2013

This is a few days late; my plans for the new year were derailed by a flu for a few days, but I’m mostly better now.

So far this year I’ve already done two things that seem like major lifestyle shifts to me: I ate meat even though I could have just had the salad, and I bought a monthly transit pass. I stopped eating meat sometime around 1997, although in the past few years I made exceptions when I was travelling and that’s all that was available (mostly inspired by a visit to a friend’s parents’ home in Mexico, where I was trying to be a polite and respectful guest). On the grounds that it’s generally better to be a less squeamish eater, I’m trying to continue, although I’d still mostly rather have the tofu. Sh’s butter chicken lasagna was tasty, though.

The transit pass is even stranger for me – I owned a car for a few months in 1996, but have mostly been getting around by bicycle, summer and winter, ever since. But my creaky old knees have asked me to spare them this winter (serious exercise in the cold is far harder on your body than in the summer), so my bike is in storage until the spring. Perhaps this means I’ll start to collect more varied clothing than things chosen for their suitability for strenuous outdoor activity.

Besides that, I do have one other small new years’ plan: to write at least a one-line review of books I read, here on this blog. I’ve long wished I had a list of all the books I’ve read, but it’s always seemed too late in my life to start. Then again, as I once read, while the best time to plant an oak tree is fifty years ago; the second-best time is now.

Happy new year! Here’s wishing you the best for all your own 2013 plans.