2019 in Review
Dec. 30th, 2019 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teylaminhStarted this in mid-October, because why not? (Probably for the best or I would never have finished it...)
1. What did you do in 2019 that you'd never done before?
Wrote fanfic for Game of Thrones. This is probably the geekiest answer ever, but it's significant because GoT is one of those things which is so vast and epic that I never thought I would attempt fanfic for it, and then season 8 happened and suddenly I was writing Braime stories like my life depended on it. This is actually one of the things I love about shipping: when you're only writing about two characters, you really don't have to bother about anything else, and those seemingly impenetrable fandoms become a lot more accessible. (But then, I started my fandom career with X-Files; Mulder and Scully were the first pairing I ever wrote for. My propensity for doomed and ridiculously complex ships started early, and I blame X-Files for… well, everything, frankly.)
It also kicked my Writer Angst firmly out of the window, because I was writing to arbitrary self-inflicted deadlines thanks to the UK broadcast being mere hours behind the US; and, because I was sharing stuff in a 'new' fandom where nobody knew me, it took me places I did not expect in terms of my actual writing.
You never know, maybe next year I will get around to posting those stories for other fandoms which have been gathering dust on my hard drive for years...or converting the PlotbunniesTM into actual words.
Also, whilst on holiday: we went for a camel ride! There's a camel park in Bulgaria which only opened last year, and they only started advertising it properly this year and putting up signage on the local roads. The guy running it was previously doing something similar in Cyprus before moving to Bulgaria and it's apparently the only camel park in eastern Europe. All of the camels were really well behaved and there was also a little petting zoo with donkeys, goats, sheep and rabbits (so. many. rabbits), which he’s hoping to do something more with next year.
2. Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn't make any and that was probably for the best considering all the unexpected upheaval in the middle of the year... Having said that, both prior to and after the house move we tried to get into better habits in terms of cooking rather than relying on takeaways, and that’s probably something to stick to.
Also, since I spent a year having a regular Avon lady and bought lots of funky make-up, I made a vague resolution to try and actually use it if I was going anywhere, and for the most part I managed that. I like to think my application and timing have both improved as a result.
I did not learn a new baking skill this year, but I did make my best ever cake so far: Paul’s Mad Max: Fury Road themed birthday cake. It turned out about 80% as good as it looked in my head when I came up with the concept, so I’ll take that as a win. In 2020 I want to tackle puff pastry / croissants and making my own fondant, as well as gluten-free baking.
Paul and I have made a vague resolution to do a food bank run every month (once the nightmare of January/February is out of the way) because the government aren’t going to support anyone other than the super-rich so the rest of us need to pull together and help those less fortunate. My election-related despair lasted about 24 hours before I, like many others, decided to use that anger and frustration for the greater good.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not this year.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
My grandmother died in June, at the ripe old age of 94. It wasn't unexpected, and it came in the middle of our house-move chaos so I don't think I really processed it properly, but my uncle has since given me a blow-by-blow account of events since her fall at home in mid-May and we've started the process of going through all her years of accumulated Stuff.
5. What countries did you visit?
Bulgaria, as usual. Next year we will be going to the Czech Republic on my choir trip to Prague, which happily coincides with our 15th anniversary when we were planning on going to Prague anyway! (If we can ever get there, since the travel arrangements are proving a massive pain in the arse now that WizzAir have stopped flying there. I could take up the organiser’s flight options but I refuse to pay £250 [each!] to change at either Amsterdam or Frankfurt. At present it looks like I can get a direct flight from Stansted, but there are no coaches back to Birmingham on a Sunday apparently…)
6. What would you like to have in 2020 that you lacked in 2019?
Motivation to do things. I’m hoping that now we’ve moved closer to my work and it’s not taking me nearly two hours to get home, I will have more energy to cook properly and keep on top of housework, and I am hoping to reduce my hours at work if it’s financially viable, which we won’t really know until the first few months of outgoings at the new house are more predictable… Fingers crossed.
7. What date from 2019 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I’m still very bad at remembering dates, but 20th May has stuck with me as being the finale of GoT because I ended up booking the day after off work so I’d have time to recover, having spent the four weeks prior to that in a zombie-like state of sleeplessness after every bloody episode. :P
On that basis, 29th April was the air date of episode 3, “The Long Night”, which even with the benefit of hindsight I can honestly say is one of the greatest televisual events of the last decade. I have not had such a visceral reaction to something in a very long time, and the fact that it took me at least 24 hours to fully process it says everything. Regardless of how bad (some of) the writing was for the last few episodes, that one pulled it out of the bag just in terms of atmosphere and genuine surprises.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting the house to a vaguely sorted state a lot quicker than we have ever managed before, in part due to the fact that I threw so much stuff away before we moved out of necessity (downsizing), and because we had all the boxes / furniture moved into the correct rooms to start with… Also, an unprecedented (but thankfully not unannounced) inspection from the landlady in late November provoked us to at least make the dining room presentable by shoving everything in the shed. :P
Also, I guess, not going off sick in the midst of the Eclipse saga and/or not throttling my idiot colleagues? Though TBF it was a close call on both.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Mostly just writing-related fails this year, like the story I specifically started writing in February forcommoncomitatus’s birthday, which then fell by the wayside when GoT decided to take over my brain… Maybe I can get that last chapter/section finished by next February. :P
Also, I had to send apologies for my first choir concert of the year. I ended up missing a few rehearsals due to being away and then being ill/knackered (thanks, Eclipse!) and the membership secretary booked me in for a concert check, but when I was rehearsing it myself at home I realised there were a few bits of the second piece (Freedom! The Power of Song; or Anthem for Millennials as I nicknamed it) which we were supposed to learn by heart, to free us up to march/clap/step in rhythm. I’m sure I must have read this in the rehearsal notes, but all the work stress had erased it from my brain – and in any case, it was not mentioned at any of the rehearsals I did manage to attend. I admittedly missed the workshop because I overslept (again: thanks, Eclipse!) and it was all the way over in Erdington, which is a mission to get to at the best of times. The point is, usually when we have to learn things by heart we dedicate a bit more rehearsal time to it, and there had been nothing up to the second-to-last rehearsal that I could recall.
The other piece we were doing was Will Todd’s Mass in Blue, which is basically a requiem set to a jazz arrangement. I absolutely loathe jazz at the best of times, so it took me a very long time to get into it, and even after the melodies had started to gel I was struggling with the timing. As indeed was everyone else, which resulted in a lot of rehearsal time being dedicated to it over and above Freedom!, to its detriment because there were vast swathes of it that we simply hadn’t looked at before. Then Adrian/Colin was getting frustrated with us because it sounded like we hadn’t sung it before - because. we. hadn’t.
The thing is, we broke up early in the summer, just after the Carmina Burana concert on 10th May. Normally we would carry on until late June. Rather than finishing early, to my mind it would have made more sense to make a start on rehearsing the music for November rather than giving us such tight timescales to get to grips with some very unusual / challenging music. It’s always an issue for the first concert of the year because it comes so early, but lately it really feels as though Adrian is pushing us beyond our limits in terms of our capacity to learn things. I took issue last year with the fact that he gave us two weeks’ notice at Christmas on learning three carols by heart – which is fine if you’re a pensioner with loads of free time, but some of us have jobs to go to.
It’s a shame, because there were bits of Freedom! that I really liked and even though I didn’t particularly like Mass in Blue, it had a few nice moments. It felt like the concert-day rehearsal was going to be an absolute shambles of last-minute panic. On the plus side, there was one particular movement in Freedom! which made me cry every single time, so I very much doubt I would have survived the concert intact…
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
WELL. I don’t think I updated about this at the time and I also didn’t put it on social media because I kind of forgot in all the chaos of the house move, but the day after my grandmother’s funeral I fell down the stairs at home and hurt my leg.
The bathroom in the new place is downstairs, and although there is an en suite in the spare room, at that point the door was blocked by flattened boxes from all the new furniture, as it was only three weeks after we’d moved in. So whilst heading downstairs in the dark in the middle of the night, I forgot where the bottom step was on our steep/weirdly angled stairs, thanks to the beige carpet blending seamlessly with the dark grey tiles in the semi-darkness. My left foot slid off the edge and I landed on my right shin, thankfully managing to brace myself on a bookcase and the door handle on the way down so I didn’t crack my head off the floor or the dining table.
