It’s that time of year when people start taking stock of where they’ve come over the last 12 months. In these parts, crafty (meaning they’re into crafts, not that they’re treacherous) housewives have already sent out their annual holiday newsletters cataloging how many extra-curricular activities their kids excel at. Journalists are putting together their lists of the year’s top headlines. And bloggers are looking back at… whatever it is that they do.

What I mostly do, it often appears, is watch movies and vintage TV shows, and read books. Actually, I do quite a few more things than that, but these activities loom large in my daily life; they’re also the things I tend to talk most about here on this blog. In keeping with this emphasis, I’ll be posting my annual recap of all the media I consumed in 2006 within the next day or two (see the previous installments here and here, if you’re into sort of thing). However, for right now, I’d like to say a few words in general about the year that’s winding down and what I’ve managed to do with it.

Looking back at 2006, my overwhelming impression is one of constant motion. That’s largely a consequence of my job, I think. The industry I’m in moves quickly, and the workflow is often unrelenting (as I’ve griped about before). Add in a commute that puts me home after 7 PM on most nights and, well, it’s tough to find spare moments when I don’t feel obligated to be doing something. Usually, those obligations are to other people, or at least to mundane housekeeping tasks instead of the creative and recreational stuff I’d rather be doing. Honestly, I don’t know how people who have kids manage their lives — do they simply give up on any notion of guilt-free downtime?

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining. Not exactly anyway. Before I landed my current job, I endured a three-year period when the downtime far outweighed the usefully occupied, and it damn near drove me crazy. Now I have a good job, and, as I mentioned the other day, I’m feeling more and more accepted by my employer and colleagues. I value that. But, because of the assembly-line atmosphere of my job, it is difficult to see the past year as anything more than an undifferentiated blur of activity. And in general, I find that extremely frustrating.

It isn’t just that I have trouble seeing the forest through the tree, although that does bother me. (I used to be very good at listing events in my life and when they occurred; now, I’m lucky if I remember them happening at all.) I’m also painfully aware that I’m allowing many of the things that matter to me to slide these days, and so far I’ve been unable to do much about it. My creative writing, in particular, has suffered greatly over the past year, and I count this blog in that category.

It may surprise some of you to hear that I think there’s a problem with my blogging. After all, I’ve managed to post regularly and frequently despite the demands of my job — hey, I can’t have my nose to the grindstone every minute of my day, right? — but the fact is I haven’t been very happy with the quality of what I’ve been posting. My recent entries have tended to be very short compared to my earlier efforts, and they’re often little more than a link to somebody else’s writing and my quick (and frequently ineffective) attempt at a humorous or evocative comment. In addition, there’s a folder on my desktop that’s filled with half-finished entries that would’ve been really good if I’d managed to complete them, but now they aren’t worth returning to because they’re no longer timely. It really bugs me that I allowed those topics to get away from me. And also that I’ve virtually given up on movie reviews and celebrity obituaries, two categories that I’ve always enjoyed writing and where I think my talents have really shone in the past. In short, I’ve been spewing out lots of content, but nothing that feels really good to me. And I regret that.

I’m not one to make New Year’s resolutions — they’re all too quickly broken and forgotten — but in 2007, I really would like to get back to some decent writing here on Simple Tricks and Nonsense. I want to move people with my words, even here in this admittedly silly forum which most days is nothing more than an exercise in narcissism. I remember the satisfaction I took when I wrote about the death of a childhood friend, and about Christopher Reeve, because I knew those entries were winners. I want there to be a few more winners in ’07.

I also need to do more traditional creative writing; I’ve got one story in particular that’s languished for far too long, and it needs to be finished.

And I need to lose weight, too. And clear out my closets. And quit some bad habits. And re-establish a firmer dividing line between work and my real life. Oh, hell, I guess I’m making resolutions after all…