40 Days of Awesome

“Some are born awesome, some achieve awesomeness, and some have awesomeness thrust upon them.  Oh, and some chicks are lucky enough to have my awesomeness thrusted into them at night as well.”

-William Shakespeare, famous poet and apparently a historic misogynist

When it comes to awesomeness, to quote Lady Gaga, baby I was born this way.  But why limit ourselves to only one of Shakespeare’s three options?  I may have been born awesome (since “redhead” and “awesome” are basically synonyms, I’m assuming we can all agree that I was born awesome), but that doesn't mean I shouldn't try to make my life even more awesome.

Meanwhile, in New Year’s Resolutions land, most New Year’s Resolutions are more boring than a Hugh Grant movie.  Flossing teeth every day?  Boring.  Running twice a week?  Might as well pop some popcorn and set up a chair to watch the paint dry for the next three hours.  Quitting smoking?  “Quitters never win, winners never quit”… so not only are you boring, but you’re also resolving to be a loser.  And so, we’re left with a puzzling problem – how do I make a New Year’s resolution that doesn’t end with me gouging my own eyes out from boredom?

This year, I’m killing two birds with one stone, and taking a new approach to my New Year’s resolutions that will also tackle the above awesomeness question.  (Side note – why is killing two birds with one stone generally considered a good thing?  I guess it makes sense if the birds were rabid, or if we’re in a Hitchcock movie, or if my name was Chrissie B. and birds were my sworn enemy, or if I was really hungover and they were chirping loudly outside my window at 6:30AM… but in general, aren’t birds one of the better animals to have around?  If I’m doing two things at once, why can’t I “smush two spiders with one stomp”, or “kill two terrorists with one missile”, or “high five two friends with one slap”?

Anyway, I’m going to find a way to force my life to be even more awesome while giving myself a New Year’s resolution that I’m actually going to be excited about.  In addition, it’s also something that will finally get me to start blogging more, instead of just saying I’ll blog more and then ignoring it like a hot girl ignores a nerd’s emails.  And since I’ve been told that you’re more likely to stick to your goal if you tell others about it… ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, my 2012 New Year’s Resolution:

40 Days of Awesome.

You can tell it’s awesome because it’s bold AND italicized, so we’re already off to a great start.  Plus, it’s got awesome right in the title... ever hear anyone say “Alexander the Great was pretty mediocre” or “you know, that Ivan the Terrible was a pretty nice guy”?  Fuck no.  And you’ll never hear anyone say “40 Days of Awesome was alright I guess”, because it says awesome right there in the title.  On a related note, if any future biographers are reading this one day, I am hereby officially naming myself Andrew the Tremendously Awesome Kickass Champion.  Please do not refer to me as anything else.

Anyway, the specifics: to kick off 2012, I will do one awesome thing every day for 40 days straight.  Why 40 days?  Plenty of reasons:

• 40 oz. bottles are awesome
• 40 is your score when you’re about to win a game in tennis, and winning is awesome
• I-40 runs all the way across the country from California to North Carolina, because 40 isn’t some sissy bitch quitter number that quits after two or three states
• 40 Oz. to Freedom is a top 3 Sublime song (sorry, “What I Got” and “Wrong Way”, but you’re overrated… the other two are Santeria and April 29, 1992), and Sublime was awesome
• “take 40 winks” means taking a nap, and naps are obviously awesome
• “39 Days of Awesome” sounded weird, and 41 days would just be overkill.

This awesome to-do list of awesome things has a wide range of awesome categories.  They include drinking awesomeness (drink a full boot at Leopold’s, drink a pint at The Black Horse, do a Caltrain pub crawl, etc.), eating awesomeness (eat brunch at Mama’s, make a pizza from scratch, eat at the Bacon Bacon Truck), athletic  awesomeness (play volleyball in Santa Cruz, bike over the Golden Gate bridge, take a yoga class), random awesomeness (Sharks and Warriors games, go to the farmer’s market at the Ferry Building, live jazz at Rasselas), more drinking awesomeness (trivia night at St. Stephen’s Green, beer flights in Half Moon Bay, day trip to Napa, sake bombing), and of course, the most awesome of awesomeness (make a spontaneous, unplanned trip to Vegas with less than 24 hours notice.)

So, what’s in it for you?  I’ll be blogging once a week to comment on the seven awesome things that happened that week.  This means if you like reading these posts, you’ll get to hear from me more often.   Hooray, you win!  And if you don’t like these posts, it means you get the pleasure of blatantly ignoring them and reporting status updates about them as inappropriate/spam in Facebook more often.  Hooray, you win too!  (And by “you win too” I mean “go fuck yourself.”)

The 40 Days of Awesomeness resolution will officially begin on Monday, 1/9.  In the meantime, if you have any awesome ideas that you think I should add to the list (or specific awesome things you’d like to join me for), feel free to reach out and let me know; my list currently has 60 things, but not all of them are quite as awesome as I’d like them to be, so I’m still open to suggestions.

Happy New Year!