Why You've Stayed Inactive

1. I found Wordpress.
2. I don't always feel like listing things.
3. The interface here doesn't induce creativity.
4. Prisoner Cell Block H - over 600 episodes of it.
5. New wuxia films to...acquire.

Dishes

5 dishes/any type of food cooked or baked I have come to love in the past year with its 4 seasons:

1. Potato and corned beef hash
2. Pea soup
3. Parkin
4. Singapore chow mein vermicelli noodles
5. Salt and pepper chips

3 reasons why our local paper is dying

1. Big contributors like WH Smith ask for £1,000 up front before they will let us circulate our paper with them. Wherever they sell, little papers can't.

2. Advertisements are hard to come by when the local populace has rooted for the other local paper who has been around for close to 160 years. Loyalty and tradition. Welcome to the small town and the UK, where such sentiments are an intense shade of double-edged.

3. There is all-around apathy. I have also established, based on my voluntary paper girl experience of the past few weeks, that the faker the lashes and the thicker the makeup and the more varied the shades of fake tan and shades of concealer and foundation,  the bigger the apathy for well-written local news.

5 things I did at 21 that I can't do at 31 without feeling sick

1. stay up all night twice in a row
2. watch a trilogy in one sitting
3. read a book without moving or taking a little break once every few hours
4. look at the world in black and white easily
5. break into a sudden sprint from leisurely walking along

Birthday Month 2012

An excerpt of somebody's birthday this year:

1. It still makes me feel a funny kind of sad even after years of telling myself that it is like any other day.
2. I started the day with a friendly 3 am call from HSBC from Manila.
3. I had a bit of a breakdown in bed and couldn't seem to get up to face the world.
4. The idea that nobody at all back home knows how isolated and miserable this situation is making me is a double-edged sword. I am glad they don't know, but I am also desperately lonely.
5. A new chum talked me out of the house and fed me soup in a Manchester soup shop. Bought a hat and a bar of honey soap.
6. Dinner with the mother-in-law in a warm house made my toes warm. She is a precious thing, that woman.
7. There was much anxiety over his lack of communication en route from Belfast.
8. Walked home an hour before midnight and found him home exhausted and asleep.
9. Biiiiig fight.
10. Slept on the couch in the front room.

Hello, 31.

In conclusion:
Surely, as I keep pushing the boundaries of how low I can get on birthdays, then the rest of my life should be an improvement...?

-End of excerpt

Things You Say To Yourself Sometimes...

1. "I don't care." - when you obviously do.
2. "This is the last time..." - but finding out that it isn't. Like eating Pringles or another stage of a game when you ought to be sleeping already.
3. "It's worth it" - and it isn't.
4. "I'll do it." - and you know with every bone in your body that you probably won't.
5. "I'm gonna be OK" - and you don't feel it.

First Time Moments: May 2012

1. I ate my first sharon fruit which, as it turns out, is also called persimmon.
2. I visited Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
3. I went to Darlington (near Newcastle) to meet ex-colleagues from CVG.
4. I finished stage plotting for Act 1 of"Unoriginal Sin".
5. I almost missed the only train to MCR that would let me catch my 15 pound ride to Darlington and also actually held up my hand to try and hitchhike in panic because I didn't know that at 7:38 AM the X27 would pass by Scotch Corner to take me into Darlington in time for the 15 pound bus back to MCR.
6. I saw Delta Buoy perform at the Oakwood.
7. I saw Re-entrants perform at the Oakwood.