How to keep your resolutions

We are well into 2009 and I have kept my New Year’s resolution. In years past I sneered at people who made resolutions. When someone at a New Year’s Eve party would ask what mine was I’d reply with a smart-ass answer like “This year I’m going to give crystal meth a try” or “I resolve not to make a resolution.” No more. On New Year’s Eve 2008 I promised myself I would drink more Sparks. I should add for the benefit of uninitiated readers that Sparks is an energy drink with alcohol added. It’s an unnatural yellow hue, tastes like lemon Pixie Stix and comes in a shiny can that looks like an oversized ‘D’ battery. On the drink hierarchy it falls somewhere above Boone’s Farm and below Mike’s Hard Lemonade.
As far as I know mine is the first New Year’s resolution to be kept past February 1st. Most resolutions don’t make it to the middle of January. People make the mistake of concocting grand, sweeping promises that they will never be able to keep. The way to fulfill your New Year’s promise is to make it specific and easy. Set the bar low. You’re not trying to change the world, only a small part of your own life. You have a better chance of succeeding at something small than achieving something big. I’ll make it easier for you by giving you some specific suggestions.
The worst resolution you can make is also the most common: to lose weight. You are not going to lose weight. Well, you might drop a few pounds, but they’ll be back in a month and they’ll have brought a few more pounds with them. We live in the USA, the country that gave the world Jolt cola, deep-fried Twinkies, and cookie dough ice cream. We don’t just invent fattening foods, we think of ways to cram more fat into fattening foods. Instead of resolving to lose weight, resolve to lose a person. There must be someone in your life you can’t stand. Maybe it’s an annoying friend of a friend, or a girlfriend you’re not in love with anymore, or a guy who was on the cross-country team with you in high school and recently found you on Facebook and thinks it’s junior year again. Time is too precious to spend on people like these.
Every year, thousands of poor souls resolve (and fail) to stop smoking. Instead, why not resolve to smoke better cigarettes? Smoke Gauloises or Parliaments for a year. Or you could resolve to eat bacon at least once a week. Hardly anyone eats enough bacon anymore. How about resolving to not give money to the homeless? If you’re linguistically inclined you could resolve to say a certain word once or more a day. Pick something unusual, like blackguard or tomfoolery.
You get the idea. Your resolution should be fun, not a chore.

The Oregon Coast

The Oregon coast is not perfect. The weather is often harsh. After a winter storm driftwood and debris clutter the beach. Few people go farther than shin deep in the cold water. For everyone except fishermen and surfers the ocean is only a backdrop to other activities, a scene admired from restaurant tables and through car windows.

All of this is fine with me because I grew up knowing the Oregon coast. For me the ocean is supposed to be cold and framed by clouds. Beach sand should be damp and the color of coffee with milk. A powdery white beach under a sunny sky just doesn’t seem right. Palm trees on a beach look foreign while fir trees do not. And as much as I like sunny days on the Oregon coast, I enjoy cloudy days more. They are raw and genuine, unlike sunny days which seem fake.

What is the ugliest spot in Oregon?

Living in Oregon I hear and read often about how beautiful it is here. The shoreline, the mountains, Crater Lake, Multnomah Falls, old growth forests...wherever I turn it's bucolic and wonderful, people say. Even Portland is said to be pretty. After hearing this for 30 years I started thinking about what is the ugliest place in my state. Strip malls and McMansions are ugly but they are in every state so I will only consider ugly rural places.
When you hear the name "Christmas Valley" you form a mental picture of cheery pine trees and quiet snowbanks, with perhaps a sleigh thrown in. The real Christmas Valley Oregon is a dusty, desolate hellhole. I try to look for something good about any place I visit. When I was in Christmas Valley I looked in vain. There is no goodness or beauty there. There is no real town, just a cluster of run-down buildings on the highway and gravel roads that lead to abandoned and abandonded-looking trailer houses and shacks. If you do a web search for "Christmas Valley" most of the hits will be dodgy real-estate companies trying to unload parcels of this dumpy town to out-of-staters with ranching fantasies.


All this could be yours for less than $120,000

"The wife told me to fix up the porch, so I added two rock piles."

The real estate ads include phrases like "great views", "secluded", and (my favorite) "perfect getaway". The views are of dirt and the only getaway is from sanity.

I am glad certain places exist, and would be sad if they disappeared, and yet I rarely go to them. I put Sears stores in that category. The last item I bought at Sears was a screwdriver for about ten dollars. I spend hardly any money at Sears and only go there once a year or so. And yet I admire Sears in a way that I don't admire any other retail store. Sears is unpretentious. Compare the simplicity of a Sears store with the self-conscious hipness of Target or the snootiness of Nordstrom. There is also something deeply pleasing about a store that sells tires and two-piece suits and stereo speakers all under one roof. There aren't many stores left that cater to generalists.

I don't really like Target and Wal-Mart but I do buy things at those stores regularly. What is the explanation for this? I spend money and time at the stores I don't respect, and I slight Sears.

After I thought about the matter a while realized that for me Sears is like church or the Midwest. I admire these places on a deep emotional level but I don't want or need to spend much time there. It's more comforting to have these places exist as mental refuges than as physical locations. In the mind a place can be perfect and unchanging. If I went to Sears more often I would start to notice the wrinkles in the employees' shirts, the dust on the shelves, and the smudges on the jewellery cases, and then Sears would be just like any other store, and I'd be left with only church and the Midwest to comfort me.