I hobbled off to the bathroom and then back up to bed, and then my leg started to really hurt. Like, a lot. It was just after the UK heatwave broke so we weren’t using the duvet, so I basically kind of piled it up and used it to elevate my leg, which stopped it aching enough that I could sleep, because at that point I was seriously considering if I’d have to go to A&E.
By the morning it was still hurting but I was able to walk on it, so I assumed it was not broken. It did, however, take the best part of a month for the bruising to go down, and it was quite painful for about three weeks. I actually think I chipped the bone because honestly, the amount of bruising was ridiculous – basically the entire of the front of my lower leg and random areas of my foot/ankle were mottled in dark blue and purple, including places I hadn’t even injured. The pain itself kept moving around and there are still two little lumps where my leg hit the steps on the way down, though they're not as pronounced as they were.
I treated it with arnica (for the bruising) and a compression bandage to try and get the swelling down. Some kind of anti-inflammatory gel might have helped, but most painkillers are ineffective on me these days.
Half of the issue is that my pain threshold is ridiculously high after four years of chronic pain, so it probably was a lot worse than I thought it was. The thing is, I knew that if I went to A&E I would end up being signed off work for an indeterminate period of time, and at the point where this happened we were already short-staffed due to the summer holidays. Plus, I was already on an Attendance Improvement Plan so if I had more than 10 days off sick I would have been taken to a Final Case Hearing, and I did not feel like explaining to Some Dickhead in senior management that I had fallen down the stairs because I’m a clumsy oaf. Since my job is mostly sedentary so I figured I could get away with not putting weight on it until it stopped hurting enough to resume normal movement. :P
If you have surmised from this that I am an idiot, you are probably correct. Hopefully I haven’t done any lasting damage, but only time (and potential gym attendance) will tell…
Also: from early October my steroid injection wore off and I then had a bloody rigmarole with my new GP trying to get the next one booked in. I had to wait six weeks for a discussion about it as to whether I was “suitable”, and then had to wait again to get the actual injection, resulting in pain and anxiety flare-ups (which were mostly triggered by Eclipse stress), brainfog and lack of energy. At the point of drafting this entry, in late December, I am still waiting for the appointment for the actual jab.
On the plus side (maybe?) my annoying symptoms seem to have plateaued rather than worsening, though I don’t really want to leave things any longer… TBH the timing of Eclipse going live could not have been worse as it coincided neatly with my last jab wearing off whilst on holiday. Hence why I’m bloody amazed I haven’t gone off sick at all because it’s been tempting on more than one occasion.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
I HAS A DIE CUT MACHINE. I’ve wanted one for some time and ended up purchasing one because my mum had a 20% off voucher for Hobbycraft. It’s awesome and has seriously levelled up my card-making skillz. :D
We also ended up buying lots of new furniture after we moved, which was all stuff we were going to replace anyway, because it saved us having to dismantle and rebuild it. This comprised a new bed (plus a new mattress as a moving-in present from my mum), a desk and office chair, plus a few kitchen bits. We still need to get a sofa-bed for the spare room to replace my old day bed, which was relegated to the landlord’s skip along with all the other stuff we dumped which didn’t end up with colleagues. :P At some point I also need to replace one of the chest of drawers in the bedroom to make room for the Cuddly Toy Shelf, as otherwise I have no idea where to put it…
(Amusingly, when the landlady came to visit in November she described the living room as “cosy”, which is code for “goodness me, what a lot of stuff you have!”)
Also, prior to the inspection in November we got around to buying a new vacuum cleaner, having “donated” our clunky old Dyson to the previous landlord’s cause. We replaced it with a Shark, on the recommendation of my old hairdresser (he owns huskies) and on the basis of not supporting Brexit Wankers like Mr Dyson and Mr Wetherspoon, and honestly, it’s amazing. About half the weight of the Dyson, half the decibels and half the price, with better suction and functionality.
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
I gotta say this: the Braime fandom is amazing. We were one of many factions of the GoT fandom which ended up sorely disappointed with how things turned out, but thanks to people writing so much fix-it / spite fic, the Jaime/Brienne tag on AO3 is now the most popular in the GoT section. (It makes such a difference not to be screaming into the void.)
I love fandom. :D
In real life, our previous letting agent, Ash, really went above and beyond when the landlord decided to pull the rug out on us, and I wish we could have continued renting with him in many respects. Good letting agents are even rarer than good landlords, and even though we have landed on our feet again, it would have been nice if we could have continued with Ash because it would definitely have saved us some money.
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Other than the GoT writers (don’t get me started, I’m still not over it, and the more I learn about them the worse they get, because I have zero tolerance for misogynistic bullshit these days), I imagine this answer will not come as a surprise:
Boris Fucking Johnson. Every time you thought he couldn’t possibly act like more of an entitled child, he pulled the stops out even further. I have been saying for some time that our current political situation, both in the UK and across the pond, is the death throes of an institution that knows it’s obsolete, but god I just wish it would die already.
(I wrote that paragraph before the election in December. Looks like it’s not dying for another five years, unless the ongoing impossibility of Brexit triggers another snap election. I honestly thought Brexit would be the thing to finally end the Tories for good; turns out I underestimated how many racist pricks there are in the UK.)
On the same note: the right-wing media have a LOT to answer for, and the swing to Tory across the country was depressing.
Also: our landlord turned out to be a dick, though it was hard to stay mad at him for trying to do a good thing even though it messed us around, and he did let us fill his skip with our dead furniture, which saved us a lot of money/hassle. Still, that was a lot of stress and upheaval I could have done without.
Actually, I am going back to the GoT writers thing, because I kind of feel like the fandom’s disappointment is based in something far deeper than our ships not sailing / being bratty fangirls throwing our toys of the pram. We are all, in multiple places across the globe, living in a real life dystopian hellscape; escapism is important, and GoT has been one of the biggest entertainment phenomena of the past decade, with a fanbase of thousands (maybe even millions). Like, I get it: Westeros is a terrible place where awful things happen, and we’re not allowed to have (or keep) nice things… but a constant stream of absolutely relentless GrimDark is not now you deliver on that. There needs to be hope and light within the darkness and despair; it should be allowed to linger and shine for more than a few seconds. The bad guys don’t always have to win. It’s not a cop-out to give people a happy ending.
For me, and many others, the writers’ handling of final season felt deliberately and intentionally cruel, but more than that it spoke of an underlying lack of respect for the characters, their creator, their performers and their audience. When we, the fans, are clinging to these characters and relationships that we love, maybe the writers should take heed rather than throwing it back in our faces. We no longer trust you, D&D, and if there was any justice you would not be allowed near anything as complex as GoT ever again.
I’m sure I mentioned something similar during my various GoT-related posts back in April/May, but honestly, the handling of this final season has felt like the culmination of all those earlier fandom disappointments: the Farscape cancellation, Jonathan Creek’s creator descending into God Complex insanity, Voyager’s terrible and disappointing finale – and all the others I’ve probably forgotten. These all happened when the world was a simpler, kinder and better place to live. Now, more than ever, we need our escapism to span the gap between realism and wish fulfilment in a more satisfying way. We deserved better, and so did the show.
14. Where did most of your money go?
This year, on the house move. Again. Overall, though, I do seem to have more spare money than before, so we are slowly getting there.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Game of Thrones! (Obvious answer is obvious.) TBF, most of that excitement was pure, concentrated dread and anxiety over my OTP, but it’s been a long time since I was so consumed by a fandom and it was awesome to remember what that felt like. Plus it effectively distracted me from pointlessly stressful shit at work, which is always a bonus. Escaping into plotting my Braime fics has been this year’s PlotbunniesTM in terms of keeping my head above water. :P
Also, the livestream of the All About Eve play starring Gillian Anderson, which was so much more brilliant than I anticipated. I wish I could have seen it live, but the seats in London were just too expensive (£70 up in the gods, I don’t think so!). Still, I got to see the livestream twice (the second viewing was a repeat of the recording) and I’m crossing my fingers for a DVD release or at least a viewing on Sky Arts, since they were one of the sponsors.
I was also excited for our house move after we’d found somewhere, because the new house is so much nicer than the previous one. I detached myself emotionally from it within about a week of getting the news that we had to move. Three years was not long enough to get attached, and it never really felt like a home because we didn’t quite get around to decorating anywhere – which is probably just as well, considering. The new place is the kind of house we would buy if we could afford to do so.
