Another year over, a new one just begun...

It's New Year's Eve and I guess a time to reflect and/or get very drunk (the latter sometimes aids the former). So what have I learnt / acheived this year (before I get the wine out)?

• The people you keep around you are important. I owe so much to my wonderful friends.
• Life doesn't magically start giving you answers when you're an adult.
• Love doesn't get any easier each time you have to start from scratch.
• I need to make time for the things and people that I love.
• Everyone is in the same boat.
• Always keep faith in humanity. There's good there if you want to see it

and if you've had enough of me being philosophical, here's a more motley collection of what I've done:

• followed a fish
• been licked by a girl I'd just met
• lost a cardigan
• skinny dipped
• dressed as a zombie
• gone rafting
• kissed a seal
• walked up a mountain
• dyed my hair
• done karaoke
• danced like an idiot
• been in a play
• got drunk enough to loose my memory
• been complimented by a complete stanger
• done volunteer work
• done the walk of shame
• gone riding
• got friction burns off a slide
• recorded my voice for a radio play
• celebrated Norway's independance day
• written for a newspaper
• watched a pantomime
• been plied with schnapps
• celebrated Chinese New Year
• got a new piercing
• dressed in drag
• been in a film
• been injured by a falling rock
• watched a carnival
• voted in an election

So there we go. What an amazing year!

Christmas time out

 It's been a lovely Christmas. I've just been at home with my family, received some wonderful gifts, enjoyed my Mum's amazing cooking and chilled out at home. This is what Christmas is for and it feels good.

I've just had a great night. Sometimes it's just nice to relax with old friends, talk rubbish and hang around outside for far too long because you want to keep talking even though you need to go home. Smutty jokes, wine, bad car singing and seeing some faces that i haven't had a chance to see in a long time. Yes indeed. It's been a wonderful night.

Free up some space

Found this today and wanted to share it:

It's all too true. Being able to let go has got to be better than having all those angry, bad people stuck up there in your brain. Life's too short for grudges.


This Picture is not mine and belongs to thegenra - It's here because I love it not because I want to claim credit

Dark Eyes and Guiding Light

We are the shapes of wing beats in the air

The stuttering silence of the static

The echo in the wires

We are the fronds of frost that sigh against the glass

The angels in the darkness

The shivers in the cracks

An awfully big adventure...

     I spent last night re-aquainting myself with Peter Pan. It's been a long time since I've read or seen it and it was a frankly wonderful regression back to my childhood. When I was little, there was no other story that captured my heart in quite the same way. At fancy dress parties I used to dress up as Peter in the costume that my Mum had made for me. She sewed on scraps of fabric for leaves and made a hat out of green felt.
    The thing that captured me again was how complex and beautiful Neverland was (and is - it's still there as far as I'm concerned). This is a world that combined all the best elements of childhood; it's fun but also dangerous and beautiful. There's something about the story in general that captures how childhood should be. It's child-friendly without being garish like a lot of things aimed at children today.
    There are few stories that provoke such a sense of nostalgia for me. Maybe the idea of not growing up is rather attractive at the moment. Returning to the world of adulthood seems even less attractive than ever after Neverland.

Baby it's cold outside

At the moment I'm listening to "Burning for You" by Blue Oyster Cult. Sadly I'm feeling rather the opposite. Any contact with the air at the moment is freezing. Lying around half naked in bed seems like a far warmer and more sensible option than going out.

With this in mind, I thought I'd select something relevant poetically,
 

Winter Morning

I watch the dragons’ breath
cloud the air around my mouth
breathing the lyrics
of a half-heard song

I gaze up at the trees
black skeleton silhouettes
stark against the sky
clinging to their last leaves

I stamp my feet
The air is chill
The world seems crisp in the frost
preserved in a state of beauty

The crow flies above
black feathers silhouetted black
His cry breaks through
the drift of my song

In this moment I see
momentary perfection
The faded dark colours
of a winter morning


This time of year is always pretty cold and miserable but it's also so beautiful that it takes my breath away sometimes.

My little acorn.

I'm trying to change something about myself. It's always nice to aim for a better world but for the most part it's quite difficult to make a difference. I am a firm believer in equal rights and anti-bullying, yet it hit me the other day that some things have become so inherent that we don't even notice that we are re-affirming horribe stereotypes.
My pre-amble over, what I'm talking about is language or more specifically, insults and negative descriptions. Here is a list of words that I'm trying to phase out of my vocabulary:

 Gay
Retard and Retarded
"Special" (in a dergatory sense)
Spastic (is a now out-dated term for cerebral palsy sufferers)
Spazzing out
Mong (comes from mongloid, an old term for sufferers of Down's syndrome)
(I'm sure I've missed some but here's a start)

Using terminology linked to minority groups as abuse is horrible. When I spent time thinking about it, I realised just how normal it is for people to say things are "gay" or "spaz" and no-one notices. Racial slurs are dealt with pretty severely yet a lot of frankly offensive language slips under the radar everyday. So I've decided that I'm fed up with being a hypocrite and I'm going to try and make some changes to my own vocabulary at least. It's only a very small thing in the grand scheme but every little helps.

This isn't going to stop me from dealing out any neccesary insults to my friends of course :)

Crossing the frontier.

Welcome to my blog. This is a place where I can write for you, for me and for the sake of it.
I'm afraid I can't promise a regular update but I will aim for once a week.
I like things that are beautiful, tatty and fragile, words that can be relished and places that feel like home. I will tell you about what matters to me and hopefully at least one person will be interested.

Welcome. I hope you enjoy your stay.