understandascope

Big ol' 2022 round-up, perhaps sliiiiightly shorter than previous years but not by much. Under a cut because I care about your screens <3

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Edit: Oh yeah I forgot to link all previous years, and now I can't be arsed because I have been on LJ/DW since the dawn of fucking time and it will take a million years, but here is a link to last year's round-up, from which all others are linked, in case anyone bafflingly cares.

I just went back and looked at my 2011 version of this, and it turns out that back in the day I could write relatively concise year-end round-ups, rather than 11,000 word manifestos, ffs self. Anyway here it is, also I still don't know how to cut text on DW, I'm very sorry.

Anyway HAPPY NEW YEAR to the last desiccated husks that remain here!

This is what I did for:

New year: I was in Nepal, in Gorkha, where I think I arrived on December 30, and stayed in a lovely little eco-lodge up on a hill south of the town with stunning views over the Himalayas. On new year’s eve I took the cable car up to Manakamana, which has a wish-granting temple on the top of a mountain*; on the night itself I had a lovely chilled out evening on my own and the next day I headed on to Bandipur, a gorgeous old village in the mountains, for a couple of nights before heading back to Kathmandu.

*I cannot remember what wish I made but I do accept that I may well have cursed 2020 through infelicitous phrasing.

Birthday: I was down at my parents’ place and the weather was absolutely spectacular. I had intended to take the day off (it was, annoyingly, a Wednesday) but ended up having to do an urgent meeting in the morning – but THEN I took myself out for a lovely long walk by the Wye, interspersed with lying in fields reading, and then came back and had a tasty dinner of spanakopita and cake with my parents. And that weekend I had a joint birthday Big Triv with Kate Cangetmad. As far as 2020 birthdays go, it was a good one, if lower-key than the Jesstivals of yore. I turned 42.

Christmas: In Glasgow, which turned out to be a really unexpectedly lovely day! Woke around 8am, got up and Skyped Clare so that I could open the stocking that she had very kindly sent me through the actual post! At 9am I went for my daily 3k run with Hannah M, and as we parted ways at the end she gave me the first of FIVE SEPARATE HUGS of the day. Went home, showered and put on my fabulous silver sequinned trousers, poured coffee into a thermos and went to the park to meet Claire for a frosty walk and a mince pie on a bench. SECOND HUG OF THE DAY. Home again, and got in an uber to go round to Hannah and Josh’s for Christmas dinner with them + Hannah’s parents and brother. I had been invited round MOSTLY because they are very kind and generous people, but also PARTLY because Hannah’s mum is an absolute nightmare of a human and much more likely to be well-behaved in company. So I spent much of the afternoon getting slowly, gently drunk, keeping up a series of anodyne conversational topics with Hannah’s parents, eating some very delicious food, bonding hard with Hannah’s brother (who at one point, when he was making brandy sauce in the kitchen while being passive-aggressively bitched at, whispered “Jess, please don’t leave” at me), hiding in rooms sporadically to decompress and also to have a Christmas Zoom with my parents, one brother + s-i-l + nephew. Sensibly left around 8 having (apparently) effectively drunk an entire bottle of Bailey’s with Hannah’s brother, and that was that.

Employment status: I’ve spent the entire year in the same job I ended 2019 in, which has been mostly great, and I realise that I am extremely lucky to be gainfully employed throughout the pandemic so far. I did hubristically say last year that I could imagine myself getting bored with my job in three to six months if nothing changed; of course then came the pandemic and two-and-a-bit new projects, and I’ve ended up doing a lot more national-level strategy and advocacy work (which I mostly LOVE) thanks to all the Yangon-level meetings being online now, meaning that I can attend without having to fly down from Sittwe. The transition to remote working hasn’t been easy, but also hasn’t been as bad as I’d feared, and I’m able to do maybe 80% of my job reasonably effectively despite not being in Myanmar – and actually some aspects (the national-level coordination stuff) more effectively.

At the end of 2019 I was still coasting on the relief of not working for a perennially embattled SME; however in 2020 some stress and angst has crept back into my working life, in large part because my big project ends in May 2021 and I’ve felt almost wholly responsible to figure out a way that 12,000 Rohingya kids in IDP (=internment) camps won’t lose all access to education after that. Linked to that is the bigger picture, which is deeply wearying: of gently pushing against a government that has absolutely no fucking interest in providing any services to this segment of the population, as they’d much rather they just went off somewhere and died quietly; of trying to persuade those international actors who DO have some clout (largely because they’re giving budget support to the govt) to use the influence they have, rather than constantly shying away from issues as “too sensitive” – and also the fact that (without wishing to blow my own trumpet, but let’s be real) I have ended up in a situation where I’ve pushed my organisation into the position as one of the leading suppliers of education in emergencies in Rakhine, but I am the only education specialist for LWF in Myanmar, one of only … maybe five or six for LWF globally, and actually maybe I’ve been really irresponsible by agitating for new projects and bigger platforms when it’s unlikely to be sustainable after I leave? Meanwhile everyone is blithely assuming (it seems) that I’ll stick around indefinitely, although there is no money to pay for me after May, so … shrug emoji. I’m not averse to staying a bit longer but mostly to finish stuff off, rather than to start new things, and I should probably actually tell people that fairly soon.

ION: I think I mentioned last year that my former employer did end up being acquired by an INGO, so things are apparently on a bit more of an even keel there. I’d been thinking of them as a nice fall-back option for bits and pieces of work once my contract with LWF is up, and then a month or two ago they won the big Mali project I’d worked to develop back in late 2018, which is girls’ education in conflict and I’d really like to work on that. So I now have a verbal agreement to go back sometime after the end of May to lead on that project, and also to be their “senior educationist” on a minimum of 120 days a year, at a very comfortable day rate. In many ways, this is pretty much perfect: interesting and career-building work but no more than 50% commitment, leaving me free to write or travel or find other work as and when, in an organisation that I already love (for whatever idiot reason). On the other hand … they still owe me money from unpaid invoices (and I've been very clear that I’m not coming back until that’s cleared), and ex-boss Charlie incurred my wrath over Christmas by PROMISING that there would be partial payment before Christmas and then not delivering, without even a word of warning or apology: it’s not that I needed the money but that lack of communication triggered a whole fucking cascade of feelings about how I was never properly valued there (that said, I don’t feel like I’m properly valued at LWF either, so it’s entirely possible that my work-related ego is so monstrous that I would never feel properly valued ANYWHERE). Partial payment has since come, which was nice, but … I don’t know, I will almost certainly end up going back because the positives (both for the job itself, but also for what it makes possible for the rest of my life) significantly outweigh the negatives – but I will also (maybe) continue to apply for other stuff as and when it comes up, and see what happens.

