and a happy new year (etc).

Good evening, Internet, and a Happy New Year to you all.

I seem to have taken a break from blogging over the festive period. I didn’t mean to but it just worked out that way. I was brought up not to speak with my mouth full and as I have spent two weeks fattening myself up for Christmas (and New Year as it turns out), I simply haven’t had enough time between mouthfuls of roast potatoes and gin in which to put fingers to keyboard.

I did attempt a Christmas blog post, and I have included this after the jump. I could have posted it today instead of this missive but it’s the 2^nd January and I couldn’t bring myself to do that for the sake of chronological integrity (I am nothing if not particular about chronology. Ask anyone).

Today is the 2^nd of January (as previously stated (Clearly I am not particular about repetition (or parentheses))), and so as far as I am concerned it is the first day of 2012. I realise that this sounds contradictory given that I have just made a point of my own fastidious approach to the prevention of anachronism, but internally, this makes perfect sense. The 31^st December/New Year’s Eve/Hogmanay (delete as applicable) is like walking to the end of a cliff and being tipped abruptly into the 1^st January/New Year’s Day/Hangover Day (delete as applicable). This seems very bad planning. I like the idea of waking up at the bottom of that cliff bright, alert, ready to take stock of the new landscape with enthusiasm, planning my ascent up the next cliff face full of optimism. But to do this, you need a little time to brush yourself down, recuperate from the fall and blink the dust out of your eyes (or, to speak plainly, to down a few paracetamol and hide under the duvet until the vomiting abates – meh tomato tomato). My point is that you need a buffer day. So I suggest that the 2^nd of January be considered the first day of the New Year from now on and we just write off January 1^st for the wash out that it generally is.

So, time for a few resolutions:

1. Start new year with a hacking cough – DONE (it’s always good for morale to tick off one resolution early.
2. Finish PhD –pending
3. Drink less (I am aiming to be a moderate drinker by this time next year).
4. Go back to the psychiatrist and explain that the reason I never answered their letters was because of the ADHD they diagnosed and that this is proof of the pudding that is my need for my prescription to be resumed.
5. Be less neurotic (take it from me, by the end of this year I’ll be updating my blog daily with, like, affirmations of my own positivity and going with the flow and just being generally so relaxed that I’ll maybe fall asleep on the keyboard thusly: nnnnnnnnnkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkllllllllll but hey, who cares, right? Zen.

Right I’m bored of making resolutions now. I will just resolve to try to have a nice day as many times as possible in the coming 365 (one day down but this year is a leap year so I think my sums are accurate). And not to die. I would quite like not to die too.

So continue reading after the jump if you want to see a back-up of my brain from  27^th December, otherwise –

 

Many happy returns of the New Year!

I am on a train heading back down to London. Cheerio Up North. I’ve had a lovely few days spent as I always spend them at Christmas and I don’t know if it’s the over-eating, the over-drinking or the under-sleeping but I am feeling hugely uneloquent ineloquent (see what I mean?) as though somebody has taken the part of my brain that selects words, soaked it in brandy for several days and then set fire to it.

So I am going to cheat. This post from Christmas 2009 contains all the things I love about Christmas at home with my parents so there’s no point rehearsing it again here. Just subtract the snow, and replace it with a slightly chilly fog of gin-induced depression that hung around for most of Boxing Day, and bingo. It is funny but sometimes, I’m sitting in the living room at my parents’ house, gin in hand, cat on lap when suddenly something flickers in my peripheral vision and is gone by the time I’ve turned my head to look. I know what it is though. It’s me. Me at seven, thirteen, sixteen. The me that belonged there. The ghost of Christmas past. I suppose that most people, people who are less batshit insane, might just call her nostalgia and accept that she shows up once in a while, her eyes twinkling with the magic of Christmases as they used to be. I have clearly not exorcised this version of myself from my childhood home and she is not at peace. She’s always there, waiting for me in the shadows, so familiar and yet somehow unrecoverable. I am sad I can never be her again, but I am grateful to have known what it is to be that child – so many people don’t.

Nevertheless, I am looking forward to spending a few days catching up with friends, focussing on the PhD and being a grown-up again. And getting back to blogging. Must remember how to use words. Words are good for me. While I have a little think about where on earth I might have misplaced my vocabulary, here are some snaps from Christmas 2011 (sorry for crappy quality):

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