I think this will be the first time I actually publish a list of resolutions for the new year. Perhaps its the thirteen on the end that gives me a little nudge from my ornery side. Instead of thinking, "Ah, the year that ends in thirteen is the year that is doomed to failure," I could decide to use it to better mankind. Well, perhaps I could better myself and use that to better mankind, because any change a person makes to improve themselves is going to have an impact on other people. I hope I don't reach the end of 2013 and read my list to find that I failed, but if I don't have the guts to announce to the public at large what I intend to do to improve myself then perhaps I won't have the wherewithal to carry anything to completion.

By the end of 2013 I will weigh 120 pounds and continue to eat real food. I will have more muscles and they will be in locations other than between my ears or between my fingers and toes. I will wear out another set of tips for my walking poles and it will be from walking, rather than poking people for attention or from pushing things off high shelves. 

I will finish my book and it will contain numbered pages and large words, plus consist of more than ten lines. I will syndicate my comedy travel column and have a list of

at least 200 places to which I offered that column. I will use the drawing paper I hoarded and will have at least fifty items completed, not necessarily beautiful.

I will go to Key West and meet at least one of Hemingway's cats and shake paws and take whatever advice it proffers. I will wash dishes less often than I have previously. I will find lighter clothing, so I can travel with one piece of luggage, a woman purse and a briefcase, unless I can't carry them all on airplanes with me, in which case I will wear what I can fit in my purse and my briefcase. I will learn to sleep sitting up so I can travel longer on buses and airplanes.

I will spend several minutes a day admiring my wrinkles in mirrors and saying things like, "Those are not wrinkles but merely brain wave tracks and ley lines to inspiration." I will watch more funny movies and laugh like a donkey or a hyena or a demon or a maniac no matter the day or location.

I will think less and write more in spite of consequences.

I will hug more people, pat more dogs, salute more cats and offer fewer suggestions, criticisms plus recommendations.

I will meditate more often, longer and think less often. I will eat more cabbage and less ice cream and chocolate. I will eat less cheese and make up more cheesy jokes. I will look for the good in bee stings and ugly tattoos. I will go for more walks and talk to more strangers. I will write about things that make me laugh more than I write about things that make me sad or angry or determined.

I will daydream more often and look at clouds and the wind. I will spend less time stalking and annoying people I admire and more time with people who admire me and like to have me around. I will wear more red and green and less black and blue. I will play more and worry less about failure and if I don't keep my resolutions I will laugh and make different ones for the following year.

Yes, reading back on my list of resolutions I find myself thinking it might be for fun and for real, and they are all things I can do, and doing them this year may make me a better person or a failure, but whatever it is I'm sure going to learn from the attempt. I spent many years learning to accept myself the way I am so already it seems like this list of resolutions is a betrayal of that concept, but I have a whole year to find out.

Since arrival to Dawson Creek in 1960, Margo Hannah plants, paints and ponders.