Lessons in resolving.

I've noticed that some new year's resolutions keep coming up in my list year after year like a recurring nightmare, or chronic dandruff or something else gross and uncontrollable. Additionally, I've noticed that moving forward, up and out is only easy and positive if you have perspective on what's in the rearview. So, in lieu of the traditional list of resolutions, a look at what I've learned -- really learned -- in 2006:

• No matter how excited you are about your new job, you're an asshole if you cancel a three-week European tour, complete with World Cup tickets and many promised nights at pubs. Also, American Airlines' cancellation policy sucks. (read: they have none.) Sometimes work should be a second priority, if only for a couple weeks.
• I love chocolate covered Gummi Bears, and if you don't, that's fine. More for me.
• These cupcakes can turn a whole day around.
• I am utterly and irreversibly addicted to coffee, but I don't miss cigarette smoking one bit. Here's to learning to nurture one vice in order to squelch another!
• Being lavished is not the same as being respected and appreciated.
• It's just not possible for me to fold and hang clean clothes on the same day they were washed, even with the best intentions. They must sit, instead, in a pile at the foot of my bed or the end of my couch for at least 24 hours before they're closet-worthy. And I'm cool with that.
• Design Within Reach
• I will never balance a checkbook, and 60 percent of the time I won't return a DVD when it's due or renew my car insurance before the "final warning -- pay now or your insurance will lapse!" notice.
• Being pissed about chivalry was distinctly a phase reserved for my pre-age 25 years. Nurturing a resistance to it is, in fact, not my secret weapon.
• Five days in Las Vegas is three too many
• Being swept off your feet is memorable, and a beautiful way to start a relationship, BUT. There are men who have convinced themselves grand acts are relationship currency and should buy them worship and acquiescence -- which they've confused with affection and loyalty -- in a hurry. My first instinct (which is that love grows quietly and without being insistent, impatient or self-promoting) should be trusted, as the temptation for the giver to expect a reciprocal gift of affection is too often too great, suffocating a burgeoning relationship with resentment and expectation.
• That North Korea and Iran both scare the shit out of me
• That I need to speak less and listen more.
• That there's no sense in being afraid to admit how I really feel.
• That I love living alone
• That forgiveness is possible, but sometimes only after you give the motherfucker(s) a sizzling piece of your mind.
• Working for two different people who both ultimately turned out to be insecure, self-obsessed and lazy is a good way to understand the opposite of professionalism.
• That it is possible to really really love your job.
• That I will soon be the owner of a Porsche 944.
• That I better learn how to drive a stick shift in a hurry.
• That a long-lasting lipcolor doesn't have to be drying.
• That I am unnaturally able to exist solely on sun and beer.
• How to really waste time
• Martinis are my weakness, and my alter-ego after martini consumption is destructive, but I love her, just the same.
• To never ever ever hit on a piano player at a piano bar. His voice might be angelic, his face might be gorgeous, and he may practically ooze sex, but he will almost always be midget-height, which you'll discover is a dealbreaker when he stands up to buy you a drink.
• Also never accept advances from a rodeo cowboy (cowman?). He will always be extremely hot, but he will also always use words like "fixin", "diffrnt", "ain't", and "plumb". Usually all in the same sentence, with a preposition at the end. And he will not take "no, I will not make out with you" for an answer, possibly because he doesn't understand a properly constructed sentence.
• To trust less, but hope more.
• The next great assault on American productivity.
• That I should swear less in mixed company, but remember and tell more dirty jokes.
• That the world doesn't implode if I say NO.

Happy new year.