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Thursday, December 31st, 2009
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_anaya_
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2:24p
Process
Processing thought, but not ready to share them at the moment... mainly because there has not been a conclusion determined.
Wishing things were different but none the less eager to find out what will come with what I have.
I'm ready for this challenge more than ever...
2010 sounds promising.
current mood:  hopeful
current music: The Album Leaf
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(heart)
officialgaiman
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8:47p
Wishes
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/12/wishes.html posted by Neil
I have to read something tonight, if I can stay awake. (I'll do it somehow. Intravenous tea, possibly.)
I know it's bad form to repeat yourself, but I was about to list all the things I hope for the readers of this blog in 2005, and I realised I'd already written it back in 2001, when I said...
May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
And I sent them to http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/another-year.html which ended,
...I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.
For me, 2009 has been unquestionably the best and strangest year of my life, with many enormous highs and one huge low -- highs such as the Newbery, the Coraline movie, the low being my father dying so suddenly and unexpectedly -- but the biggest change of all was finding myself in a real relationship for the first time in a very long time, and with someone who loves me and makes me ridiculously happy, and who has me doing things I would never normally do, like finding myself in a Boston concert hall with a lethal musical instrument on New Year's Eve. And none of it, the good bits or the rough, would have been as easy without the support of my children.
You don't get many years like this in a life, and I am both aware of this, and amazingly grateful. And an email from my editor letting me know that the Graveyard Book is still on the New York Times Bestseller List after fifteen months, reminds me of how much I owe to all of you.
So thank you. Have a wonderful 2010. And goodnight.
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stingoo
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8:32p
Thanksgiving day
For most people around me, this hasn't been a happy year. It's been very happy for me though, and I have many people, places, cats, and even dogs to be thankful for.
( LOTS of photos! )
Happy new year, everyone! And thank you for being there for me - and not only.
PS: And do not forget to vote my best shot of 2009! I shall announce the winning photo tomorrow! Cheerio!
current mood: cheerful
current music: ABBA - Happy New Year | Powered by Last.fm
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officialgaiman
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2:09p
How I got to Boston
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/12/how-i-got-to-boston.html posted by Neil
My son Mike had to be back at work at Google in San Francisco on the 30th. I had planned to get to Boston for Amanda’s New Year’s Eve concert on the 31st, and I had wanted a day in Boston to recover. We were both on 7.00 am flights from the highlands of Scotland – his flight to take him to Gatwick, where he would bus to Heathrow and take a San Francisco plane, mine to take me to Manchester, where I would fly to Amsterdam, and from there to Boston. So I napped for a couple of hours and we left the house at 3:00 am. I drove for three hours, got us to the airport for 6:00am. Was sort of proud of myself. We checked in. We were on our way through the security line when a voice said “Due to snow, the airport is now closed. Nothing will be landing or taking off until 8:30.” We ate breakfast. They called me to the ticket desk and changed my flight from Manchester to Gatwick, with the same get-to-Heathrow plan that Mike had, which I didn’t mind. At least we’re together, I thought. Then I noticed they’d made a complete mess of the actual reticketing, went back and pointed it out to the lady who’d done it. “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t notice. Not to worry. I’ll make a phone call and tell them what it ought to be.” My heart sank a little at this. (If it is not actually written in the system you can find yourself screwed as people squint at their screens at what’s written there, and the statement that “a lady said she’d make a phone call” can be met with indifference.) But Lorraine, my assistant, was still awake, and had just emailed me to see if there was anything she could do. And the tickets had been booked through a travel agent with a 24 hour helpline, so I asked Lorraine if she wouldn’t mind making sure that everything was okay. Since the last time I was in that airport they’d moved and hidden all the plug sockets, but I found one anyway at an office desk and charged my computer. At 8:30 the Tannoy voice said they’d tell us what was happening at 9:30 and at 9:30 they said they’d tell us at 10:30, and I do not know what they told us at 10:30 because I went to sleep in my chair, and slept until midday, when the Tannoy voice told us that we were boarding. From the Twitter stream, it looked like Lorraine was still