Tuesday, 20th December, 2005

2005: In Three Words

(1) "What", (2) "the", (3) "fuck?"

I dunno why people feel the need to write some kind of round-up of the year as it draws to an end — I mean, personally, there's no point. If you want to find out what happened to me this year, then start here and keep clicking "next" until you get to here (which doesn't exist yet )

Having said that, I kinda feel compelled to write something about 2005, seeing as it's been a rather odd and bizarre year. At almost every stage of the way — from January to December — it's been full of WTF?! moments. Some good, some bad.

I mean, obviously, I've had my shitty moments — March's episode of "Siobhan Loses The Plot" was interesting, losing George was one of the worst things that has ever happened to me, and the end of August was, well, like I said, "What the fuck?!"

But on the whole, the thing that has most stood out for me this year is just how much things can change over the course of twelve months — not just in terms of actual things, but how you perceive things as well. And also the position of things (especially yourself) can change.

As I said the other day, my online-ness has changed a lot over this year. This time last year, I was umming and ahhing about whether I should submit it to The Guardian (remind me sometime to change the CSS on that). Now I wouldn't think twice.

I used to be ashamed of my website. Now I'm fucking proud of it To the point where I've actually used it in lectures. I've met a lot of people as a result of it — and I've had email and IM chats with even more others. In short, I'm well chuffed and will probably do a small dance to celebrate later. Naked, most likely.

So yeah, 2005: The year I (1) grew up a bit online, (2) broke down online, (3) got dumped online, (4) made friends online, (5) posted a picture of my knob online (by accident), (6) got very, very, drunk online, (7) threw all of the toys out of my pram online, (8) met people from online, (9) for once got paid for something I did online, (a) lost everything online, (b) rebuilt everything online, (c) became the focus of attention for one month online, (d) bored everyone to tears online, (e) actually took on an online persona, floated around online and built a house online, and (f) (in a contrived, hexidecimal way) got the accolade of my life, online¹.

I think 2006 is going to be fun

(Is it a bit early to be posting reviews of the year? Possibly, and normally, I only do them on the last day of December, but this one has been mulling round my head for a few days. And I dunno, I'm in a reflective mood. I'll probably just fill the next ten days with boring crap anyway, so I may as well write this while it's fresh in my head. And besides, I just bought my ticket back to Belfast this morning, so I'll not be here for a bit. There will, no doubt, several random Flickr pictures of the H&W cranes and perhaps a critique of my parents' new house between now and New Year. Apart from that, I'll just be busy trying to decide what to do on New Year's Eve — I've had a few offers: (1) Amsterdam, (2) Berlin, (3) New York, (4) Warrington. Surprisingly, I think Warrington might actually be the one to go for )

...

Can I just add one thing though? If you'd asked me, on the 1st of January this year, what I would be doing at the end of December, I doubt very much I would have said something like "Sitting on the sofa, writing on my laptop, alone". I've really tried to avoid writing anything about how I feel about what happened between me and Kath, but I just wanted to say that I'm fine. In fact, I'm excited. For once in my life, I'm single, and abso-fucking-lutely loving it.

...

¹ I want this in my epitaph: "Siobhan ... Blogging at its best" — The Guardian

The Inherent Difficulty Of Being In The Generation Directly Beneath The Baby Boomers In Regards To Knowing What To Buy People For Christmas

When we were kids, it was easy. We had no income, we had no means of production. We were, quite literally, the proletariate.

Now though, we're the bread winners. Where before we could look forward to Christmas with a smile on our faces, a train-set shove in our stocking (or, if you're a fat-tongued-mockney, a badly-wrapped frying pan), and a satsuma, we're now expected to lavish the same amount of generosity on our greying-love-hippies-that-we-prefer-to-call "parents"

The point of presents, I feel, is to find something that is out-of-reach to the recipient. When we were young, everything was out of reach — so you could buy us a turd-on-a-string and we'd be happy. But, of course, now that everything is just a click-away on Ebay, it's hard to find something for someone that would really get their excitement levels up.

To completely disprove my theory here, BTW, I'm now looking with baited glee at a ticket to see Tony Robinson in February at the Lowry in Manchester. Whilst wearing a "Damson short silk nightdress". (Jo, of course it fits. Thank you!)

Regardless. My point is that the Baby Boomers — those intolerably selfish bastards that think they invented smugness — seem to have realised that we're not as special as they thought we might turn out to be. And now they've turned on their grandchildren instead as the true champions of the earth.

So basically, if you don't have such good friends as I have, prepare to get shit for Christmas. And prepare to hate your offspring for getting better presents from their grandparents than you did.

2005: Blogged

Hmm. Had a copy in my hands this evening and I have some criticism...

1. I'm not in it.

2. Mike is not in it.

3. Tom is not in it.

*pfft*

all the shit youve been through

I've not been through shit hon. Compared to everything that's gone on this year, in places far away from me, I've not had any amount of shit at all.