Meme 2011

[cosmolinguist]

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
Went to BiCon and Lib Dem Conference. Ran a workshop (on bisexuality and mental health). Wrestled furniture into my stupid flat. Kissed half a dozen people in the space of a day or two. Met a friend I've had for seven or eight years. Probably a bunch of other stuff, I dunno.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't tend to do resolutions at new year, but there are a few things I'd like to do in the near-upcoming-future-that-happens-to-be-a-new-year: get my eyes tested, look at replacing all the things we haven't been able to afford fixing or replacing this year (bras, laptop, half-finished OU courses, etc.), and so on.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth
I don't think so? But that makes me paranoid that I've missed someone.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Not close to me, but the loss is keenly felt of someone who was close enough to many of the people I'm close to.

5. What countries did you visit?
Minnesota, where I am now. Airports in France and Holland. Wales?

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
A job. I'm much more optimistic and settled about this goal than I was even a few days ago, which is an incredible relief.

More time with friends, more places I can visit.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I'm not particularly good with dates.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Writing a letter that got me two years' worth of backdated benefits, enough to pay off all our horrible credit cards, our overdraft, and hopefully our loan from the bank too. Enough that we went from despair about the future to thinking we might be able to buy a house by the end of next year, Andrew can finish his master's, I can get back to work.... It's just been a huge sea change.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Being nice and doing what was easiest rather than what was best for me.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Only mentally. But as badly as I've ever had it.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Our way out of debt.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Andrew for putting up with inhumanly long working hours, my mentalism, and a ton of other stresses for as long as he could, and making me feel loved and settled at times when that was really important to me. diffrentcolours has been really awesome at giving sensible advice, looking after me at my first #ldconf (as well as offering me free transport and accommodation without which I wouldn't have been able to go at all), and being patient with me as it takes me months to work out simple solutions to my problems that he suggested months earlier.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Anyone who uttered the phrase "ConDems." And my own, a lot of the time.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Money? What money? Other than rent and bills and food, most of it went on getting us here.

15. What were you really, really, really excited about?
Peter and Eric coming to visit in April. Good things happening to my friends.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
Probably quite a lot of the Monkees' repertoire.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) Happier or sadder? Happier. This time last year I had no idea where all my clothes were and had no presents to give!
b) Bigger or smaller? Don't know. Can't be smaller, but probably about the same.
c) Richer or poorer? RICHER! Only as of Wednesday.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Socializing.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Thinking bad thoughts and doing the things they make me do.

20. How will you spend Christmas?
Christmas Eve at my grandparents', a more treasured treat every year. They're both in failing health but I saw them yesterday for my birthday and they're very much recognizably themselves, and honestly I don't want anything more for Christmas than for that to be the case.

Christmas Day at my dad's sister's. She's making avocado salad; both of my parents are dubious of this.

21. How many one-night stands?
None, just lots of kissing.

22. Did you fall in love in 2011?
Andrew and I have both changed a lot in the time we've known each other; I'm glad that each new version of us seems to be ones that love each other. It's not without rocky bits along the way, but I'm always falling in love with that guy.

23. What was your favourite TV programme?
I don't really watch TV. My favorite radio program of this year is definitely In Our Time.

24. How will you see in the New Year?
I get to see innerbrat! And miss_s_b! And Yorkshire! And another Holly!

25. Do you hate / dislike anyone now that you didn't hate / dislike this time last year?
Very much so. I can't give details here though.

26. What was the best book you read?
I have been really poor at reading books; my eyes and my attention span have both been bad. So lots of audiobooks for me (most of which I'd heard before, because we had to cancel our emusic subscription due to it having gone very quickly from the best way to get new music to being utterly crap), and lovely Radio 4 podcasts.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I do feel this is the year of Andrew's music: he saw a lot of touring musicians he was really excited about and wrote two books about music (one about the Beach Boys, the other about the Monkees) which necessitated a truly excruciating amount of listening to songs over and over.

28. What did you want and get?
An acknowledgement that I am properly ill and do need money to live on and support to get back into work.

29. What did you want and not get?
My luggage from last Christmas to ever be returned.

30. What was your favourite film of this year?
I only saw about four movies in the cinema, and my favorite of those is Paul; the rare geek film that is full of allusions, but all so loving and sweet, and not detracting from the story if you don't get them. And genuinely funny.