16. What song will always remind you of 2019?
I’ve had four major albums to obsess over this year: Hurts 2B Human by P!nk, Pray for the Wicked by Panic! at the Disco, The Feeling by The Feeling (obvs) and The Con by Tegan & Sara (which is new for me but old in the scheme of things). I’m struggling to think of any particular song which encompasses the year, but “Dying in LA" (Panic) is definitely up there for the fact that it hit me straight in the Sunset feels almost immediately. All four of these albums kind of spanned the period around our house move, which was the biggest event of the year, so it’s hard for me to pick a favourite.
Also, from April/May onwards, I was firmly in "every song I own reminds me of my OTP and it HURTS" mode, so there's that.
Honestly, though, I am loving the millennial vibe of P!nk’s work lately: adulting is hard, but fuck it, let’s get on with it.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
(a) happier or sadder? Possibly happier, but only because our new house is lovely (and nearer to work for me), but that’s not to say the year was without its issues.
(b) thinner or fatter? I am slightly thinner in that I have lost a bit of weight thanks to my ongoing steroid jabs and the fact that, for once, we did not just live off takeaways after our house move but tried to cook properly. :P
(c) richer or poorer? Notwithstanding financial upheavals, very slightly richer…
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Writing, as ever, though it picked up from April with my unprecedented GoT obsession and subsequent writing flurry. (It’s always a pleasant surprise…)
I’ve been a bit better at socialising this year but still feel like I haven’t seen people enough. We managed to do the pub quiz at the Midland more often this year, though sadly some unpleasantness towards the end of year now means we will no longer be going there. Also, the Welly closed in March so now we have nowhere to go for Sunday lunch with a side of bitchy snark.
We now live closer to Bearwood and on a much more regular bus route, so hopefully that will improve things on the socialisation front…
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
I made myself a new year’s resolution of sorts to stop giving so much of a shit about things at work that I could not influence or control, and for the most part I did manage to stick to it, but there were a couple of occasions where I almost caved and sent emails I would have regretted, which were mostly when other people’s absolute stupidity had broken me to the point of wanting to hammer common sense into them. :P
With Eclipse, after three days where it was increasingly triggering my anxiety, I eventually decided to stop worrying. I raised errors and issues with the relevant people where necessary, logged literally everything that had gone wrong on every meeting I’d minuted, and then sat back and waited for them to get fixed. *insert Greg Lestrade "not my division" GIF*
This sadly turned into a perpetual cycle of getting so stressed I couldn’t function, punching through into “not giving a shit” territory and ignoring Eclipse for a couple of days, then regrouping to try and deal with outstanding stuff. On an almost weekly basis. I have no idea how (or if?) I’m still sane.
20. How did you spend Christmas?
I had to work Christmas Eve morning, but luckily I was able to work from home, which meant that when I finished work at midday I was already in my house. I then had a mad taxi dash to the post depot to collect some Christmas presents I had yet to wrap (Effin Birds mugs, including one for myself which says “Being an adult is shit”) and then onwards to Bearwood to get a lamb leg from the butcher. Then followed two hours of frantic tidying/cleaning, a quick shower, a half-hour sit down and then changed and back out for our meal with friends.
On the day itself, for the first time ever, it was not spent with just the two of us as I had invited my uncle over for dinner – since it was his first Christmas without his mum. We weren’t sure if he was coming until the last minute but TBH it was nowhere near as bad or intrusive as I was expecting. Now that his every waking moment is not taken up with all the stress of being a carer (whilst working and dealing with my father being characteristically useless), he seems much more like I remember him when I was younger. Rather than just eating and buggering off like he would have done before, he actually stayed for about five hours!
So yeah, that was unexpectedly pleasant.
On Boxing Day, thanks to cocktails on Christmas Eve and far too much champagne / wine on Christmas Day, I spent the morning in bed with a hangover/migraine (hangraine? migrover?) before getting up at middayish and playing some of the PS4 game that Paul got me for Christmas, namely Detroit: Become Human. It’s basically about Androids discovering human emotions and becoming rogue: the premise is very similar to the Channel 4 show, Humans. It’s by Quantic Dream, who also made Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls, so the graphics are beautiful and it’s likely to get dark AF before too long. By Saturday (28th December) I had already unlocked one ending and started a second play through to get another by altering some of my choices.
I was back at work on Friday and luckily my afternoon meeting got cancelled, so I used up some of my remaining flex to leave early and go home to have a nap.
I am working today (30th December), off New Year’s Eve, back in on 2nd January and then off for a week from the 6th.
21. How will you spend New Year's Eve?
Probably a quiet one as always, though as I have the day off I will try and clear some more space in our dining room so we have room to open out the table on New Year’s Day, as Paul’s family are all coming over for a cream tea. Someone is going to have to bring their own chair, though. I have a vague plan of putting our four-year-old great-niece in the office chair so she can have a spin. :P
22. Did you fall in love in 2019?
23. How many one-night stands?
Perpetually redundant questions are perpetually redundant.
24. What was your favourite TV programme?
I mean I’m pretty sure I don’t need to answer this given that I’ve already splurged several thousand words about it, but Game of Thrones was the big one for me this year. I was excited for season 8 but I had literally no clue how much it would take over my entire consciousness; apparently the Braime fandom sucked me in like a black hole and I could not escape. (I was fine until episode 2 and then it was like my brain exploded.) I’d like to say it was only Jaime and Brienne who held my attention, but I didn’t realise how many feels I had for so many of the other characters either! (Tyrionnnnnn!!! Sandooooorrrr!!! Theooooonnnn!!!)
(…oh look, more angsty boys.)
In retrospect, given the timing coincided with the stupid email we received which accused us of not understanding our own jobs, I very much suspect that all of my GoT analysis / reaction posts were my brain’s way of sending a massive fuck-you to the email in question, since my focus honed in specifically on the writers’ terrible treatment of characters who have suffered abuse and trauma. My unexpectedly epic fic, “The Things We Do”, started out as a standard, four-chapter, post-episode fix-it for 8.04, and turned into 13-chapter study on Jaime’s unresolved emotional trauma. So, er… yeah, that was a surprise, to say the least, but I can’t say I didn't enjoy the ride. (Like I said before: trope hard or go home!)
Also: we have both really enjoyed Brooklyn Nine-Nine this year, thanks to Andrea giving us a free Netflix account at New Year’s. Such being the case, honourable mentions for: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (genius!), Stranger Things (I HAVE MANY FEELINGS; also, Winona Ryder!), Love Death & Robots (awesome world-building!) and several other shows I’ve probably forgotten.
We also finished Parks and Recreation (via Amazon Prime) and I finally caught up on my EastEndersbacklog, which may not seem like an achievement until I tell you that in January I was about six months behind and by July I was completely caught up. :P
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I mean, I honestly didn’t expect Boris Johnson to be THIS MUCH of an absolute bell-end, so there’s that? My contempt for his cronies has also increased, particularly Rees-Mogg after that shameful, arrogant display in Commons (reclining on the front benches) and Sajid Javid after the whole Shamima Begum thing (not that he didn’t have a punchable face to start with).
26. What was the best book you read?
Very bad at reading again this year. Whilst on holiday I managed to blitz through Shappi Khorsandi’s Nina is Not OK, and then re-read 75% ofThe Book Thief in a single day so I really must finish that. I’ve started Schindler’s Ark now but need to get back into reading at bedtime rather than doing my puzzle book. I need to either read, or write fic, and probably stop staring at my phone in the dark…
I basically want to get through the bookcase as quickly as I can so I can finally get around to reading ASOIAF, because honestly, the more I learn about book!Jaime, the more it hits me in the feels. :P
Oh, also, Darren and Andrea bought me the Effin Birds book for Christmas, completely unexpectedly, so that was fun. :D
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I didn’t discover anyone new this year but some of my faves released new stuff (as above) so that was enough for me. :)
28. What did you want and get?
I don’t think there was anything specific this year.
29. What did you want and not get?
For Brexit to be cancelled (there’s still time!).
Braime to be canon. Notwithstanding that according to the actors and the writer of episode 2 and the director and the composer (and probably also GRRM) it quite undeniably was, but it would have been nice to SEE THAT for more than 20 seconds before getting our hearts broken. :P (Another honourable mention here for Gwendoline Christie's Emmy dress, which is now canonically Brienne's wedding dress, I don't make the rules.)
