The Action is Go

Well, looky here, it's another new year. 2024 went out with a whimper, at least in this household. The only one of us with plans was Hannah, who went to a New Year's Eve party, while the rest of us stayed home and watched TV. Which is fine, honestly. Deb and I had gone to NYE gatherings in recent years, but nobody seemed inclined to throw one this year. I wasn't running the New Year's Day race in Salem so I didn't have to watch what I ate or drank, but we stayed up until about 1, when Deb went to pick Hannah up.

One of my 2024 goals was to write something every day and I ended up doing 346 installments of my Day After Day song writeups, so I'm happy with that. It was fun to do, but I'm glad not to have that daily pressure hanging over me this year. In 2025, I'm going to take on another writing endeavor: I'm resurrecting a feature I started in 2010 called Unsung, in which I write about a pop culture phenomenon (music, movie, TV, book, etc.) that has been forgotten or underappreciated. I think I only wrote three entries over the course of a few months before I was distracted by a shiny object, or more likely at that time, kid or work duties. But this time around, I'm planning to write one post a week, which is a realistic goal, and it allows for a lot more variety than just writing about music. Hoping to have the first one up tomorrow. 

Other resolutions or goals for the new year include the perennial desire to lose weight. This is the fourth straight year I've done a Dry January in an attempt to detox a little and drop some of the excess poundage I acquired over the holidays. It's usually pretty effective; coupled with cutting out junk food and desserts, I've lost anywhere between 10-15 pounds in that first month. I haven't found it to be difficult to stop drinking; I enjoy drinking, but I usually only have 2 or 3 beers on any given night. One year, I kept it going until Memorial Day Weekend. 

Part of the weight thing stems from the fact I've done less running the last few years. I aggravated my right Achilles in 2022 training for a half marathon and it's taken a long time to bounce back. I went to PT a few times and a sports medicine doctor who used a "dry needle" technique that seems to have worked. That said, my heel still tends to tighten up on me so I've only been running 1-3 times a week. I ran 400 miles last year, which was more than the year before but a lot less than I did a decade ago, when I was running about three times that and a lot faster. I'm sure part of it is getting older, but I refuse to accept that I can't get at least a little faster than I have been the last little while. I'm also realistic about it, though, and have been walking a lot more on days when I can't run. 

On the plus side, I'm still lifting weights 3 to 4 days a week and playing hockey twice a week. I worked out almost every day last year and still ended up being 15 pounds heavier than I want to be. Hence the Dry January deal. A friend of mine posted on FB yesterday wondering why so many people do it and postulating that maybe if you need to do it, you've got a bigger problem with alcohol. While that may be the case for some folks, the rest of us realize that there are a lot of calories in alcohol, especially in the IPAs that I typically enjoy. I was a little annoyed at the judgment. If I want to stop drinking for a while, I don't owe anybody an explanation.

I'm also looking to read more this year. I have a lot of books piling up on my nightstand and I only seem to get a lot of reading done when I'm on a trip. With no long road trips or work travel planned until later in the year, I'm going to have to get more serious about carving out time to read. When your job requires you to read all day long, sometimes it's the last thing you want to do in the evening.

And another goal is to start playing guitar again. It's been a while (been a while) and I have no illusions about playing in front of people or anything like that, but it's something I've always wanted to pick up again.