You say you want a resolution

It's that time of year again. The time when we all resolve to improve ourselves. This year I've actually put a bit of thought into it and have come up with 10 resolutions. (I love me a top 10 list, if you haven't noticed by now.) Without further ado ...

1. Do at least one thing every day to find a job. Okay, it's now been six weeks and change since I got laid off. I have applied for one job so far. And it wasn't even really a job. It was one of those things where they didn't have an opening at the time, but the company sounded cool and they had a link where you could upload your resume for "future openings." All through December I used the excuse that no one hires during Christmas time because they're too busy with holiday and year-end stuff. No more excuses. Time to get cracking. I have 10 weeks left until my severance runs dry. I vow to do something every day to move my search forward, whether it's applying for a job, updating my resume, researching a new company, etc. Monday through Friday that will be my job. I'll allow myself weekends off. And I'll start Wednesday, because tomorrow's a national holiday.

2. Read at least 50 books in 2019. Back in high school this would have been on the low side. I've slacked since those days. I can't have read more than 20 books this year. 25 tops. Somewhere along the line I got hooked on Mahjong Titans. What an absolute timesuck. This is a two-part resolution: stop wasting time on computer games and pick up a book. (Clarification: This doesn't include legitimate video games on the PS4, which are still allowed. This resolution is only about time-filler games on the computer. If somewhere someone over the age of 70 is playing that same game, that's the kind I'm talking about.)

Bedford Falls, here we come

Quick, name the five longest movies you've ever watched.

Did It's a Wonderful Life show up? I was at Olaf's last night with Laurel and her neighbors, Alec and Val (a nice couple slightly older than us), and we got talking about Christmas movies. None of the three of them had ever watched It's a Wonderful Life all the way through. Laurel and Alec both have seen parts, but said it was too long to sit through the entire thing. Val has never seen any of it. I tried to explain that it's not that much longer than most movies, but most people think that because they only ever see it on cable, and the commercial breaks make it run for three hours, sometimes longer.

It's kind of unfair what cable has done to It's a Wonderful Life. On the one hand, having it on some channel somewhere almost every day from Thanksgiving through New Year's means that everyone has had a chance to see it, multiple times. On the other, it's almost turned it into a punch line. Which it doesn't deserve. It's a great movie, and it fully deserves the tremendous audience it's garnered over the past 70 years. And I, despite being the only one who wasn't imbibing, may have gotten a little obnoxious about not letting that go.

But I prevailed in the end. Sometimes persistence pays off. Laurel and I and Alec and Val are going to see It's a Wonderful Life tomorrow night at the Grand Illusion, uncut and uninterrupted, the way Frank Capra intended it when it was first released back in 1946. They run it at the Grand Illusion as a regular feature every December, and have for years. I've seen it there twice, though not in years. I haven't actually seen it on TV in at least 5-6 years.

So I'm jacked. I only hope no one notices if/when I start crying. Because I always do. Usually it's the part where Mary doesn't recognize George that sets me off. Plus or minus five minutes of that scene, anyway. Shhhhh.

How to ruin Thanksgiving dinner without even showing up

One of my favorite things about my old job was the two hours of volunteer time we were allotted every month, which I spent with my kid brother under the cover of "mentoring troubled youth." I may have been laid off, but I'm sticking to routine, at least for now. Yesterday I met Shane at Java Joan's at the usual time. I saw my first Christmas tree of the year there, though I couldn't tell if they were done decorating it. There were only seven ornaments on it, and the lights didn't seem to work. Maybe Joan is making some kind of political statement.

We got our coffee and sat in our usual booth. Only this time when I asked Shane what was going on, instead of his usual initial response of "nothing," he launched straight into an impression of Rob bitching about how I portrayed him in the book. Rob claims he never drinks in the driveway like I said. "Never" is a matter of timing. He finished off part of the garage when I was in college and set up a card table and two chairs behind an old shower curtain so he couldn't be seen from the house. That was in response to Stephanie complaining about Shane always wanting to go outside to be with Daddy because he could see him out the kitchen window. Shane was 3 then. Please note in my book, Shane wasn't born yet. Stephanie was nowhere to be seen yet. Nothing Rob complained about was actually untrue. He just has a shit memory.

So while I was uninvited to Thanksgiving dinner, I was present as some kind of invisible guest, pilloried in absentia by Rob and his partner-in-moronity Pat Donovan at subsequently louder and louder volumes as the day progressed until Stephanie finally lost it. She slammed a wooden spoon against the table, snapping it in half and then tossed the handle on Rob's plate. Shortly after that, he and Donovan relocated to the gentlemen's lounge out in the garage. Apparently Donovan didn't find any of my descriptions of him flattering, either. (They weren't meant to be.)