A Gonzo New Year’s Resolution

I used to take my New Year’s resolution very seriously. I had one every year, and tried to stick to it. But I often found my resolutions were too specific and too strict to realize. A few years ago I vowed to give up dairy for the climate only to find months later I couldn’t afford it. Dairy-free proteins are expensive, and I was a journalist during the worst ever time to be in journalism.

Resolving to quit something completely or do something everyday or a certain number of days is damn difficult and ill-advised. Vowing to do less of something, or more of something, is more achievable and more motivating. Failure is like quicksand. Once you do it, it becomes easier to keep doing it, and just seems to happen despite your efforts. Eventually you accept failure and stop trying instead of realizing the effort you exert is success in itself.

Last year was especially bad, but 2020 wasn’t all bad. I achieved my New Year’s resolution of reading more. I read more books than I ever had in a year, except for maybe when I was in grade school. My local public library did a reading challenge I took very seriously. The library gave away great prizes for meeting reading goals, too. This was back when we funded things like that instead of more computers and faster wifi.

This year, my Gonzo New Year’s resolution is as follows:

Dance more.

There’s rarely a moment any of us is more joyful than when we’re dancing. Not even when peaking on LSD have I been more joyful than when dancing stone sober. One day I was dancing with myself to Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself” and just had to tell my friend, Chad (not this one, a different one), how happy it made me.

I was reminded of this joy while creating a “Pre-pop Fleetwood Mac” mixtape for my mom to include with her Christmas present. She loves Fleetwood Mac but never listened to the blues band they were before they got popular. I had avoided listening to pre-pop F. Mac because a former girlfriend of mine loved them, and I loved her for it. I can’t help thinking of her when listening to them. Don’t do that. It’s silly. Don’t ever let other people influence the amount of joy something gives you. You think I give a shit what you think of these words? I write them for myself. Whatever audience they attract is gravy atop turkey talked.

Anywho, in making that pre-pop Fleetwood Mac mixtape, I couldn’t resist listening to popular Fleetwood Mac music. One song I found especially irresistible was “I Don’t Want to Know” off Rumours. By the time I was ready to listen to something else, my Apple Watch indicated I had exorcised for 31 minutes, all from dancing to that one F. Mac song.

Most recently, on New Year’s Eve, I spun my favorite vinyl record, Andrew WK’s I Get Wet. I again exorcised for 30 minutes dancing to that record. I danced while doing the dishes and washing my used plastic bags today. Pre-pop F. Mac was on.

Dancing is great exorcise. Not only is it good for you, both physically and mentally, but you experience a similar endorphin release as you would when doing drugs. Speaking of drugs…

Do fewer drugs.

I’m not talking about quitting drugs. That’s just silly. One year I made my New Year’s resolution to quit nicotine. I was chewing and smoking tobacco regularly at the time. I had already tried vaporizing and using nicotine gum. I just started abusing both. But I actually like a good cigar every once in a while, and a spliff even more often. If my attorney and I are enjoying a baseball game and he pulls out a can of chewing tobacco, you best believe I still pinch a dip. But I won’t buy a can of Copenhagen Long Cut like I did before that New Year’s resolution.

Tobacco also has a better effect because of my low tolerance. Pinching a dip now feels like having my first pouch with friends while bailing hay and drinking beers in the tractor that one night. Smoking a roll-your-own cigarette makes my legs go numb like my first filtered cigarette did. Having a few beers now gets me good and drunk like the first time Chad (yes, this one) and I stole a few Old Milwaukee Lights from is old man’s stash that we drank at trunk temperature around a bonfire he’d later jump over and fall into.

I don’t know if he ever made a New Year’s resolution, but the good doctor, Hunter S. Thompson, did switch from Wild Turkey to Chivas Regal. I quit drinking on October 4, 2017, the day after the Minnesota Twins lost to the New York Yankees in the AL Wild Card Game. That was the second-worst hangover I’ve ever had. The first was after my Montana State University Bobcats beat the University of Montana Grizzlies in football a week or so earlier. After drinking for roughly 12 hours, my attorney took me to a party on a farm, and I was suplexed from behind for being a socialist. In 2020, I started drinking again, but only on special occasions or if it was free.

I still don’t miss being a drunk, so I’m still not drinking daily or keeping alcohol in my house. But I do miss drinking with friends when they’re drinking, and I couldn’t resist murdering one of the bloodiest years on record with Bloody Marys this New Year’s Eve. My grandma said in her Christmas card to have lunch on her, so I did what any good Gonzo journalist would and spent the $20 on a Bloody Mary bar, complete with stuffed olives, beef sticks, and extra sharp cheddar. The hangover on New Year’s Day served as a reminder of how little I miss alcohol.

So in 2021, I vow to do fewer drugs and establish some rules to discipline my drug use. For instance, never fly solo on stimulants; they’re meant to be abused socially. And never do depressants while depressed. If you’re sad, don’t do things that’ll make you sadder. And cut back on cannabis consumption; it’s no fun when your tolerance is sky high.

I’ve been a daily user of cannabis since before I started experiencing back pain as a result of degenerative disc disease. I had surgery to fuse together vertebrae in my lower back and still experience pain regularly. I have to do physical therapy to maintain flexibility, but I can herniate a disc rather easily, resulting in nerve pain from the swelling. Nothing works better on the pain than cannabis, but that’s not why I use it so often. I use cannabis because it gets me high, and I like how it extinguishes my anxieties. As I write this, I am out of cannabis for the first time in as long as I can remember. I could get some, but my tolerance is too high for the shit I can get without a hassle, and getting the stuff I want would be a hassle. Speaking of a hassle…

Write more.

I vow to do more of this in 2021 than I ever have. WordPress has records of how many posts I’ve published each year, so it is quantifiable. While quality will suffer with increased quantity, it takes quantity to improve writing quality. Some posts hit, some miss, and none of that matters. What matters is my effort, and my effort’s been shit on the writing front for quite some time. I intend to polish that turd to a petrified, pretty piece of well-sculpted prose.