let's say "plans" instead of "resolutions"

...and while we're at it, let's call them "premeditated" instead of "late."

I was never one to go spouting my petty New Year's Resolutions to everybody within earshot, but listing them here would keep you from being caught unawares later on. And calling them "resolutions" would seem to invite them to be unequivocally broken in short order. So here you go, my plans for 2012 (to be immediately rendered null and void if the Aztecs decide to let the world end):

Number One: Ascend to my rightful place as a writer (i.e., have more confidence, dammit).

I'm through with the crippling lack of confidence and dithering indecision which plague me whenever I try to gauge markets, write relevant stories and articles, look up potential publishers, and submit works. Hunter S. Thompson never bothered with any of that crap. He just went out, did what he had to do to get a story, looked around and submitted it somewhere. That's what I'm going to do from this moment forward. I'm looking up markets for creative nonfiction as we speak. Who says I need only do travel articles and short sci-fi stories? I'm sure I've got lots to say on other subjects...and can tease it out of my brain without the aid of chemicals. So, to that end, I intend to become a more prolific writer this year...and a more assiduous salesman.

P.S. This may or may not include publishing that damn novel. We'll see how it goes. I don't know how easy it is to publish a novel from a foreign country, and I don't have Ernest Hemingway here to tell me. Maybe that magic Internet thingy will come to the rescue! TA-DA!!

Number Two: Go back to Korea (i.e., drink a lot of soju, meet crazy foreigners, do the cool stuff I didn't get to do before, pig out on bulgogi, and all that rot).

Well, shoot. That's taken care of. Helen the Eminent Recruiter tells me that my paperwork is where it needs to be and my E-2 visa is expected any day now. My room is still in rampant disarray, but order is precipitating out of the chaos. My desk is cleaned out, my closet has been divested of all garments which shall not be accompanying me on my Asian odyssey, and that big pile of stuff in the armchair is looking less like a war correspondent's personal effects and more like a roving journalist's kit bag. I should be ready to go in—criminy, twenty-eight days!

Number Three: Give Hulk Hogan a wedgie (i.e., sneak up behind him on the set of his reality TV show and yank his Fruit-of-the-Looms up over his cute little head).

Just checking to see if you're still awake.

Number Four: Live for others...a little bit (i.e., get involved in some charity work).

The only things I've ever donated to others are a few hours at an old folks' home in East Tennessee (which nearly scarred me for life; cue the old lady in the wheelchair screaming for her dead husband) and a few fistfuls of change for the Salvation Army. I aim to change that this year, and put some real charitable man-hours under my belt. Some of my foreign friends in K-Land have gotten involved with organizations which donate food and clothing to North Koreans in need, which interests me something fierce. I never did a flipping thing to help the poor NoKos the last time I was there, and the thought wracks me with guilt to this very day. Once I get back to the States I intend to put my time in planting trees and passing out soup at homeless shelters, too, but that's a story for 2014.

There's more to my list, but these snippets are all I can think of for now. I need to read more books this year (and write a few, too). I recently rediscovered reading for pleasure, and since then a whole host of worthy volumes has passed under my eyes. I'm way behind on reviewing 'em, too...especially since I decided to review only one book at a time on this here blog. I'm five chapters into Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and am enjoying the living daylights out of it. But more about that later.

Cheerio, people. Send me some heroic resolve...