the past few years, i’ve been taking part in the mayfly project: summing up the past year in just 24 words. so here, then, is my 2008.
becoming british, taking chances and making change. america’s dreams fulfilled, my canada dreams denied. loose ends at year end. regroup, reflect, renew next year.
it’s been nearly another full rotation of the earth around the sun – that cycle that we mark off in marching days, in pages turned. in my earlier birthday post, i mentioned that this year i’ve had a much more heightened awareness of the speeding up of time – an acute sense of the fleeting nature of seasons which has become honed. it’s an old truism that time passes more quickly as you get older – i’m not sure why this year in particular that has come into sharp focus, but it has.
this year has gone by so quickly, i feel as though i missed some parts – like when you’re watching a movie and look up to realise that the plot has moved on without your noticing, or try to speed read and skip out the finer details. i cast my mind back over the 2008 and wonder just what happened – i’m left with only vague impressions of moments and events. and how do you encapsulate that in totality? it’s impossible, yet we still try, at the end of every year, to do so.
so here’s the speed reader’s version of my past year.
my best moments of 2008:
racing and pacing and plotting the course
my worst moments of 2008:
my first (and hopefully last) trip to a&e
my personal best posts of 2008 (for reasons known only to me):
i did before and had my share, it didn’t lead nowhere
so many places you’d prefer to be
a movie script ending, and the patrons are leaving, leaving
i know you have a lot of strength left
the sun is arisin’, most definitely
the other day i read, “having birthdays is a good thing. consider the alternative.”
wise words. i’m off for holidays soon, so in that vein, i’m going to try to reprise last year’s birthday post a few days early – here are 36 things things i have learned in life thus far, (or been particularly reminded of this year):
1. life is too short to work at a job you hate.
2. change, while scary, almost always has its rewards.
3. time really does speed up the older you get. that’s sad, but good to know.
4. any american child can grow up to be president. (thank you obama!)
5. i’ll never see my natural hair colour again.
6. even the best relationship takes work.
7. your relationship with yourself takes work too.
8. yoga does a body good.
9. so does running.
10. you’re never too old to start over. in many ways, starting over is a way of staying young.
11. don’t count your chickens before they hatch. and always have a plan b. (thank you, canada.)
12. if you are unhappy and do nothing about it, you are complicit in your own misery.
13. everyone should have socialised healthcare. the freedom of not having to worry about insurance when something goes wrong is indescribable. (thank you, nhs.)
14. strangers can be incredibly generous. someone i’ve never met or spoken to donated the last £44 to help me meet my unicef goal. (thank you, john m, whoever you are.)
15. cats can deprive you of more sleep than babies – after a year, babies sleep through the night. try telling that to a cat. (thank you, zeke.)
16. traditions are wonderful. but sometimes doing something different is pretty great too.
17. love multiplies itself.
18. it is impossible to explore the world without exploring yourself.
19. perfection doesn’t exist. as humans we are fundamentally flawed, but we never stop trying – that’s a far more noble purpose than being perfect.
20. saying “i’m sorry” is incredibly powerful. and liberating.
21. *always* sniff milk before pouring.
22. never take the person at the other end of the couch for granted. (thank you, jonno.)
23. apparently, you’re never too old to get acne. fantastic.
24. being a new citizen is a humbling experience. i think everyone should go through it. (thank you britain!)
25. “liberal” is not a slur.
26. there is no god. though i really wish there was.
27. you only lose your dignity when people stop treating you with any.
28. root canals bite.
29. keep a journal, no matter how infrequently. it’s important to have designated space for your thoughts.
30. if you let fear in, it will never let you out.
31. the best friends are those you can pick up after years, seamlessly, knowing that you were never any less important to each other for the missing. (thank you, my friends.)
32. if you’re not wholly happy within yourself, no one else can make you so.
33. being wholly happy within yourself takes work.
34. high heels make your feet hurt, but your ego sing.
35. no man is an island.