I’ve continued to take on bits and pieces of freelance work, including for my ex-employer; the report I wrote for SOAS and temporarily fucked up was published in January with my ACTUAL NAME on it which was a pleasing happy ending to that whole fiasco. I’ve also been trying to push myself to do more of the stuff that just raises my own individual profile as an education specialist, and so in 2020 I presented at my first ever academic conference, which was great (it should have been in person in Germany in June, but ended up being online in November, sigh – another disappointment of 2020), and will hopefully get a publication out of it. I’ve also submitted two articles to the Journal of Education in Emergencies, one of which was rejected (or, more accurately, they asked for a whole load of changes that I wasn’t able to provide, so I passed) and the other was only submitted in December, so we’ll see if that goes anywhere.

Creative output: I feel a level of guilt for how well this has gone for me this year, given how many writers have struggled to write at all, but this has been my best writing year in AGES, possibly ever. After trying to write every day in 2019, and probably 2018 too, getting closer and closer to the goal, I actually managed it this year. It’s become increasingly clear to me that writing fiction is massively beneficial for my mental health and I hope I will continue to value and make space for it, even if I never publish anything every again. There is definitely something to be said for what this means about how I engage with writing as escapism, which may not always be the healthiest thing, but whatever works I reckon.

Anyway! In 2020 I finished drafts of two new things: the standalone adult fantasy that I’ve been working on since living in Egypt, and which will require a thorough overhaul if I ever submit it anywhere, but at least it’s DONE (finished in Jan), and the second book in the YA fantasy trilogy I’m working on (finished in late Sept / early Oct), which also probably needs a good three months of solid editing before it’s ready to share with anyone, but it’s at least book-shaped and I’m mostly really pleased with it. I’ve also been spending the last month or so working on ABSOLUTELY FUCKING FINAL edits for the first book, because FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY I will make a concerted effort to get a mf’ing agent in 2021.

Also! Having had no intentions of doing so, I had an IDEA in early October and decided to write it for NaNo in November, and for the first time ever, I actually completed NaNo in the way that it’s meant to be done (in 2019 I wrote 50,000 words in the month of November, but across five separate projects), and now I have 67,000 words of something entirely new, though linked to a pre-existing project, which has been taking up most of my imagination over the past three months and which I think will probably end up being an adult fantasy trilogy. Blimey.

Beyond writing, other creative things have ALSO been good. Early on in lockdown, when I was still in the airbnb in Monmouth my parents bought me an electric piano as an early birthday present and I had a great time reminding myself of how to play – I would really like to be a bit more disciplined about that in 2021, but not gonna force it. I also bought a book on how to draw, and made some quite pleasing progress on that – it turns out that what people say is true, you really CAN teach yourself to draw, it’s not some arcane talent that you were either blessed with or were not.

In one of the biggest disappointments of the year: after YEARS of longing, I finally got a place on one of the Unthanks singing weekends this year! And then of course it was cancelled due to COVID! Current plans are that it will go ahead in September 2021, and I DESPERATELY hope it does, as it was one of the things I got most excited by in 2020. (It sold out in under a minute!!!)

Learning: This has actually been really great this year! Firstly, Clare and I started working on a biology A-level together in January because of Reasons, and that has been a really nice way of challenging my brain to do something really different to what it’s used to, despite various frustrations. We’ve been going for a year now and have completed all the AS-level material – we had originally been thinking that we would try and do the exam in summer 2021, though that is now not looking likely, which takes the pressure off a bit.

In addition to that, I stuck with daily Duolingo Gaelic until I finished the course in, I think, August! (Still waiting for the expanded course to show up on my phone.) And then, for want of anything else to do, I went slightly mad and started doing daily French, German, Russian and Arabic on Duo as well. This has been great for my brain but I’m going to have to rein it in a bit as I’ve now reached a point where I’m actively learning new stuff in all the languages, and so it’s gone from being something that I could knock off in 30-45 mins to something that takes 1-2 hours, which obviously isn’t sustainable when I’m working. Anyway I’m currently on a 375 day streak and will NEVER STOP.

I’ve also spent much of lockdown in a series of intense passions: anyone who follows me on Twitter will know that I got VERY INTO BATS in spring / early summer this year, and I did a weekend course in bat identification with the Bat Conservation Trust, and got a bat detector for my birthday! Since then, I have started to follow a whole load of spider scientists on Twitter, as I would get so sad when bat-haters would comment on bat-related content being all “but they’re grooooooooss and creeeeeeepy” and then I realised that I did the same thing (internally) for spiders but if I actually try and force myself to learn more about spiders perhaps I will come to love them! And honestly, it is working, with the exception of huntsman spiders, which are the absolute archetype of my most feared spider. But maybe that will come in time.

Financial situation: Keeping to the general positive upward trajectory from last year! I have met my savings goal EVEN WITHOUT being paid all the backlog my previous employers owed me (they’ve paid over half, but I’m still owed around £12.5k and am currently rather pissed off due to ex-boss Charlie once again having promised partial payment before Christmas and not delivered, without even a word*), and EVEN WITH paying off Clare’s and my very expensive cruise to Antarctica (which we should be on right now, but which is now rebooked for February 2022, should we live that long) AND put a deposit down on ANOTHER very expensive and even more ridiculous cruise to all the most remote islands of the Atlantic, which we will do straight after.

*In case not clear, I wrote this over several days and out of order, hence the confusing narrative.

Not being a dick: Ugh I continue to fail to make progress on the one thing that I keep mentioning year after year, to give more money to homeless people – in fact it’s even worse this year as who even carries cash any more? I did a load of shopping for the woman who’s usually outside my local Sainsbury’s and I should try and do that more. I have not reinstated the direct debits to charities that I had to cancel when I was broke in 2019, but I continue to give to Positive Action in Housing and Confident Children out of Conflict, and I also continue to bash some cash here and there towards fundraising drives, though of course I now can’t remember what they may have been – certainly I donated to a few bail funds in the US around the BLM protests in the summer.

This year is making me more and more appreciative of community, and particularly my amazing local community in Govanhill: being a contrary bastard, the fact that my neighbourhood is constantly under attack by racists and unionists (because it’s Nicola Sturgeon’s constituency) just makes me more of a stalwart defender, and I would love to find a community project to invest my energies in next year … but of course as soon as there are opportunities again, that’s exactly when my post-COVID work travel schedule is likely to pick up. So it goes.

Family stuff: I consider myself very lucky that my family have come out of 2020 relatively unscathed, after having lost an uncle and a cousin in 2019. The major exception to this was my cousin Charlotte’s ex-partner Rupert, who died very suddenly in September. They split up a couple of years ago but had stayed very close, in part because Charlotte took on a lot of caring responsibilities for him (he had some very major mental health stuff going on, unconnected with his death) and his mum (who ALSO died in 2020, though she was in her 80s so it’s less surprising – and she garnered a truly amazing obit in the Times - here is a slightly less amazing but non-paywalled one in the Guardian). I really, really feel for my cousin-once-removed, who lost her grandfather, grandmother and father (all of whom she was very close to) within a year. Grim. The other family bad thing is that my sister-in-law had a stroke in July or August – again, totally unexpectedly as her health is normally great (though she looks a good 20 years younger than her age, so I tend to forget that I think she’s actually over 70 now). She’s made a pretty good recovery, much to everyone’s relief.

