New Ear’s Resolutions

My left ear hurts after a vicious onslaught of cedar pollen, mounting round the clock zombie attacks on my beleaguered immune system. So naturally, I eschewed Western medicine with its insistence that “visiting a doctor for a prescription is the first step”, and looked up ear infection natural remedies. Entering in “natural” into any search term opens the portal into a whole separate internet full of new scams, ads, and nonsense. Which means I find myself today with a tonic of garlic and extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) in my ear. I also doused my right sole with garlic and EVOO for good measure, and swallowed some garlic cloves too. Apologies to Anne and Edgar whose necks had various of my limbs around them today.

For the last week, I’ve been caned on benadryl – I take it at night to quell the night zombies, and it has an unusual effect. On rising late the next morning, it gives you all the muddy-headedness of having being stoned, without any of the high the night before. All lows really. It gets to the point that you start explaining yourself to people – “Sorry I can’t think, I’m on benadryl.”

And then you think about stealing the whole sheep rather than just getting hung for a lamb. By which I mean, you might as well start heating up the smack spoon, as you’re pretty useless to the world after popping a few benadryl, so you could get away with chasing the dragon too. Blame it on allergy meds.

Which brings me to the topic of new year’s resolutions, for those of us who base our year start on the Gregorian calendar, rather than by the much longer standing Chinese calendar of serpents and rodents.

Hard though it is to think, and pungent as my office may well be, I am starting the process of plotting a new year based on looking at the last year, when for the most part, I can’t think of anything significant that happened. I know, looking forward by looking back is like trying to drive looking only in the rear view mirror, but it’s better than taking exercise advice from Michael Moore.

What happened last year in 2012? I:

1. sold only two cars – one of my own, and one for a friend. And I only purchased one new (to me) car. And one engine.
2. started seeing a therapist – a long term ambition of mine, and possibly why I tied my brain into knots as some kind of self fulfilling necessity.
3. spent three weeks in England and a further three in Spain
4. drove my dream car around (and off) a track – the Ariel Atom
5. attempted to eat a three pound burger
6. kickboxed and grappled a fair bit. Fair for me.
7. sold some shares. This was actually pretty significant, come to think of it.
8. put my Miata around a track
9. did 10,000 ab exercises in a month
10. hung out with my brother, sister and dear friends, including seeing Andy B for the first time in a long time
11. went to Galveston twice
12. helped s0me people buy and sell houses in Mueller Austin
13. bought one new piece of investment property
14. reconnected with one long lost family member
15. lost one family member

So what’s the plan for 2013? This is a tough one, and something I’ve been procrastinating about all morning:

1. stretch more and be injured less.
2. buy two houses, sell one house. Plan to move.
3. turbo my Miata and get it around a track some more, possibly in the other order. Learn to corner.
4. pole dance a little. Probably not for money, though hey, it’s never to late to find out my calling in life
5. kickbox a lot and be more of a bad ass
6. go snow boarding
7. see more of my family and friends and spend more time in Europe
8. learn more about taxation
9. become a citizen of the US
10. generate more passive income. Work less and earn the same.
11. help people more.

So I’ve managed to side step the s.m. and .r. part of smart goals – the specific, measurable, and realistic parts of the definition. So shouldn’t be any problem to reach them. Maybe when the smack fog lifts, I’ll put something more concrete and dynamic together, but this works for now.