That New Year Meme Thing

[davidgillon]

Okay, suitably inspired by oursin, here's my New Year meme thing:

1. What did you do in 2014 that you'd never done before?

Get hospitalised for pancreatitis (could actually have done without this one).

 

2. Did you keep your New Year resolutions, and will you make more for next year? N/A

 

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Did notice a cot box outside the neighbours’  :)

 

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No.

                                    

5. What countries did you visit?

Didn’t even get out of England, never mind the UK, but Worldcon was thoroughly multinational.

 

6. What would you like to have in 2015 that you lacked in 2014?

Wheels! (I'm waiting for a wheelchair assessment that should hopefully increase my mobility).

 

7. What date from 2014 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

Probably 19^th September, when Dad had his stroke.

 

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Probably ongoing disability campaigning.

 

9. What was your biggest failure?

 Don’t really rate anything as a failure.

 

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

 Pancreatitis, badly sprained ankle, ongoing bendiness

 

11. What was the best thing you bought?

 Worldcon membership

 

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

 The We Need Diverse Books team

 

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

 IDS, DWP, the Tories in general, the Lib Dems for rebranding LD as Lap Dog. UKIP, Britain First. Basically the entire right of the political spectrum

 

14. Where did most of your money go?

Survival

 

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

 Worldcon

 

16. What song will always remind you of 2014?

Nothing springs to mind

 

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

 happier or sadder? thinner or fatter? richer or poorer?

 Sadder, thinner, poorer. (Respectively down to: Dad’s stroke, surviving pancreatitis, surviving austerity)

 

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

Seen friends, didn’t get to see the Uni or BAE crowds this year.

 

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

Being ill, falling off bins (cf badly sprained ankle above).

 

20. How did you spend Christmas?

Quietly with the family

 

21. How will you be spending New Year's Eve?

Quietly with the family

 

22. Did you fall in love in 2014?

No

 

23. How many one-night stands?

Chance would be a fine thing ;)

 

24. What was your favourite TV program?

Watched very little TV this year.

 

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

IDS seems to inspire me to new levels of loathing each year, plus we had a couple of new Ministers Against Disabled People to despise.

 

26. What was the best book you read?

Probably Ann Leckie’s ‘Ancillary Justice’, though I’d have to review my complete reading list to be sure.

 

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Not doing a lot of music right now.

 

28. What did you want and get?

A completed first draft of my novel.

 

29. What did you want and not get?

That wheelchair assessment (at the first attempt).

 

30. What was your favourite film of this year?

Haven’t been going to the pictures lately. Favourite film I’d not seen before – Rust and Bone.

 

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Family meal, 51

 

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

The Lib Dems rediscovering their principles and triggering the fall of the government.

 

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2014?

Lot of geek, not a lot of chic.

 

34. What kept you sane?

Having a psych tell me I probably am neurodiverse!

 

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

Probably still Rachel Weisz – be still, my beating heart….

 

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Fighting to retain some semblance of disability benefits from the IDS/ConDem onslaught.

 

37. Who did you miss?

The Uni and BAE crowds, though I chat to some of the Uni crowd on FB most days.

 

38. Who was the best new person you met?

Has to be kaberett, not just for themself, but for all the new people I met through them.

 

39. Did you meet anyone you only knew online?

Trialia and Marieke Nijkamp at Worldcon, liv and rmc28 at Kaberett’s party (and possibly one or two more – I got introduced to a whole load of people, not all with screen-names attached!). Kaberett I met back to front, first by stalking their wheelchair at Worldcon, then in the flesh after the final panel, and only later online.

 

40. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2014

Don’t climb on bins in preference to asking the next door neighbour to let you hop over their much lower fence to get your spare key (see the sprained ankle thing).

 

41. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year

‘I get knocked down, but I get up again,’ Chumbawumba

 

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

A fucking too hard year, frankly. Thanks for including #40, as I was muttering "bins? Bins?" to myself.

(speaking of which, wrap an extra key in tape, then stretch out the tape along the back of a downspout or the inside of a fixed bin. Or get on better terms with your neighbors!)

Best wishes for a fast-rolling, right-excised new year with improved new lo-fat butter.

[davidgillon]

I've a spare key buried in the back garden so it's easily reachable if you know where to look, but in that case I didn't even need the key as the back door was open - which was actually the reason I was locked out - a gust of wind blew through the house and swung the front door shut on me. I could get in, if I got to the back garden, but the garden gate was locked, and I'm not quite tall enough to reach the bolt from the wrong side. I can actually touch it on tip-toes, but not with enough leverage to move it. But the neighbour's bin was sitting right there next to the gate, so I climbed on it, unlocked the gate, thought, 'I can jump right over from here', then 'no, that's being silly, climb down and open it properly', and when I went to climb down the side of the bin buckled and pitched me off. Luckily I landed on the yard-wide strip of grass rather that hitting fence, wall of house, drive or car, but with the bin on top of me and my ankle under everything.

But at least the gate was open and I had crutches within hopping range....

Happy New Year to you too!