I was starting to attack a list of titles my lovely readers made for me last year, but the first one I came across was 10 favourite things to do in San Francisco, and since I actually got to do one of my favourite San Franciscoey things - rummaging in the sunshine among the stalls of the biggest flea market I have ever seen (more than 800 stalls of kitchy vintage goodness, ladies and gentlemen…) which happens on the first Sunday of every month in Alameda, an old air base with a stunning view of San Francisco across the bay - you can get there by car or by ferry (+ free shuttle bus). So, I can tell you what I picked up there, then.

Actually no. What’s the fun in that? Far better to show you the things I didn’t buy - because as much as buying stupid useless things just because they’re amusing is of course my primary goal in any shopping ever, it is a pursuit for happier economic times than this*.
_{*Although having said that, I did come away with some little towelling cuffs for your guests to put around their glasses at parties. An original 1950s box of them. Because when am I going to happen upon THAT kind of luck again?}

Anyway, the things I didn’t buy included:

An awful lot of golf memorabilia - this on the left being a particularly fine example. It is a chubby gentleman in brightly coloured clothing doing what might be considered the splits, touching his nose against a horrifically badly painted golf ball. I don’t know if this is something that actually happens often in the game of golf, but if it was, it would certainly explain why golf is so popular.

There really isn’t any logical reason why something called a ‘BLUSHING WILLY’ should still be funny to a 33-year-old woman, but it was.
Not enough to buy, obviously. Just enough to photograph.
Heh heh heh.
It says willy…

 

IS this (left) a Lava Lamp? Is it really? Or is it a slightly strangely shaped specimen jar that you might find on the shelves of a lab that does some kind of work with middle-sized animal foetuses.
The more we looked at it, the less my friend A and I could decide. Because SURELY no one would put a lava lamp that disgusting on a stall and expect it to sell for real cash monies. You might as well just go home and cough up some mucus into a pint of fizzy pop and watch it trying to decide whether to sink or float for the next hour.

 

This (right) was a game that I would have bought for the name alone… but didn’t because I not only don’t have room for it, I really can’t think of a set of people I would feel comfortable proposing a game of it to. And I feel quite confident in saying that without even having read the instructions. Without, in fact, even pulling the box out further to see more of the picture. Just the idea of shouting “Hey! Anyone for a spot of SWIVEL?!” into a room makes me blush.

Still, I do feel that it stood a better chance of being fun than SOB (left).
“SAVE OUR BEUROCRATS: Object of the game:” says the sales blurb at the bottom “to go broke and go on Welfare with the help of government boondoggles, grants and ripoffs.”
Yes, nothing like spending an evening having an economic and political rant levelled at you by your board game.
There was no question here that S.O.B was a game unafraid of taking a hard line on whatever side it was they represented. I just couldn’t for the life of me quite work out which side that was.
Well, I could of if I’d opened the box, I think. But I was quite scared that the whole game was going to start shouting at me if I did.

And then there was this, which was possibly my favourite thing of the day (that I didn’t buy, I mean) something unique and special and brilliant NOT because it has a funny name or because it is suggestive of something else entirely, but because among the pieces of art that someone might consider hanging on their wall here, above the saint (possibly Jesus) and to the side of the scary wooden mask (possibly made in China) was a thing I couldn’t even vaguely explain the aesthetic or practical point of:

Yes. It’s eight 3d half bananas made of wood (or something), painted black and stuck on a pink background, surrounded by a blue frame. And if anyone wants to tell me why, I would be grateful. Even Jesus looks like he’s having his patience tested by it.

If, by the way, anyone wants it, I can probably go back and get it for you. Because I’m pretty sure it will still be there next month.

So last week, as I mentioned - before I went almost completely silent for an entire week - I had set myself a project to watch, catch up with and blog my way through and entire five seasons of some show or other.

And I’m glad I did, for several reasons, which I thought I should note down here in case I needed to remember whether it was worth doing in the future. Because it was.

Basically, my brain needed resetting. And there are not very many ways of doing this, but I happen to know that one of them is just writing. Writing writing writing writing writing.

