Robert Manners

One Resolution: No Expectations

That was my resolution last year, too. And no sooner did I write down a no-expectations resolution, but that I followed up with a bunch of "goals" to shoot at, which are all full of expectations anyway. And then I suggested that I revisit the "goals that aren't resolutions" next year and see how I did. So here it is next year: let's have a look, shall we?

Twelve Goals for 2003

1) Do something about my sexual hang-ups... therapy, dating, bath-house, whatever. I don't have to get laid this year, I just need to be proactive about becoming a sexual being with other sexual beings. Nope, sorry, just as frigid and fucked-up as always. I have experimented with new masturbation methods, and given thought to newer fantasies, but that's pretty much it. And I feel even more conflicted about it, too. As attached as I still am to an ideal of celibacy, I am horny as hell and just want to fuck someone.



2) Finish my formal 12 Steps. I am currently waiting for my life to quiet down a little so I can do the rather contemplative 8th Step, but I know I will resist the foot-work 9th Step. But I want to finish this year. I really, really do (that reminds me, being on vacation I forgot what day of the week is currently up, and that I forgot to call my sponsor yesterday). Okay, I did my eighth and ninth steps, but that's as far as I got. I'm not sure what to do about my tenth step. Maybe I should ask my sponsor. Who I haven't talked to in, like, a month.



3) Learn to write short, economic sentences. I always say that you can't break the rules until you've learned them, and while I have no intention of actually abandoning my beloved purple prose, I would like to have a better feeling for other styles informing my style of choice. How's this for a short, economic sentence: whatEVER.



4) Learn something physical... maybe tap-dancing, maybe aerobics, maybe horseback riding. But teach my body to do something unaccustomed. I don't think the elliptical machine at the gym counts, does it? And I started learning Pilates but crapped out after three sessions.



5) Win the Miss Gay Marin Pageant, no matter who I have to kill. I WILL HAVE THAT TIARA! The Miss Gay Marin Pageant never happened. The Galaxy Girls disbanded, I guess. But I did get my Hallowqueen Pageant tiara, so I guess maybe I half-succeeded on that one.



6) Fall in love with someone. A little crush, but he lives too far away and that maddening Practical Prude voice that ruins all my fun keeps pointing out how horribly inconvenient it would be to become even remotely involved with him. Plus he had a big crush on someone else. Someone very not-like-me, which got the Craven Coward voice chiming in with "you're obviously not his type." He was at the dance last night and I thought about working myself into position to kiss him at midnight, and then it suddenly occurred to me that I didn't know how to do such a thing. I don't think I've ever flirted with anybody in my entire life. Which struck me as unaccountably pitiful.



7) Buy more earrings (I have so many bracelets, but almost no good earrings). Well, this is another half-success: I did buy more earrings, some of which are fabulous — but I bought far more bracelets and rings. I am just more attracted to bracelets and rings because I can see them when I'm wearing them... unlike necklaces and earrings and brooches, which can only be viewed in a mirror.



8) Find a new job. Well, I was going to, but then my crazy boss left and I got a new not-so-crazy boss, so I figured I'd wait and see what happened. And what happened was that the economy went straight into the crapper and all those attractive new jobs were gone. So here I am at the same job, and I guess I'll stay at least as long as my current boss does.



9) Start (and maybe even finish) my novel about Danny Vandervere and how he becomes friends with Baron Valerien de Seguemont and falls in love with Marque Willard-Wilkes while simultaneously extricating himself from a circumstantially-evidenced accusation of murder. I can't be a novelist until I finish at least a first draft of one novel. Not one word. But then perhaps the world of literature is better for the omission.



10) Get rid of this damned gut, by hook or by crook. I am not entirely averse to liposuction, though I don't think I'll be able to afford it... and I don't want a six-pack or anything like that, I just want to regain an uninterrupted view of my own cock. Hey, I got one!!! Okay, maybe it's not gone completely, but I can see my hip bones and I wriggle comfortably in a 34 waistband again.



11) Clean my room at least once. I started it a few times, but I have yet to succeed. After the last post, I edited it so many times that by the time I was actually finished tweaking it, I was too tired to do anything else and so spent the rest of the afternoon in bed.



12) Be nicer to Grandmother. I wasn't notably nicer to her, but I have been better at not getting angry when she makes me repeat things, and I've learned not to even try to talk to her unless she's looking straight at me and not chewing. I still wish she'd get a hearing-aid though.

Well, I guess I didn't do too badly. It's a good thing I wasn't really expecting to do well on them, or I might have to find myself disappointed now.



What strikes me, though, is that last year's New Year's Eve post was another instance of how I say one thing and then turn right around and do the exact opposite. The hardest kind of honesty for me to achieve is honesty with myself: do I really believe what I'm saying? Do I real feel what I think I'm feeling? Am I really addressing the problem that is at issue, or am I wandering off on an easier-to-tread side-path?



The thing is, though I say I am happy being on my own and celibate, I still want to fall in love with a man and have sex with the man I love and to make a habit out of having sex with that beloved man... a relationship, if you will. Despite all the impracticalities of sharing my jealously-hoarded time and personal space with another human being, aside from all the sexual and emotional hangups that I seem to treasure like Bilbo did the Ring ("It's still in your pocket, Bilbo"..."Well, so it is, how about that?"), regardless of all the logical impossibilities thrown up by my living situation and my pathological fear of rejection, and in complete disagreement with everything I have been known to say on the subject as well as my strong and sincere distaste for falling into such a trite romantic paradigm, I still on many levels just want some man to love me, fuck me, and go on dates with me. And yet, at the same time, I don't.



It really sucks when both sides of a mutually exclusive argument are absolutely true. And the whole love-vs-celibacy thing is just one of the many contradictions that fill my life. I don't even know where to start, or what to do.



Well, we shall see what we shall see. I think for 2004 I'm going to let myself off the hook for real and not expect anything for the year. I'm just going to waddle on through and see what happens. Really let go and actually let God. For though God helps those as helps themselves, I don't seem to have gotten very far with anything I've thought to do... I mean, if this is the best I can do with my life, it's time to turn it over, you know? 'Cuz let me tell you, it may just be the depression talking or it may just be that I'm coming down with a cold, but whichever way you slice it I'm simply not happy right now. And that I want to change in 2004.



So Happy New Year to you, my darling. Wish me luck, for I wish you the best.



Hugs!