Aside from that, I have spent much more time with my parents in 2020 than … quite possibly since I went to boarding school aged 13? Which was mostly really lovely, as it assuaged a lot of the residual guilt I have for spending so much of my time very far away as they are ageing (though it has also reset their expectations of how often they expect to see me, and my mum is bemoaning the fact that they haven’t seen me since September, whereas pre-COVID going for four months without meeting up wouldn’t be particularly unusual). There have been a few really sad moments connected with my dad that I am not going to write about, as well as the rather glum realisation that they get on better when I’m not there (as my mum uses me to amplify her irritation with my dad, gnnrrrrgggg). Also I was rather disappointed to find that my mum falls right back into her old pattern of slagging me off to my friends as a way of being liked by them, despite our vast ages (saying to my friend Caroline, when she visited in August: “oh, Jess is useless around the house, never does anything to help” – aside from the bit where I came back from Myanmar and lived in an airbnb for months so I could do all their shopping and errands? Yeah it was five months ago but it still smarts).

Anyway didn’t mean for that to turn into complaining about my mum, sorry! Beyond that I did get to see my aunt a lot and a couple of my cousins, including the sneaky mini-break to Spain with my cousin Charlotte, which involved rather too much wine and family-related confessionalism. I haven’t seen either of my brothers or nieces and nephews but we did have a couple of great family zooms around Christmas so I feel a bit more connected to them. And I went round to my second-cousin’s place for mulled cider in his garden just before Christmas: he and his partner are GREAT and they live ten mins away from me and I really should make the effort to see them more often.

Possibly the single nicest family-related thing could equally go in the friends section, as we’re not blood relations: but for three months I was having a regular Sunday walk my aunt’s sister Caro, which was just BRILLIANT. She is a fiercely independent single woman in her seventies who still works and has a very rich life of friends and culture and travel and outdoor pursuits and so obviously I am patterning my future self on her. As I get older I realise increasingly how nourishing cross-generational friendships can be.

Sad thing that should probably also be mentioned is my parents' dog being diagnosed with cancer this year: for a while it was looking like he might not make it to the end of the year but they have since bought him a small dog chariot and it has given him a new lease on life, so now I am very much hoping he will hold on until I get to see him again. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH.

Relationship stuff: Ahahaha. Obviously I have lived, mostly very happily, in a relationship desert since 2010, and at least this year I had an external excuse for it! Honestly I consider myself pretty lucky, in comparison to some of my friends who are less happy being single, particularly friends who want kids, who have basically just watched a year of their life tick past with very little opportunity to get together with someone*; in contrast, I spent much of the year thanking my lucky stars that I am not in a relationship and PARTICULARLY that I do not have kids, as I would have doubtless gone stone mad being locked down with pretty much anyone at all. Of course there have been downsides: I have very much not loved the various iterations of the Pandemic Suffering Olympics that have played out on the socials over the course of the year (you definitely win, parents! Hats off to you!); plus, much of the rhetoric around pandemic restrictions has been very good at reminding single people that they are the least important members of society. I do know that my friends love me and that I am valued but I am also very aware that I am no one’s go-to bubble partner and thus no one’s favourite person which, although I GET it, doesn’t … always … feel amazing?

Anyway everything was mostly fine until I guess I reached some sort of ULTIMATE BREAKING POINT in December and was like OH MY FUCKING GOD I WANT TO TOUCH ANOTHER HUMAN. I think it was the thought of entering into yet another year of stasis: I still very much do not want a traditional relationship, but fucking HELL I miss the excitement and the possibility of meeting someone whom you might really, really like. I have an absolutely physical longing to go to a horrible crowded bar and push through sweaty people and make eye contact with a stranger and OH MY FUCKING GOD WHEN CAN THIS HAPPEN AGAIN. I found it very difficult to explain or even really understand this need, until I read this fantastic piece in the NYT. Obviously I am mostly-celibate and not a slut (though I would very much like to change that, if it is ever permitted!) but the way she describes engaging with the world is very much me, and sums up what I am missing so much right now. Two stand-out quotes: “I need very little from individuals, but I am greedy for the world” – YES. Also this: “Some single people are not living in constant wait for the relief of a marriage to put them out of their misery. The restrictions of this year happened to suit couples and families best, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us were getting life wrong.” – in that it was always very clear to me that if THIS is what it takes for me to feel faintly wistful about being single, i.e. nine months of intense restrictions and intermittent isolation, and a great deal of what normally brings me joy being impossible – well, that is not particularly useful information regarding any big life decisions, right?

So … I don’t know. I just want to be excited and delighted by a person, and have them be excited and delighted by me, and it feels like that may never happen again. I was talking to a friend recently about how we both fervently hope that the post-COVID era will usher in a return to horny people meeting in bars and mass orgies – and failing that, perhaps just the idea that people can meet in ways other than the fucking apps? However in the meantime I am back on the goddamn motherfucking apps, which is as soul destroying as it ever was, but all I am asking of myself for now is to engage with it every few days and not panic-delete it after a week like I normally do. And as soon as it’s possible I am going to get on a plane to a country with fewer sexual inhibitions than this one, and have sex with a stranger I meet in a bar. FROM MY LIPS TO GOD’S EARS.

*OTOH I do know three lockdown relationships, including a lockdown pregnancy, so it clearly is possible.

Friend stuff: I know I say this every year, but I have the absolute best friends anyone could every ask for, and they have come up trumps this year. I know a lot of people have said that their friendships have shifted or faded this year, but mine have only got stronger; I think that’s in large part because I normally travel so much that the majority my friendships are from a distance as a baseline, so there was not the same amount of adjustment as there has been for friendship groups that are very much based around in-person socialising. Being based in Glasgow also helps tremendously, and I have been so thankful this year to be locked down here rather than in London, just because of proximity: I have three very good friends within ten minutes’ walk of my place, as well as a number of less-close friends, and none of my friends here are so far away that I can’t reach them by foot or by bike. Yesterday, for example (writing this bit on 3 Jan) I walked into town to have a long wander with HG and Tina by the Clyde, and then by the time I was nearly home HM was in the park near our houses watching people skate on the frozen duckpond, so I went and said hello to her, before being driven inside because it was so fucking cold (and I also needed the loo). I really love that sort of low-stakes, spontaneous kind of socialising. The other thing I love about being in Glasgow rather than in London is that here it’s totally acceptable to strike up conversations with strangers in the street (I remember how INTENSELY weird and uncomfortable I found this when I first moved up, and now I adore it), and there are a whole load of people in my immediate neighbourhood that I recognise to say hi to or at least smile at in the street. The other thing that’s been great for me this year is the shift towards online communication with friends: zoom meet-ups are totally normal now, and as a result I’ve reconnected with a whole load of people I’ve not seen in years. (April was an INTENSE month for zoom communication, and I think I had at least one thing every day for the entire month, to the extent I needed to step back a bit in May.) I do hope that this remains normal, as it’ll be lovely to stay connected to people when my travel schedule goes back to some semblance of normal. There have been a few awkward friend-related things this year: Claire and Hannah are still not talking which, given that they both live within five minutes of my flat (thankfully in opposite directions) is a bit awkward; plus Caroline had some sort of fracture with a load of our mutual friends, which we’re mostly papering over for now but it’s not particularly comfortable. However on the bright side, Anne and Leda are now friends again, having fallen out in 2011 or 2012 around Leda’s divorce (now Anne is getting a divorce, which I guess bonds people) so swings and roundabouts, as ever.

