted the last 11 months. that analogy really didn't make as much sense as i was hoping it would, but i still look on it fondly. anyway, retrospection sucks, and i generally try to avoid it, because i never end up feeling that good about my deeds and accomplishments in hindsight.

except, that is, for this year! i was drunk one friday night and browsing the archives of the blog (and this sentence alone should reveal enough to you that you would never, ever want to hang out with me), and i came upon a list of my resolutions from december 31, 2003, for the upcoming year. and you know what? i did a lot of them! let's take a look:

-start running again. doing another 1/2 marathon would be awesome. a full marathon may or may not be in the cards. [CHECK! I DID BOTH A FULL AND A HALF MARATHON. AM RUNNING GODDESS. EXCEPT HAVE NOT RUN ONCE IN OVER A MONTH, BECAUSE I AM STILL 'RESTING' FROM OCTOBER MARATHON. AM THINKING THIS EXCUSE IS NO LONGER VALID.]
-continue learning and reading more about politics, foreign relations, and news in general. [EH. I WAS STEAMROLLING ALONG ON THIS ONE, BUT IN THE MONTHS LEADING UP TO THE ELECTION REPUBLICANS PISSED ME OFF SO EFFECTIVELY THAT I DECIDED IGNORACE WAS BLISS. SO WAS ALCOHOLISM.]
-buy more cds [CHECK! EXCEPT, NOT SO MUCH 'BUY' CDS AS LISTEN TO THEM AFTER TOMMY STOLE THEM FROM THE INTERNET. SO I DID INDEED LISTEN TO MANY, MANY NEW CDS, BUT BOUGHT ABOUT, OH, TWO.]
-travel - i want to take trips to boston and san fran, and if there's enough money, plan a trip to see natania in italy. [YUP! WENT TO BOSTON FOR A REUNION WITH MY ITALIAN WIMMIN, AND WENT WITH TOMMY TO ITALY FOR TEN DAYS. AM JETSETTING BIATCH.]
-go out more. bars, happy hour, dancing, whatever. i'm happy staying in on weekdays, but i'm starting to go crazy if nothing happens on weekends [THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN SO MUCH, SEEING AS I WAS RUNNING 10+ MILES ON SATURDAY MORNINGS AT 6AM FOR 5 MONTHS, BUT, HEY, I'M WILLING TO WORK ON BECOMING AN ALCOHOLIC PARTY WOMAN.]
-vote out bush in november [SHUT UP. SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.]

so, not bad overall! now i've just got to make a list of relatively easy goals that i will feel triumphant about accomplishing next year! like, "spend more money on shoes and purses," or, "avoid becoming homeless," etc. no, seriously, if i had to formulate my resolution list, it'd look something like this:

-stop biting nails. i have tried and failed to do this almost every year of my life. if you've got a magic trick, please tell me. before i bite my knuckles off.
-take more photographs
-not get tricked into running another marathon because all bad memories of training and running 20 miles and hurting have been somehow erased from memory and "it would be so fun to do it again!"
-stop writing stupid, short blog rants and instead flesh out more stories and interesting content
-throw a big motherfucking bash for my 25th birthday in january
-get into moderately okay journalism school come april
-graduate without humiliating myself from moderately okay journalism school and get a job at online journalism company like the hypothetical one mark glaser describes here
-cook more - not just cookies and pies, which is what i bake all the fucking time, but complete meals
-stop freaking out if things do not go my way, career-wise, life-wise, everything-wise. it'll all be okay.

screw hindsight. i'm thinking to the future, baby!

tommy and i will be at the ted leo/washington social club this fine december evening at the black cat. please join us in drinking bud lite and trying not to embarrass ourselves by dancing unrestrainedly to mr. leo's intoxicating power pop.

god. i can't believe it's december. I HAVE AN APPLICATION DUE IN LIKE TEN DAYS. I AM SO SCREWED.