Which is stupid, because one of the signs that I needed to reset my brain was the fact that everything I was trying to write was simply expanding to fill whatever space I had. So whether I was trying to write a long post for little red boat, or a short post that I was going to get paid for, or an email to my mother, or whatever it was - I would sit here and distract myself with a billion other things until it had taken me 12 hours to slog my way through 500 words, none of which - I would be convinced - were the right one for saying whatever it was I wanted to say.

And part of that is not being able to focus on finding a thing to write about, and part of it is not feeling very sure of myself and my ability to think tangentially after a long process of having my confidence kicked about to the point where I only felt like I could write the most basic of things - and I wasn’t even any good at that. So I sat down and for about a week I just wrote. I caught up with this TV show, I wrote my way through 103 episodes of it (about 74 hours of television in all) and I drew pictures and wrote little scripts and enjoyed myself immensely (to begin with) and slightly less so (when I realised I was going to have to wake up after four hours sleep and watch 14 hours of telly in a row to hit the deadline I had imposed on myself).

But I did it. And when I woke up on Wednesday morning and went out into the bright sunshine, I was enormously upbeat and happy and springlike, and it was only partly because I realised that one of the great things about forcing yourself to watch 14 hours of brain-melting science fiction fantasy adventure is that any day when you do NOT have to watch 14 hours of it after that suddenly feels airy and open and blossoming with spare time.

But it did teach me some other things, which I should be careful to note, because if my writing-brain needs resetting again, a marathon event proved to be a handy way of doing this.
The other things it taught me were:
1) I can set myself ridiculous deadlines and meet them, and not give up.
2) I can launch something and publicise myself like a confident person and not be scared.
3) If I give myself licence to do so, I can be as silly and as tangential and creative as I like, I’ve just not been in a situation where I’ve given myself licence to do that of late.
4) If I want to, I can easily write 50,000 words in a week. They may not be the greatest words in the history of writing, but they will make sense, be readable, and up to 73% of them will be spelled correctly.
5) The basic, little things don’t have to take me hours to do. I just need to focus, and then I can leave more space for the other things I really want to write.

And that’s it, really. I just really wanted to make a note of that somewhere. Because I just felt so elated and full of energy the next day after doing that, I wanted to make sure I had taken notes on how and why that worked for me, so that I’ll know in the future.

Writing short stuff on here. That’s what I need to get down to next.
Not sure how to do that, though. Oh, hang on. … I’ve got an idea.
I’ll be back with my idea tomorrow…

It’s not a very good book, really (Kurt, I love you, but it’s just true). There are many better books I’ve read, and there are many books by Kurt Vonnegut that I’ve enjoyed more, but there aren’t many books thatI think about as often as I think about Timequake, by Kurt V.

The premise of Timequake is very simple. Kind of very simple. Very simple ish.

One day, there is a time quake. Everyone in the world skips back ten years in time to their life ten years ago. And then they have to live it through. All of it. And they can’t change anything, no matter how bad: they just have to watch it happen. It’s just like a ten year deja vu, sitting back and watching all the things you thought might be about to happen, happening.

The book is interesting because it takes the point that the timequake ends as its starting point. Suddenly, after ten years of deja vu, ten years of sitting back and watching life happen and not having to (or being able to) act, free will kicks in again … and people aren’t ready. Planes fall, cars crash, people die.

When I was 21, when I first read the book, I couldn’t stand the idea. 11? Having to be 11 again? Having to go back to wearing a nasty, ill-fitting uniform and having to ask permission to speak every time I spoke? I hated this kind of authority. The idea of having to live through it for the whole of secondary school again was driving me insane. Tests? Exams? Hormones? I wasn’t going to fare any better this time than last.

That’s the thing that sticks with me, whether I’m considering where I’ve come from or considering what decision to make going forward: if there was a timequake right now, which bits would I regret? Which bits would I find it hard to sit through? Which bit would I change?

And you know what? None. Much as I’ve hated some of the things that have happened in the last ten years, at points, I’m where I am now, and as non-secure as it might be, and as, let’s face it, unemployed - it was my choice to be here. And I’m happy.

For the first time ever, I do not despise and fear the idea of reliving 10 years.

I mentioned that site where I was going to tap away to my little heart’s content about all the television in the world whenever I felt like it, and no matter how silly or trivial or regional or [insert disparaging word of your choice here] it might be considered to be.

