Alas, the holidays are over, but that doesn’t mean the fun has to end—only 23 more shopping days til Marmot Day!
Obviously, nothing spells fun like compiling lists… especially lists of promises for sudden, season-based self-improvements.
Why else would so many of us make resolutions this time of year? Certainly not because they’re effective — statistics show while 40-50 percent of Americans make New Year’s Resolutions, 92 percent ultimately fail to keep them.
As Oscar Wilde once said: “Good resolutions are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.”
Of course, that’s not to say we can’t improve our odds, and not just by making super easy resolutions like, say, quoting Oscar Wilde more frequently or finally getting on board with that whole Groundhog-to-Marmot Day name change.
Experts generally agree the most effective strategies involve making resolutions specific, public and easy for others to join.
To that end, I present my third annual list of New Year’s resolutions for Juneau, or, as I’ve taken to calling them, ’Neau Year’s Resolutions.
In 2015, let us all resolve to (in no particular order):
Lobby CBJ to adopt the official slogan: “Juneau? No, no, no. Ju-YES!”
Put on our snow tires already! Let’s also resolve not to attempt to take our vehicles up glare-ice encrusted hills they blatantly can’t handle BEFORE we start sliding down backwards… especially if we’re driving moving vans or cement trucks.
While we’re at it… no “turtling” out of driveways, parking spaces, left turn lanes and/or four-way stop signs. Go or don’t go—make a choice and own it. And pedestrians: let’s resolve to cross streets ONLY at appointed crosswalks, as opposed to, say, a dark main thoroughfare at rush hour… while texting.
Change into fresh hoodies before sitting down to dinner if we’ve just been filleting fish. Or, breaking down any type of animal carcass, really.
Work together to develop innovative, sustainable solutions for Alaska’s financial future.
You know what, on second thought, let’s just complain a whole lot without offering any viable alternatives.
Be patient while: experiencing a poor FaceTime connection; waiting for it to snow; waiting for it to stop snowing; explaining to outsiders (yet again) that in Alaska, it gets darker in the winter and lighter in the summer, just like everywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere; trying to find an avocado that’s ripe the day you need it — WITHOUT being a gushy, brown mess; getting grounded in Ketchikan with a “mechanical” and, perhaps most importantly, skiing with your significant other, who blatantly isn’t as good as you. We’re trying our hardest. Not everyone’s a former college athlete.
Stop using the phrase “FML.” Very rarely are our L’s truly F’d. More like, minorly-inconvenienced (e.g. the inability to find a ripe avocado). Feel free to use MIML as much as you like.
Compost. And I mean really compost, not just letting our Halloween pumpkins molder away on the front porch all winter.
Stop allowing our kids to watch so much TV, and not just by giving them their own iPads.
Less kale, more chard. And can we please bring back arugula?
Start the New Year fresh and truly leave 2015 behind by foreswearing the following: Donald Trump; hipster beards — and, while we’re at it, man-buns; those annoying “Minions” from the “Despicable Me” movies; Adele; watching anyone whip and/or “nae nae”; playing chicken with 15,000 state jobs (you know who you are); asking people if they’ve seen the new “Star Wars” yet; outrageous expressions of disbelief upon learning someone hasn’t seen the new “Star Wars” yet; writing self-congratulatory open letters in the “New York Times”; and can we please be done with Kanye West?
Fix that cracked windshield. You know you’ve got one.
Fix that dented fender. You know you’ve got one of these, too.
Go easy on the orange chicken when the rumored Panda Express opens.
Get more exercise, or at least watch more exercise videos.
Resist the temptation to buy the four-pound bag of chocolate chips every time we shop at Costco. Okay, fine, every other time. Every third time. Forget it.
Take everything in life a whole lot less seriously—except boating safety. We all better remain pretty vigilant about that.
Happy ’Neau Year, everyone. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to swap the Christmas lights for the Marmot Day lights. Coincidentally, these are the same lights. They’re also our Presidents Day lights, our April Fool’s lights and sometimes even our Cinco de Mayo lights. I usually take them down by Memorial Day.
Or, at least I resolve to.
• Read more from Geoff Kirsch at geoffkirsch.com.
