Happy New Year

A new year, a new decade. Frankly I'm glad to see the back of the last one. Large portions of it really did suck beyond the telling of it although, thankfully, it did pick up towards the end. I always seem to get a bit maudlin about New Year; probably because I focus too much on what's gone wrong over the course of the year, instead of on what I've acheived. This was supposed to lead into a celebration of the year's acheivements, but all I can come up with is 'I got a job', and the cynical part of my brain responds to that with 'Yes, you did. In November. After being involuntarily unemployed since May. Whoop-de-do. Would you like me to list all the things you screwed up this year? I can you know'.
I don't like that part of my brain. It's mean to me.

I'm going to attempt to prove it wrong though. This year will be the year I graduate from university. It will also, I hope, be the year when I get a permanent, full-time job, and the year when I move to a place of my own, which nobody can tell me not to decorate or fill with cats.

These are not resolutions. They're just things that I hope will happen but which are pretty much out of my control. I have made a resolution however.

I Will Make a Fool of Myself!

I worry way too much about what people think of me. I don't dance because I'm bad at it and worry people will laugh at me. I try not to talk too much around people I don't know well in case I say something wrong or odd and they laugh at me. Do you see the theme emerging? Well stuff it. Does it really matter if people laugh at me? Can it possibly be worse than constantly worrying about the potential for it happening? I sincerely doubt it. So this year I'm going to dance badly, I'm going to say the odd things, I'm going to wear what I like, do what my impulses tell me and generally pull the poker out of my rear end. It promises to be great fun!
In my first act of not caring what people think of me, I'm going to put a link to this blog where my friends might actually see it and thereby risk boring them to tears. Sorry kids.

Things that make me smile Nos. 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12

Massive fail on the whole 'I'm going to post every day' plan. Since I've missed 4 days here is a bumper crop of things that have made me smile:

28th - My parents took me to a folk night at  local pub. Also in attendence was a young girl who, when we happened to be in the ladies at the same time, proceeded to interrogate me about myself from the next cubicle while I tried to wee. She then supervised me washing my hands, assuring me that it was ok to use the hand-drier; it wouldn't hurt me.

29th - I had a truly hellish train journey back from Derby, culminating in the train being terminated on the wrong side of London after the train in front caught fire (no passengers on board thankfully). In this whole debacle there was only one thing that made me smile: the waif of a teenage girl who valiantly insisted on helping me carry my enormous suitcase up a long flight of stairs even though it probably weighed more than she did.

30th - A hunt through my wardrobe established that I was able to put together a 1910 outfit for New Years Eve at just one day's notice and without spending a penny. I realised that, due to my tendency to accrue odd clothing for Burning Man events, I can probably fashion an outfit for most themes from things I already own.

31st - Just a wonderful party! So many people had put such an effort into their costumes. I loved running the resolution booth with Karla, where we helped people to find their new years resolutions, I loved having my portrit drawn, getting to hold a python, bumping into friends I hadn't known would be there, and the fact that the tubes were running late so I had a hassle-free journey home.

1st - I've spent today on the sofa nursing a hangover so will have to clutch at straws and offer up the flashback I had this morning to our attempts to get dressed and made-up in a corridor before the party last night. Strangely there was a man who kept taking photographs of us (we were dressed by then thankfully). Even more strangely, the man turned out not to be the official photographer as we'd thought, but the juggler. Hmm.

Things that make me smile No.7

We went to see acts of Morris being committed at the local pub, and my Grandad, who's a retired coal miner,  leant over to me and whispered "what do you reckon'd happen to them chaps in tights if they did that outside pit gate?"

Things that make me smile No.6

Today the thing that made me smile most was hearing that my little nieces in Canada loved their present from me. I misjudged their birthday presents, giving them something that had to be put away until they're a little older, but apparently I got it right this time, and the touch-and-feel board books were a big hit.