30. What was your favourite film of the year?
We haven’t gone to the cinema much this year. I’m including All About Eve as a film because we saw it at the cinema, and that was easily my favourite.
We managed to see Avengers: Endgame literally the weekend before the spoiler ban was officially lifted, so that was great – and we saw Captain Marvel the day before as the cinema in Dudley was still showing it. I was firmly in my GoT spiral by that point though so I'm not able to be very insightful about Endgame.
I’m sure there must have been others but now I can’t remember. We’ve probably watched several via Sky and Netflix but my memory is failing, other than Ralph Breaks the Internet, which was delightful, and Holmes and Watson, which was very silly. (On such note: I can’t wait for the third instalment of the Guy Ritchie-verse Holmes films, because they are easily my favourite.) I also finally got around to watching the live-action remake of Dumbo, which gave me all the elements of a Tim Burton film that I would rightfully expect. :)
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 38 and I was at work, in the midst of the Eclipse chaos. :P On the evening we attempted to have dinner at Old Dresser Cafe but belatedly discovered they had changed their opening hours, so we ended up at Mount Nemrut (a Turkish restaurant in Bearwood) instead, and then went on to do the Midland pub quiz. I worked from home all day on Thursday due to having part two of my measles jab and my 'flu jab. On the Friday I was off work, so I went out to get ingredients for dinner the day after, then popped out to see Lisa and latterly Paul's mum. On Saturday Paul cooked my dinner for me (quiche lorraine, beef bourguignon, and chocolate lava cake, all courtesy of Rachel Khoo).
Nothing particularly exciting but at least I had one day off.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Eclipse being delivered in a stress-free and seamless manner, fully functioning and with proper guidance charts, and the back-end team responding in an expedient fashion to all of the various errors we asked them to fix.
Blah blah Game of Thrones blah, you know what I’m going to say. :P
The latter half of the year not being politically exhausting.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2019?
Whatever I damn well want. :P
Which is to say: jeans, t-shirts, Lindy Bop dresses for special occasions. My mum crocheted me an awesome “elf coat” for Christmas which has pointy bell sleeves and a long pointy hood and it’s the best thing ever.
Losing a bit of weight has resulted in me fitting into some things which were previously too small, so that’s nice – hopefully I can fit back into all that stuff I’ve been holding onto since the early 00’s and my fashion concept will be Late-30s Millennial Who Doesn’t Give A Shit About Fashion, Screw Your Skinny Jeans Anyway.
I did actually throw a load of stuff away during the house move (other than some designer stuff and items I really like and would love to fit back into), so rather than holding onto stuff until I lose weight, I'll just damn well buy new things as a reward. :P
34. What kept you sane?
Gaming, writing, card-making (seriously, I actually managed to get over an anxiety attack by fastidiously planning how to make my next batch of Christmas cards in my head: order out of chaos), and fandom, as ever. As much as the GoT fansplosion was probably not my sanest moment as far as my long-suffering colleagues were concerned, since they got to experience me in full-on fangirl mode on more than one occasion, it definitely distracted me from unimportant work bollocks. :P
35. Which celebrity / public figure did you fancy the most?
I don’t think I had one this year other than the usual suspects…
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
This year has been A Lot, politically. The Tory leadership contest was a countdown to see which egomaniac we'd get lumbered with and hoping it was the lesser of many evils. I'm still not quite sure if the floppy-haired manbaby we ended up with is a better option than Cliché Dickens Villain (Rees-Mogg), Subhuman Eldritch Horror (Gove) or NHS Destroyer (Hunt).
I also became unintentionally engrossed in the Parliamentary debate about whether there should be a general election, and the entire nation got to learn what prorogation meant, though I wish we hadn’t.
Also, despite telling myself I would not engage in debate with my Corbyn-hating, right-wing-media-reading colleague in the run-up to the election, I still ended up in a conversation with her, and had to give her up as a lost cause when she had the audacity to tell me I “shouldn’t believe everything I read” (even when I pointed out that I was making informed decisions based on factual evidence rather than media spin). This is one Boomer/Millennial void we are never going to meet in the middle of, sadly; I have tried on various occasions to explain to her that my world – and indeed that of her Gen Z children – is very different to the one she experienced at the same age, but she has stubbornly refused to meet me halfway, and she has a level of internalised misogyny which is impossible to deal with.
The thing is, I completely and totally understand where she is coming from and why she holds these opinions. She lost extended family members in the Birmingham pub bombings and she firmly believes that Corbyn is an IRA sympathisers, so yes, it makes sense why she can’t stand him. Her father was (from what I’ve gathered) an abusive dickbag and she has clearly never quite managed to deal with that, so she doesn’t want to marry her partner because she doesn’t want to be “owned” by a man. What frustrates me is that even when I explain to her my own experiences, my own reasoning, or that of her young adult children, she can’t see eye to eye or put herself in our shoes. She complains that her children waste money on frivolous things and simply cannot accept that the reason they – and those of my generation – do that is because we have no feasible way of owning our own homes and no way to save any large sums of money, so we might as well spend what little we have on immediate gratification to enrich our lives little by little.
For me, this entire thing came to a head when I was having a discussion with another, younger colleague about Jeremy Corbyn in her general vicinity (which may have been deliberate on my part) and she told us to move away from her because the conversation was winding her up. This is despite her constantly engaging me in political discussions even when it is clearly upsetting me and triggering my anxiety; I have never asked her to move away from me. But then, she doesn’t really understand why politics is a trigger for me anyway, as her response when I tried to explain it was “You shouldn’t let it worry you.” That’s literally what anxiety is.
Anyway, thankfully she is the only person in our team with these views and everyone else has clearly given up on reasoning with her, so I probably should as well. On the day after the election I opted to avoid her by spending the day at a different office, but on the Monday another colleague also opted not to discuss the election at all in her presence, so I’m obviously not the only one in self-preservation mode…
37. Who did you miss?
I don’t think there was anyone specifically… Flailing about fandoms is kind of weird when you don’t have anyone (online) to share the flail with (though I am so grateful for the popularity of GoT and the fact that most of the people I work with were also watching and had Opinions!), and I guess that got me thinking a bit about old fandom-formed friendships which had fallen by the wayside… particularly in the wake of the 20th anniversary of Farscape. I am still in contact with two of my very first internet friends who I met via Rocky Horror, which was one of my first online fandom experiences, but the people I met through Farscape are no longer in my life in the same way. We drifted apart, a rift formed that was never healed, and latterly our fandom interests veered in opposite directions, but sometimes I reflect on those shared fandoms and feel a stab of nostalgia for how things used to be, when the world was a simpler and less cruel place to live…
So I guess really, it’s not so much who I miss as when…
38. Who was the best new person you met?
I don’t think I met anyone new this year! Although our new landlady is definitely awesome.
39. Did you meet anyone you only knew online?
Nope.
40. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2019:
Sometimes, life takes you in a certain direction for a reason. Sometimes, it works out for the better.
Also: toxic people will always be toxic; be the anti-venom you want to see in the world. ;)
41. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I always think this is quite a difficult thing to do, because years in Real Life are a rollercoaster regardless of how settled you think you are. So I’ll do my usual of finding lyrics which spoke to me, and for that I will pass you over to P!nk for probably the fifth time in a row… :P
Since I was 17
I’ve always hated my body
And it feels like my body’s hated me
Can somebody find me a pill
To make me unafraid of me?
…
I don’t wanna be this way forever
Keep telling myself that I’ll get better
Every time I try, I always stop me
Maybe I’m just scared to be happy
(from “Happy”)
I mean, DAMN if that’s not accurate, right?
1. What did you do in 2019 that you'd never done before?
Wrote fanfic for Game of Thrones. This is probably the geekiest answer ever, but it's significant because GoT is one of those things which is so vast and epic that I never thought I would attempt fanfic for it, and then season 8 happened and suddenly I was writing Braime stories like my life depended on it. This is actually one of the things I love about shipping: when you're only writing about two characters, you really don't have to bother about anything else, and those seemingly impenetrable fandoms become a lot more accessible. (But then, I started my fandom career with X-Files; Mulder and Scully were the first pairing I ever wrote for. My propensity for doomed and ridiculously complex ships started early, and I blame X-Files for… well, everything, frankly.)
