Actually, come to think of it: forget all of that about the new year, new resolutions, things I might do. It's become a yearly tradition for me on here to write up what I plan to do, analyze what I didn't do, think it all over. And maybe all of the things on that list will generally benefit the entity of me, will make me a better person. But here's what I really mean to do:

That space between what I think and what I say, I want it to go away. I want to stop spending nights laying awake, thinking, no -- scrutinizing -- every syllable of a conversation, all the angles of a memory, reconstructing a night, whatever it might be.

You remember in the early 90s, those compuer-generated pictures they put in malls that looked just like a strange pattern of random shapes, usually in some teal-to-purple gradient? And you'd stare long enough and suddenly, your brain would register where the pattern was jarred ever so slighty, and all of a sudden, the Statue of Liberty comes into view? I do that. With people. Stare until the pattern reveals something wrong, something else.

My brain is this wonderful filing cabinet for details, random tidbits, little things you once said offhand when you didn't think I was listening. I notice things. And later, when something seeks off, I don't mean to, but the filing cabinet drawers bang open and, without even meaning to, I find myself combing for inconsistencies, alibis, background bits, whatever.

But information is supposed to lead somewhere. I just let it sit there, let it stew in my mind until, in fits of bitterness, it spluts out in ways that are not nearly as effective as they ought to be.

Instead, I think, I need to throw away this filing system.

I need to stop making myself unhappy, stop letting myself try to patch fatal leaks.

I don't know why I do these things; why I can't let go and why I feel the need to work at things that aren't going to work. I don't know why I sit and stew instead of taking action and confronting.

Actually, that's not really true. I know why I care, and really, that's a large part of the explanation for everything else I just listed. But that's not enough, sometimes -- not even not enough but it's just irrelevant sometimes. You can't fix something that's fucked just because you care about it. Even if you could, would it make you happy?

Seven semesters are gone and tomorrow is the first day of the last. I don't know where I will working and living and generally mentally situationed this time next year, and I realize it's probably not where I'll be for the rest of my life, but I also know that it will largely depend on the next few months. And so, with that in mind, I resolve to be happy in 2004 -- to avoid those situations that directly impede happiness, and actively pursue those that lead to it in bountiful amounts. Whatever those might be.