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December 31, 2009

New Year's Resolutions: The More Things Change . . .

In August 1986 I received a hand-bound blank book from my dear friend Rena Frank. I knew her through Dorot, a program for the Jewish elderly in New York. Rena and I were friends from 1980 until she died in 1994. Born in Berlin, she escaped Germany in 1938 for London and in 1952 she arrived in New York. She wrote on the first page:

The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and endure much. May you have only happy thoughts and memories when opening this album.

I use the album as a special diary in which I write on only two days each year: My birthday and New Year's Day, two and and a half months apart. The book gives a snapshot of how I view my life, the year past and the year ahead. I dubbed it "The Book of LIfe" with the first entry on October 16, 1986, at a time when I was a freelance writer living in New York's neighborhood of Astoria, Queens. I have not missed an entry since then.

My entry for January 1, 1987 was this:

I'm well into carrying out my exciting program for 1987, called REVELATION-REVOLUTION '87. This consists of DAILY:

1. Flossing
2. Excercising (including occasional jogging)
3. Disciplined writing
4. Apt. upgrading
5. Surfin' safaris to exotic climes, preferably with an assignment.
6. A romantic involvement that feels right, where I go for her as much as she goes for me. Those who don't learn from the past are condemned to repeat it! I want to love.
7. At .least $25,000 in billings, with more efficient output.
8. Cut back on sugar -- it works for Melissa [a friend in Brooklyn].

Van | 12/31/09 at 06:27 AM | Categories: Life and how to live it

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Fat Man | December 31, 2009 08:40 PM

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