It also kicked my Writer Angst firmly out of the window, because I was writing to arbitrary self-inflicted deadlines thanks to the UK broadcast being mere hours behind the US; and, because I was sharing stuff in a 'new' fandom where nobody knew me, it took me places I did not expect in terms of my actual writing.
You never know, maybe next year I will get around to posting those stories for other fandoms which have been gathering dust on my hard drive for years...
Also, whilst on holiday: we went for a camel ride! There's a camel park in Bulgaria which only opened last year, and they only started advertising it properly this year and putting up signage on the local roads. The guy running it was previously doing something similar in Cyprus before moving to Bulgaria and it's apparently the only camel park in eastern Europe. All of the camels were really well behaved and there was also a little petting zoo with donkeys, goats, sheep and rabbits (so. many. rabbits), which he’s hoping to do something more with next year.
2. Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn't make any and that was probably for the best considering all the unexpected upheaval in the middle of the year... Having said that, both prior to and after the house move we tried to get into better habits in terms of cooking rather than relying on takeaways, and that’s probably something to stick to.
Also, since I spent a year having a regular Avon lady and bought lots of funky make-up, I made a vague resolution to try and actually use it if I was going anywhere, and for the most part I managed that. I like to think my application and timing have both improved as a result.
I did not learn a new baking skill this year, but I did make my best ever cake so far: Paul’s Mad Max: Fury Road themed birthday cake. It turned out about 80% as good as it looked in my head when I came up with the concept, so I’ll take that as a win. In 2020 I want to tackle puff pastry / croissants and making my own fondant, as well as gluten-free baking.
Paul and I have made a vague resolution to do a food bank run every month (once the nightmare of January/February is out of the way) because the government aren’t going to support anyone other than the super-rich so the rest of us need to pull together and help those less fortunate. My election-related despair lasted about 24 hours before I, like many others, decided to use that anger and frustration for the greater good.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not this year.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
My grandmother died in June, at the ripe old age of 94. It wasn't unexpected, and it came in the middle of our house-move chaos so I don't think I really processed it properly, but my uncle has since given me a blow-by-blow account of events since her fall at home in mid-May and we've started the process of going through all her years of accumulated Stuff.
5. What countries did you visit?
Bulgaria, as usual. Next year we will be going to the Czech Republic on my choir trip to Prague, which happily coincides with our 15th anniversary when we were planning on going to Prague anyway! (If we can ever get there, since the travel arrangements are proving a massive pain in the arse now that WizzAir have stopped flying there. I could take up the organiser’s flight options but I refuse to pay £250 [each!] to change at either Amsterdam or Frankfurt. At present it looks like I can get a direct flight from Stansted, but there are no coaches back to Birmingham on a Sunday apparently…)
6. What would you like to have in 2020 that you lacked in 2019?
Motivation to do things. I’m hoping that now we’ve moved closer to my work and it’s not taking me nearly two hours to get home, I will have more energy to cook properly and keep on top of housework, and I am hoping to reduce my hours at work if it’s financially viable, which we won’t really know until the first few months of outgoings at the new house are more predictable… Fingers crossed.
7. What date from 2019 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I’m still very bad at remembering dates, but 20th May has stuck with me as being the finale of GoT because I ended up booking the day after off work so I’d have time to recover, having spent the four weeks prior to that in a zombie-like state of sleeplessness after every bloody episode. :P
On that basis, 29th April was the air date of episode 3, “The Long Night”, which even with the benefit of hindsight I can honestly say is one of the greatest televisual events of the last decade. I have not had such a visceral reaction to something in a very long time, and the fact that it took me at least 24 hours to fully process it says everything. Regardless of how bad (some of) the writing was for the last few episodes, that one pulled it out of the bag just in terms of atmosphere and genuine surprises.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting the house to a vaguely sorted state a lot quicker than we have ever managed before, in part due to the fact that I threw so much stuff away before we moved out of necessity (downsizing), and because we had all the boxes / furniture moved into the correct rooms to start with… Also, an unprecedented (but thankfully not unannounced) inspection from the landlady in late November provoked us to at least make the dining room presentable by shoving everything in the shed. :P
Also, I guess, not going off sick in the midst of the Eclipse saga and/or not throttling my idiot colleagues? Though TBF it was a close call on both.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Mostly just writing-related fails this year, like the story I specifically started writing in February for
commoncomitatus’s birthday, which then fell by the wayside when GoT decided to take over my brain… Maybe I can get that last chapter/section finished by next February. :PAlso, I had to send apologies for my first choir concert of the year. I ended up missing a few rehearsals due to being away and then being ill/knackered (thanks, Eclipse!) and the membership secretary booked me in for a concert check, but when I was rehearsing it myself at home I realised there were a few bits of the second piece (Freedom! The Power of Song; or Anthem for Millennials as I nicknamed it) which we were supposed to learn by heart, to free us up to march/clap/step in rhythm. I’m sure I must have read this in the rehearsal notes, but all the work stress had erased it from my brain – and in any case, it was not mentioned at any of the rehearsals I did manage to attend. I admittedly missed the workshop because I overslept (again: thanks, Eclipse!) and it was all the way over in Erdington, which is a mission to get to at the best of times. The point is, usually when we have to learn things by heart we dedicate a bit more rehearsal time to it, and there had been nothing up to the second-to-last rehearsal that I could recall.
The other piece we were doing was Will Todd’s Mass in Blue, which is basically a requiem set to a jazz arrangement. I absolutely loathe jazz at the best of times, so it took me a very long time to get into it, and even after the melodies had started to gel I was struggling with the timing. As indeed was everyone else, which resulted in a lot of rehearsal time being dedicated to it over and above Freedom!, to its detriment because there were vast swathes of it that we simply hadn’t looked at before. Then Adrian/Colin was getting frustrated with us because it sounded like we hadn’t sung it before - because. we. hadn’t.
The thing is, we broke up early in the summer, just after the Carmina Burana concert on 10th May. Normally we would carry on until late June. Rather than finishing early, to my mind it would have made more sense to make a start on rehearsing the music for November rather than giving us such tight timescales to get to grips with some very unusual / challenging music. It’s always an issue for the first concert of the year because it comes so early, but lately it really feels as though Adrian is pushing us beyond our limits in terms of our capacity to learn things. I took issue last year with the fact that he gave us two weeks’ notice at Christmas on learning three carols by heart – which is fine if you’re a pensioner with loads of free time, but some of us have jobs to go to.
It’s a shame, because there were bits of Freedom! that I really liked and even though I didn’t particularly like Mass in Blue, it had a few nice moments. It felt like the concert-day rehearsal was going to be an absolute shambles of last-minute panic. On the plus side, there was one particular movement in Freedom! which made me cry every single time, so I very much doubt I would have survived the concert intact…
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
WELL. I don’t think I updated about this at the time and I also didn’t put it on social media because I kind of forgot in all the chaos of the house move, but the day after my grandmother’s funeral I fell down the stairs at home and hurt my leg.
The bathroom in the new place is downstairs, and although there is an en suite in the spare room, at that point the door was blocked by flattened boxes from all the new furniture, as it was only three weeks after we’d moved in. So whilst heading downstairs in the dark in the middle of the night, I forgot where the bottom step was on our steep/weirdly angled stairs, thanks to the beige carpet blending seamlessly with the dark grey tiles in the semi-darkness. My left foot slid off the edge and I landed on my right shin, thankfully managing to brace myself on a bookcase and the door handle on the way down so I didn’t crack my head off the floor or the dining table.
I hobbled off to the bathroom and then back up to bed, and then my leg started to really hurt. Like, a lot. It was just after the UK heatwave broke so we weren’t using the duvet, so I basically kind of piled it up and used it to elevate my leg, which stopped it aching enough that I could sleep, because at that point I was seriously considering if I’d have to go to A&E.
By the morning it was still hurting but I was able to walk on it, so I assumed it was not broken. It did, however, take the best part of a month for the bruising to go down, and it was quite painful for about three weeks. I actually think I chipped the bone because honestly, the amount of bruising was ridiculous – basically the entire of the front of my lower leg and random areas of my foot/ankle were mottled in dark blue and purple, including places I hadn’t even injured. The pain itself kept moving around and there are still two little lumps where my leg hit the steps on the way down, though they're not as pronounced as they were.
I treated it with arnica (for the bruising) and a compression bandage to try and get the swelling down. Some kind of anti-inflammatory gel might have helped, but most painkillers are ineffective on me these days.
