Last week marked the beginning of a new year and a new decade. In the first 24 hours of 2010 the usual torrent of text messages came from virtually everybody in my phone book. One of them referred to the next ten years as “the teenies”, in the same vein as the twenties and thirties.

I want to begin 2010 the same way I begin every year: with a manifesto; a wish list, a list of action items and ambitions, and this year I’m going to post that manifesto on my blog (because now I have a blog. Last year, I did not).

Recent years have required me to do things that were not really me so I want 2010 to be all about reclaiming myself and my life. Getting back in contact with childhood dreams and being true to myself. And as hairy-fairy as some of that sounds, I believe it is true that to be truly happy, you have to be the person that you would be if there was nobody else to judge you for it.

So, here we go, in priority order… Read the rest of this entry »