36. having birthdays is a good thing. consider the alternative.
i recently went to the salon for a haircut. it had been quite a while since my last visit, as evidenced by the thick band of dark roots showing at the crown, the frazzled, too-long ends of dry, lacklustre, pull-it-back-in-a-ponytail hair. and when my stylist started segmenting it into miniclips for cutting, i felt a large pang of embarrassment at the shock of grey hairs that came shining through. i looked, i thought, like someone who’d begun to let herself go.
i’m not high-maintenance by any standard, but my one vanity is my hair. i’ve always enjoyed playing around with different styles and (in my twenties) colours. i’ve never been a clothes horse or one for trendy fashions, but the one thing that keeps me feeling young at heart (even as i get considerably greyer) is my hair. for the most part, i don’t think i look too bad for my age – i’m in decent shape, have few real wrinkles as yet… objectively speaking, i’m holding up okay. and yet there i sat, looking at this washed out, grey shell of myself.
so why have i let my hair get to this state? this frumpy, boring, can’t be bothered, look? it’s not like i don’t have the time or the money for this one small thing, every three or four months.
and you know, when he was done working his magic, i walked out of there feeling so terribly cute. i had a spring in my step, an instant mood lift. my new cut made me feel young and funky. it was worth every penny i paid for this feeling. i just can’t fathom why i don’t go more often.
a resolution for the new year – an investment in my self-esteem.
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christmas is fast approaching. in keeping with this newfound freedom to do something different, we’re going to morocco for the holiday with some friends of ours.
yes, we’re spending xmas in a muslim country. but at least everything will be open! might go for one of those overnight safaris to the sahara desert. because nothing says christmas like camels and sand.
we’re going away from the 21st – 28th, however, which means that the flood of xmas/birthday gifts should be planned to arrive accordingly. to assist you in fulfilling your gift-giving duties, here’s my wish list for this year:
fresh sugar perfume. i’ve adored this perfume for years, but never actually bought it (usually because i have far too many already!) it smells just like its name, though – and for a sweet-tooth like me, can you think of anything more appropriate?
new sennheiser earphones. i’ve worn my pair every single day for the last two years (including running several times a week) and they have only just begun to fall apart. i love these suckers – they’re comfortable, sound good, are damn near indestructible, and very reasonably priced. my *only* gripe is that the white ones get very dirty looking. so if there’s a choice, i’m opting for black.
these are a slightly bigger ticket item, but i’m in desperate need of new running shoes. the edinburgh marathon comes up in the spring! i love my asics gel kayanos, and the newest model (15) has just come out. hideous looking (all running shoes are!), but oh so comfortable to run in. they’re going for £120 elsewhere, so £88 is actually quite a steal! (size 6uk, 8us please!)
also: i’ve been needing an external hard drive for ages. all my music and photos are maxing out my computer. god forbid anything should happen to it, i’d be lost!
and finally, i could really do with a new yoga mat. any old kind will do!
i hope everyone was taking notes. now i shall sit back and wait for the tidalwave to arrive through my postbox! 
so, i screwed up my courage and changed after all.
i’ve changed webhosts, domains, and significantly upgraded my wordpress installation. if your old bookmarks are pointing to the old address (www.jnoelbell.me.uk) you will have found yourself redirected to the new address (www.jensdenofiniquity.com) and voila! at some point i’ll be taking the redirect off, so be sure to update. the feeds should all have updated, so you shouldn’t need to change anything there.
i’m hoping that for the most part it look pretty seamless. i thought about running them in parallel for a while, but you have to take the training wheels off sometime. there are a few things which are not yet upgraded (my old worldtour blog, and my photos, which i’ll prolly be re-doing yet again), and the old links still point there.
please let me know if you come across anything wonky.
every couple of days, jonno will be playing with the cat, and will turn to me and say, “we should save the airfare, and just put little zekey on a raft with ‘vancouver or bust’ on it.”
or we’ll be lying in bed drowsing, and he’ll say, “just think – when we get to vancouver, we’ll be able to go snowboarding every weekend, and get a dog to run around in the snow with.”
he’ll occasionally look at house listings in the area. when we were there in february, we were scouting out possible locations for where we might like to live.
we’ve been gathering what we need to apply to canada. birth certificates. money. transcripts. work documents. i postponed school. we were going to send the application in january.