Half of the issue is that my pain threshold is ridiculously high after four years of chronic pain, so it probably was a lot worse than I thought it was. The thing is, I knew that if I went to A&E I would end up being signed off work for an indeterminate period of time, and at the point where this happened we were already short-staffed due to the summer holidays. Plus, I was already on an Attendance Improvement Plan so if I had more than 10 days off sick I would have been taken to a Final Case Hearing, and I did not feel like explaining to Some Dickhead in senior management that I had fallen down the stairs because I’m a clumsy oaf. Since my job is mostly sedentary so I figured I could get away with not putting weight on it until it stopped hurting enough to resume normal movement. :P
If you have surmised from this that I am an idiot, you are probably correct. Hopefully I haven’t done any lasting damage, but only time (and potential gym attendance) will tell…
Also: from early October my steroid injection wore off and I then had a bloody rigmarole with my new GP trying to get the next one booked in. I had to wait six weeks for a discussion about it as to whether I was “suitable”, and then had to wait again to get the actual injection, resulting in pain and anxiety flare-ups (which were mostly triggered by Eclipse stress), brainfog and lack of energy. At the point of drafting this entry, in late December, I am still waiting for the appointment for the actual jab.
On the plus side (maybe?) my annoying symptoms seem to have plateaued rather than worsening, though I don’t really want to leave things any longer… TBH the timing of Eclipse going live could not have been worse as it coincided neatly with my last jab wearing off whilst on holiday. Hence why I’m bloody amazed I haven’t gone off sick at all because it’s been tempting on more than one occasion.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
I HAS A DIE CUT MACHINE. I’ve wanted one for some time and ended up purchasing one because my mum had a 20% off voucher for Hobbycraft. It’s awesome and has seriously levelled up my card-making skillz. :D
We also ended up buying lots of new furniture after we moved, which was all stuff we were going to replace anyway, because it saved us having to dismantle and rebuild it. This comprised a new bed (plus a new mattress as a moving-in present from my mum), a desk and office chair, plus a few kitchen bits. We still need to get a sofa-bed for the spare room to replace my old day bed, which was relegated to the landlord’s skip along with all the other stuff we dumped which didn’t end up with colleagues. :P At some point I also need to replace one of the chest of drawers in the bedroom to make room for the Cuddly Toy Shelf, as otherwise I have no idea where to put it…
(Amusingly, when the landlady came to visit in November she described the living room as “cosy”, which is code for “goodness me, what a lot of stuff you have!”)
Also, prior to the inspection in November we got around to buying a new vacuum cleaner, having “donated” our clunky old Dyson to the previous landlord’s cause. We replaced it with a Shark, on the recommendation of my old hairdresser (he owns huskies) and on the basis of not supporting Brexit Wankers like Mr Dyson and Mr Wetherspoon, and honestly, it’s amazing. About half the weight of the Dyson, half the decibels and half the price, with better suction and functionality.
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
I gotta say this: the Braime fandom is amazing. We were one of many factions of the GoT fandom which ended up sorely disappointed with how things turned out, but thanks to people writing so much fix-it / spite fic, the Jaime/Brienne tag on AO3 is now the most popular in the GoT section. (It makes such a difference not to be screaming into the void.)
I love fandom. :D
In real life, our previous letting agent, Ash, really went above and beyond when the landlord decided to pull the rug out on us, and I wish we could have continued renting with him in many respects. Good letting agents are even rarer than good landlords, and even though we have landed on our feet again, it would have been nice if we could have continued with Ash because it would definitely have saved us some money.
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Other than the GoT writers (don’t get me started, I’m still not over it, and the more I learn about them the worse they get, because I have zero tolerance for misogynistic bullshit these days), I imagine this answer will not come as a surprise:
Boris Fucking Johnson. Every time you thought he couldn’t possibly act like more of an entitled child, he pulled the stops out even further. I have been saying for some time that our current political situation, both in the UK and across the pond, is the death throes of an institution that knows it’s obsolete, but god I just wish it would die already.
(I wrote that paragraph before the election in December. Looks like it’s not dying for another five years, unless the ongoing impossibility of Brexit triggers another snap election. I honestly thought Brexit would be the thing to finally end the Tories for good; turns out I underestimated how many racist pricks there are in the UK.)
On the same note: the right-wing media have a LOT to answer for, and the swing to Tory across the country was depressing.
Also: our landlord turned out to be a dick, though it was hard to stay mad at him for trying to do a good thing even though it messed us around, and he did let us fill his skip with our dead furniture, which saved us a lot of money/hassle. Still, that was a lot of stress and upheaval I could have done without.
Actually, I am going back to the GoT writers thing, because I kind of feel like the fandom’s disappointment is based in something far deeper than our ships not sailing / being bratty fangirls throwing our toys of the pram. We are all, in multiple places across the globe, living in a real life dystopian hellscape; escapism is important, and GoT has been one of the biggest entertainment phenomena of the past decade, with a fanbase of thousands (maybe even millions). Like, I get it: Westeros is a terrible place where awful things happen, and we’re not allowed to have (or keep) nice things… but a constant stream of absolutely relentless GrimDark is not now you deliver on that. There needs to be hope and light within the darkness and despair; it should be allowed to linger and shine for more than a few seconds. The bad guys don’t always have to win. It’s not a cop-out to give people a happy ending.
For me, and many others, the writers’ handling of final season felt deliberately and intentionally cruel, but more than that it spoke of an underlying lack of respect for the characters, their creator, their performers and their audience. When we, the fans, are clinging to these characters and relationships that we love, maybe the writers should take heed rather than throwing it back in our faces. We no longer trust you, D&D, and if there was any justice you would not be allowed near anything as complex as GoT ever again.
I’m sure I mentioned something similar during my various GoT-related posts back in April/May, but honestly, the handling of this final season has felt like the culmination of all those earlier fandom disappointments: the Farscape cancellation, Jonathan Creek’s creator descending into God Complex insanity, Voyager’s terrible and disappointing finale – and all the others I’ve probably forgotten. These all happened when the world was a simpler, kinder and better place to live. Now, more than ever, we need our escapism to span the gap between realism and wish fulfilment in a more satisfying way. We deserved better, and so did the show.
14. Where did most of your money go?
This year, on the house move. Again. Overall, though, I do seem to have more spare money than before, so we are slowly getting there.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Game of Thrones! (Obvious answer is obvious.) TBF, most of that excitement was pure, concentrated dread and anxiety over my OTP, but it’s been a long time since I was so consumed by a fandom and it was awesome to remember what that felt like. Plus it effectively distracted me from pointlessly stressful shit at work, which is always a bonus. Escaping into plotting my Braime fics has been this year’s PlotbunniesTM in terms of keeping my head above water. :P
Also, the livestream of the All About Eve play starring Gillian Anderson, which was so much more brilliant than I anticipated. I wish I could have seen it live, but the seats in London were just too expensive (£70 up in the gods, I don’t think so!). Still, I got to see the livestream twice (the second viewing was a repeat of the recording) and I’m crossing my fingers for a DVD release or at least a viewing on Sky Arts, since they were one of the sponsors.
I was also excited for our house move after we’d found somewhere, because the new house is so much nicer than the previous one. I detached myself emotionally from it within about a week of getting the news that we had to move. Three years was not long enough to get attached, and it never really felt like a home because we didn’t quite get around to decorating anywhere – which is probably just as well, considering. The new place is the kind of house we would buy if we could afford to do so.
16. What song will always remind you of 2019?
I’ve had four major albums to obsess over this year: Hurts 2B Human by P!nk, Pray for the Wicked by Panic! at the Disco, The Feeling by The Feeling (obvs) and The Con by Tegan & Sara (which is new for me but old in the scheme of things). I’m struggling to think of any particular song which encompasses the year, but “Dying in LA" (Panic) is definitely up there for the fact that it hit me straight in the Sunset feels almost immediately. All four of these albums kind of spanned the period around our house move, which was the biggest event of the year, so it’s hard for me to pick a favourite.
Also, from April/May onwards, I was firmly in "every song I own reminds me of my OTP and it HURTS" mode, so there's that.
Honestly, though, I am loving the millennial vibe of P!nk’s work lately: adulting is hard, but fuck it, let’s get on with it.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
(a) happier or sadder? Possibly happier, but only because our new house is lovely (and nearer to work for me), but that’s not to say the year was without its issues.