MVPs of my 2020 friendships are doubtless my Triv group of Clare, Kat and Nuala, as the one regular online date that has remained consistent since April and, as agreed in our last game, will continue until at least 2080. It is the perfect mix of structure and chat, and I am immensely grateful for it. Other MVP is Hannah M, who lives five minutes from me and so I see her almost every day, and having that level of regular low-stakes contact is really good for me and stops me from going full hermit.

2020 being as it is, I haven’t made many new friends, though I would say that Work Friend Cait from 2019 has solidified into an Actual Friend, not least because, through sheer coincidence, she is also from Glasgow and has been based here since leaving Yangon due to COVID in March, and she’s now shacked up with someone here so I’m assuming she’s staying. There are a few Myanmar-based people who were definitely moving in the direction of becoming Proper Friends too, but I haven’t seen any of them since March, which puts a bit of a dampener on that. However I have developed a real rapport with my counterpart at Save the Children through a whole load of Zoom and Skype and Teams meetings (confusingly also called Caitlin) and we have a standing date to go and get very drunk if I ever make it back to Myanmar.

Living situation: Mixed. Started out the year in my shared work house in Sittwe; then in late March I came back to the UK for what I thought would be a few months, and I spent April and May in an airbnb in Monmouth, where my parents live, effectively being their Outside Person so I could do their shopping and have socially-distanced coffee in the garden and they could properly self-isolate. Then in June I moved in with them and stayed there until late July, when I came up to Glasgow for a couple of weeks ahead of what I THOUGHT would be my triumphant return to Myanmar in August. That then didn’t happen for a variety of irritating bureaucratic reasons, and since the start of September I’ve been back in my flat in Glasgow, which has been, frankly, delightful. Up until mid-October Claire was living here too, but then she moved out because she is having a lockdown baby and so I’ve been on my own most of the time. This is, on balance, more good than bad: I am an introvert, I need a lot of solo time, my flat is pretty big but also doesn’t necessarily FEEL it when everyone is around 100% of the time, as is currently the case. Claire is lovely in many ways but during the year I’d been away she really took over the place to an extent that I found rather frustrating and so it’s been lovely to reclaim it as my own and do various bits and pieces (hanging pictures, putting up light fittings) that I’ve been meaning to do for literally YEARS.

Anyway I will likely be getting at least one new temporary flatmate in the new year, with beloved friend Jo moving up to Glasgow (HOORAY I WILL GET YOU ALL IN THE END) and using my place as a base until she finds somewhere more permanent – this should be happening in February but we haven’t discussed it since the last lockdown so I guess it may be postponed now. Plus I have another friend whose relationship is imploding and whom I rashly offered one of my other spare rooms if he needed, and now I worry he is a little too reliant on it – SO there could be three of us living here (+ one cat) at some point. Which will be fine if it happens, there have been three here before (though admittedly not in the days where everyone is working from home as well), but I admit I am a tiny bit trepidatious about losing my lovely, lovely solitude.

The last few months of the year have also made it very clear how much I value where I live: my specific flat, in my specific neighbourhood, in Glasgow, in Scotland. The deep love that I have had for Glasgow since visiting for the first time in late 2006 has never faltered; being in Scotland is balm to the soul in these Brexiteering times; I adore the southside, where I’ve lived since 2011, all the more so when it us under attack by racists; and my love for my flat is much documented. Well done, Jess of 2007 (when I first moved here) and 2011 (when I bought my flat) for your excellent life choices.

Travel: Waaaaaaah obviously this has been a major fucking loss of 2020. It’s the first year for, I think, at LEAST 20 years (maybe 25?) that I haven’t visited a single new country: I had such grand plans, for Timor Leste and Borneo and new bits of Myanmar and maybe the Philippines and a conference in Germany and ending the year with a solar eclipse in Patagonia followed by a cruise to bloody ANTARCTICA and then of course all those plans fell one by one by one. Obviously I am tremendously lucky to have a significant store of past travel experiences from which to draw succour, and I have also managed to travel a little more than most this year, but maaaaaaaan, travel is such a core part of my identity and I have missed it like a fucking LIMB.

Anyway, as I say, I have managed to do a little! Started 2020 in Nepal, couple of days in Bandipur and then a couple of days back in Kathmandu, doing daytrips to Bhaktapur and Pashupatinath; then to Bangkok for visa renewal and back to Myanmar, bouncing back and forth between Sittwe and Yangon. Clare and I managed a long weekend in late February in the south of Myanmar, two nights in Hpa-an visiting the cave temples, boat down to Mawlamyine to see the world’s largest reclining Buddha (truly very large!) and then train back to Yangon: it was a brilliant trip in its own right but shines even brighter in hindsight as the last “normal” thing I was able to do before everything went to shit.

Since coming back to the UK I did manage to sneak away to southern Spain for a few nights in late July, to stay at my cousin’s house in Órgiva: it was definitely permitted at the time and I didn’t catch COVID but I still do feel a bit wicked for having done it – though it was absolute balm for my soul and I got to visit Granada and tour the Alhambra, something I have wanted to do since I saw pictures of it in a travel brochure at the age of nine and couldn’t believe it was a real place, and hardly anyone else was there (bc pandemic) so it felt really special.

I’ve also managed a few holidays within Scotland, all of which have been wonderful. At the start of August I went down to the Isle of Whithorn with some friends and we wild camped for a night by a lighthouse and then visited an absolutely stunning hidden beach with caves; at the start of September I sneaked off and worked from Arran for a week, doing big walks in the afternoon when the weather permitted, and then I came back to the mainland, met Clare in the Seamill Hydro and rented a car for a weekend, driving down through Galloway Forest Park to Wigtown, spending the night in spectacularly bleak Stranraer, and then down to the Mull and the Rhins of Galloway the next day before heading home via Largs for ice cream. And then at the end of September Clare and I had one of our BEST EVER HOLIDAYS* in the Highlands: a night in Oban so I could eat oysters on the seafront; a night in the RIDICULOUSLY swank Isle of Eriska hotel and spa where we had a private hot tub and a Michelin starred dinner and massages and body wraps, and then a week in a DISUSED RAILWAY CARRIAGE on the shores of Loch Awe, which could not have been more perfect: Clare heroically rented a car so we could have day trips to Inveraray (where we utterly coincidentally bumped into Kirst and her fella on her ACTUAL BIRTHDAY) and Kilmartin Glen and Kerrera Island and Corryvreckan whirlpool and Easdale Island. It was brilliant and we ate a load of great food and got super-lucky with the weather.