we’ve planned on this for 5 years. apply to immigrate as a skilled worker (based on my work experience), giving us permanent residency straight away. i could apply to school when i got there. we could buy a house.
and then this evening, i got an email. pointing me to this news update put out yesterday:
Minister Kenney also announced another step in measures to improve the immigration program’s responsiveness to Canada’s labour market. Retroactive to February 27, 2008, the date specified by the Federal Budget, the Action Plan for Faster Immigration includes issuing instructions to visa officers reviewing new federal skilled worker applications to process those from candidates who:
* are in 38 high-demand occupations such as health, skilled trades, finance and resource extraction; or
* have an offer of arranged employment or have already been living legally in Canada for one year as a temporary foreign worker or international student.The list of 38 occupations was developed after consultations with the provinces and territories, business, labour and other stakeholders. New federal skilled worker applications that do not meet the eligibility criteria outlined above will not be processed, and the application fee will be fully refunded. This, along with funds set aside in the 2008 Budget to improve the immigration system, will stop the backlog from growing and will start to draw it down.
my occupation is not on that list.
effectively, that means that our little plan of moving in 2 years time, has just been popped. the one escape route that i’ve been holding fast to in my heart, is no more.
my dream just died tonight. though to all outward appearances nothing has changed, my whole future has just been turned upside-down. the air has been sucked right out of the room, and there’s a hot ache in my chest that won’t go away.
jonno keep saying we’ll figure something out. i’m glad he has faith, since i don’t.
i wanted this so bad. i put all my hope in it. and right now, i just can’t see any light through the tears.
so as part of the ongoing credit crunch, my webhost has decided to stop hosting. shortly.
i’ve never been thrilled with their service, but the idea of migrating both my websites and all my photos makes my head hurt.
i would happily pay someone to do it for me. anyone? anyone? i’m totally serious – if you know anyone who might be susceptible to the lure of cash, *please* let me know.
The austere sun descends above the fen,
an orange cyclops-eye, scorning to look
longer on this landscape of chagrin;
feathered dark in thought, I stalk like a rook,
brooding as the winter night comes on.
from “winter landscape with rooks”, sylvia plath
hearing someone use the term “coloured” during an equalities and diversity training.
tomorrow evening we’re off to see strung out at the underworld. should be a really good show.
and then friday i’m off for a visit to the states! just in time to see my niece in her halloween outfit, and to hopefully witness history being made.
blogging may be light for the next two weeks.
in the meantime, i leave you with a few particularly apropos strung out tracks.
strung out – your worst mistake
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i requested my absentee ballot a while ago, but had been waiting, waiting, waiting for it to arrive. i heard through the grapevine that massachusetts was late sending out their absentee ballots, and that if we didn’t receive them by the second week of october, to use the federal write in absentee ballot to ensure it got sent in in time to be counted.
so i was waiting, waiting, waiting. then, i ended up unexpectedly booking a trip home for the first week in november. fantastic, i thought – i’ll just vote while i’m home! someone told me to double check the rules, luckily, and in doing so i discovered that because i am no longer a resident of the u.s., i can only vote by absentee ballot. bah.
then, this tuesday, just as i was getting ready to use the write in option, my ballot finally arrived. i carefully marked my selection, took it down to the post office the next day, had it weighed, and got an airmail stamp. i noticed that the envelope, despite having the address in big bold letters written across 80% of the surface, did not specify “u.s.a.”, so i took out a marker and added that, circling it. then i posted it. hooray!
today, as i was cleaning, the postman arrived. what should slide through my letterbox onto the hallway carpet? that’s right, my ballot. ignoring the big bold address and giant circled “u.s.a.” and airmail sticker, the postman had instead decided to use the teen-tiny pre-printed return address label in the upper left corner. yes, i went through all that trouble and paid £1.22 to post a presidential ballot to myself.
now, i know that the u.k. doesn’t generally use return addresses, but come on. and did i mention the big bold address and giant circled “u.s.a.”??! surely anybody with eyes could see where it was intended to go.
i was not best pleased, then, to have to spend my saturday morning queueing at the post office to mail my ballot *again*. let’s hope it actually makes it there this time.
