New Year's Resolutions, 2018
Jan. 1st, 2018 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kate_schaeferI believe that most New Year's resolutions begin, I don't usually make New Year's resolutions, but. So here:
I don't usually make New Year's resolutions, but this year I have three, two of them personal, one political.
1) I do not intend to overthrow the government; I want the government to continue, but with different personnel. My resolution: support democratic institutions wherever I find them. Oppose imperial executives on all levels. Ask elected officials to do their jobs rather than shirk from them.
2) Finish wrapping up my late dad's finances. At this, I'm close to done. Anyone who has dealt with a deceased parent's affairs knows that the whole process is full of weird difficult moments, emotional ambushes from shared history, good and bad. I'm so mad at him for this stupid thing, and then I remember that other sweet kind thing, and I'm crying over both of them, and they both get in the way of getting the minor practical thing done that I need to do before some deadline. Or that major practical thing. As I say, I'm almost done with all of these practical things.
3) Legally change my name from Susan Kathryn Schaefer to just plain Kathryn Schaefer. My parents never intended to call me Susan, so why did they put that name first? It sounded better that way, they always said, and it didn't seem like that big a deal. It wasn't, not for my first 46 years. For most of my life, it's been possible to just use the name one wants to use for most purposes, including medical insurance, credit cards, filing income taxes, buying and using plane tickets, getting married. It still works for credit cards and income taxes, and I don't need to get married again, but for everything else, people now, post-911, insist on using my legal name. This would be fine if they just addressed me formally as Ms. Schaefer, but they don't. It's not urgent right now, but I want to make sure that as I go into the uncertainties of old age, medical personnel address me by a name that I will recognize as mine even if I'm demented.
and while I'm doing this, 4) Keep on walking as much as possible, to build back up to five or six miles every day and eight to ten miles once or twice a week.
That's enough goals for now. Achievable, reasonable, useful.
Happy New Year, all of you.
I don't usually make New Year's resolutions, but this year I have three, two of them personal, one political.
1) I do not intend to overthrow the government; I want the government to continue, but with different personnel. My resolution: support democratic institutions wherever I find them. Oppose imperial executives on all levels. Ask elected officials to do their jobs rather than shirk from them.
2) Finish wrapping up my late dad's finances. At this, I'm close to done. Anyone who has dealt with a deceased parent's affairs knows that the whole process is full of weird difficult moments, emotional ambushes from shared history, good and bad. I'm so mad at him for this stupid thing, and then I remember that other sweet kind thing, and I'm crying over both of them, and they both get in the way of getting the minor practical thing done that I need to do before some deadline. Or that major practical thing. As I say, I'm almost done with all of these practical things.
3) Legally change my name from Susan Kathryn Schaefer to just plain Kathryn Schaefer. My parents never intended to call me Susan, so why did they put that name first? It sounded better that way, they always said, and it didn't seem like that big a deal. It wasn't, not for my first 46 years. For most of my life, it's been possible to just use the name one wants to use for most purposes, including medical insurance, credit cards, filing income taxes, buying and using plane tickets, getting married. It still works for credit cards and income taxes, and I don't need to get married again, but for everything else, people now, post-911, insist on using my legal name. This would be fine if they just addressed me formally as Ms. Schaefer, but they don't. It's not urgent right now, but I want to make sure that as I go into the uncertainties of old age, medical personnel address me by a name that I will recognize as mine even if I'm demented.
and while I'm doing this, 4) Keep on walking as much as possible, to build back up to five or six miles every day and eight to ten miles once or twice a week.
That's enough goals for now. Achievable, reasonable, useful.
Happy New Year, all of you.