*All our holidays are our best ever holidays but this really was excellent

I’ve also been getting a lot of joy out of microexplorations this year – in particular, over the summer I had about three months of having a walk every Sunday with my aunt’s sister, Caro, exploring little paths in the Wye Valley that we’d never been on before, and it was really nice to see how little it takes to sate my brain’s relentless drive for novelty. That said I’m gonna be back on a gd plane as soon as I am permitted to do so I AM SORRY.

Health: As ever, robust to the point of rudeness, which in a Plague Year cannot be taken for granted. I have not had COVID or even a COVID scare, though I do note from my 2019 update I reported a cough that lingered well into January from a cold I picked up in Kathmandu in December, so I suppose it is vaguely possible that I might have had an early and extremely mild dose, though more likely it was just Kathmandu smog, as I assumed at the time. Other than that … I don’t think I’ve even had a cold, tbh, so I guess all that mask-wearing and staying indoors is good for SOMETHING. The most dramatic health-related thing that happened this year was spraining my ankle in January, by falling into a hole on an island near Sittwe. It was intensely painful for a few days, but actually in hindsight I think that was a good thing as it meant I kept off it completely rather than insisting on hobbling around, and thus it’s healed pretty well and I’d say now it’s (almost) totally back to normal; this is in contrast to when I last sprained an ankle, way back in 2006/07 (falling off a step in a bar while … chemically enhanced, and going on to dance on it for a further two hours and then walk 40 mins after missing my stop on the night bus), when it was painful for a good six months and continued problematic for YEARS after. Is it possible that I am becoming even more robust as I get older?? Yes I do realise the more likely scenario is that I am just becoming a tiiiiny bit more sensible, but otoh I have had a number of conversations with friends my age lately where they’ve been bemoaning the state of their knees or back or whatever, and I’m just … fine. Another thing to be grateful for!

State of fitness is probably about the same now as it was at the start of the year, though it did take a couple of dips, around the ankle spraining, and then also when living with my parents and leaning into their fairly … wine-heavy daily routine. At the start of October I realised that I was slightly bigger than I would like and rather to my shame (fat acceptance! Body positivity! Etc!) I started a concerted effort to ensmallen myself a little – nothing dramatic but just so that my clothes fit me properly. With that in mind I’ve been weighing myself every day, after not weighing myself for at LEAST a decade and not owing a scale ever in my life, and it’s actually been quite a positive way of stripping any meaning out of the numbers. I’ve not lost much in the way of weight but I am eating more healthily (Christmas aside) and getting much fitter (see below), and in general am feeling much better about my sexy self.

Also! After flailing about with running for literally YEARS, going through periods of running quite a lot and getting sliiiiightly better at it but then dropping back as soon as I stop, I started to do a daily 3k in mid-December and I may have finally cracked what works for me, running-wise: it’s short enough that you can see meaningful improvements quite quickly, without it being a big chunk of time out of your day, plus my brain and body find it so, so much easier to do a thing every day than, say, three or four times a week. I shouldn’t get too excited as it’s early days yet and I may fall out of this habit as I have so many times in the past, but I am intending to keep it up for January while building in some longer runs and maybe this will be what turns me into a Proper Runner at last? My friend Hannah M who lives round the corner joins me on runs most days which is great for motivation and mental health but less good for speed as I am bad at running and talking at the same time, and so from January I may try and do one or two solo runs per week to focus on getting faster.

I have gone through periods this year of doing regular yoga and always felt better for it but fell out of the habit at the end of the year, so will be starting with YWA’s January programme along with almost everyone else I know.

OH nearly forgot a total health game-changer, which was that at some point over the summer I started taking evening primrose oil and literally after the very first capsule went from having boobs that were too painful for me to run two weeks out of the month to having absolutely no noticeable PMS symptoms at all. It is utter magic.

General mental state: Given This Fucking Year, I’d like to say my general mental state has been Not Too Bad. I have realised in the past few months that my work-related anxiety has crept up nearly as high as it was at times in my old job, which is obviously not great, and it does just make me wonder whether I have a certain level of base anxiety and my work angst will just expand to that level … though the structure of remote working doesn’t help; in general I do love working from home but I find it much harder when it’s linked to a job that wasn’t ever intended to be remote, and also involves managing a team of 30+ who are thousands of miles away in a different timezone with practical and linguistic communication difficulties. Also the timezone difference has been much more of a pain in the arse than I’d foreseen, partly due to horribly early meetings but also the sense of always playing catch-up, that if I get up and online around 7am my team’s already been working for four hours and WHAT HORRORS may await in my inbox??

My most significant mental health-related realisation in 2020 came in mid-December, when I took a week of leave because I was just EXHAUSTED: I had been avoiding taking leave because Glasgow was in Tier 4 and there was nothing to do but everyone kept saying BUT YOU NEED TO REST. Anyway I don’t regret taking the leave as I definitely needed to catch up on sleep, but my mood took an absolutely catastrophic nosedive into the abyss that week, the speed and depth of which was actually rather alarming. I started to feel better pretty much as soon as I was back at work the next week, and I said rather flippantly to my ADHD coach, “fantastic, I’ll just never take leave again, I obviously need to keep myself constantly distracted from THE ABYSS through work” and she asked, very gently, “I am wondering why you used the word distracted there” and sat back and listened as I gradually realised that THE ABYSS is … maybe just my brain without dopamine?? Like, I have spent YEARS with the unexamined assumption that Abyss Brain is somehow the Real Me, from which I distract myself with incessant work and personal projects and adventure, but perhaps, in fact, my STIMULATED brain is the Real Me! It may seem like a small shift but it feels like a real game-changer, and it also explains why I react so badly to all of the (doubtless kindly-meant) exhortations on social media that we need to take time to ~rest~ because NO THANK YOU. Of course I do still need to sleep and it’s not like I am an inveterate workhorse, I do slack off a LOT and have my own versions of productive-feeling downtime (“restorative rest”, as my ADHD coach says), but what LOOKS like rest from the outside is actually incredibly bad for me and so I’m going to stop beating myself up about being Bad At Leisure, because brains are different and they need different things!

(Sidebar to note what is probably my least favourite social media trend of 2020, which is people getting all snarky about people who have kept themselves busy and productive over the pandemic. I ABSOLUTELY realise that this hasn’t been possible or desirable for everyone, and would NEVER shame anyone for not doing “enough” so … maybe that can work the other way, too, and we can ease off on the tweets that imply that anyone who is getting a lot of shit done is doing so because of a gaping fucking hole in their psyche, or just lying about it? THANK.)

Weddings attended: None, for very obvious reasons. I can think of two couples I know who had intended to get married this year and have had to postpone. I haven’t even been to a Zoom wedding!