31. What did you do on your birthday?
Woke up at 3am local time, got driven to an airport, suffered from the power trip of the man at the check-in desk, winced in sympathy as Andrew got pornoscanned (but then, if he won't trim his beard, this will keep happening), flew to France, waited in a huge queue to go through security (the airport workers were on strike; we could hear people shouting into megaphones, chanting, and giving speeches; I couldn't understand a word of it, but the rhythm and tone were terribly familiar), spent a particularly-long-seeming nine hours getting to Minneapolis, spent another hour in a queue to get through security, rode in another car for an hour and a half, had dinner with my grandparents at Applebee's (where my grandpa again pointed at me and said "She's from England!" and made them sing at me), had cake and presents when we got home, was forced to sit through my parents' holiday snaps, and finally was allowed to have a shower and go to bed, about 7pm local time. It was already the next day in the time zone where I'd woken up.

When I was little I used to resent that my birthday, being on the solstice, was the shortest day of the year. This was the longest day of my year.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Getting the benefit money as I went along, rather than in a big lump now.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
The poverty and lost luggage meant I've depended heavily on a couple of friends clearing out their closets; just as well as they both have far better fashion sense than me, so I have some cool clothes of types I never would've otherwise!

34. What kept you sane?
Nothing. I wasn't. But Andrew tried very hard, as did many other people, including diffrentcolours, greyeyedeve, yoyoangel, trinker, plok, and many more I won't mention so don't feel offended if you're not included on this list.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Mark Wheat doesn't really count as a celebrity, does he?

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Because of my work with LGBT+ Lib Dems, queer stuff. With a close eye on disability/benefits/NHS/etc kinds of things.

37. Who did you miss?
Stuart

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Though I knew her slightly before, this felt like the year I met yoyoangel.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
Doing (or not doing) something because someone else wants to should not be sufficient reason. Doing (or not doing) something because I want to should be sufficient reason. There are exceptions to this, but not as many as I think/pretend there are.

Also that narrativium can be used for evil as well as good. I've been so enamored of it but the stories people tell themselves can be damaging, even life-threatening (threatening to life-as-they-know-it anyway), as well as cute and sweet and innocuously exciting like I had previously thought.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Last night is a night I will remember you by
When I think of things we did, it makes me wanna cry*

Were you telling lies? (the night before)
Was I so unwise? (the night before)
When I held you near, you were so sincere
Treat me like you did the night before


* Except after a few days I didn't even want to cry any more.

Comments

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

Ach, people who say "ConDems" are brilliant. Like people who would write "ZaNuLieBore" in the previous parliament, you can disregard the rest of their statement immediately without wasting any time trying to make sense of it at all.

[cosmolinguist]

Indeed; it's just as deplorable when applied to other political parties. It's nice that some people do make it easy to flag up when they can be safely ignored.

[puffpastry.livejournal.com]

You're in MINNESOTA again! !!!!! !!!! !!! ANY chance of my seeing you this time around??

[cosmolinguist]

I am! I'm really not sure (damn this lacking my own transport!) But we're here until the 29th, and have no particular plans after Christmas, so possibly! I hope so!

[cosmolinguist]

Sorry it didn't work out :( I didn't see the Cities, except for my aunt's house (in Eden Prairie). I was too busy even to talk to friends on the phone!

Next time. It'll be summer (I'm hoping for kinda state-fair time, in which case I'll DEFINITELY be in the Cities!) and I'm hoping to catch up with people.

[goodqueenmolly.livejournal.com]

Bah, you made me cry reading this! ;-)

[cosmolinguist]

That's unexpected! ::hugs::

[spinningtoofast.livejournal.com]

"13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?"

How ironic, my answer to this would have been The Coalition Government's.

[cosmolinguist]

Disliking the government is one thing -- there's plenty I dislike, even to the extent of it making my illness worse; a lot of it was literally making me depressed (or anxious).

But as softfruit says, there are some kinds of rhetorical devices that just mark someone out as not interested in debate or facts or other perspectives, and I haven't yet found anyone who says "ConDems" who will engage on any level other than name-calling about UK politics.

[spinningtoofast.livejournal.com]

Obviously, it is name-calling, but I think there's a risk of deciding that because critics aren't 'nice' their criticisms aren't valid. I got 'called out' on Facebook a few days ago for calling Jason Kenney an ass. He's the Canadian minister of citizenship and immigration, and he's a homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic bully. Is it 'mean' to call him an ass - yes; but focusing on my name-calling completely exonerates his appalling policies and behaviour while also ignoring the very substantive power differences between us. 'ConDem' is facile name-calling, but surely it's not as bad as viciously attacking the poor and vulnerable the way this government has. Further, it's reflective of a huge level of anger directed, in particular, at the liberal democrats. The Tories are behaving the way one expects Tories to behave - but most people I know voted Lib Dem and have vowed never to do so again (including James, who has been voting Lib Dem since before either of us moved to the UK). And nothing I've read by any Liberal Democrat, whether at the leadership level, or the grassroots party level, has indicated any kind of willingness to engage with why people are so furious.