New Year's Peeve,

 I used to love New Year's Eve, but I have to admit that there are a few things about it that just get on my nerves. It's not the fireworks, because I do actually kind of love that we celebrate the idea of the world making it around the sun again by filling the sky with pretty lights; I just wish they didn't scare the shih out of my dog when they happened, because she turns into a total basket case and I don't like to see her scared. Or more scared than she is of the world on a daily basis, the poor kid. It's not even the drinking. I love that it's such a celebration and people get a bit drunk and a bit daft and in the morning, there's all these different places where people do a dip in the FREEZING COLD sea (or lakes where there is no beach close) and it tends to be for charities. I love having a Prosecco (or six) and feeling in the spirit of it. 

But mother of God, I hate the new year, new me bollox, because things do not change that quickly. The previously mentioned fireworks and drinking mean I will be staying at my mum's so the dogs can feel a bit of solidarity in their terror, so I won't be waking up in the same house I live in all year, but some time during New Year's Day I'll come back and all of the same laundry that's sitting waiting to be done will be sat here, and everything will be just as I left it. For a few years, I spent New Year's Eve doing SO MUCH cleaning because it felt imperative to start the New Year with a clean slate, or if not, at least a pristinely clean flat. It didn't matter that everything would be everywhere again in a few days time because cleaning means tidying and tidying means moving things and moving things means I can't find anything, because it was all about New Year. 

One year, I can't remember if it was before I went to university or after at this stage, but it was probably a couple of years after, I chose to do Veganuary and I regretted my life choices by the middle of the month because there was so much that I just couldn't eat and I threw a few wobblers about why I was doing it. I stuck to oat milk in coffee and tea for a long while afterwards (I'm not sure I made it a full year, but it was a while) until I struggled to get my hands on the one I liked, went back to 'normal' milk for a bit and then tried to just switch back straight onto oat milk and couldn't cope with the taste of it. Honestly, one of the big reasons people "fail" Veganuary is it's too much, too soon and it's too strict. I'm not specifically saying I'm going to try and use less animal products next year, because I'm not really a big resolutions person, but I've been vegetarian for over nearly 18 years and whilst I have oscillated between being pescatarian (still eating fish) and vegetarian (no meat, no sea meat, nothing) with occasional steps into veganism which I have never intended to be permanent, I have always tried to be more aware of the impact of what I eat, drink and consume in general, and *surprisingly* that's going to continue in the New Year. I'm interested to see the new plant based products that all the supermarkets are going to come out with and I'm really interested to see which ones make it past February before being discontinued.

In a similar way to Veganuary, I understand why people do RED January (Run Every Day) but it feels like the same sort of thing to me: too much, too fast. I know from experience that if you want to improve with running you need to commit to it and commit hard, but at the same time, you need to give your body time to rest, especially if you're not stepping up from your previous running and you're actually just starting afresh. I briefly considered thinking about RED January, but I've done it before, and it did not go well. My knees didn't thank me for it and I don't need to do anything to make them worse. Also, when I think about it, I'm not a hundred percent sure I WANT to get back into running. It was never something I did for the love of it, but I did love the community of park run and I loved pushing myself at the end of park run to sprint the last bit. I loved the sprinting, I was just crap at it. I didn't love the number of times I needed to find a tree to 'slightly' spew up under, because I pushed myself a bit too hard. One thing I do want to do - though I wasn't waiting for the New Year to do it - is go back to spending more time outside. With events of this year being what they have been, I've spent all together too much time inside which hasn't been good for my head and hasn't been good for my health either. I'm still not going to go running every day though, because that is a recipe for disaster (for me, at least).

