Day: January 1, 2009

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R.I.P., Donald Westlake

Donald Westlake died on New Year’s Eve at the age of 75. My condolences to his wife and family.

I read a bunch of Westlake’s caper novels when I was a kid, and recently returned to the first one (which I took out of my local library, 25 years ago). I picked up a few others in the last month or two. In 2003, Michael Blowhard made him the first recipient of the Michael Blowhard Award for Excelling at Making Me Happy.

He wrote till the end of his days while I, meanwhile, have yet to start on the caper novel that I felt inspired/justified to write after re-reading The Spy in the Ointment. But I refuse to revise my New Year’s resolutions.

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Low-res

My health is fine, my finances are in order and my job seems pretty secure, so I don’t have much by way of “you must change your life” New Year resolutions. I did pretty well on my main one for 2008: post to this blog every day. There were still a couple of down days, but I think I did well.

Here’s my list of 2009 resolutions:

  1. To finish reading Montaigne’s essays
  2. To not begin writing Tuesday Morning Plutarch once I’m done with Monday Morning Montaigne
  3. To read more poetry (and maybe fewer novels)
  4. To get back to practicing yoga
  5. To get back to drinking only water, black coffee or gin (well, maybe I’ll add wine to the list this time)
  6. To brush Rufus’ teeth 3x weekly

Let’s see yours!