Well, it’s now set up, and now I can go back to writing silly non-telly things on here, and have somewhere else to tip the contents of my tellybrain. Which is good. Because now I can, because it is here, and as people correctly guessed last week, it is Tellywonk.com. And it’s going live this week. Because it had to.

I say “Had to”. Clearly I didn’t have to. I was not legally or contractually obliged to, and no one was holding a gun to my head, a hammer to my knees or a lion to my midriff. But I had set myself one goal. If I was going to get this TV blog live, it would be in time for me to catch up with ‘Lost’ on it, in some way or other, before the new - final - series starts here next week.

As I explain over on Tellywonk - having seen basically none of it, and remembering nothing that I have seen, that gives me a week to catch up on five seasons (about 100 episodes) of mindbending drama. What a bloody good thing I don’t have any other demands on my time, eh?
Wheeeeee!

Anyway, that over there’s going to be about television, for them that likes it.
(For thems that don’t - don’t worry about it: I promise I will write something completely unTV-ish and San Franciscoey over here tomorrow, just to prove I mean it)

I took a picture of my littlest cat, earlier. And, although she quite often looks gormless (so it shouldn’t have been too much of a shock) I managed to take the most spectacularly gormless picture of her I have ever, ever seen.

Well, no, it’s a cross between gormless, belligerent and just plain stuffed.

Whatever it is, it is the best expression I have ever seen on any cat ever and has made me laugh every single time I’ve looked at it for the rest of the day. I even went so far as to leave it open in a tab, just so I could keep coming across it by mistake.

Anyway, so, just to be able to surprise myself (and/or you, it you’re not on an RSS feed), you will find, by clicking ‘more’, my favourite picture of Widget. Ever.

(more…)

Far be it from me to compare actual, real life events and situations to some stupid television programme - particularly one whose central character I find so utterly, excruciatingly annoying it makes me want to set fire to my remote control - but you know that bit in Ally McBeal with the imaginary dancing baby that represents her biological clock? Well my life is EXACTLY like that. Except it’s not imaginary. And not a baby. And I’m not sure if I even HAVE a biological clock.

Nevertheless, and apart from those bits, I have one of those. Or at least I know one.
There has been a sudden upswing in a particular three-year-old asking the kind of searching questions about the contents of my uterus that most people would not. God, I love this small chap.

“Anna?” He has asked, on more than one occasion recently “Do YOU have a baby in your tummy?”
“Nooooooooooo” I have said, once tucking deeply into the chocolate pudding that I had been given, as if somewhere near the bottom of the bowl I might find a tiny spokesperson who would be able to come up with the world’s best explanation.
“Whyyyyyyyyy?” He replied (not unexpectedly, I admit, given previous conversations we have had)
“Well, not EVERYONE has a baby in their tummy, do they?”
“Why don’t YOU have a baby in your tummy?”
“Because it is full of chocolate pudding. And there is no room for babies, because of all the lovely chocolate pudding that is already in there.”

Which, as an answer, worked… This time. It’s not going to work every time.

Perhaps it is because he just got a baby brother, perhaps it is because we are one of the only couples he knows not to have a small person his age of our own, perhaps most obviously true (seriously, I suspect this to be the case) because he is secretly being in the pay of my parents, and has been given a mission to ensure that I don’t forget my filial duty. And they’re paying him in Goldfish crackers.
Really. They’re totally capable of it, too.

Right - after an hour of explaining this to my lovely seeester, I thought I should write a little primer for those who might be confused about what they might be hearing about this kerfuffle over late night television in the US (if they’ve heard anything at all), or who aren’t quite sure what the full picture is.

Basically, I just find the whole thing fascinating, and have been following it avidly, so I might as well pass on what I’ve learnt here, since I don’t think anyone would want to pay me for it…

(I’ll put it under a more jump, though, so those - like my little mother, hello! - who couldn’t give a toss can ignore it easier - honestly, I will start doing things like this on that TV blog once it’s up, so they can be even MORE easily ignored and, more importantly, where I will be free to be a TV-wonk to my heart’s content, but it isn’t quite ready yet)

(more…)

Before this gets lost in the wad of words that will inevitably make up the semi-story/part-rant that will make up the post below, I just want to state here and now that on the day the events therein took place I, Anna Pickard, ALSO won a game of darts legitimately for the first time ever, against my beloved, with a double top so perfect I have learnt the term “Double Top” just so I could describe what it was I somehow managed to do.
In fact, yes, why not, before I get on with the rest of this post, here’s a picture:

We were playing 301, where you start with 301 points and subtract the numbers that your darts hit. When you get to within striking distance of 0, your very last dart has to be a double - which means getting it in the very outside ring, or the very centre of the dartboard. I have always known these to be the rules in theory, but have never managed to actually turn that into practice, no matter how much practice I had.

