Because the New Year arrives this week (which makes it sound more like a package from Amazon than the resetting of time and habits), I’ve been in “get my life together” and “get a jump on things” mode. I’m not usually one for resolutions. I believe change is a slow practice and can start on any day, not just New Year’s Day. However, I’m leaning into the resolution idea a little harder this year. The fact of the matter is, I’m disappointed with how I closed out 2025. I feel as though I shrunk in the last few months of the year – though my waistline grew. I exercised less, I went to the bar more often, I took fewer excursions in and around the city, I spent less time reading and writing, I skipped a few concerts that I had thought of going to, I went on fewer hikes. In many respects, I spent less time placing myself where joy might be found and instead swaddled myself in the comfort of the familiar. Now, as January first approaches, I feel the need to mix it up, freshen it up, do something new, or at least practice this whole living a good life thing a bit more deliberately.
Reading and Writing
Every year, I make some vague resolution to read more and to write more. I don’t track my efforts, so it’s difficult to know if I accomplish those goals. Lack and avoidance of accountability is topic for another day. I know I plowed through several books of poetry in 2025. I read a handful of essays, scrolled way too much social media, consumed far too much crappy news, wrote sporadically, and (hooray) published a poem. It was a mixed year. What I hope to do this year, is make it more intentionally mixed, and by that I mean read different genres and maybe try some of the books that have been sitting on my shelves for years. To that end, I’ve started reading the novel The Sellout by Paul Beatty, along with a collection of essays by George Saunders. I also hope to read a few more books about San Francisco.
As for writing, I may need to impose a regimen – certain times of day or certain days of the week. Additionally, I need to put more time into editing and submitting. There were times during 2025, when I would say to myself, maybe this is the year my writing takes shape, maybe this is the year I can start to call myself a poet. Then, instead of putting in the hard work, I go to the bar, or play a video game, or wake up late, or find some other thing to do. Writing is hard. It takes a lot of time. Most of the time, I don’t feel like I have anything to say, and when I do, I struggle with how to say it. I still struggle with adding details and metaphor and humor. I tell far more often than I show.
Admittedly, I’m still avoiding the hard and measurable commitments of reading a certain number of books or writing a specific number of poems. Accountability will be slippery at best.
Novelty and Wonder
I think this is the year, I’d like to branch out more. I want to cook new foods, visit new places, and do new things. In order to do so, I’ll need to plan better. I think I’d like to add three or four new slow dishes to my cooking repertoire. I make a pretty damn good bolognese, but I want to get good at something different. I haven’t given enough thought as to what this looks like. Maybe it’s one new recipe a week and one new slow recipe a month? I’m thinking I might try my hand at homemade tortillas and slow cooked carnitas, or maybe braised short ribs, or maybe I become a tamale guy.
But it’s not just cooking. I need to explore more. There are neighborhoods and parks in the city that I have yet to visit. It’s been two years, and I have yet to visit the Legion of Honor (SF’s major fine art gallery). There are towns outside of the city that I haven’t been to. People seem shocked that I’ve been here two years but have not been to Tahoe or spent any time in wine country. Admittedly, I’ve avoided those places because they seem like places one goes with family, friends, or a partner, and well… I don’t quite have those types of folks in my life out here. Also, I don’t like traffic or crowds and Tahoe has lots of traffic and crowds. I pay a lot of money to have a car out here, and it sits in a garage. In the two years that I’ve lived here, I’ve driven less than 2,000 miles. Again, maybe it’s a regimen thing. Maybe I need to commit to one trip a month, one trip a quarter – Petaluma, Santa Cruz, Napa, Sonoma, Point Reyes, Mt. Diablo, Half Moon Bay, San Jose, Sacramento… the list goes on, and yes, at some point, Tahoe.
Additionally, I’d like to expand my social group. I enjoy my friends at the bar. I enjoy the friends I’ve made outside of the bar. I could probably use more outside of the bar friends – maybe join a hobby group or something. Admittedly, I’m not much of a joiner. I should also get better at maintaining old connections – though at this point, reviving is probably a more accurate word than maintaining.
Conflicts, Spontaneity, Commitment
Some of the things I’d like to do, like cooking slower meals, dedicating time to writing, and taking trips require planning. Because things come up and because I also like to do things spur of the moment, I doubt I’ll be able to adhere to a strict schedule. To date, or at least these past few months, my solution has been to not plan anything, to leave myself open to whimsy and whatever comes my way. In practice what this has looked like has been, seeing if interesting opportunities came up (dates, meeting friends, going places), and when they didn’t, going to the bar as my fallback option. I fell back more often than I moved forward.
This balance between planning and spontaneity has been a long-standing struggle for me. Moreover, I’m finding that the older I get, the less I want to venture outside of my comfort zone and the less I want to make big (or even medium) plans. I have a lot of days when I think I can’t even fit in the things I want to do (writing, exercise, sitting on benches), why would I give myself even less time by making plans? There might be an avoidance of obligations lurking somewhere deep in my psyche, but for one reason or another, I continue to be bad at making plans. I should probably do something about that – though I’m not sure I’m resolved to something about it.
