1.08.08: Happy New Year! On with the Onslaught!

I’m finally back in Vegas after a lengthy holiday trip back home to the SF Bay Area. (Note to self: never stay three weeks anywhere without pay, it’s just not worth it.) Managed to catch a cold whilst celebrating the New Year up in San Francisco—a small price to pay, if you ask me, for the mischief and mayhem wrought until 4:30am.

While continuing to nurse my feverish and hacking self back to health, I’ve had plenty of time to reflect on 2007, formulating a kick-ass plan of attack on 2008. Suffice it to say that last year was all about singing: getting my vocal sh*t together, organizing a benefit recital tour, attending my first summer program, committing to a major vocal shift after several years as a tenor, entering my first round of national auditions, and singing my very first lead role (!). While the coming year surely holds its own vocal trials and heaps of hard work, I know that things are (finally) right on track.

FINANCES are the main name of the game this year. Specifically, I need to get OUT of debt and spend my cash/money more wisely in all aspects of thug life. This will be achievied as follows:

• I resolve to step up my game as part-time editor for the Packard Humanities Institute (PHI). This is important because I want a promotion to full-time status by the end of the year (and before I move to NYC).

• I resolve to pay my bills on-time, esp. VISA (who’s about to pimp slap my flaky ass), even IF it’s just the minimum.

• I resolve to finally set up my 403(b) account and start getting that free cheddah.

IMAGE is another focus this year. Who among us is above taking a healthy pride in one’s appearance? I know it’s cliché to say one will go to the gym and eat better, but I resolve to go to the gym and eat better. Given the line of work I’m in, looks are just as important as a set of hearty vocal chops. Lamens translation: I have to lose the college wardrobe. And weight. Ugh.

NYC is less than a year away! I hereby resolve to get the hell out of Las Vegas and move to the center of the world—where I’ll be more than just another talented kid with a dream and swish in his step. Amen.

When I told my best friend about these resolutions his response was typical—sarcastic, utterly hilarious, and unexpectedly revelatory:

“So, lemme get this straight. You basically wanna be thin, rich and fabulous.”

“Nuh-ugh……Noooooo…that’s not what I meant!” We laughed (really hard), because I sounded like a fatty who was both broke and a loser. But I knew he was pretty much right and that I sounded like a total ass.

It’s far too bleak to believe that as humans, we are simply doomed to want more for ourselves as we periodically take stock of our lives. Does not a greater truth lie in the fact that I wanna look good naked?

But, seriously, my resolutions are about improving some very specific aspects of MY life for very specific reasons. On the surface, it may look like an extremely superficial list but, in reality, it’s an extremely personal list—one to which only I hold the rights of revision. In short, I’ve lived in the same debt, clothes, flab and artistically barren cities for WAY too long. And I’m gonna do something about it. So there. Not even MY inner self-sabotager is gonna slow me down.