Babies born: I said last year that I would take this out of my annual round-up because babies are so ubiquitous but I feel like I need to recognise the various pandemic babies, many of whom were the culmination of years of trying and incredibly stressful pregnancies and birth experiences. So, shout out to Innes, Josephine, Tegan, Abi, Jackson and Cara! Also my friend Claire is pregnant, due in March, which I am pretty excited about as I do like having access to a baby and this one will be five minutes’ walk from my flat.

Best books read: I read 117 books in 2020, three below my goal of 120 but close enough to count it as an achievement I think. As a displacement activity during the first lockdown I transferred my annual book lists of recent years into an Excel sheet to more easily keep track of things such as percentages of female / non-binary authors read, and percentages of authors of colour. So I can tell you that of those 117 books, 96 different authors were represented. 35% of my books read were by authors of colour, and 38% of the authors represented are authors of colour; 73% of the books read were by women or non-binary people, and 70% of the authors represented are women or non-binary people.

I have continued to read quite broadly around different genres, though there has been a general decline in the number of challenging books I’ve read, and quite a lot of comfort reading. I’m not going to beat myself up about that in this! Fucking! Year! but I would like to tip the balance a bit back towards intellectual challenge from emotional soothing in 2021.

Anyway, according to my list, my best reads of 2020 were as follows:
The End of Loneliness, Benedict Wells
Unicorn, Amrou al-Khadi
The Long Drop, Denise Mina
Pet, Akwaeke Emeze (if I had to pick a single favourite, this would probably be it)
Grown Ups, Marian Keyes
When We Speak of Nothing, Olumide Popoola (this was SO GOOD and I feel like it hasn’t got anywhere near the recognition it deserves)
The Lost Future of Pepperharrow, Natasha Pulley (finished this on a boat on the Thanlwin River, having finished The Watchmaker of Filigree Street on a boat on the Ayeyarwady River in 2015)
The Monster of Elendhaven, Jennifer Giesbrecht
My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell
NVK, Temple Drake
My Sister the Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite
The Flatshare, Beth O’Leary
Cold Tom, Sally Prue
The Fever King and The Electric Heir, Victoria Lee
If it Bleeds, Stephen King
Severance, Ling Ma
My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Ottessa Moshfegh
The Last True Poets of the Sea, Julia Drake
The Rental Heart, Kirsty Logan
Lot, Bryan Washington
Song of the Abyss, Makiia Lucier
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race, Reni Eddo-Lodge
Boyfriend Material, Alexis Hall
Boy Swallows Universe, Trent Dalton
The Angel of Crows, Katherine Addison
Drowned Country, Emily Tesh
Jasper Jones, Craig Silvey
Honeytrap, Aster Glenn Gray
The Boldness of Betty, Anna Carey (actually made me weep on a bus! Oh hey remember being on buses?!)
OK, Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea, Patrick Freyne
I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Iain Reid
The Apple Tree Throne, Premee Mohamed
Breathless, Jennifer Niven
Real Life, Brandon Taylor
Division Bells, Iona Datt Sharma
Ponti, Sharlene Teo
Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead
You Know Me Well, David Levithan and Nina LaCour
The Searcher, Tana French
Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart
Heated Rivalry, Rachel Reid (I stormed through her whole series of ice hockey m/m smut in early December, and enjoyed them all, but something about this book kind of … broke me? I do not even understand it, wtf)
Mayflies, Andrew O’Hagan
Swimming in the Dark, Tomasz Jedrowski

Best TV watched: Like seemingly half the world, the main new show I got into was Schitt’s Creek, just in time for it to be over. I guess there is something about the essential decency of the show appealing to people in this shitshow of a year. The only other new programme that I can think of that I’ve watched this year is Norsemen, which I loved (it was described to me by a friend as “like Schitt’s Creek but with Vikings”, which isn’t entirely accurate but does capture something of the feel of the show). Beyond that, there’s been a whoooooole load of comfort rewatching, including the entirety of How I Met Your Mother, New Girl, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and 30 Rock (much of the later seasons I’d never seen, so that’s at least justifiable) – I’m not proud, but that’s clearly where my brain’s been this year. I’m in the middle of a complete rewatch of Taskmaster, as Nuala has been watching it all for the first time and keeps referencing things I’ve completely forgotten about. It is even funnier than I remembered. And Clare and I have watched the latest season of Taskmaster together over Zoom, which allllllmost felt like we were in the room together but sadly not quite.

Best films seen: I cannot think of a single film that I have seen this year, certainly not in the cinema and probably not elsewhere. One of the few opportunities I ever get to watch films is on planes, and there has not been very much of that. One of my friends has just shared with me her Disney Plus log-in so that I can watch Soul, and maybe I’ll do that before the end of the year? (Probably not though.) And I have plans to watch Casablanca over Zoom with my Triv pals on New Year’s Day, so maybe 2021 will be a better film year?

Best other stuff seen: Hahaha. I am pretty sure nothing? Even in the brief opening over the summer I don’t think there was much going on. There was a music festival in Sittwe … oh yes, I couldn’t remember if it was last year or this, but it was definitely this year as my ankle was hurt! Anyway yes, it was a festival for peace with a load of bands from Yangon and I went along with Clare and Kanika and met a load of people there and drank two bottles of red wine on the grass and then I went home and sliced my finger open while washing up. Definitely the best thing I went to in 2020 due to it having been the only thing I went to in 2020.

Best things bought: Normally I just say “books and travel” here but obviously there hasn’t been much in the way of the latter. I’ve bought a few bits and pieces of art that I am very attached to and really need to frame and hang. I bought an excellent lamp in the shape of a palm, currently standing in as a Christmas tree, and also some other lamps and side tables that are currently stuck at my parents’. I bought a LOT of plants which I am increasingly attached to and are the basis of most of my day to day conversations. And I got passionately into perfume in late summer and spent an amount of money that I do not like to think about on that. New favourite perfume finds have included Rose Noir by Byredo, Citrus Batikanga by Maison Crivelli, Penhaligon’s Juniper Sling (smells like sexy G&T!), Une Amourette, the Molton Brown geranium one, and Ffern’s winter 2021 scent. I smell delightful.

OH ALSO my new bike, which I got in October, was a lockdown godsend, up until the last couple of weeks when it’s been so icy I’m too scared to cycle for fear of sliding beneath a bus. Just have to work out how to get my OTHER (old, knackered) bike off my railings so I can donate it to my local bike charity, but I have lost the keys to the d-lock.

Things lost: I lost my debit card twice within a couple of months. I may have lost a bag of earrings in the chaos of leaving Sittwe, as I was 95% sure I’d packed them but then couldn’t find them on unpacking so maybe they’ve been lost in transit or maybe they’re still in my house in Sittwe, who knows. I do also have a load of stuff left in Sittwe that I have no idea if I’ll ever see again, gently mouldering in my work home. There are a few things that I particularly miss, one being a dark blue silk shift with gold spatters on it, and another being a giant papier-mache owl from Hpa-an (Clare has the same one). Hopefully I will manage to retrieve them somehow! Also, I guess the keys of the d-lock, mentioned above, though who knows when they actually vanished.

I did find a flipflop that I lost in 2019, so that was nice!

