This time of year I usually poll various groups of friends for their New Year’s resolutions. In my experience, leathermen and bears have the best resolutions because we’ve got the best imaginations.

We’ll begin with my friend Scruff from the East Coast. Scruff recently moved to California to start a new life for himself after a tough relationship. Scruff is neither a bear nor a leatherman but he loves bears and if he could manage to grow one hair on his way-too-smooth chest then his masculinity would forever be validated. When asked about his New Year’s resolution Scruff said he wants to be a huge porn star. His goal is to do 30 movies in the year 2009. Scruff wants to be a porn star because he really, really likes sex and figures it’s the best way to have lots of sex with good-looking men and get paid for it. Anyone who watches porn would know that 20 movies in one year is way more than anyone should expose himself to. How many times in one year do you wanna see the same hole getting plowed over and over? I guess that depends on the hole itself but I tend to like some variety with my holes during the year.

Moving on to AP. AP is a leatherman I have known for years and I’ve had this discussion with him. AP has this leather family that spans four states, including Hawaii. AP has a lover and both he and his lover have boys. Each boy has a life partner and one of the life partners has a slave. One boy has a “brother” who is not the boy of his Daddy but is the boy of a Sir that lives in Hawaii. The Sir in Hawaii has a bevy of boys which means the Hawaii Sir must really have it going on and be the total shit. Either that or there are no other Sirs in Hawaii. So, what is AP’s New Year’s resolution? To get his entire leather family to Los Angeles and living under one roof. When counting family members together we figured it at about 13 or 14 people, depending upon whether anyone new was collared or un-collared at the time. So that’s two Daddies who are lovers, two boys, two life partners, one slave, one brother, one Sir and his bevy of boys which must number six or seven. If left up to AP, in 2009 all of these men who report to various other men – depending on whatever criteria – will be living in the same house in Los Angeles. That’s a hell of a resolution but if AP gets it together we must all go visit for pure entertainment value alone.

Like most years the biggest response had to do with working out and getting in-shape. It’s a great time for gyms since men make commitments and buy gym memberships. Then we work out hard for a few months and start feeling good about ourselves around summer. Summer comes and we go to the beach, play outside and go shirtless to bars to show off our bods. Then there is fall where we begin to sit on our asses and go to the gym when we’re up to it. Winter comes and it’s too cold or rainy and we don’t want to work out with cold muscles. At this point we’re usually more bear than we want to be so it makes sense to wait until the New Year to make a clean start again. Nothing wrong with this but I’ve been going to the gym regularly and sitting in the steam room so I’ll be used to going to the gym when January rolls around. New Years resolutions are fun to make but if we can’t keep them, so what? There’s next year. Whether its making 30 porn movies or moving 14 Daddies, boys, slaves and their partners into the same house it’s still your New Year resolution, so enjoy it. Happy New Year.