Bloglander

It can be tough to come up with a New Year’s resolution: You’re thin, healthy, intelligent, speak plenty of languages, have not a single substance abuse issue, and find satisfaction in your relationships, hobbies, and occupation. You and your life are nearly perfect.

But to ensure you have at least a few personal goals for the upcoming year, we looked through this year’s Inlander issues to think up one or two ideas.

• Stop being insecure about Spokane by ridding yourself of the habit of saying things like, “We need to stop being insecure about Spokane.”

• Spot a domestic drone hovering above, and give it a sly little “I know what you’re up to, pal” wink.

• Before forming your opinion, try getting married to at least one (1) gay person, to see if you like it or not.

• Rescue an orphan caribou, raise it as your own, teach it to understand your ways and your culture, pay for its college education, and send it into the big, wide world with a teary goodbye. Go on, caribou. Get outta here. I don’t love you, and I – sniff – never want to see you again. Scram!

• Instill the value in your children that, while you know they may experiment with drugs, alcohol and sex as they get older, under no circumstances is it OK for them to use their youthful antics to shut down a crêperie.

• Finally build the “Straub Light,” a moustached symbol to be projected into the night sky to summon Spokane’s new crimefighting police chief.

• Release your “Geographically, Demographically and Metaphysically Accurate to the Reality of Spokane” fan-edit of the Red Dawn remake.

• Remember to, before firing anybody, first run through the “Can Spokane Attorney Bob Dunn sue my ass off?” checklist.

• Tell a few nuns about how Sister Act II: Back in the Habit really opened your eyes to spirituality.

• Finish paying back your debt to that shady Venetian merchant.

• Finally decide if you prefer to vote for that Mitt Romney fellow or that Barack Obama dude.

• Gather together all the arcane ingredients for the incantation to reverse the curse haunting Old Man Ridpath’s place.

• Fix racism, once and for all.

• Gradually begin to shift your entire media diet, understanding of the world, and method of communicating with loved ones toward Internet cat pictures.

• Start complaining about how pot was so much cooler before it got all mainstream and commercialized, man.

• Doubt the existence of atheism.

• Begin force-feeding ducks veal, to really get a conversation about food ethics going.

• Watch more TV — nobody on their deathbed has ever said "I wish I had spent more time reading books."

• Approach at least one stranger in the bathroom, and deliver your own soaring, tough-but-inspiring halftime locker room pep talk. It could be the start of his big comeback.

• Learn to impersonate Elvis well enough to trick his bank into handing over Social Security and credit card info.

• Carry out one last heist to steal the Casper Fry fried chicken recipe.

• Win a “Miss But-She-Has-a-Great-Personality” pageant.

• Propose to solve global warming through judicious application of sunscreen.

• Identify the “Rudy” of the coal mining industry.

• Read these heart-wrenching Inlander cover stories on suicide, domestic violence, mining deaths, soldier suicide, prostitution, and HIV, and still manage to maintain the occasional burst of optimism about this screwed-up world.