The music of 2020: I’ve put together my standard downbeat folk/neo-folk Spotify playlist – like everyone else, I did that “how bad is my Spotify” thing and it got me bang-on with my mopey Lilith Fair bullshit. I’d say the artists I’ve listened to the most have been Lau / Kris Drever, and Phoebe Bridger, which feels like peak 2020 vibes: sad! Yearning! Vast audio landscapes!

On a very different note however, I should point out that probably the one song I have listened to more than anything else this year was “WAP”. I do recognise the utter ludicrousness of me, a 42-year-old accidentally-celibate white lady, listening to this as I run through Glasgow, but there we are.

Fashion concept (such as it is): I am honestly quite ashamed by how much online shopping I have done this year, at a time when obviously we should all be divesting and moving away from fast fashion (though in my defence, I have at least been buying more expensive, longer-lasting things). It’s very clearly some sort of stress coping mechanism, as it peaked during both lockdowns (in the second lockdown, it also coincided with a period of near-total sleeplessness due to horribly early meetings and US election stress, resulting in me ordering things at 3am while in a sort of fugue state and then completely forgetting them until they showed up), and I have bought a LOT of going-out wear for imaginary future occasions that I fervently hope may one day come to pass. (Anyone who follows me on IG will be aware that I have a LOT of sequins, which I am currently wearing to work from my sofa.) Anyway! My “style” is generally fairly congruent over time, but as I get older I feel like I’m becoming increasingly flamboyant (from what was admittedly already quite a high bar), and also increasingly finding ways in which androgyny can work on a body like mine (albeit a fairly camp version of androgyny): I still love a good frock, of course, but after nearly twenty years of struggle, the last two or three years have suddenly copped on and realised there are people who are generous of thigh but small of waist who ALSO want to be able to wear trousers, and so now I am inundated with excellent trousers, and it makes me very happy.

Possibly my single favourite clothing item that I have bought this year is my silver jumpsuit from Hush, which manages to be both SPECTACULAR and insanely comfortable, and when paired with my Esska books makes me look like a middle-aged superhero.

Global happenings and politics: I mean where to even fucking start with this one. I opened this section of my 2019 update with “*hysterical shrieking forever*” and so I guess 2020 is “*shrieking intensifies*”. Obviously the last nine months of the year have been overshadowed by the pandemic, and the UK government’s utterly parlous response to it, fucking up at every possible opportunity, underscored by the subsonic hum of doom that is Brexit, and the even more subsonic, even doomier hum of environmental collapse. There have been bright spots, of course – the big one being the defeat of Trump, though it is terrifying that it was so close, as well as the swift progress towards a COVID vaccine, but it does also feel particularly bleak that the situation is so desperate at the turn of the year. I am not so naïve to believe that everything would magically turn around on 1 January 2021, but it would be nice to be on a slightly more positive trajectory, wouldn’t it?

Anyway I continue to hope for a crushing, humiliating, generation-long defeat for the Tories (but WHEN??? NO ELECTION UNTIL 2024 AAAAAAAAARGH) and also Scottish independence. It’s past time.

Christ almighty it took me until reading this through to remember that the BLM protests were this year. Fucking hell, 2020.

Things never done before: Has there ever been a year when I have done FEWER new things? Which I guess in itself is a new thing, so yay 2020. Let’s see: completed NaNo as you’re supposed to! Spent nearly six months without leaving the country, spent nearly three months without leaving Glasgow or getting on public transport, spent two and a half months without touching another fucking human being OH MY GOD FUCK YOU 2020.

Highlights of 2020:
- The last few days in Nepal – Gorkha, leaping up a hill to a shrine in Bandipur, back to Kathmandu and a fascinating day visiting Bhaktapur and Pashupatinath in the rain, final morning visiting the royal palace and the Garden of Dreams.
- Couple of days in Bangkok on a visa run, and that lovely sensation of wandering a city where you know no one and no one knows you (whennnnnn will this come again, when???)
- Hanging out in Yangon at various points between Jan and March, particularly drinking beers by the lake with Cait, and lunch in the amazing little tea shop down the road from our office
- Trip to the island off Sittwe, even though I fell in a hole and fucked my ankle within the first 15 mins of getting off the boat – it was still a very nice (if painful) day
- Just the little pleasures of life in Sittwe: tomato salad lunch at Baked; walks around the riverfront; Clare’s and my Sunday morning tradition of swim in the sea, coffee/juice at Sittwe Hotel, lunch at Global, hair wash.
- Oh, and teaching my colleague Kanika to ride a bike! SO SATISFYING.
- Karaoke with my team as they tore through bottle after bottle of whisky. Honestly any time spent with my team, they are fucking legends.
- Surprise evening eating noodles and drinking beer with Niall when we both turned out to be in Yangon at the same time.
- Long weekend with Clare in Hpa-an and Mawlamyine! Boat through a cave! CAVE OF BATS! The most charming tiny ski lift that took us around a park full of Buddhas! The GIANT Buddha near Mawlamyine! Drinking Lady Party cocktails by a lake! Train from Mawlamyine to Yangon, and various mysterious train foodstuffs!
- Weirdly enjoyable monitoring visit from an independent EU monitor, who was fucking GREAT and gave me the excuse to do a load of field visits, including my final visit to the Pauktaw camps in early March (on a Monday, when it seemed absolutely inconceivable that I would be leaving Sittwe possibly for good on the Saturday of that same week, and yet here we are)
- Those first couple of months back in the UK, living in an airbnb in Monmouth, having coffee with my parents in their garden every morning, perfect spring weather and riding my bike down to visit my aunt in her village. Take away the grinding anxiety and much of the rest was lovely.
- And just getting to spend as much time with my parents (and their dog) as I’ve been able to this year.
- Inauguration of weekly Triv with Clare, Kat and Nuala in April, which has been my one standing virtual meet-up and a little spot of joy every week. We agreed last night that we will keep it up until at least 2080.
- Oh yeah my dad going mildly viral among Dr Who fans on Twitter, after I got him to repeat an iconic line from one of his 1980s episodes! He remains utterly baffled but gratified by it.
- Bucolic summer walks and runs around the Wye Valley, including the three months or so of weekly walks with my aunt’s sister. Particularly the day when we discovered the secret honey woman in the woods above Tintern, and my big birthday walk through the woods by the river on my own, on one of the hottest days of the year.
- Bits and pieces of broader family time in the summer, when my cousins came down to Wales and we did a big walk in the woods and also canoed down the river.
- Secret sneaky trip to Spain, hanging out and drinking way too much wine with my cousin Charlotte and visiting the almost entirely empty Alhambra.
- Magical mystery tour with my mum one day, when I just told her where to drive and we ended up at Kilpeck to see the Sheela-na-gig, and then Llathony Priory.
- OH MY GOD my aunt’s new puppy Coco, who is an absolute fucking JOY.
- Coming back to Glasgow in late July ahead of what I thought would be my return to Myanmar: boozing with Cait and her new gf Ros, weekend escape to Dumfries and Galloway with the Hannahs, Josh, Tina and Lewis, seeing Helen and Jay and Kat W and Clare and Rob and Claire.
- Surprise visit from Caroline to Monmouth on an absolutely fucking sweltering day in August, and then a return visit to see her and her family in Winchester a few weeks later (which did end up kind of weird and drunken but let us draw a veil over that thanks)
- Oh gosh yes hedgehog spotting with my mum in the garden! And also going out with my bat detector in summer!
- Sneaky week working from Arran, including getting distracted in a meeting when I spotted my first ever red squirrel out the window, and the day I did the walk from Lagg along the coast, even though I was turned back by the tides in the end.
- Galloway weekend with Clare! Grim hotel in Stranraer! Wigtown! Swimming at night in Seamill Hydro, and fried breakfast in bed! All the White Russians in that weird pub! Two separate lighthouses, one of which we had lunch in!
- Day out to Loch Lomond with Jay, where we went up about one-third of a hill and accidentally followed a children’s fairy trail and ate ice cream by the water on what was possibly the last summery day of the year.
- Getting into postboxes with my Triv group and Rob! Who’d’ve thought.
- SO MUCH about the week in the highlands with Clare in late September, much of which is already mentioned in the travel section, though I think the day I may look back on the most fondly is the day we walked around the southern half of Kerrera in glorious sunshine. Also the magic of bumping into Kirst and her fella in Inveraray!
- Various outdoor hang-outs with Glasgow friends from October on: park bench drinking with HM, garden time with HG and Josh, bike rides with various people (including Tina’s birthday bike relay), regular runs with Rob and HM, games in the garden with Claire, park walks with Cait and her step-dog Murdo. All vital for morale.
- RAGE ROOM with Tina and HM to mark the (very temporary) end of Tier 4 lockdown.
- Just having a really lovely, gentle Christmas period, despite everything. Particularly listening to a brass band playing carols in the park on Christmas eve with HM and new friend Mehalah.