Nevertheless, without knowing precisely HOW I did it, that day, with forty points left to get me down to zero, I (with consummate ease), tossed a dart which, artfully, almost in slow motion, as if it had wings, drifted over to the wall and sunk itself into the double twenty bit of the board, PULVERISING my opponent (who was, in this case, also my darling Best Beloved).

I’ve told bits of this tale on the brilliant Shift Run Stop podcast, by the way, and will be doing more similarly, hopefully

But that’s not the story I came here to tell (though you should remember it when I come to the bit of the story I have come here to tell that will sound something like “then we played a game of darts”, and think for yourself about the honour and the glory hidden behind that simple phrase) so I’ll get on with that instead. Thank you.

In December, I was feeling a little out of sorts. Combined with a bunch of other stuff going on, I missed my friends and family in the UK, and wanted just some touch of my own traditional festive things to make me feel Christmassy, whether it was the taste of a mince pie and mulled wine; or the sound of the kind of carols traditional to my country rather than another one; or just the idea of sitting in front of a real fire eating miniature sausage rolls, drinking little stubby bottles of Belgian lager and watching some godawful family film from the mid-eighties and trying to think of any reasonable excuse not to get dragged out for a healthy walk by my lovely little mother. It wasn’t so much of a yearning to be in the motherland (I could have, if I’d wanted to, after all), as much as just wanting something familiar to grasp on to that would make me feel comforted and Christmassy.

Somewhat unrealistically, I formed the impression that the best thing to do would be to go to the Ye Olde Super-Traditional Dickensian Briddish Victorian Holiday Fayre And Retail Extravaganza (NB: Not quite the name, perhaps) happening in a set of concrete exhibition halls by the name of Cow Palace, south of San Francisco.

It was, of course, a complete clusterfuck of misery and rage. Hundreds of official Fayre employees, dressed in crinolines and ruffles and chimney-sweeps coats and top hats, sometimes all at once. “Top of the morning to you, Guvnor!” they would say, if you approached their food stall “Can I innerest you in a English Bang-Gerr?” they would continue, waving a pale imitation of a sausage at you with a pair of spectacularly greasy tongs.

In one room were a bunch of pirates singing “traditional Dickensian Victorian Christmas songs”, so we stood and listened for a while. After a couple of minutes, and not recognising even vaguely the song they sung, I realised the only words I could pull out of the rabble-rousing lyrics were ‘travellin’ on the railroad’ and ‘pickin’ on a banjo’, and became convinced at this point that this probably was not the traditional British Christmas music I was looking for.

I wandered through the many many shops. the fancy corset shop, the dried flower shop, the dried corset shop, the clockwork parts and tat shop. I picked up a plastic cup of cider (”no, alcoholic cider. yes, here’s my ID”) and through more halls, one containing a medieval band with dulcimer and an ocarina - stuck in top hats to adhere to the historical period of this month’s fayre. In the next was a room full of wooden toys, for bored tantrummy toddlers, or the suddenly despondent. I was both.

Talking to people had one of three effects.

- The first (and nicest) was that they would look at you, stunned and impressed at how good YOUR accent was: “My Gahd” they would suddenly whisper, reverting to their real voice “Your accent is GREAT! Have you been practicing laaang?”
“Oh, a while” we would say, and smile.
“Aaahhhsome…”

- The second (and the one I’m most used to from living here) was that they would be pleased to find a real specimen of Brit, and ask whereabouts you were from, and tell you about the year they spent on exchange in Notting Ham, or about their son or daughter who had moved over to the UK for a jahb, and asking what you were doing here, and whether you liked living here, the similarities, the differences, all of that. And that was really lovely.