awake and locked in a hellish battle with the airlines. “We will still make it,” I told Mike. “It’ll be a close thing, but we will make it.” I tromped across the quarter of an inch of snow that had fallen, puzzling over how this could shut down an airport, knowing the kind of snow it takes to shut down Minneapolis-St Paul airport. But then, in MSP they expect snow. We boarded the plane, found our seats. The pilot announced that the de-icing rigs weren’t working and I went back to sleep. My hopes had shrunk from getting to Boston today to just getting out of the airport. I woke up. We were still there. I walked back into the plane, told Mike that we wouldn’t be getting out of the UK today. “Yeah,” he said. “But we’re together”. And I thought, He’s right. This would be awful on our own. Together it was just some kind of interesting adventure. We took off at 2:15pm. We landed in Gatwick at 3.45pm Lorraine called just after we landed, before we were even off the plane. “You’re on the 7:15pm flight from Heathrow,” she said, and did a rapid briefing on what it had taken to get my ticket and its value back from FlyBe and over to British Airways. She’d been up all night and worked miracles. She was ready for bed. While we waited for our luggage, Mike talked on the phone to United, and got off very glum. “They’ll rebook me, but they’re charging $1900 to do it,” he said. He’d also used his airmiles to do it in business class, and was losing that. Luggage arrived. Lorraine called to make sure our luggage had arrived. She sounded beyond exhausted. “Can you check Mike’s ticket?” I asked. “They want another $1900 to get him home.” She took the booking number, called back twenty minutes later having got the change fee down to $300 and having got him back into business class. An amazing lady, my assistant. We took a taxi in the rain from Gatwick to Heathrow, I checked in without problems, hugged Mike a lot. The plane was late taking off due to the new pat-down and bag-examine rules. I was patted down (the pat-down wouldn’t have found any explosives I’d hidden in my inner thigh, where the idiot on the Amsterdam-Detroit flight hid his, because the man was too polite to check there) and my backpack was opened and looked into (it has many compartments that weren’t opened or checked, and the man would have missed a syringe if I had had one, like the aforementioned idiot had). I wondered for whose benefit the pat-down and baggage rummage was, and decided it was to make everyone feel safer without actually being inconvenienced in the way you’d have to be if you wanted to make sure no-one actually brought something dangerous onto the plane. I landed in Boston 28 hours after I left the house. Took a taxi to Amanda's apartment. I'd taken a hotel room nearby, as I knew she was going to be practising Tchaikovsky for the New Year's Eve gig until late, but was I asleep in her bed in minutes and the 1812 Overture with real cannon fire would not have woken me. … Yesterday was spent in the hotel, writing introductions and things. I went out for lunch with Chris Golden and Steve Bissette. Went back to the hotel. Wrote. Went with Amanda to watch her getting her hair done. Back to hotel. What I am going to do today: write, (blog in bed which I am doing now), wear a tuxedo, do a brief reading at Amanda's show tonight, play an instrument. I am not looking forward to the latter bit. ... Lots of interesting stuff creeping out at the end of the year. I'm probably proudest of this:
The theme of National Library Week is "Communities thrive at your library". Lots of details and a poster at http://www.ala.org/nlw.
Right. Time to stop blogging in bed and go and grab some breakfast.
Expect one more post, in a few hours, with a wish for 2010 in it...
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(heart) Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
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_anaya_
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4:54p
Is back to simpler times...
ready to get back to the land of the living. Applied for some work and hoping I get some answers soon. Emotionally drained but none the less looking forward to bring in the new year positively.
here I go again
:)
current mood:  cynical
current music: HWM
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(heart)
commonpeople
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8:54p
2009's Top of the Pops
Most listened artists in my music library in 2009:
- Morrissey
- Madonna
- Erasure
- The Cure
- The Raveonettes
- Kronos Quartet
- Suede
- Cut Copy
- The Smiths
- Pet Shop Boys
- David Bowie
- The Magnetic Fields
- Siouxsie and the Banshees
- Girls Aloud
- The Mighty Lemon Drops
I honestly don't know why Madonna is so high up. I went through a period of obsessing over "Express Yourself" but, apart from that, I only use her when I'm cleaning the house. I must have cleaned a lot in 2009. Must get her off the list in 2010 and move Girls Aloud considerably higher. Cut Copy were a genuine discovery in 2009 (or was it 2008?) - I loved getting into their two albums and I'm looking forward to seeing them live when they are next in London. I also went through a lot of Mighty Lemon Drops in the spring but can't see them reappearing in my charts by the end of 2010. My new obsession is M83 and they have a good chance of troubling these charts in 2010.