Discipline
Part way through writing this, I got up to get my second cup of coffee for the morning. Standing by the coffee maker, I looked out the window at the sky as it turned a brighter blue-gray and thought I should take a walk. It was only a moment, but these moments happen to me a lot. I’ll be in the middle of doing something and like a dog seeing a squirrel, my attention (and desires) will shift. I want to keep writing, but I also want to go for a walk, and maybe a little later go for a run. I don’t know how to do all three and this is when I find myself paralyzed. In this particular moment this morning, I lightly chastised myself. I told myself, sit down and finish what you started. I poured the second cup of coffee. I wrote… but I also gave in and went for an hour-long walk.
This happens on both a large scale and a small scale. Sometimes the switch or distraction is short and temporary and sometimes I’ll abandon tasks entirely. Even in writing this, I’ve jumped from paragraph to paragraph without finishing thoughts. While reading, I’ll put the book down and look at the phone. When working, I’ll notice some crumbs on the floor and get up to sweep which might lead me to shaking out the bathroom mat, or making the bed, or putting laundry away. I’ve never been diagnosed with ADHD, but there are times when I really struggle to focus. I suspect it’s normal, but it doesn’t always feel normal.
When these moments happen I feel as though I desperately need to take better control of my brain and my impulses. This is why I struggle to read long-form writing like novels and works of history (and I’m a slow reader). This is why I struggle to edit my work – I’m too easily bored by it.
The only solution I can think of is to spend less time on ephemeral and distracting things designed to hijack my brain short hits of dopamine (like scrolling social media and swiping profiles on dating apps) and spend more time doing things like meditating. I think this is also why I enjoy going to the bar as much as I do. It’s my inside and more social version of sitting on benches. At the bar, I talk to people and get a different type of fulfillment. I seldom spend any time on my phone when I’m there, and the urge to do so is far weaker.
The Blog
For at least three or four years I’ve been saying I need to clean this place up. No sooner do I say that, I trip over the logistics of execution. What does cleaning this place up look like? As of this post, I have 1,267 published posts, 301 drafts, and 152 hidden/private posts. Why? I mean, seriously, why? Aside from emptying my brain onto the “page,” I’ve never been convinced that this practice has had any value. While not a firm believer that the things we do have to have value, I put a lot of time into this and it often feels like a silly pursuit. I will always struggle with the idea of having an audience – mostly because I think what I do here isn’t very interesting or enlightening. Moreover, I’m lazy and I don’t push myself very hard to make it interesting or enlightening. I have many days when I’m embarrassed by the entire project – enough so that when given the opportunity to “publicize” it in my bio for the poem I published, I chose not to.
I know some people have read it. A woman I went on a date wrote one of the comments. A different woman I went on a date with said I wasn’t hard to find, and complimented my writing style. I’m certain potential employers have found it, as have colleagues. Maybe they even read some of it. A few friends read it along with family and maybe some exes. I once got an email from a reader who said he found it refreshing for a male voice to be talking about feelings and trying to be softer in the world. A writer connection on Twitter once told me she read some and enjoyed it. Yet, despite the positive feedback, I always feel like I’m missing the mark or like I should be better at this by now. And by better, I mean more cogent, more succinct, less personal, and more universal. It’s far too easy to blather on, and skip over the things that might make it interesting for actual readers… See above paragraphs.
So what does cleaning this place up look like? Honestly, I’m not sure. I have a lot of days when I think I should start from the beginning and go post by post – revising, editing, deleting, or hiding. That’s probably more work than I’m willing to put in. I’ve always maintained that I don’t like to screw around with the “historical” record. I’ve always maintained that I’d like to live a life that approaches full transparency – and that being honest and unvarnished in this space somehow gets me closer to that. I also have days when I think I’m just going to stop, days when I think it’s served its purpose (whatever that was), or that I need to be far more discerning with what I share. Playing around with this canvas is fine, but perhaps I should only hit publish on the things that feel thoughtful or big or somehow more meaningful and finished.
Again, I don’t know.
Starting Now
In keeping with my belief that change starts when one is ready for change and is, more often than not, a gradual building up, I’ve tried to get a jump on some of these things. In the literal spirit of getting my house in order, I shredded a pile of papers that have been sitting on my desk for months (thanks healthcare marketplace for sending so much mail despite my opting for electronic delivery). I bought a storage ottoman, a shoe cabinet, and a wall mirror – things I’ve been meaning to buy ever since I moved into my place. I also bought new pillows for the bed. The fact that I’ve had only two pillows has been a longstanding “joke” with a few of my female friends who think I may live a little too much like a bachelor. They’ll tell me that I can’t possibly have someone over with only two pillows on the bed. While I never contested their assessment, I also never did anything about it. Now I have four.
If I half-way achieve half of the things I’ve listed above, I’ll consider it a successful 2026… those things in addition to drinking more water, eating a little better, and continuing to try to be a kinder and softer person.