- The third was by far the weirdest. It was the preemptive-aggressive response. Ask a question, or just request one of the thing they were selling, and the third type of Fayre employee would hear your accent and suddenly get on the defensive, apparently convinced that I was an agent of the accent squad and was going to charge them an on the spot fine. And frankly I only wish I’d thought of that before they did, because I could have made a mint if only I had a shiny ID.

Not that they would have been convinced by a fake ID. They’re very strict about such things here.

Side note: So strict on ID things, in fact, that I should really have got an official California ID card by now. Because they ask for ID in bars all the time, and if you haven’t got it, no matter how old you look, you’re not getting a drink. So I should have got one … but I didn’t. See, I was going to get a driving licence, which would do the same job, then I failed the test that December, and before long we were thrown into the whole ‘not sure how many more weeks/months we’d be here anyway so not sure if there’s a point in spending more money on driving lessons/tests/longterm commitments/real life things’ bit, and since we’ve been there ever since, I’m accustomed to just carrying my passport around with me instead, as foolish as that might be.

So we carried on walking around, and eventually, in the room right at the back, there was a little side room with a row full of dartboards, mainly ignored, and there we stopped, and played darts.

After our game, I wanted another alcoholic cider - or, as it is known in normal circles: “cider” - to celebrate having found one thing that reminded me of being at home, among other things.

But then, after a conversation with a busty barwench including the words “please” and “cider” and “ID” and “Madam” and “I’ll just need to check with my manager that we take this as ID”, I was confronted with a man with a moustache and a monacle and a watch hanging by a chain from his top pocket. He was employed in the role of ‘Authentic Jolly Pub Landlord (Cockney)’, and, in character - and clearly firmly in the third group of accenteers detailed above - informed me that he couldn’t accept the ID I had proffered as valid, and he’d have to see a driving licence instead.

“But that’s my passport”
“Yesssss, Muddum! But that’s not a valid form of Oi-dee!”
“Actually, it’s one of the most valid forms of ID you can get. It’s a passport”
“Do you ‘ave a drivin’ licence issued by the state of California, or any uvver state, muddom?”
“No, I haven’t, I don’t drive. I have my credit cards, my checkbook in here, but nothing issued by the State of California. But I have a passport, which is issued by Her Majesty’s Government.”
“Well, it’s not a valid piece of official identifffy-cayshun, mi’lady”

he said, pushing his accent further and further past maximum the more officious he got.
The funny thing is, I don’t think I would have got so riled up by the situation - regardless of the fact that I’m traditionally horrific at any kind of conflict or argument - if he hadn’t been telling me I was from some kind of illegitimate, made-up country while simultaneously sounding for all the world like someone taking the piss out of the very same place.

“Well, leaving aside for a moment the fact that this biometric passport is one of the most official pieces of identification you can get, they didn’t seem to have this problem when I ordered a drink from the bar three halls ago”
“No, muddum. We carnt accept that as Oi-dee. None of the bartenders ‘ere would have accept that as oi-dee. Because it ‘asn’t got your height and weight printed on it, so it AIN’T legal ID. So they wouldn’t ‘ave taken it.”
“What?!”
“You carnt ‘ave used that as oi-dee. Anywhere in ‘ere.”
“But I did. About half an hour ago.”
“No, Muddum.”

I stood back, and stared at the man, feeling like I was balancing on a knife edge with a big ugly monster representing ‘losing it and shouting a lot’ on one side, and a small broken toy representing ‘crying like a child who just wants her mummy’ on the other, not knowing which way to fall - although suspecting I might be able to go both ways at once, with only a little more provocation.

My beloved, now recovered from the shock and devestation he’d experienced during a recent game of darts, stepped in.

“Never mind, Anna. This is getting us nowhere … Now. I quite fancy a drink. Can I get a cider please? The alcoholic one. Here’s my driving licence. Do you want anything, Anna?”
“Coke” I mumbled, reversing the order we’d tried to put in only minutes before.

The Authentic Jolly Pub Landlord (Cockney) eyed us suspiciously. He took My Beloved’s driving licence, examined it like he thought it might have been scrawled on a napkin, then handed it back. He stood there, as sullen and officious and disgusted with us as could be. His Authentic Jolliness was out of the window now.

