Happy New Year!!!!!

2 years ago, I started this blog in the hopes that I could chronicle my rise to stardom. I had just released my debut (and only) record through various online retailers, including iTunes Japan. I know, iTunes Japan!!! Alas, my total record sales made it into the double digits. Stardom was not in the cards for me. I made 4 posts and this blog became internet garbage, left to the cyber-rats and cyber-homeless people.

Fast forward a couple of years and I find myself ringing in a new year with a new resolve to document something about my life and everyday experiences, if only because my vanity was not totally destroyed by all of the music fans in Japan that chose not to buy my record. My goal is to post something every day. It might be a review of a record I’ve been listening to, a film I watched, a rant about the frickin’ snow plows that bury the end of my driveway with snow, or maybe I’ll use this space to post a favorite recipe. I get to choose. I probably won’t post a how-to about knitting or gun cleaning, though. Let’s squash that rumor right now.

Today, in keeping with the spirit of the New Year, I’m posting my resolutions. I resolve the following:

Lose 40 pounds – This may seem like a lot but, as of last night, I weighed 45.2 pounds more than I did when I graduated from basic training. I’m not ginormous, but I don’t want to need my baggy clothes to cover up the results of eating binges and putting off a gym visit until tomorrow. I want women to swoon when I walk in the room. Hell, I’ll even take swooning men too.

Listen to an entire album every day – I love music. I have 85+ gigabytes of music in my iTunes library and I spend more time organizing it than I do actually listening to it. I want to listen in the car, at work, at bedtime, while I’m peeing, or any time that someone isn’t talking to me. This is where the reviews will come from. And if I listen to an entire album while I pee, I’ll be sure to make sure you know. Then I’ll visit a urologist because something is probably very wrong.

Be really good at my job – I just accepted a new position at work that requires me to be extremely organized and take good care of a lot of people that now work for me. I want to succeed in my company, and this is a first giant step toward a potentially lucrative and personally rewarding career.

Get over my fear of possums – Easier said than done, I know. The damned things are just so evil. But 2011 is the year for overcoming fears and, if necessary, wrestling a possum into submission with my bare hands.

So, that’s it. I’m back, I’m self-absorbed, I’m self-deprecating, but I’m a nice guy. You’ll immediately want to take me home to meet your parents, but probably won’t want a second date. But force yourself, OK? I’ll make you laugh and eventually you’ll start thinking of me when you pee.

 

*a side note about the name bookonmarx*

In the mid-1990s, when I first started using the internet and Yahoo! was just a collection of hyperlinks, I was faced with the task of establishing a new email address. I tried every combination of my name that I could think of, to no avail. Then I decided to string together snippets of song lyrics because I was in college and it seemed like a cool, creative thing to do. In Don McLean’s “American Pie”, there’s a line:

“While Lenin wrote a book on Marx…”

I had staked out my very own internet identity. Now that you know, don’t ask me if I’m a Marxist.

 

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