Welcome to 2012!

Woo! Happy New Year! I love new beginnings. I especially love when beginnings begin on Sunday; it's a new week, month, and year all in one!

I have a lot of resolutions written down, lots of plans and ideas and things to consider for 2012, but last night I thought, whatever, and narrowed it down to a single resolution:

DO

DO means getting up instead of sitting in the chair. It means creating instead of putzing on the computer. It means going outside instead of staying indoors. It means trying something new — a food, a place, a hobby. It means interacting with the world and the people in it. It means making progress, moving forward, riding the wave, dancing in the streets.

It means leaping up and living life. Like the way artist Yayoi Kusama plus thousands of children turned this beautiful stark-white room in an Australian art museum:

into this amazing, amazing riot of color:

THAT. That is what I want. That process, and that result.

Just for fun, here are my other, more specific resolutions:

   1. BE GENEROUS   

I want to be generous with the work I'm doing and the folks for whom I'm doing it, and listen generously, and share my own thoughts generously, and give money generously to people and causes I support, and drive generously. I want it to be a concept on which I can rely.

   2. MAKE COMICS   

I know so little about comics, and unlike most illustrators, I didn't grow up wanting to draw draw draw. But I do know that there's something in me that wants to express myself in a visual medium, and there's a lot of good stuff in the comics genre that I'd love to make my own. And drawing is easy, as far as tools are concerned: a piece of paper, a writing implement, and away we go!

Here's the one I did for today, drawn by hand and colored (poorly — clearly I need practice) in Photoshop:

   3. PRACTICE INTUITIVE EATING   

Take one part each of the Fat Nutritionist and Michael Pollan's Food Rules, combine with a hefty dose of wanting to feel better and eat food that tastes really good, add a dash of hard work and another of money, and hopefully I'll end the year eating foods I love that love me back.

   4. TRAVEL   

We're at a good place, Jesse and I. We're in our mid 30s and healthy. We have no kids, pets, plants, or anything else that depends on us for its existence. We have a few extra funds, more if some of us (*ahem*me*ahem*) are very, very careful about how we spend our bucks over the next year. So we can afford to see new and old parts of the world! This year I'm hoping for a trip to the Pacific Northwest in April (I've never been, but the environment sounds like heaven), somewhere cold in July (Alaska, perhaps?), NJ and NYC for Thanksgiving, then home to MA for Christmas. And maybe a few day or weekend trips here and there: Duluth; New Ulm; Evanston, IL; the Badlands or Mt. Rushmore.

   5. EXERCISE   

I get $20 off the gym membership I never use if I go to the gym at least 12 times a month. That's $20 for my travel fund! Plus there's SO MUCH I love to do at the gym, if I can just freaking get there. I think I'll focus on strength and resistance training, because I enjoy it so much more than cardio, although one day I'd like to be able to run a mile. Just one measly little mile. Not a marathon; not a half marathon; not even a 5K. I'd also like to be able to do 10 push-ups and 10 pull-ups.

Well. Let's just say I have my work cut out for me...

   6. EAT BRUNCH   

Oooh eggs and cheese and veggies and toast and jam and hash browns and pancakes and waffles and French toast and syrup and I love brunch YAY BRUNCH!

So! That's my year. I hope your 2012 is shaping up to be your best yet, too.

Let's DO it!