Things that make me smile - Christmas special

I missed a day again. Christmas day is not a day when it generally occurs to me to go online and, even if I did, I would doubtless be far too inebriated to write anything coherent. Many, many things made me smile yesterday however.
I had a lovely Christmas lunch with my family at my aunt's house. My mum tends to get a little stressed out by the menagerie of dogs underfoot and cats atop kitchen counters when we go there, but I find the chaos amusing. Even more amusing was when said dogs pulled my cousin off her feet on the icy path when we took them for a slightly drunken walk. By which I mean, of course, that we were drunk. The dogs were stone-cold sober. How else could they orchestrate the intricate tangling of leashes that required us to dance around each other, under and over, like some kind of bizarre and inefficient maypole?
I was also chuffed to bits with an incredibly generous cash gift from my Grandparents, which will enable me to relax my purse strings a little, then had to laugh at myself when the first thing I thought to treat myself to was a new stick blender. Rock and roll I am not!
Oh well...I wish you a very merry Christmas, and toast you with soup. Or I will when I get my new stick blender.

Things that make me smile No.4

When I pulled out the freezer drawer today to get some ice for my gin and tonic, I glimpsed my mother's scrupulously labelled stores and got a little chuckle from the memory of why she started labelling everything so carefully. Defrosting some leftover gravy to add flavour to a stew is just fine until you discover, a little too late, that it's actually butterscotch sauce.

Things that make me smile No.3

I missed yesterday due to spending all day either at work or in the car. I did get a smile when issuing a book though, when I noticed that the customer's first name was Einstein. Somebody's parents had high hopes!

Things that make me smile No.2

While processing children's books in the library the other day I came across a picture book called There Are Cats in This Book by Viviane Schwarz and was absolutely enchanted. It is simply illustrated, with an almost non-existent plot, but there is something indefinably charming about it. I haven't been so pleased with a picture book since I dicovered Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed

Things that make me smile No.1

Moaning, whinging, griping, bitching...you name it, I do it. It's one of my more irritating habits, and something I'd really like to break myself of. With this in mind, I'm going to attempt to post, each day, one thing that makes me smile. I don't intend to limit myself within that brief, as I suspect there will be days when I'll struggle to find something, so it could be anything.

Here is the first installment:

At the end of the working day, as I walk from my library to the station along London Wall, I pass a very old church called All Hallows. Since it's dark by the time I leave work, I get to enjoy the full effect of the disco ball and spotlights that they've installed in their belltower. I don't know who came up with the idea but it's really effective. It casts hundreds of spangles on the road and the surrounding buildings, and never fails to make me smile.

On Decompression. duvets and disaster

Today is the day of Decompression, the annual London Burning Man party. It's a very exciting affair, full of all the performance, art and elaborate costuming that one would expect from a Burning event. My friend Katie and I decided to get stuck in this year and organise a room. Both of us are incapable of getting through an all-night party without a little snooze in the corner somewhere, so we came up with the idea (well, Katie came up with the idea and I agreed enthusiastically) of a sleep room. A mobile bedroom where people could come for a disco nap. We're setting up a bed, providing people with earplugs and eyemasks and making a note of when they want to be gently woken from their slumbers.

Knowing that I would have to go straight to the venue to help set up after work today, I set my alarm early to allow myself plenty of time to get everything packed up for the event.
You can see it coming can't you?
The crushing inevitability of what happened next?
Yeah, my alarm didn't go off. I woke up with just 30 minutes to pack up everything I needed, get showered, ready and out to work. I made it to work on time - miraculously - with dripping wet hair and no make-up on, then realised I'd forgotten the duvet I was supposed to bring and my ticket. Oh well, not major disasters. I can get away with showing my email confirmation and ID instead of the ticket, and we have other duvets.

Unfortunately, as I wrote this, we were informed that the futon we were borrowing has suddenly become unavailable. We are now, with just 6 hours until kick off, without a bed for our bedroom. This is a problem. We've sent out pleas on the Burning Man mailing lists and on Facebook, and can now only cross our fingers that it'll all be alright on the night!