“I WIW get you vis drink, SURRrrrrr” he said, straining his pissy jollity through gritted teeth like Dick van Dyke being put in a headlock by a bear, “But if OI see you parsing it off to ANYONE” he said, his pupils punching the corners of his eyes hard as he looked at me for the briefest second possible… “I WIWW Cut. You. Affff” he finished, threateningly, losing it completely at the end (accent, temper, marbles, everything).

…

By the time he actually came to find me with the drinks, I was halfway down the next hall, trying to watch some kind of attempt on Punch and Judy with not NEARLY enough casual domestic violence, though finding it hard because the hot prickly tears too hot and prickly to stay inside any longer.

The funny thing was, I hadn’t felt so far from home until then. I love it here.
I love living here, and I love my little San Franciscan friend-family, and I feel at home. But I hadn’t realised how much visiting a hollow plastic version of something resembling home would reinforce just how far away I was. And I stood there, and cried and cried because I had managed to achieve the precise opposite of what I’d intended. There wasn’t an element of home I could hang on to here, as much as everyone else seemed to be enjoying it (and good for them, all power to their arm, etc), and I’d never felt more alien, or more distant, or further from the people and the mulled wine I was missing.

Oh, AND the cider was fucking dreadful.
But that’s clearly not the real point of this story.

No, the point of this story was that I won a game of darts.
Double top, ladies and gentlemen. Double. Buggering. TOP.

It is traditional, at this time of year, to make a certain set of decisions about things one plans to do - or not do - over the next year.

They should, or so tradition demands, be great, life-affecting, game-changing decisions that will, for great swathes of people, prove completely and utterly impossible to live up to.

I’m thinking I shouldn’t make those kinds of promises. I have no idea if I’m going to be able to commit myself fully to my to-do list for the day, let alone anything above and beyond that. So I should make resolutions that are relatively easy to keep to, or that I have already done, or that I really really HAVE to do.

MY NEW YEARSISH KIND-OF-RESOLUTIONS

1) Having never seen The Blair Witch Project, I resolve to continue never having seen it until the end of the year.
2) I will endeavour to do the same with Paranormal Activity. Those films would scare me eight ways to Sunday.
3) I resolve to have had breakfast this morning. (TICK!)
4) If put in a situation where there is a bunny, its neck in a guillotine, and a button, and I am told that it is entirely within my power to kill the bunny or let the bunny live, with no repercussions - I resolve that I will not kill the bunny.
5) I will finally get that other blog, my TV blog, that I’ve been meaning to finish - where I can write about stuff I like, about US TV as much as I like, and in whatever manner I please - up and running, and live. And soon.
6) I will learn to chew oyster.
7) When people send me nice emails or say nice things, I will reply and say thank you, and also file them somewhere so I can learn to value them above negative feedback.
8) I will work out how to use this computer properly (the one that I have had for six months).
9) I will work out which food it is that I am allergic to and which gives me a funny hot nose after eating.
10) The word ‘accrual’ will never pass my lips.
11) Also the word ’spatula’. I’m not sure how that one will go, to be honest, but I’m willing to try really hard at this, it is a New Year’s resolution after all.
12) I will try and work out what LinkedIn is for, and how it can be used to my advantage.
13) I will post on little red boat. A lot. And not care about what it is ‘for’.
14) And not just stick everything on twitter.
15) Though I might stick the fact I’ve done a new post on twitter, because let’s face it, everyone else does.
16) At least once a week, I will let someone I love know that I love them and am thinking of them, even if that just means replying to an email.
17) Run.
18) No, seriously, that wasn’t a resolution, there’s just a bear behind you. Fucking RUN. Run for your life!
19) Only kidding you on, it was a resolution really. I’m just going to do more running (away from bears)(and possibly other).
20) Not leave the hair dye on too long next time I dye my hair. Seriously. This is meant to be an attractive mid-brown, is it? No it isn’t. I look like a goth.
21) I will stop writing resolutions now (TICK!)

But wait!

What is this I see?

Regular lovely commenter scary azeri has just left a comment in the last post, pointing out that in Russia and other places, it is common practice to celebrate Old New Year, with Old New Year’s Eve on the 13th of January, and Old New Year Itself on the 14th.

