the daily snivel

With the end of the year comes the traditional airing of grievances things that we rue and lament about ourselves and wish to change in the year ahead. For myself, I'm glad to be able to say that I accomplished a lot of meaningful feats in 2004. I secured an articling position at a criminal law firm in Toronto that starts in September 2005, after I've graduated and completed the Bar Admissions Course. I've been faithfully working out three times a week all year long, I've lost weight (about twenty pounds), I've gained strength (I can lift 70 pounds more than I could a year ago) and cardiovascular endurance, and my clothes fit wonderfully. I've helped literally dozens of clients as a member of the Criminal Division at the University of Ottawa Community Legal Clinic. I'm helping more people through my enrollment in the University Innocence Project.

In a way, I'm tempted just to say that I resolve to keep up with more of the same. But I do have a few things I'd like to accomplish, in no particular order of importance:

1. I hereby resolve that, by this time next year, I will have had sex again. I admit, this is number one on my list of New Year's Resolutions. I've been single largely by choice, since I've been working on my body and my self-esteem, but I've been celibate for over a year now, and I've started being driven to distraction. And though it should go without saying, I mean sex in the context of dating and romantic endeavours. Anybody could just go and find pity sex. Nevertheless, I must bow down to my swell gal pal Celeste, who has my celibacy record considerably beat despite being one of the purtiest humans I've ever done seen.
   
2. Bench press 225 pounds, as in "I can do this 10 times without hurting myself," as opposed to just getting the damn weights into the air. Currently I'm comfortable with 185. This time last year, I was benching 115. I know it sounds like an unusually testosteroney muscle-boy thing to want to do, but all this working out is doing wonders for the firmness and definition of my chest, shoulders, arms, and back, and I do like it when I'm being touched admiringly by the ladies.
   
3. Stop adding sugar to my coffee. I've already banished most soft drinks from my life, even my beloved Jolt Cola, because they're just heaps of empty calories that could be better obtained from booze. But one thing I still tip spoonful after spoonful of nasty, fattening sugar into is my coffee, which I like "pale and sweet, just like me." I tried making up for it by switching to such chemical weapons as Splenda or Sweet and Low (which always reminds me of that Kids in the Hall sketch when Bruce McCulloch, playing Gavin, calls out his father's floozy girlfriend by calling her "Sweet and Low Mom"), but I know they're just hollow substitutes with carcinogenic baggage that'll really make you think. So while I can justify heaps of milk in my bitter, bitter coffee, I need to get away from the white powdery stuff in 2005.
   
4. When I move to Toronto, I will find an apartment with a fireplace. Even if it's a fake fireplace. It will be a start and I will feel a bit like a grownup and finally have a mantle like a real boy.
   
5. I will call my dear sweet mother once per week. I love my mom, and I rarely show it. And if Hollywood has taught me one thing (other than how to ride an explosion to safety or reverse the polarity on a malfunctioning futuristic gizmo or seduce a lady fair with dry wit and drier humping) it is that you'll regret not letting your mother know that you love her someday.
   
6. I will lose, at the very least, another twenty pounds, such that my traitorous scale will finally say more than "Error" whenever I step on it. Cheeky bastard ("and besides, it's all muscle!").
   
7. I will sigh audibly every time I use a cell phone as though I were being asked to punch myself in the testicles, and so I will only use a cell phone at those times that I absolutely have to use a cell phone. And when my future law firm forces a phone into my hand as a necessary condition of my job, I will assign to it the least obtrusive and offensive ring tone to it possible, on pain of literally being punched on the testicles any time a polyphonic abomination sounds out of one of my pockets.
   
8. When I finally have positive income and cease to be a charity case myself, I will donate freely and happily to charities, especially food banks and animal shelters, and super-duper-especially in lieu of hated secret santa events.
   
9. Per a solemn oath made last month, I will hold no more secret crushes. If I am interested in somebody, I will say so. If she's not interested, then that's the end of it. No more torches.
   
10. Finally, and on a sickeningly sweet note, I will do right by my friends and those who love me. I will make sure that those I care about know how important they are. I do a pretty good job of writing (and replying to) letters and e-mails and cards, as well as just making time to go out and make merry, but it's always possible to do a better job than that.
    

Have you caught Rob breaking one of his New Year's Resolutions already?
Drop him a scathing reminder here.