Lowlights of 2020:
- Well the fucking pandemic.
- Various bits and pieces of family drama, detailed (probably) elsewhere (though I haven’t written that bit yet)
- Various bits and pieces of friend drama: in particular the fact that HM and Claire are very much not friends any more (thankfully less awkward now that Claire is no longer living with me), and also returning weirdness between Caroline and … everyone else. Sigh.
- I mean honestly I have a lot of survivors’ guilt about this but this year has been MUCH better for me, personally, than for most other people, and I am immensely grateful for that.

Resolutions / intentions kept: I mentioned last year that I’ve restarted monthly goal-setting linked to an overarching Excel sheet, which has actually worked SUPER well for gradual forward movement this year, hooray. However I have pretty conclusively failed on the two things I identified as resolutions for 2020:

- Achieve one (1) sex in 2020, ideally with someone I have not had sex with previously. IMAGINE.

Ahahaha. You know that “what did you personally plan for 2020 that caused the pandemic” thing that’s been going round on Twitter? This is obviously mine.

- Take more photos of people!

Again, ahahahahaa! I am still weirdly shy about this on the occasions I have been permitted to be in contact with people this year. I do have more screencaps of Zoom calls I guess.

Intentions for 2021: Keep on with the monthly goal setting, as that’s working. Beyond that:
- Let’s carry over the sex one, shall we? Maybe 2021 will be the year! Oh god.
- Sort out my fucking sleep, which is absolutely terrible. I have started tracking it more assiduously and have bought a book that claims to be able to use CBT to fix your sleep in two weeks so maybe that will improve things? I’d like to embed this in a slightly broader intention to prioritise my physical and mental health more, say no to more things that aren’t strictly necessary, change the mindset that says: well, x thing is technically possible and won’t literally kill me so I should definitely do it to keep other people happy. Ideally 2021 would be the year of developing slightly healthier habits, and a kind of daily ritual that keeps me happy and on-track (and is very much not a Routine against which I will inevitably rebel).
- Make a concerted fucking effort to get my writing OUT THERE this year, to agents or publishers or whatever. I’d love to end 2021 with an agent and a clear route to publishing for at least one of my many completed manuscripts but that is beyond my control, so I’ll just commit to doing my part and hopefully it will garner good results.

On the request of ONE OF YOU WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS, I am deeming today Anon Comment Friday. (If I can work out how to enable anonymous comments on the new LJ update page, GOD.) Tell me things that make you happy! Tell me things that make you sad! Share your hopes, your dreams, your scandal! Write a song! Write a poem! Draw a picture in Paint and post it! Etc.

I am off RAFTING ON THE GODDAMN NILE around 4pm and need to work like a bastard until then, so I probably won't be checking in much - play nice, lovelies.

x

Hello LiveJournal, I am in Georgia with slemslempike and jinxremoving! It is largely excellent and we are generally winning at Georgia. All sorts of lovely things have happened, including seeing LOTS OF INTERESTING THINGS, making our way very successfully on various forms of public transport, getting an overnight train from Tbilisi to Batumi and SHOUTING at men who tried to enter our compartment that WE WERE LADIES (turned out one of them was there legitimately, oops), adopting a dog for a day in Batumi, and driving through a flood on our way to the train station in Batumi this morning. We have also eaten various things largely (but not exclusively) composed of bread and cheese (I have also eaten an awful lot of offal), and attempted, mostly unsuccessfully, to go up a variety of structures (though we did successfully climb a tower yesterday). Oh, and we have wholeheartedly adopted the Georgian toasting tradition. Gamarjos!

However perhaps MOST EXCITINGLY we have had ( MEDICAL DRAMA! )

In conclusion, Clare and Nine are very good people to be around if your leg nearly falls off. The end.

I am sat in the office/house waiting for the rain to stop so that I can actually go and do something (Southern Sudan basically grinds to a halt when it rains), but given that I am about to head out and be offline for much of the day, how about some ANONYMOUS COMMENTS while I'm gone? Tell me your secrets, tell me who you fancy, tell me what's good in your life and what's bad, tell me FILTHY SEX STORIES. Or ask me a question! If you want.

GO GO GO.

I have no idea what to post about on LJ at the moment (everything seems to involve too much background and context), and am having a slow Friday (day-off plans foiled by ill couchsurfer, though I may go out shortly to read a book in a cafe or similar), so I am going to do this meme. I always assume that everyone knows everything about me, but maybe you don't.

The problem with LJ: We all think we are so close, but really we know nothing about one another. So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away. Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you.

Have at it!

Hm, I will even make this post public, so that you can ASK ANONYMOUSLY if you want. Don't be evil though.

But look, what is the POINT of Dreamwidth? Why is it good? And what on earth does its name mean?

I don't mean to piss on everyone's bonfires, but isn't this just like a few years ago when everyone got Vox accounts and then promptly forgot about them?

Friday the 13th today, Valentine's Day tomorrow: seems like a perfect opportunity for anonymous comments!

Have at it, chaps, but keep it kind.

(via spittingkittens)

Every time I think I couldn't love Obama any more, he proves me wrong.