It’s December, which means I am extremely done with the current year and already obsessed with how much better next year is going to be. As such, I decided to share my New Year’s Resolutions for 2024:
1. Do one new thing each week
In the past, I’ve used my Year of New project to do one new thing every day of the year, but I learned this year that one new thing each week is way more manageable. I dropped off on documenting my new things a few months ago but want to try again in 2024.
2. Complete 9+1 to qualify for the 2025 NYC Marathon
I was planning to do 9+1 this past year and then I just could not handle running at all for most of 2023. But in October I finally ran my first half marathon in years, so this ambition seems a little more possible, assuming I actually remember to register for races before they sell out.
3. Become conversant in French.
This is the year I finally hire a private tutor through FIAF. Looking forward to being able to get more than 60 seconds into a conversation in Paris before I have to say “Desolée.”
4. Read my lips: No new books.
Ah yes, a George H. W. Bush joke in the Year of Our Lord 2023. Topical! But I’m serious–I will not be buying any new books in 2024. I have a very long TBR list of books that are already in my apartment, plus access to the Libby and CloudLibrary apps. I do not need any new reading material.
5. Read my cousin Matt’s books
My aunt and uncle gave me my cousin Matt’s books not long after he passed away unexpectedly in January 2020. In 2024, I plan to read all of them, including Megyn Kelly’s Settle for More. Less surprising authors on Matt’s bookshelf included DMX and Gil Scott-Heron, and I think it’s fair to speculate that this could be the first time those three people have appeared on the same reading list. Matt wanted to learn all perspectives, and I wish I’d known when he was alive that he had Megyn Kelly’s book, as in a former life I met her several times. 🤷🏻♀️
6. Go to Roosevelt Island
I moved to NYC in 2004. I have lived here a total of 17+ years. I have never been to Roosevelt Island. I’m making this a resolution so I have to do it. LMK if you want to go to Panorama Room or Manhattan Park Pool Club.
7. Live as my alter ego
[Perennial but feels especially apt for 2024 since the French Olympics are finally happening.] My alter ego, Élodie Clyde, is American but with the energy of the French Olympic logo:
As I wrote in an Instagram post:
I went to an event a few weeks ago where we created alter egos and then went out to a bar in character as them. Since that night I’ve spent so much time thinking about mine. How differently she would navigate relationships, creative practices, finances, her social life. How much less she’d care about what other people think, how she’d never take responsibility for anyone else’s feelings, how much cleaner her apartment would be, how much more comfortable she’d be with other things being messy. The books she’d read, the movies she’d watch, the eyeliner she’d wear. Her insouciance, her last-minute trips abroad, her hours-long dinner parties. A bigger life, but never suffocating.
This is the year I embody my 2022 word of the year: insouciance, host dinner parties in caftans, and become effortlessly good at life.
How to Be Creative 