Resolutions

I'm not much of a public resolutions sort of guy. They always give way to later regrets, if failed, or smugness if succeeded. But here are few things I want to do going forward. The general approach to this year is ... More.

Read More, I have by my bedside the bookshelf of abandoned books - text which I have picked up from one reason or another, then cast aside or quietly dropped but don't want to totally remove from consideration. For some of these I can remember the exact spot where I decided I stopped engaging with them. Some I know I will not return to. Some I look at wistfully (like The Mediterrenean and the Mediterrenean World in the Age of King Phillip II, for example, or Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), and wonder if I shall ever return. Competing with that is a sudden desire to read The New Yorker. So I will put time aside for reading.

Game More. I game a lot. I have two fairly regular groups with much overlap in membership - a Saturday night group for Call of Cthulhu and a Monday group that is currently D&D/Ravenloft. And we do gaming days at the house (most recently ... yesterday, with the highlights being Sherrif of Notingham and Escape). And I uncoil with the occasional computer game (though Civ 6 has disappointed). and have a number of apps I like (most of them ports of tabletop games like Carcasonne and Ascention). But I want to some Bethorm or Shadows of the Demon Lord or even some old school EPT. I prefer real-life gaming over online, if only because it fits my need to socialize, limited though that may be.

Write More.  With the new job (and the attendant long commute), I haven't been writing as much, including on this blog. And I have backed out of a couple projects where I am just uncomfortable with making the deadlines. That is unusual for me. I will be writing, but it may more be the case where I am writing for something that interests me as opposed to something I have already committed to. Which means it may not be stuff that you see. We'll see how that works out.

Eat More. No, that doesn't sound right. Rather, eat well. In 2016 I lost 20 pounds and my wedding ring (no, we're still married - the ring slipped off my finger last week and is currently in parts unknown, probably in a swamp alongside the Anduin River). But life is too short to eat bad food. So, reducing the snackage while finding good places to try out (and the neighborhood I work in is sprawling with places), plus cooking more. I intend to cook three things from any cookbook I buy or receive as a gift. I already have started in on Alton Brown's Everyday Cook with his quinoa-accented oatmeal (I found it... crunchy).

That's a pretty large (and relatively vague) list - no number of books to complete, no amount of weight to drop. We'll see how is all works out. Tune next year to see what happens.

More later.