Lost Journal: New Year’s Resolutions for 1990

Journal entry: January 1, 1990 (age 20)

Hmm, 1990. There’s only 10 years left in the Millennium, so I need to make some big strides to prepare my soul for either the Rapture or a major uptick in music royalties for Prince. Here’s my game plan:

  • Definitely start a petition to urge Dustin Hoffman to share his Academy Award for Rain Man with Judge Wapner. Definitely.
  • Bet heavily on Pete Rose’s reinstatement to Major League Baseball.
  • Try to erase from my memory the sights and smells of working in a SUNY Oswego cafeteria “slop room.” Monte Cristos and rice pudding should never be allowed to come into contact with each other.
  • Write to NBC, urging them not to cancel the ratings-starved sitcom, Seinfeld.
  • Celebrate the exit of the defeated Soviet army from Afghanistan by becoming pen pals with one of America’s staunch allies in the Mujahideen.
  • As the Cold War winds down, begin to research our nation’s next great enemy – the British Columbians. Are they Canadian? British?       Colombian? In any case, their loyalties are too opaque for them to be seen as safe neighbors.
  • Marry my feminine ideal, Jennifer Connelly. (But first sign a pre-nup specifying that she will never lose weight and become “scary-skinny.”)
  • Resolve a long-running dispute with my college roommate, Dan Walker, over what is the cheapest case of beer in most convenience stores – by agreeing to buy 2 six-packs each of Piels and Milwaukee’s Best.
  • Send a hefty charitable donation to the family of British newborn Daniel Radcliffe, who was born with a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead.
  • Arrive a year late for Samuel Beckett’s funeral, accompanied by my friend Chuck Godot.
  • Heavily re-invest in American financial institutions, confident in the knowledge that the end of the 1980s savings-and-loan crisis has made the investment industry more conscientious and risk-averse.
  • Commemorate the 200th anniversary of North Carolina’s statehood by openly snubbing the Miss America contestants from the barely 100-year-old states of North and South Dakota.
  • Demand that Tony Danza reveal to the national television audience whether Judith Light or Katherine Helmond is, in fact, the boss.
  • Design a line of Robert Mapplethorpe lunchboxes.
  • Ensure a repeat victory in my dorm’s “Twist” contest by insisting that dance partner Laura Sammons address me year-round as “Chubby.”       We can’t just fall back on last year’s winning technique, wherein I sat on the dance floor while Laura grabbed my feet and pivoted me on the rump axis.
  • Don’t worry, be happy. Or worry just enough to make Bobby McFerrin unhappy.
Tim Mollen
Latest posts by Tim Mollen (see all)
Share
Share