Happy New Year, I think

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne

Robert Burns, "Auld Lang Syne"

Happy New Year, everybody! I hope your Christmases all happened beautifully and you got plenty of time to relax and welcome in the new year. The holidays at my house were crowded, chaotic, and wonderful as usual (yes, even with the desolate hole left by the absence of minest elder brother and his fam).

I always get to pondering conclusively at holidays and ends of things. Holidays are times for memories; they're like measuring sticks to my life as I think about where I was and what I was up to at this holiday in years past. However, I think sometimes it's just better to abstain from thinking about things. Examples:

1) I've been a little bit irritated with some people at certain times during all this Christmas hullaballoo. The thing with being irritable around Christmas, though, is that I always feel particularly guilty about it. But I noticed something one day when I was grumpy, and that is that I was sitting there fixing all my thoughts on how annoying people were. The more I thought about it, the more annoying they became. I realized that the feelings that were making me miserable were not generated by the people around me, but by the thoughts in my own head. I was making me miserable. Why would I want to do that? Feeling better meant abstaining from blaming, annoyed thoughts.

2) The other day I played a charades-type game (which ended up being a rather interesting gender commentary, but I'll save that for another day maybe). One thing that struck me was how reluctant some people were to get up and act things out. Some of the girls I was sitting with were embarrassed. Because I wanted to fit in, I pretended to be shy and embarrassed for a little while too. But then I thought, "What on earth is there to be embarrassed about? In this kind of game, the people who lose their inhibitions and make gigantic fools of themselves are the coolest." That's what acting's all about, really. Once I realized that, I stopped thinking too much and acted out "underwater basket weaving" with flair. Someone guessed it in just a few seconds.

3) I've been doing a lot of thinking about my story over the holidays, but not a lot of actual writing on it. It wasn't even the good kind of thinking, which usually happens as I'm writing, staring at the paper or my computer screen, visualizing the next part of the scene; it's the "oh, I'm bored, so I'll sit here and think of my favorite part of the story that's coming up" kind of thinking. Then I just play one part of the story in my head a couple times. But because I'm not actually writing it down, I'm not focusing on it enough to make alterations and improvements, so I just get bored of it and then I have to redo it when I write it out anyway. Does this make sense to anyone not living in my head? Maybe not. But the key is, less bored thinking, more writing!

Okay, so it's not so much that one shouldn't think, but that one should avoid thinking too much, thinking about negative things, and thinking instead of doing. I should do a better job managing my thoughts.

I guess I have one new year's resolution now . . .

Note about the photo: No alcoholic beverages were consumed for the taking of this pic. It's Cherry 7-Up. Just in case you were worried.