Sadly, that brings me to my next peeve: the gym. Honestly, I haven't been to a gym for a long while and part of that is not having felt comfortable in one for a number of reasons, and partly it's because I really liked my old guy and pool situation and the pools around here are cold. I did briefly flirt with the idea of getting into wild swimming this year, and yes, I realise that's even colder, and that's the reason I didn't do it. Cold makes me hurt. Cold causes pain for me. I don't know why, I don't really care why, I just deal with it, but it does mean I struggle a bit with swimming. I quite like it even though I panic in the water sometimes, and even though I'm slow. But as soon as New Year rolls around, everyone starts going to the gym and swimming and things, and it annoyed me the few years I was training for half marathons and such, because suddenly there were more people around and it was harder to get to the equipment I needed, and things got broken more often. It's highly unlikely that I'm going to be going back to the gym in the next few weeks, but I am probably going to see all the New Year, New Me crowd on Facebook and Instagram and by the middle of the month, or if not, by March, suddenly the gym selfies stop and life "returns to normal".

I guess my big gripe with everything about New Year is tied up in this idea of what I have always loved about the holiday. It's this idea of starting the year as you mean to go on. I have always wanted to spend it with the person I'm in a relationship with, seeing, whatever terms people are using these days that I struggle to understand, because I want to start the year as I mean to go on; being with them. I guess if I were to take that to it's extreme I should be at least tipsy all year (another thing I don't really understand is giving up all alcohol through January and then binge drinking all the way into August, but I did try Dry January once and made it to pretty close to my birthday before realising that I actually like having a drink and that form of self limiting just didn't feel good anymore). Given I have no intention of spending the whole year vegan or running every day, I would rather start the New Year being realistic, both about who I am and what I can do to change the things I don't like this year. 

This year is different because I have my ADHD diagnosis and one of the biggest things with that is realising that there are reasons why things like Dry Jan/RED Jan/Veganuary don't work for me (or work for a little while and then I get bored). This year, 2023, I have spent some good time trying to come to understand myself better, and that's something I'm planning on carrying on. I mean, even if I didn't plan on it, it's something that happens to us all anyway, but I want to intentionally try and understand myself better, so I can try and make things easier for myself, be more the person I want to be and feel less hemmed in by the things I struggle with. 2024 is already shaping up to be a good year, with Green Day tickets already booked, heading back to Red Rose 20 years after I went as a child (Christ, that makes me feel old) and The BIG Finish - Mr Big's final world tour, which I'm sure I will be a total weeping mess after, but I am thankful for one thing with it - at least I know it's coming. There are plenty of times that people don't know that the last time they see a favourite band live will be the last time, so I am so very thankful for that. 

By the way, none of this is to disrespect anyone who does Dry Jan/ Red Jan/ Veganuary. I appreciate that not everyone feels the same way that I do towards it and many people find all of them helpful in some way or other. I guess many people's livers do thank them for Dry January after the excesses of Christmas and New Year all in the space of just over a week, it's just something I am peeved at from my own perspective because for me they don't work.

I hope everyone enjoys New Year's Eve and doesn't feel too sore on New Year's Day, and I hope one of the things I do in the New Year is start pressing 'publish' on a few more blogs, rather than leaving everything sitting in drafts. Again. 

NYE,

New Year is not my favourite time of year. This year I had plans, but they got cancelled what felt like pretty last minute, so instead I'll be at home making sure that the fireworks don't drive my dog crazy, but the truth is it's making me feel more than a little bit crappy. 

People like to think of New Year as a new beginning and the chance for a whole new you. For one thing, I hate the pressure of that and for another, tomorrow is just the next consecutive day in my life, where I will be writing the same novel, doing the same job, reading the same book, and, oh, the big difference is I'm diving into Veganuary again, because I am nothing if not a glutton for punishment. I've been going a bit more vegan anyway, but I still don't imagine this will be the moment, or month when it becomes a permanent feature, purely for the fact that I know how difficult I find it. 

Thinking ahead to 2019 though, there is something I'm really excited about and that's my first half marathon. I'm doing it for Macmillan Cancer Support (if you would like to support me in this, thanks, and please head to my Twitter page where there's a link to the Just Giving page) and I'm trying to decide whether to book in a few more runs as well. 