Therefore, all the things I planned to do as projects for the new year - take daily pictures, do regular posts, and all those things - but couldn’t commit to on the real New Year’s Day because I was too hungover to do anything but watch TV marathons and eat bacon sandwiches, I CAN do after all.

You hear that, everyone! There’s another New Year’s Eve!
I resolve to celebrate that one, as well. In fact, this year, I resolve to… wait, I’ll do this properly:

22) I will make it my mission to celebrate every national, religious, cultural, regional that is useful, attractive or particularly fun-sounding. I will let you know about them in advance if I remember, and document them if they are particularly good fun.

Seeing as it is now on or around the 11th of January, or perhaps just after it, I thought that this might be considered the apposite time for making, announcing and committing to those New Year’s Resolution things, precisely the way that I intended to type them up on New Year’s Day - the point at which this post was created, titled, and put on draft.

Ahem.

1) Post at least once a day on littleredboat.co.uk, every single day of the calendar year.

Oh furry pighole, I have fallen already.

Right. Well. I’ll have another go at those new year’s resolution things tomorrow - or, as they should probably be renamed, semi-mini-partial-yearthrough statements of dubious longstandingness - I did think I should just check in and say that I am not dead, just quiet. And hello. And that was all, really.

Hello. You ok?
2010’s going quite well, isn’t it?

Because it is a happy one. And I realised I was sounding tired, if somewhat determined, and that didn’t quite reflect how much fun I had in the snow, because snow is ace, and this year IS actually going to be brilliant. Or, rather, brillianter, building on the bits that were already brilliant from last year - and there were many of those too.

So this is me looking like an overstuffed toy, testing out my new (well, some new, some borrowed) waterproof snow activity gear by wearing it all at once.

It might have been slightly too much clothing all at once, in retrospect. Watching me attempt to move gracefully was like watching a giant mascot at a theme park trying to recite epic poetry through sign language, semaphore and charades while playing twister.

Snow is ace.
I plan to go back and frolic in it more soon.

It is New Year’s Eve. In fact, back in the motherland (the land of my mother, I mean, or at least the land currently containing my mother, so the UK, then) it almost IS New Year.

Hopefully, this means that everyone has made the perfect plan (there’s always pressure to make the perfect plan) and will see in the new year with at least *some* people they quite like.

In an effort to make 2010 the most optimum, top-flight, shiniest year in the history of years (no pressure), I will be performing a ritual of all the New Year’s Ever Good Luck Traditions that I can find on the internet. I will be wearing both red underwear (as some countries call that lucky) and yellow underwear (as others prefer that) luckily I have both of these colours of underwear with me, and don’t mind wearing them, what with it being cold.

I will also be eating 12 grapes and making twelves wishes, setting fire to something, throwing something else out of the window, and quite possibly walking around the block with a suitcase. I will be requiring a tall dark handsome person to firstfoot both this house AND the one back in San Francisco with a full compliment of coal, candle, dram etc.

I will be sweeping the dirt out of the house, making some noise to scare the bad things away, jumping up and down (what? some people think that this will make them taller come the new year, what’s weird about that?) and then tomorrow, I will be eating circular foods, like hula hoops and doughnuts, which I think is the best new year tradition I’ve ever heard of.

And thus shall I single-handedly bring about the BEST YEAR IN THE HISTORY OF YEARS.
You’re welcome, world.

Happy New Year to you, if it is your New Year already (and not if it isn’t, but then when it is, then Happy that)

I’ve been sitting here staring at the blank box with the title at the top of it and feeling more and more reflective. I just don’t know how to approach this.

I tried by making a list of my favourite things about 2009, but got stuck because every good thing I could remember reminded me of something else that had happened that I did not want to think about so much.

I tried by looking through photos (as I’ve done a photo round up before) and while a lot of them reminded me of the happy exploring I have done, and the things I’ve got to see, it also served as a perfect visual representation of how much I have fallen in love with San Francisco as a city, and made me sad to think that this time next year, I won’t get to live here anymore.

2009 has been, for so many people I know, a really really shitty year. It’s been a year of lost jobs, lost contracts, lost visas and homes. It’s been horrible, watching so many people I love in pain because they’ve lost parents, or children, or loved ones, or had their relationships suddenly break up, or their marriages end. There have been injuries, surgeries, cancers, miscarriages and diseases. The recession thing has made people fraught, working relationships difficult, and saving money impossible. I end this year in a more precarious financial and professional situation than ever could have imagined, and am dedicating much brain to having to think of a brilliant new plan that I can bring into play while having my lowest level of confidence in many years. And my problems are very small compared to some people around me (whether geographically or interneterly) and I really, REALLY hate 2009 for that.

