Welcome to The Year of Awesome

Happy New Year!  You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to say that.  So long, I’ll say it again.  Happy New Year!

And so, in the spirit of fresh starts, some  of my resolutions are as follows, committed to the paper in my new journal:

Write every day.  Blog when it’s good.  Hopefully every day.  Maybe every other day.  Blog more, at least.

Re-draft the novel(s) by June.

Write in the morning.  Type in the afternoon.  That rhymes.

Read or watch a movie only after the words.  Write more better words.  PS.  Yesterday’s movie was The Untouchables.  I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it before.

Eat breakfast.  Every day this year, so far!

Stop drinking alcohol.  Except for my hen weekend, and our wedding. And the boozy trifle at my soon-to-be in-laws’ house last night.  Apparently.

Take a social media break on our honeymoon.

Fill out job/all other applications on time and throw the nerves out the window.  Again.

Be present.  For everything.  Because it’s gonna be awesome.

What are you going to do this year?  Whatever it is, I hope it’s awesome!

Post inspired by life, Sarge, The Journal of Awesome and 1000 Awesome Things.  That’s a lot of good stuff.

Starting as we mean to go on. Waiting for a bus. On second thought, maybe we should get a car this year.

 

The Lost Day (Or Two)

I went to a New Year’s Eve party with shotguns taped to my chair.  They were plastic. The party was post-apocalyptic.  Because, y’know, the world is supposed to end in this year.  Depending on whom you speak to.  I think we’re good. Even better now that I know what day it is.

You see, I lost a day or two back there.  I know I’m not the only one.  Happy New Year, folks.  I hope you’re caught up, too.

Even though New Year’s Eve saw my last pint of cider for a while, we still rolled home at about 4 in the morning.  Just in time to see a half-naked, badly tanned man stagger out of the lift and have a complete stranger declare me Queen from the stairwell.

The rest of the journey to the flat was relatively uneventful.  I transferred out of the chair with my guns still in place and everyone said good morning at 3 the next afternoon.

By the time I had my Annual New Year’s Day Cry, ripped the guns off and bumped into some coffee, it was time to go to Sarge’s parents’ for dinner.  On the way out, we met a girl tottering on her heels and weaving out the front door.  Good times?

Now.  It was dark when we got home and dark when we went out for round two.  I was confused.

‘I’m confused’, I said to Sarge and our friend.  I knew a day had passed somewhere, but WHERE did it go?  And HOW did I miss it?

‘I’m very disconcerted,’ I said. ‘We haven’t seen daylight today.  Are you sure it’s gone?  This is some trippy shit.  Is this the Apocalypse?’

And I wasn’t even hung-over.

But I did lose the power of speech sometime after dinner.  We came home, and I was saved by Saving Grace.  We woke up the next afternoon.

‘It’s Groundhog Day’, I said.

No, it’s New Year.  Again.

And so, Happy New Year, again.  Since it’s kind of happened twice for me, I have decided it will be extra awesome.

And I hope it is for you, too.

It's Groundhog Day. It is. It isn't. Image via Wikipedia

Give Me Your Best Shot

And so, I’m back in front of Hemingway with a cup of coffee a safe distance away.  We got to Glasgow after dark on Christmas Eve, met with hugs and pretzels.  We then settled down to watch Bad Santa for the second time in 24 hours.  Followed by Mr Popper’s Penguins, during which I fell asleep.  Sarge still hasn’t forgiven me.

The air-mattress was the same height as the couch.  I may have rolled from one to the other and continued to snore like a girl.

Me getting up from an air-mattress is like something out of an I Love Lucy episode.  On Christmas day, Sarge was up first, and the see-saw action was just the momentum I needed.

I may have cried at the end of Miracle on 34^th Street, somewhere between pancakes and presents, and before Poker.  I may have cried at the end of the game, too.  Not  because I lost.  Because I got a little over-whelmed.  I do that.  It makes me frustratingly loveable.

On Boxing Day, Sarge and I took a stroll to the coffee-shop where we ended our seven-hour first date.   Then we went to the pub, because the Ferris wheel was closed.

We went home to left-overs and Home Alone.  I may have cried at the end.

We left the next day, after planning our next trips.

And today, I’m sitting here lining up next year and going over this one.

Here are my highlights, thrills and one spill of 2011.

I welcomed this year surrounded by loved ones and strangers on an island.  I then came home to my shrinking wardrobe, and reminisced about a pen.

In February, I admitted I had piles, and found poetry in one of them.

In March, I renewed my passport and turned 30.

In April, a nurse named Karen super-glued my head, and I went to work with a black eye.

In May, I admitted that I grew up thinking Nina Simone was a man, amongst other things.

In June, Sarge met my New York family.

In July, I went back to Glasgow for laughs and cheesecake, and came back to Edinburgh and got locked in a toilet.

In August, I fried my computer and got caught in the rain.

In September, I left my phone at work.  Hilarity ensued.  Apparently.  I may have also said my boyfriend is better than coffee.  Maybe.  OK, I did.  I also stayed on Island Number 3 of 2011.

In October, I made a decision.

In November, I made a pact with my Dad.  I’m still working on it.