(b) thinner or fatter? I am slightly thinner in that I have lost a bit of weight thanks to my ongoing steroid jabs and the fact that, for once, we did not just live off takeaways after our house move but tried to cook properly. :P
(c) richer or poorer? Notwithstanding financial upheavals, very slightly richer…
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Writing, as ever, though it picked up from April with my unprecedented GoT obsession and subsequent writing flurry. (It’s always a pleasant surprise…)
I’ve been a bit better at socialising this year but still feel like I haven’t seen people enough. We managed to do the pub quiz at the Midland more often this year, though sadly some unpleasantness towards the end of year now means we will no longer be going there. Also, the Welly closed in March so now we have nowhere to go for Sunday lunch with a side of bitchy snark.
We now live closer to Bearwood and on a much more regular bus route, so hopefully that will improve things on the socialisation front…
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
I made myself a new year’s resolution of sorts to stop giving so much of a shit about things at work that I could not influence or control, and for the most part I did manage to stick to it, but there were a couple of occasions where I almost caved and sent emails I would have regretted, which were mostly when other people’s absolute stupidity had broken me to the point of wanting to hammer common sense into them. :P
With Eclipse, after three days where it was increasingly triggering my anxiety, I eventually decided to stop worrying. I raised errors and issues with the relevant people where necessary, logged literally everything that had gone wrong on every meeting I’d minuted, and then sat back and waited for them to get fixed. *insert Greg Lestrade "not my division" GIF*
This sadly turned into a perpetual cycle of getting so stressed I couldn’t function, punching through into “not giving a shit” territory and ignoring Eclipse for a couple of days, then regrouping to try and deal with outstanding stuff. On an almost weekly basis. I have no idea how (or if?) I’m still sane.
20. How did you spend Christmas?
I had to work Christmas Eve morning, but luckily I was able to work from home, which meant that when I finished work at midday I was already in my house. I then had a mad taxi dash to the post depot to collect some Christmas presents I had yet to wrap (Effin Birds mugs, including one for myself which says “Being an adult is shit”) and then onwards to Bearwood to get a lamb leg from the butcher. Then followed two hours of frantic tidying/cleaning, a quick shower, a half-hour sit down and then changed and back out for our meal with friends.
On the day itself, for the first time ever, it was not spent with just the two of us as I had invited my uncle over for dinner – since it was his first Christmas without his mum. We weren’t sure if he was coming until the last minute but TBH it was nowhere near as bad or intrusive as I was expecting. Now that his every waking moment is not taken up with all the stress of being a carer (whilst working and dealing with my father being characteristically useless), he seems much more like I remember him when I was younger. Rather than just eating and buggering off like he would have done before, he actually stayed for about five hours!
So yeah, that was unexpectedly pleasant.
On Boxing Day, thanks to cocktails on Christmas Eve and far too much champagne / wine on Christmas Day, I spent the morning in bed with a hangover/migraine (hangraine? migrover?) before getting up at middayish and playing some of the PS4 game that Paul got me for Christmas, namely Detroit: Become Human. It’s basically about Androids discovering human emotions and becoming rogue: the premise is very similar to the Channel 4 show, Humans. It’s by Quantic Dream, who also made Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls, so the graphics are beautiful and it’s likely to get dark AF before too long. By Saturday (28th December) I had already unlocked one ending and started a second play through to get another by altering some of my choices.
I was back at work on Friday and luckily my afternoon meeting got cancelled, so I used up some of my remaining flex to leave early and go home to have a nap.
I am working today (30th December), off New Year’s Eve, back in on 2nd January and then off for a week from the 6th.
21. How will you spend New Year's Eve?
Probably a quiet one as always, though as I have the day off I will try and clear some more space in our dining room so we have room to open out the table on New Year’s Day, as Paul’s family are all coming over for a cream tea. Someone is going to have to bring their own chair, though. I have a vague plan of putting our four-year-old great-niece in the office chair so she can have a spin. :P
22. Did you fall in love in 2019?
23. How many one-night stands?
Perpetually redundant questions are perpetually redundant.
24. What was your favourite TV programme?
I mean I’m pretty sure I don’t need to answer this given that I’ve already splurged several thousand words about it, but Game of Thrones was the big one for me this year. I was excited for season 8 but I had literally no clue how much it would take over my entire consciousness; apparently the Braime fandom sucked me in like a black hole and I could not escape. (I was fine until episode 2 and then it was like my brain exploded.) I’d like to say it was only Jaime and Brienne who held my attention, but I didn’t realise how many feels I had for so many of the other characters either! (Tyrionnnnnn!!! Sandooooorrrr!!! Theooooonnnn!!!)
(…oh look, more angsty boys.)
In retrospect, given the timing coincided with the stupid email we received which accused us of not understanding our own jobs, I very much suspect that all of my GoT analysis / reaction posts were my brain’s way of sending a massive fuck-you to the email in question, since my focus honed in specifically on the writers’ terrible treatment of characters who have suffered abuse and trauma. My unexpectedly epic fic, “The Things We Do”, started out as a standard, four-chapter, post-episode fix-it for 8.04, and turned into 13-chapter study on Jaime’s unresolved emotional trauma. So, er… yeah, that was a surprise, to say the least, but I can’t say I didn't enjoy the ride. (Like I said before: trope hard or go home!)
Also: we have both really enjoyed Brooklyn Nine-Nine this year, thanks to Andrea giving us a free Netflix account at New Year’s. Such being the case, honourable mentions for: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (genius!), Stranger Things (I HAVE MANY FEELINGS; also, Winona Ryder!), Love Death & Robots (awesome world-building!) and several other shows I’ve probably forgotten.
We also finished Parks and Recreation (via Amazon Prime) and I finally caught up on my EastEndersbacklog, which may not seem like an achievement until I tell you that in January I was about six months behind and by July I was completely caught up. :P
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I mean, I honestly didn’t expect Boris Johnson to be THIS MUCH of an absolute bell-end, so there’s that? My contempt for his cronies has also increased, particularly Rees-Mogg after that shameful, arrogant display in Commons (reclining on the front benches) and Sajid Javid after the whole Shamima Begum thing (not that he didn’t have a punchable face to start with).
26. What was the best book you read?
Very bad at reading again this year. Whilst on holiday I managed to blitz through Shappi Khorsandi’s Nina is Not OK, and then re-read 75% ofThe Book Thief in a single day so I really must finish that. I’ve started Schindler’s Ark now but need to get back into reading at bedtime rather than doing my puzzle book. I need to either read, or write fic, and probably stop staring at my phone in the dark…
I basically want to get through the bookcase as quickly as I can so I can finally get around to reading ASOIAF, because honestly, the more I learn about book!Jaime, the more it hits me in the feels. :P
Oh, also, Darren and Andrea bought me the Effin Birds book for Christmas, completely unexpectedly, so that was fun. :D
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I didn’t discover anyone new this year but some of my faves released new stuff (as above) so that was enough for me. :)
28. What did you want and get?
I don’t think there was anything specific this year.
29. What did you want and not get?
For Brexit to be cancelled (there’s still time!).
Braime to be canon. Notwithstanding that according to the actors and the writer of episode 2 and the director and the composer (and probably also GRRM) it quite undeniably was, but it would have been nice to SEE THAT for more than 20 seconds before getting our hearts broken. :P (Another honourable mention here for Gwendoline Christie's Emmy dress, which is now canonically Brienne's wedding dress, I don't make the rules.)
30. What was your favourite film of the year?
We haven’t gone to the cinema much this year. I’m including All About Eve as a film because we saw it at the cinema, and that was easily my favourite.
We managed to see Avengers: Endgame literally the weekend before the spoiler ban was officially lifted, so that was great – and we saw Captain Marvel the day before as the cinema in Dudley was still showing it. I was firmly in my GoT spiral by that point though so I'm not able to be very insightful about Endgame.