This year has been incredible for several reasons, including finally being trained as a First Aider and Mental Health First Aider, getting to do some amazing things at work that I would have doubted myself for only a few years ago, meeting someone who made me believe in love and romance again (don't judge me because of my age, stuff happened and it broke my spirit) and even though that didn't work out, I have some amazing memories. I went to San Francisco, and I'm not sure that I stopped grinning about it the whole time I was there - except the bit where I stacked it down the Powell BART station stairs; that really hurt. I met some incredible people this year, read some really incredible books and spent some amazing time with my canine counterpart. 

That being said, I also had a really crappy year with my mental health. Some of this year has been really difficult, and there were plenty of times where I wasn't sure it was ever going to get better, but it did and I'm still here. See you all next year. 

C

I Am Really Not In Love With How,

This post will be my 149th, and I have no reason or excuse to write it as a part one and part two, so there's nothing I can do about it. If I had just done 1! more post in 2015 I would be able to go into 2016 on 150 and I don't mind that as a number.

Ah well, there is nothing that can be logically done about it now, so I guess I'm just going to have to attempt to let it go. I also need to let go of the fact that I don't have a New Years go to film. Halloween is easy because it's any scary film that you feel like - this year I watched one of the incarnations of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, though if you asked me which one it was I would have no idea. Bonfire Night, well, remember, remember the fifth of November, and V for Vendetta couldn't make that happen any better. Christmas Eve was made for The Nightmare Before Christmas and Valentine's day gets to choose between Nicholas Sparks movies and Valentine's Day the movie (though the last one is best when you're single because then it's just hilarious). 

This year has been weird insofar as it has been pretty crappy at points, and then at others, I have felt like I needed to be pinched. Graduation still feels like I dreamt it. I sometimes think it's a joke degree or the university will call me up and say I have to do another year or they will take it back. *Really* hoping that neither of those things is the case.

I would normally post my resolutions publically, but I'm not going to do that this year because every year I commit myself to wanting to publish something again, or getting through editing and it's not got me anywhere yet, so what I am willing to commit to is taking the next year as it comes.

Happy New Year guys - see you on the other side!

A Damn Long While Ago

I do realise it has been almost a month since the last time that I wrote a blog, and for that I must apologise. Anyway, what's been happening?

• I was bloody well ill with a chest infection, which, if you've never had one, be exceedingly glad, because they are painful, and annoying, and inconvenient.
• I went back to Manchester for about 11 days to spend some of the holidays with my parents. 
• NYE was pretty much a write off for a couple of reasons :D, but I got to be in London with friends, and I saw some of the Fireworks and partied until about five in the morning, even though I knew I was in work at 1. (Yes, I was ridiculously hung over.)
• I decided that Elephant and Castle is no longer a place I specially want to put up with, so I tried to find a new place to live. It took a while to find the right place to move to.
• I've been trying to sort out a few different things with paperwork for the house and university, and sorting out all the, quite frankly, crap, in my room. 
• Oh, I had a gorgeously mental evening before I went home where I stayed up until the not so very small hours of the morning constructing a novel on my wall, then making a sort of time line, so I can see the links and things between all the novels. It helped, eventually.
• I WENT TO A FULL WEEK OF LECTURES THIS WEEK!!! After last term, that is something pretty special, to be honest. I did actually really enjoy them as well, which is odd.
• I went to see Cabaret with a good friend of mine, but more about that in a moment!
• I've been writing, but I don't really have any focus on one thing...poo sticks!

[[OhMyGod, this is the part where my computer geeky mates will be like, you've only just found out how to do this...BUT I have just managed to get Firefox to stop trying to get me to spell everything the American way!! YAY!!!]]

I really like lists at the moment, so here's another one!

