The annual End Of Year Meme

[lonemagpie]

1. What did you do in 2015 that you’d never done before?

Had surgery.

2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don’t really make them. The way you live your life is for life, not just New Year.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Some friends have, but no-one in the immediate family.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Apart from myself? My mother-in-law, who’s carer I am. Was.

5. What countries did you visit?

None. Unless Drachenwald counts.

6. What would you like to have in 2016 that you lacked in 2015?

Contracts for paid-up-front work. Stress-free periods of time. My normal relationship with that one friend back. No surgeries. (Fat chance of this – there’s one next month that I already know about.)

7. What date from 2015 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

October 28th/29th, when I spent the night bleeding to death on an endo operating table in what the surgeon described a few days later as a “very fraught” through-the-night session.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Can’t think of anything. Maybe coming third in a fencing tournament three weeks after getting out of hospital. And what good is third? I’ve tried to help people – if I succeeded, then that will be the answer.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Not managing the staying alive part? Losing the friendship again after a few weeks that I’d recovered after spending all of 2014 needing to recover it. Not being in good enough shape to give the best help.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

All fucking year. Let’s start with depression and the occasional PTSD incident in the early part of the year, work on through the tennis elbow and mangled thumb, up to the allergy shit and anaphylactic reaction in August, then we make it to the whole liver exploding from previously undiagnosed diabetes at the end of October..

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Probably the pair of custom SCA-legal katanas and wakizashi.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Oh, lots of people… Lesley - sweetheartwhale - of course, as always – doing well despite the stresses of bereavement and me getting hospitalised, and still running a successful Redemption 15 and finding a new venue for 17, and doing so well in the SCA (both in fighting and organising). cheyenna7, without whom we couldn’t have done half of it. snowgrouse, who has kept on producing the most amazing writing. Lynette and Gracie who put up with putting us up in April, (especially Gracie, who as a blanket gave me the best night’s sleep I’ve had this year). All the folks at the various publishers who’ve put up with my health troubles messing up schedules… And especially Dr Davies and all the staff at Harrogate’s Gastro surgery ward and diabetic resource unit, who pieced me together so recently…

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Mostly a bunch of cunts who I’ve never met – they’re the just the criminals, politicians, terrorists, etc around the world who make things shit. But since I don’t know them personally, the things that really emotionally affect me are when people I know and like get things wrong, or turn to the Dark Side, etc, so… Friends who do that, really.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Bills and arrears and katanas.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

SPECTRE

16. What song will always remind you of 2015?

The Writing’s On The Wall, purely because it’s this year’s Bond theme.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Sadder. Well, probably about the same, except that I already know the recovery from that pining didn’t last long, and so what are the odds on getting it again? No hope, so sadder.

ii. thinner or fatter? A little thinner, and not in a good way.

iii. richer or poorer? Both. Richer in assets, poorer in cash.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Work that paid.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Failing people, pining, not noticing that my body was going all wrong and falling apart.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

Sitting at home, hoping the Dr Who special is good.

21. How will you be spending New Year?

Sitting at home, hoping the Sherlock special is good.

22. Did you fall in love in 2015?

I fall in love all the time. I try not to, but you can’t control or choose when you fall in love, or with whom, it’s just something that happens to you, like catching flu. You can only choose how and whether to react to it. And of course I fall in love with Lesley over again all the time.

23. How many one-night stands?

None, obviously.

24. What was your favorite TV program(s)?

Dr Who, Game Of Thrones, Ripper Street, Murdoch Mysteries, The Flash, Gotham, etc.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Don’t think so – just the same people.

26. What was the best book you read?

Dunno, all the books I’ve started to read this year have had a tendency to disappear when I was half way through. But Brian Blessed’s Absolute Pandemonium might qualify.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Dunno. Can’t think of anything.

28. What did you want and get?

Want? Doesn’t matter. Get? None of it. Believe me, diabetes and liver damage wasn’t on the want list.

29. What did you want and not get?

New paid contracts. A healthy work-life balance. Keeping my health generally. A solid month of stress-free peace and happiness. A night of passion with the guy I fancy. To forget certain things. I dunno… too much that matters.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

So far, SPECTRE, but I haven’t seen The Force Awakens yet.*

31. What did you do on your birthday?

I don’t remember. Not a lot, presumably.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Being in condition to have looked after people (especially Lesley) better,

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2015?

Same as always.

34. What kept you sane?

Nothing. Sooner or later all that’s happened is bound to take its toll and then fuck knows what. Until then… Some sort of general Newtonian physics.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I dunno, so many of the things I watch are old stuff on DVD that they wouldn’t be considered celebrities now… Or they were hot in the show I watched on DVD, but are now 40 years older and decrepit… I dunno. Jenna Coleman’s very beautiful though.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Any that’s built upon bigotry and deliberately bad science/logic and wilful ignorrance of facts.

37. Who did you miss?

Lots of people.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

We actually first met last year, but only really spoke from early this year, so I’m going to cheat and allow Lynette Nusbacher to qualify here. I’m not sure whether what I have is a teenage crush or hero worship, but she’s by far my favourite sparring partner with the swords, and don’t even get me started on her knowledge of military history and supply of anecdotes…. Actually she’s the other smartest person I know.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2015:

I think it was Buddha who said “If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete” - I’ve always put Lesley and a few others first to the extent that I really don’t care about my own … state, or health, and that got me sick, injured, and killed off. And the (I hope non-selfish) lesson from that is that, in that condition, I can’t look after her/them as well as I could if I occasionally had gone “fuck it, I’m taking time off and eating this stuff.” instead of just skipping meals all the time.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

“What is this thing that builds our dreams, yet slips away from us?” - Who Wants To Live Forever (Queen)



* - ETA: This is cut and pasted from a Facebook/Tumblr post I made a couple of days ago. Since then, I have seen The Force Awakens, and it was pretty damn great too.