Most listened tracks in my music library in 2009:
- Pet Shop Boys – West End Girls
- Simple Minds – Don't You (Forget About Me)
- Peter Godwin – Images Of Heaven
- Dexys Midnight Runners – Come On Eileen
- White Lies – Death
- Apostle of Hustle – Baby, You're In Luck
- a-ha – Take On Me
- The Housemartins – Build
- Sugababes – Freak Like Me
- Information Society – Repetition
- Madonna – Express Yourself
- Rachael Yamagata – Even So
- Hole – Doll Parts
- The Stranglers – Skin Deep
- Jane's Addiction – Jane Says
Who the hell is Rachael Yamagata and what's she doing on my most listened tracks list?! I can only assume Last FM is to blame during those times I let it run loose while in the office on my own (or with music-friendly co-workers). Same goes for the Apostle of Hustle track, though I don't mind it so much. Elsewhere, you can see how deeply stuck in the 80s I am, though Hole's "Doll Parts" gives me a brief foot in the 90s as I try to breach the last couple of years with more contemporary pop like Sugababes and White Lies. I'll do my best in 2010 to listen to new music. But I ain't making any promises.
current mood:  giddy
current music: M83 - Skin Of The Night | Powered by Last.fm
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(heart)
(heart) Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
(heart)
stingoo
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9:11p
Toate bune...
... şi frumoase-n felul lor.
Din punctul de vedere al vacanţei, e ca oricare alta petrecută la prieteni: se întâlnesc respectivii prieteni, se emoţionează, se râde, se bea, se fumează (mult), se bat străzile, se dor picioarele, se fac cumpărături, se mănâncă bine, se doarme şi mai bine, se etc. Pusei şi voi mai pune poze fără număr pe Flickozaurus Rex.
Din punctul de vedere al românului emigrat şi întors în ţară după jumătate de an (reamintesc: am fost şi-n vară), se remarcă următoarele:
- multe bănci, frăţicule. Bancă lângă bancă lângă bancă lângă amanet lângă consignaţie lângă bancă lângă birou de schimb valutar lângă cazinou. Ce criză, frate? Ai zice că românul e plin de bani.
- meseria de ospătar/chelner e rezervată exclusiv femeilor. Se ştie doar că acesta e rolul femeii, de a servi bărbatul.
- televizoarele, mă scuzaţi, flat screen-urile nu lipsesc din niciun bar sau restaurant (cu o singură excepţie: restaurantul Trattoria din Arad), deşi nimeni nu se uită la ele.
- ambulanţele (multe-multe, semn că românul petrece şi-şi pune burta la cale într-o veselie) gonesc cu sirena în funcţiune chiar şi când nu e nicio maşină pe stradă.
- am văzut mai puţini cerşetori la Arad decât la Amsterdam. Evident, toţi cei pe care i-am văzut în Amsterdam sunt de-ai noştri.
- bisericile catolice sunt mai frumoase decât cele ortodoxe, atât la exterior, dar mai ales în interior. Cele catolice sunt şi mai bine întreţinute. Se pare că dumnezeul catolic e mai stilat. (O fi homo?)
- se fumează în draci, peste tot, în toate cafenelele, barurile şi restaurantele în care am intrat. Nu există spaţiu dedicat nefumătorilor. Pe uşa unui bar de fiţe din Arad chiar stă scris: "Local rezervat exclusiv fumătorilor". Mark e în al nouălea cer, fireşte.
- mulţi nou îmbogăţiţi, evident întorşi (cel puţin de sărbători) în ţară. Gherţoi care vorbesc tare la mobil în cafenele de lux, îmbrăcaţi la costum dar cu pantofi sport de sală, care molfăie gumă cu gagica în beemveul cu număr de Spania dând muzica la maxim (evidement manea) - fireşte, cu geamurile jos în ciuda frigului...
- diacriticele sunt pe cale de dispariţie. Mark e de părere că ar trebui instaurată prin lege obligativitatea folosirii lor măcar în spaţiul public, dacă nu şi pe internet. Pentru un străin, a citi o inscripţie a devenit un joc de perspicacitate.
- ca să închei într-o notă pozitivă: cel puţin aici, în vestul ţării, librăriile sunt pline. Şi nu din cauză că vine Crăciunul şi lumea caută cadouri. Nici în Olanda nu am văzut atâtea cozi la librării. Iar Herta Müller "ne pare rău, nu mai avem, s-a terminat, încercaţi mâine".
(Mâine aterizează băieţii Nootka. Mark a făcut meniul. Încep să simt febra revelionului!)
current mood: okay
current music: Michael Jackson - Billie Jean | Powered by Last.fm
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