And earlier this month, I said I don’t sleep with my colleagues, which might have confused cinema staff.

What about you?  What are your highlights of 2011?

Sarge and I are on the road again tomorrow.  Happy New Year when it comes!

(Inspired by life and Mama Kat’s Writing Workshop)

Cracking the window and lighting things up for 2012.

My Island Diaries

Tuesday 28^th December 2010

We say we’ll be on the road by 10.00.  It is noon before we set off.  I am wedged in the backseat between some bags, two tires and Sarge.  By 3.00, I have lost feeling in my ass.  I find it again when twisting to take photos through the windows.

My father has never been good at time-keeping.  The fact that he has his own time zone is part of his charm.  We always get where we’re going though, and rolled onto our first ferry of the day with ten minutes to spare.  We were actually early for the second ferry, one of the two cars on board.

It takes us about an hour to find the cottage in the dark, perched on the egde of Sarge’s GPS.

Anne getting out of the car and guiding my father’s driving with the light from her mobile phone added to the adventure.

So did needing to pee.

Wednesday 29^th

Sarge is out looking for wildlife and I am watching Dad attempt to make pancakes without a Teflon pan.  We have cereal and make a list of things to get at the one shop on the island, which also serves as the post office.

Dad and Anne venture out, list in hand, leaving me and Sarge to pretend we live here.  We curl up on the couch, and start to read books found on the well-stocked bookshelves.  I promptly fall asleep.

I wake up and the light through the windows has made shadows on the walls.

‘How long have I been asleep?’

‘About five pages.’

I love how my boyfriend measures time.

Friday 31^st

I am watching Sarge make porridge.  Dad and Anne have gone to Portree to find relief for Dad’s untimely toothache.  As Sarge explores the cupboards, I am pretending that we live here again.

Last night was whisky and music and laughs and a poker game, played for chips.  And bacon rolls and Clementine oranges.  I spent quite a few of my growing up years in house on a farm with a kitchen not unlike this one.  If I close my eyes at just the right moment, in just the right breath, these walls and this air feels just like home.

I went to bed last night and dreamt of inviting our friends up here for New Year.

And so, today.  We are left to drink coffee and read books and eat pate.

I started the fourth Harry Potter this morning, and Sarge is on The Odyssey.  After 200 pages for me, and 30 for Sarge, I look up and remark that the pate looks like petrified meat.  Funny, considering that’s exactly what it is.

Dad and Anne returned from the sea with penicillin and popcorn and more booze for the night’s festivities.  Which will begin in two hours when they wake up from a snooze.  Ferry journeys are a tiring business.

We are left with a fire to stoke and dinner on the stove.  My first text to arrive in days beeped through at 6.30.  It was Anne, saying they’d be home by 5.  Now we know.  Time slows and stops on islands such as this.

At the midnight bells, I think of my past and my future and how the two might mingle and meet.  I listen to Auld Lang Syne and Sarge’s heart, twirling my grandmother’s sapphire ring, on my finger since I was 13.  And I am happier than I have ever been.

Saturday 1^st January 2011

Another reading day today.  Also watching birds investigate birdseed on the fence.  So are they.  The house-phone rings and we first wonder where it is, and then who would be phoning us.

It was the couple in the next cottage inviting us over for mulled wine.  Bundling up, we took the long trek next door.  We were welcomed with the promised mulled wine and actual roasted chestnuts.  There was also wonderful conversation swirling around like the embers of the outdoor fire we crowded around.

My camera hasn’t been one foot away from me this entire trip.  I regretted leaving it at our cottage when people began lighting paper lanterns and starting a race in the sky.  I made a wish on one, as it floated higher and higher.  The last to disappear.

And I am writing this as Sarge makes dinner for the four of us.    I’m still in my coat and scarf.  Fire and hope is still all around me, even in my nose.  And I’m scribbling this evening’s moments so I don’t forget them.  Somehow I don’t think I ever will.

Sunday 2^nd January

Sarge went for a walk to the lighthouse today.  Brought me back a bluepurplewhite shell.  And I don’t want to go home.

We all pile in the car and drive up Calum’s Road.  Looking out the window, I start to cry.  And I have a moment like the one I experienced while lighting a candle in the Duomo in Florence.  But as much as I love stained glass windows, God isn’t one old bearded man haunting old buildings.  God is the air and the mountains and the sunset.  God is all my good memories and my Grandparents.  God is everyone’s good memories and everyone’s grandparents.  God is sitting in the car listening to epic movie soundtracks and crying because life is beautiful.  God is on holiday.

Monday 3^rd January

PJ day today.  I finish the fourth Harry Potter while Sarge got further through The Odyssey and Dad and Anne snoozed in the living room.  We had pancakes for dinner and I asked Dad to retell some family stories.  One last poker game during this Island trip gives me a new nickname, Four Aces.

Tuesday 4^th January

After last night’s epic card game, I am almost too tired to be sad.  But I am sad.   Sad to be leaving, but happy it happened.  I’ve already dreamt of our next trip.

(Taken from my journal of a family holiday trip to Raasay and Skye.  No holiday recap would be complete without a slideshow.  Just a few of my photos!)

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