1. Currently, about half of my wardrobe is in those funny vacuum bags that you can get to take all the air out of things you need to store. Remembering how much effort it took for me to move last time I figured that it was far easier, because then my stuff won't take up so much room, but I think that what really takes up space is the volume of books, shoes and novel-y things I have, because you can't really squash any of those...
2. While I was back home, my mum got me listening to a few things that I haven't really been paying enough attention too, because when I'm in London I don't listen to the radio and so I pretty much have my list of music and it stays as it is for months...Anyway, Mum convinced me to start listening to Ed Sheeran properly. The song I've linked there is one of the tracks off of the album, but I wouldn't really call it an album track (since to me the definition of that is the crappy half arsed tracks that were never meant to be released as singles so they don't really matter.) I love the music because it's soft and beautiful and relaxed and his voice works with it so perfectly, but more than anything, I love the lyrics. If you just listen to them, or have them in front of you and read them while you listen, you can hear all the feeling in every track. I know some people are going to call it depressing (I have genuinely heard this said about his music!!) but for me, it's beautiful and calming and it's nice to know that there are men in the world who can still write with that kind of feeling, and even better, who can actually feel things like that...
3. Okay, so I went to see Cabaret at the Savoy in London. It's only being performed for fifteen weeks, so I'm really glad that I managed to go see it. Will Young was meant to be playing Emcee (the narrator, if you will) however he's apparently not been feeling overly well, so instead Emcee was played by a guy called Nuno, (Nuna?, Nunu? I don't know) who has MASSIVE legs. The guy is a dancer, and a helluva dancer at that, but jeez,...not helped by the fact that he was in shorts for most of the performance, and naked for the last scene...Anyway, the last time I saw Cabaret performed, there was very much a focus on the humour side of the show, and there weren't people running around the stage naked, since it was a college performance, but what I loved about this one was the seriousness to it. The power that comes with that kind of story and the way that it was conveyed  was genuinely phenomenal.
4. Okay, I'm about to tell you a big fear I have at the moment...I'm scared that the film  of Les Miserables is going to be awful. Most of the cast that they have are amazing - but Amanda Sigfried, REALLY? Have they not seen Dear John? She can't sing, she shrieks!! - but the stage show is something which gets me EVERY TIME...I remember being about ten and standing in the bar at the Palace theatre in Manchester and waiting for the auditorium to open for whatever it was that my parents were taking me to see that time, and I asked my mum about Les Miserables, and she couldn't believe that I had never seen it, so the next time I had a day off school and there was just the two of us home, she put the tenth anniversary concert on, and I cried like a baby, because it was beautiful. When they released the twenty fifth anniversary concert on DVD, we got it and there was so much expectation there, because a few weeks before we'd been to see the show in Manchester with the WONDERFUL Gareth Gates (say what you will about his musical career, he was amazing in Les Mis, and seeing Alfie Boe carrying him like a rag doll is probably one of the funniest things I have ever seen.) Anyway, we expected so much, then onto the stage walked NICK BLEEDING JONAS, who I think looked a little bit like a fish. He got the boyish youth of the character down to a tee, but Marius is not meant to be a watery little character that the only thing in his life is the girl who's just bumbled into it, and that's what I saw in the performance, and it made me angry. There were a lot of things about that show that made me either furious or upset, but it was all healed when I went to see the show again in London, with Gareth Gates, Samantha Barks and ALFIE BOE!...After crying in Manchester the first half of the show in London scared me, because the chorus just didn't seem to have it. I don't know what it is, but going into One Day More it has to be there. It's something of a strength and a power and a presence and it has to exist or that last word before the first act ends doesn't leave you wanting, craving and needing MOOOOOOOOOORE!!!! I remember clinging to my friend's hand and nearly crying because I had told everyone how amazing this show was, and I wanted them to feel the way it makes me feel, and then it happened. I am a sucker for stage shows. They make me cry, they make me laugh and they suck me into the story and I can feel it. It's amazing what a cast of less than twenty actors and a small orchestra can do to me! Anyway, whatever it is, it had been running late, but it arrived and before I knew it, the curtain was down and Alice and I were tearing up and everyone was making the skin on their palms raw with all the applause. We both cried before the show ended, and at the end, the theatre was on it's feet, because done properly Les Miserables is meant to get you, and it did. And I'm scared the film won't get me the same, and I want it to. I want to be able to feel like that every time I watch the DVD. This is the reason I want a tattoo of 2.4.6.0.1  across my wrist. Yes, I am a theatre geek,

C x

:D