Another trip around the Orb.
This journal will be divided up under 5 subheadings since continuous prose is beyond me and I can currently only communicate through bullet points neatly arranged under subheadings in passages no longer than about 140 characters. I think twitter and the manner of my note-taking in the office has destroyed my ability to write cohesively in large slabs*.
Or something.
Subheading 1: Christmas
Christmas was lovely. Quiet, subdued and just… pleasant. No huge drama, sickness or disaster, even the office party was quite tame compared to precedent.
I should explain that office parties have something of a reputation for ‘extra curricular activity’, ‘inappropriate behaviour’ and ‘formal verbal warnings’ the following January. I am pleased to report that this has never applied to me, although I was the subject of some gossip after a drunken snog a few years back…
Christmas itself revolved around food, telly, huddling around the log-burner, and adhering to a Festive Gantt Chart which ensured everything was timed correctly and nothing got burned or forgotten. Yes, we have a Christmas chart, what of it?
Subheading 2: New Year
I have spent many New Years in the company of Jools Holland and his Hootenanny, and it occurs to me that New Year can be the poor cousin to Christmas unless you make Something happen.
As such, I now make sure Something happens.
In this case, I spent New Year in Brighton with Agrajag_fur, Red_Russell, Chapcalledjules and a whole host of others. It could be described as a party, but I prefer to think of it as a gathering. ‘Party’ infers a certain degree of planning and orchestration, where this was a fairly low-maintenance affair: fill a room with people, add some booze, set iTunes to shuffle and then just let it roll. It was a great way to welcome the New Year, and thanks must go to Agrajag_fur and Red_Russell for hosting it.
Subheading 3: Looking Back
2012 was a year of contrasts, extreme highs, extreme lows and a general gunky ennui in the gaps. I did a couple of conventions, Gay Pride in Chicago, a festival in a muddy field, a few gigs, a bit of Shakespeare and an absolute ton of exhibitions. Aside from that, it was gunk peppered with lows, like raisins of misery in a bowl of unbaked life dough.
I will look back with fondness, but 2012 was a bit of a ‘rut’ year, it was comfortable enough, but far for the madness I desire in life. Posts covering all of these things will be following as soon as I finish writing them.
Subheading 4: Looking Forward
Fatally, I have high expectations for 2013, and I have plans.
It will be a year of ends and beginnings. If all goes to plan I will finish my professionally training and qualify as an architect, reaching the end of a road I started down way back in 2003.
That’s the end.
The beginning is what I do after that; and it won’t be architecture.
I am going to keep this vague, partly because I want to be mysterious, and partly because I don’t know what it will be. The key thing is change and escape from the rut.
Subheading 5: Resolutions
New Year’s resolutions are silly. New Year is a totally arbitrary point in time; I may as well make ‘Tuesday Resolutions’ for all it’s worth. Still, regardless of what they’re called and when they happen, resolutions are a Good Thing.
Bearing ‘3 day monk syndrome’ in mind, I am keeping my resolutions simple and brief, differentiating them as things I want to do rather than things I have to do or will happen anyway (See Subheading 4). A kind of karmic osmosis is involved; an active transfer of aspiration and desire has to take place for a resolution to happen.
My resolution is simple. Blog more.
I am an obsessive archivist and the archive for 2012 and, to a certain extent, 2011 is looking quite bare. I need to make time to blog things as they happen and to fill in the important blanks in preceding years before retroactive rose-tinting occurs and I remember the event but not the detail or the meaning of it.
Phew.
Long post.
May it be the first of many.
Peace
~Theo
*Slab is nice word, but not really appropriate here. Still, it’s a nice word. Slab.
Or something.
Subheading 1: Christmas
Christmas was lovely. Quiet, subdued and just… pleasant. No huge drama, sickness or disaster, even the office party was quite tame compared to precedent.
I should explain that office parties have something of a reputation for ‘extra curricular activity’, ‘inappropriate behaviour’ and ‘formal verbal warnings’ the following January. I am pleased to report that this has never applied to me, although I was the subject of some gossip after a drunken snog a few years back…
Christmas itself revolved around food, telly, huddling around the log-burner, and adhering to a Festive Gantt Chart which ensured everything was timed correctly and nothing got burned or forgotten. Yes, we have a Christmas chart, what of it?
Subheading 2: New Year
I have spent many New Years in the company of Jools Holland and his Hootenanny, and it occurs to me that New Year can be the poor cousin to Christmas unless you make Something happen.
As such, I now make sure Something happens.
In this case, I spent New Year in Brighton with Agrajag_fur, Red_Russell, Chapcalledjules and a whole host of others. It could be described as a party, but I prefer to think of it as a gathering. ‘Party’ infers a certain degree of planning and orchestration, where this was a fairly low-maintenance affair: fill a room with people, add some booze, set iTunes to shuffle and then just let it roll. It was a great way to welcome the New Year, and thanks must go to Agrajag_fur and Red_Russell for hosting it.
Subheading 3: Looking Back
2012 was a year of contrasts, extreme highs, extreme lows and a general gunky ennui in the gaps. I did a couple of conventions, Gay Pride in Chicago, a festival in a muddy field, a few gigs, a bit of Shakespeare and an absolute ton of exhibitions. Aside from that, it was gunk peppered with lows, like raisins of misery in a bowl of unbaked life dough.
I will look back with fondness, but 2012 was a bit of a ‘rut’ year, it was comfortable enough, but far for the madness I desire in life. Posts covering all of these things will be following as soon as I finish writing them.
Subheading 4: Looking Forward
Fatally, I have high expectations for 2013, and I have plans.
It will be a year of ends and beginnings. If all goes to plan I will finish my professionally training and qualify as an architect, reaching the end of a road I started down way back in 2003.
That’s the end.
The beginning is what I do after that; and it won’t be architecture.
I am going to keep this vague, partly because I want to be mysterious, and partly because I don’t know what it will be. The key thing is change and escape from the rut.
Subheading 5: Resolutions
New Year’s resolutions are silly. New Year is a totally arbitrary point in time; I may as well make ‘Tuesday Resolutions’ for all it’s worth. Still, regardless of what they’re called and when they happen, resolutions are a Good Thing.
Bearing ‘3 day monk syndrome’ in mind, I am keeping my resolutions simple and brief, differentiating them as things I want to do rather than things I have to do or will happen anyway (See Subheading 4). A kind of karmic osmosis is involved; an active transfer of aspiration and desire has to take place for a resolution to happen.
My resolution is simple. Blog more.
I am an obsessive archivist and the archive for 2012 and, to a certain extent, 2011 is looking quite bare. I need to make time to blog things as they happen and to fill in the important blanks in preceding years before retroactive rose-tinting occurs and I remember the event but not the detail or the meaning of it.
Phew.
Long post.
May it be the first of many.
Peace
~Theo
*Slab is nice word, but not really appropriate here. Still, it’s a nice word. Slab.