More than a year ago, I started something called The Reading Project, which I documented here until wrist pain forced me to ease back on non-essential computer use. I was going to try to read two pages of Shakespeare and the Bible, every night, aping the family in A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN. The project derailed by spring, but it had the usual consequence of making me read more than ever; I just stopped doing the "required" reading. Every reading resolution I've ever made has been like that.

But I made another resolution going into 2006, a private one that I can't discuss here. It was deceptively simple, a vow to get over something that had bothered me for a long time. And, strangely, I did. I still don't understand quite how it happened, why I kept the far more difficult resolution, while so quickly abandoning the easy one. I also don't know why I can't deploy "Get over it" like a super-power, aiming it at every situation that causes undue stress or anxiety. But, so far, I can't.

The only resolution I'm making for 2007 is to survive the first four months of it, in which I'll be teaching AND touring, a combination I've never really tried before. Also, to try and remember to darken my eyebrows before I leave the house in the morning. There are just enough gray/white hairs to make me look, at a great distance, as if I have no eyebrows at all, which really isn't the look I'm going for.

I give the eyebrow thing three days, tops.

Happy New Year, here's to a great 2007. Feel free to share stories of resolutions, especially successful ones.