I’m sure there must have been others but now I can’t remember. We’ve probably watched several via Sky and Netflix but my memory is failing, other than Ralph Breaks the Internet, which was delightful, and Holmes and Watson, which was very silly. (On such note: I can’t wait for the third instalment of the Guy Ritchie-verse Holmes films, because they are easily my favourite.) I also finally got around to watching the live-action remake of Dumbo, which gave me all the elements of a Tim Burton film that I would rightfully expect. :)
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 38 and I was at work, in the midst of the Eclipse chaos. :P On the evening we attempted to have dinner at Old Dresser Cafe but belatedly discovered they had changed their opening hours, so we ended up at Mount Nemrut (a Turkish restaurant in Bearwood) instead, and then went on to do the Midland pub quiz. I worked from home all day on Thursday due to having part two of my measles jab and my 'flu jab. On the Friday I was off work, so I went out to get ingredients for dinner the day after, then popped out to see Lisa and latterly Paul's mum. On Saturday Paul cooked my dinner for me (quiche lorraine, beef bourguignon, and chocolate lava cake, all courtesy of Rachel Khoo).
Nothing particularly exciting but at least I had one day off.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Eclipse being delivered in a stress-free and seamless manner, fully functioning and with proper guidance charts, and the back-end team responding in an expedient fashion to all of the various errors we asked them to fix.
Blah blah Game of Thrones blah, you know what I’m going to say. :P
The latter half of the year not being politically exhausting.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2019?
Whatever I damn well want. :P
Which is to say: jeans, t-shirts, Lindy Bop dresses for special occasions. My mum crocheted me an awesome “elf coat” for Christmas which has pointy bell sleeves and a long pointy hood and it’s the best thing ever.
Losing a bit of weight has resulted in me fitting into some things which were previously too small, so that’s nice – hopefully I can fit back into all that stuff I’ve been holding onto since the early 00’s and my fashion concept will be Late-30s Millennial Who Doesn’t Give A Shit About Fashion, Screw Your Skinny Jeans Anyway.
I did actually throw a load of stuff away during the house move (other than some designer stuff and items I really like and would love to fit back into), so rather than holding onto stuff until I lose weight, I'll just damn well buy new things as a reward. :P
34. What kept you sane?
Gaming, writing, card-making (seriously, I actually managed to get over an anxiety attack by fastidiously planning how to make my next batch of Christmas cards in my head: order out of chaos), and fandom, as ever. As much as the GoT fansplosion was probably not my sanest moment as far as my long-suffering colleagues were concerned, since they got to experience me in full-on fangirl mode on more than one occasion, it definitely distracted me from unimportant work bollocks. :P
35. Which celebrity / public figure did you fancy the most?
I don’t think I had one this year other than the usual suspects…
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
This year has been A Lot, politically. The Tory leadership contest was a countdown to see which egomaniac we'd get lumbered with and hoping it was the lesser of many evils. I'm still not quite sure if the floppy-haired manbaby we ended up with is a better option than Cliché Dickens Villain (Rees-Mogg), Subhuman Eldritch Horror (Gove) or NHS Destroyer (Hunt).
I also became unintentionally engrossed in the Parliamentary debate about whether there should be a general election, and the entire nation got to learn what prorogation meant, though I wish we hadn’t.
Also, despite telling myself I would not engage in debate with my Corbyn-hating, right-wing-media-reading colleague in the run-up to the election, I still ended up in a conversation with her, and had to give her up as a lost cause when she had the audacity to tell me I “shouldn’t believe everything I read” (even when I pointed out that I was making informed decisions based on factual evidence rather than media spin). This is one Boomer/Millennial void we are never going to meet in the middle of, sadly; I have tried on various occasions to explain to her that my world – and indeed that of her Gen Z children – is very different to the one she experienced at the same age, but she has stubbornly refused to meet me halfway, and she has a level of internalised misogyny which is impossible to deal with.
The thing is, I completely and totally understand where she is coming from and why she holds these opinions. She lost extended family members in the Birmingham pub bombings and she firmly believes that Corbyn is an IRA sympathisers, so yes, it makes sense why she can’t stand him. Her father was (from what I’ve gathered) an abusive dickbag and she has clearly never quite managed to deal with that, so she doesn’t want to marry her partner because she doesn’t want to be “owned” by a man. What frustrates me is that even when I explain to her my own experiences, my own reasoning, or that of her young adult children, she can’t see eye to eye or put herself in our shoes. She complains that her children waste money on frivolous things and simply cannot accept that the reason they – and those of my generation – do that is because we have no feasible way of owning our own homes and no way to save any large sums of money, so we might as well spend what little we have on immediate gratification to enrich our lives little by little.
For me, this entire thing came to a head when I was having a discussion with another, younger colleague about Jeremy Corbyn in her general vicinity (which may have been deliberate on my part) and she told us to move away from her because the conversation was winding her up. This is despite her constantly engaging me in political discussions even when it is clearly upsetting me and triggering my anxiety; I have never asked her to move away from me. But then, she doesn’t really understand why politics is a trigger for me anyway, as her response when I tried to explain it was “You shouldn’t let it worry you.” That’s literally what anxiety is.
Anyway, thankfully she is the only person in our team with these views and everyone else has clearly given up on reasoning with her, so I probably should as well. On the day after the election I opted to avoid her by spending the day at a different office, but on the Monday another colleague also opted not to discuss the election at all in her presence, so I’m obviously not the only one in self-preservation mode…
37. Who did you miss?
I don’t think there was anyone specifically… Flailing about fandoms is kind of weird when you don’t have anyone (online) to share the flail with (though I am so grateful for the popularity of GoT and the fact that most of the people I work with were also watching and had Opinions!), and I guess that got me thinking a bit about old fandom-formed friendships which had fallen by the wayside… particularly in the wake of the 20th anniversary of Farscape. I am still in contact with two of my very first internet friends who I met via Rocky Horror, which was one of my first online fandom experiences, but the people I met through Farscape are no longer in my life in the same way. We drifted apart, a rift formed that was never healed, and latterly our fandom interests veered in opposite directions, but sometimes I reflect on those shared fandoms and feel a stab of nostalgia for how things used to be, when the world was a simpler and less cruel place to live…
So I guess really, it’s not so much who I miss as when…
38. Who was the best new person you met?
I don’t think I met anyone new this year! Although our new landlady is definitely awesome.
39. Did you meet anyone you only knew online?
Nope.
40. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2019:
Sometimes, life takes you in a certain direction for a reason. Sometimes, it works out for the better.
Also: toxic people will always be toxic; be the anti-venom you want to see in the world. ;)
41. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I always think this is quite a difficult thing to do, because years in Real Life are a rollercoaster regardless of how settled you think you are. So I’ll do my usual of finding lyrics which spoke to me, and for that I will pass you over to P!nk for probably the fifth time in a row… :P
Since I was 17
I’ve always hated my body
And it feels like my body’s hated me
Can somebody find me a pill
To make me unafraid of me?
…
I don’t wanna be this way forever
Keep telling myself that I’ll get better
Every time I try, I always stop me
Maybe I’m just scared to be happy
(from “Happy”)
I mean, DAMN if that’s not accurate, right?
(no subject)
Date: 2019-12-30 01:52 pm (UTC)Though, yea, sorry about the sucky final season -- though it seems that this is one of those times where the anger and frustration at TPTB produces the best fanworks, so at least there's that? I think so much media these days suffers from the need to not be too 'predictable', and so they push for nonsensical character development and/or unsatisfying endings because apparently it's better to be a disappointment than to have a few people say they saw it coming? IDK.
Non-fannishly, the usual sympathies for work, life, and health stuff. *hugs*
And this --
be the anti-venom you want to see in the world
-- is going to be my new mantra. Seriously. <3
(no subject)
Date: 2019-12-30 04:30 pm (UTC)At least the sucky last season was unanimously agreed by pretty much everyone to be sucky, rather than a few people being disappointed that their crazy headcanons didn't come true. It was more the fact that the showrunners essentially ignored all of the foreshadowing of the early seasons (and thus the books), and everyone is holding out hope that GRRM at least allows all those carefully-woven threads to lead somewhere... It should be really interesting re-watching the entire thing from start to finish and seeing all that foreshadowing again... interesting and/or infuriating. :P
Work stuff is getting slightly less arghish and at least our new house is nice, even though the move was a pain. Hopefully in 2020 things will be a bit calmer, and if I can reduce my hours then even more so. Fingers crossed...
Being the world's anti-venom is going to be even more important now that we have a fully-fledged right-wing government, NGL... It sort of feels like the all the non-Tory voters (and the socialist Labour voters specifically) are damn well determined to create that social safety net even though we didn't get the outcome we wanted. Fuck the Tories, now and forever until the end of eternity.