If it wasn’t for the fact that a couple of very good friends brought new (and particularly adorable) people into the world, I would politely request that we just erase 2009 from memory and write it off completely.

This is not what I wanted to write here. I didn’t want to make a list of the bad things, or to remind myself or anyone else of them again. But the unfortunate fact is: that’s what this year has held for me, for people I know. And perhaps I just need to scrub away all that bad stuff by actually putting it down here.

I’m just going to leave it there, I think. I want to write a happier thing, but I’m going to have to go and do that in another post. One where the sad is not allowed.

Tonight I’m spending new year’s eve in a very snowy place with a good view of far off fireworks, and will be, at midnight, clutching a small bucket of fizzy wine and hoping that next year is better. Not just for me. For everyone. 2009 can piss off, frankly.

We were sitting around yesterday after coming in from a long snowy walk on the lake shore and wondering what to do with the rest of the day.

Checking the entry hall table, however, it appeared that someone must have picked up the keys to our rental car by mistake and disappeared off skiing with them. That was the only possible solution. The entry hall table is where the keys live (in case anyone needs to move a car. I’m learning MUCH about group holidays this week) and they weren’t there, so that must have been what happened. Because My Beloved certainly wouldn’t have had them with him on our snowy walk. That would have been a really really silly idea.

So we sat and we did many things instead (like sitting down in front of the fire and reading and things) and were quite surprised when people came back from the big hearty activities and said that no, as it turns out, they hadn’t walked off with the keys by mistake at all. In fact, they had no idea where the keys to our rental car might be - the only keys, please note.

So we turned our bedroom upside down, and checked all the whole house thoroughly, the entryway, the drive went through the rubbish in the kitchen in case we’d thrown them away by mistake and, all the while, kept repeating the mantra that they MUST be in the house somewhere, they simply must. Because them not being in the house at all was simply unthinkable. That’s where they would be. They would be in the house. So, trusting that we’d find them next day when it was light and we could lift up all the furniture, we went to bed.

The next morning, I found the keys, which was great.

What was not so great - not even remotely great, in fact, was that I found them remotely, while in bed looking through the pictures I’d put up on flickr the night before of My Beloved making angels in the snow.

“Oh, THAT’S where the car keys are”

We said. And sighed. Deeply.

And then donned 15 layers of clothes and ran out into the snow.

The new snow.
Because the snow had fallen, overnight. Snow on snow. Snooooow on snow.
There had been a few feet of snow already, but overnight, since we had last been there, frolicking and making angels, there had been four new inches of snow. Which made it a little difficult to see where the keys might lie. We knew that when we found a good snow-angel-making spot, we had walked past a boathouse and hadn’t quite reached a log that we later sat on, but other than that, we couldn’t be completely sure. And there were no other distinguishing landmarks, because of the aforementioned snow.

Leaving us with a search area that looked like this:

Knees wet and half-frozen, snow sneaking up my sleeves and down my collar, I worked on one patch of untrodden snow at a time, kneeling on it, sweeping the newer powder back and forth, occasionally sinking hip-deep into the rest. My Beloved sat thoughtfully on a rock nearby, mostly, trying to logic the keys out of the snow, trying to retrace our steps and therefore magically draw the things out of the ground.

Long story short - or shortish, or at least not as long as it could be if I was REALLY milking it - I found them. Proving I may actually be part-bloodhound, I followed some buried sledge-tracks until I found a spot where a very faint curve of snow suggested there may once have been an attempted snow angel.

And, below the surface, only the tiniest bit of keyring wire sticking up, they were buried.
As you can imagine, I was very smug about this, and insisted on being extremely pampered for the rest of the day, which, frankly, is the least I deserved. Because I am the best at finding things, and I win.

And I don’t know why I got so excited about it.
It’s just: well, it’s been a year of spectacularly shitty luck, to be honest. And this was just something suggesting that maybe, possibly, next year might be a little more lucky.
I hope.