all i have to say is the outcome better be worth it.
i know blogging has been pretty light the past month – suffice it to say, real life has been very busy. all in good ways (lots of work, a semblance of actual social life, running, yoga, french classes), but it’s keeping me very busy and (gasp!) limiting my time in front of the computer.
after my race next week, things should lighten up a bit, and hopefully i can get back into the (more relaxed) swing of things. there’s so much to say, and so little time! the sox are in the playoffs, the pats are probably out of the running, the economy is tanking, we’re getting together our canada application, and biden is going to kick some serious palin ass tonight.
until then, here’s a lame-ass apology. i’m sorry.
trying to learn a language at nearly 36 is a lesson in humility.
a) i know a teeny-tiny bit of french already (one year in high school and some osmosis in montreal)
b) it gets well and truly muddled up with my spanish in my brain (bloody romance languages!!)
c) adult ed classes are not exactly aimed at geniuses (e.g. the woman who complained 5 minutes into the class that it was “too hard” as we were all repeating “je m’appelle…” like little french robots)
le sigh.
sometimes i really have to wonder how i make it through the day.
for my work i have to use an i.d. swipe card to get into and out of lots of doors. it’s handily put on a badge lanyard, but i can’t stand to wear i.d. around my neck like some kind of tagged animal, so i usually shove the card in my back pocket and let the lanyard dangle out for easy grabbing.
i also try to drink a lot of fluids at work, which means i have to pee a lot. the ladies’ room is through several sets of doors on the next floor down, which means i have to take my swipe card.
(you see where this is going, don’t you?)
and yes, it finally happened today – i ran to the ladies room, backed up to the toilet, pulled down my trousers, sat down…
… and managed to pee all over my lanyard, still hanging from my back trouser pocket, but the cord swinging gently inside the lip of the bowl.
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what a lovely way to start the day! get-well parcels from my sis and friend bethany in the post this morning! i feel better already.
so my “routine” surgery turned out to be a little less than routine.
the surgery itself went fine friday morning, and all the doctors and nurses were really nice and very attentive and kind. unfortunately i had some really, really bad pain directly afterward. generally, i have a high pain threshold – but this was really bad, and involved moaning and crying. so bad that they considered admitting me. they gave me tons of morphine and it eventually subsided enough for me to go home… but not before the morphine made me puke all over the floor, bare-assed in front of all the other post-op patients. (i was still attached to the bed and machines, and there wasn’t any sort of container nearby, so i tried in deperation to get to the sink…embarassingly at the expense of any modesty.)
as this was a laparoscopic surgery, my stomach was rather sore and very bloated from the carbon dioxide they use, but i was able to get home and relax on the couch. uncomfortable, but otherwise fine.
unfortunately one of the lovely side effects of all that morphine was what they call “urinary retention”. in other words, i couldn’t pee… for more than 24 hours.
thus all saturday afternoon was spent at a & e, and involved humiliating rubber tubing.
all cleared up and sent home again to try to rest and recuperate.
sunday morning i woke up in the worst pain of my life. i seriously thought I might pass out from the pain. i was crawling on my hands and knees, sweating profusely, and crying.
as much as i hate the idea, must call an ambulance.
ambulance rings back. they’re going to be about an hour and suggest i take a taxi instead. i agree, so they cancel the ambulance.
i take several painkillers to see if I can work up the ability to stand and take a taxi, because at this point, i’m doubled up on the sofa unable to move.
as the painkillers kick in, i manage to fall asleep on the couch for about a half hour. i wake up and try to get up – *sweet jesus*, that’s not happening. i’m shaking and sweating and involuntarily screaming.
call ambulance again. they still have several “priority” calls. i take more painkillers. lay down on couch.
wait another hour. in meantime, i foolishly try to put clothes on… bad idea. unbearable. poor j is there completely unable to help, watching his wife scream on the floor. i take more painkillers. nothing makes it better – i feel completely out of control and terrified.
ambulance finally arrives. i can’t stand up, and am taken out by chair. in the tiny lift, where i have visions of getting trapped with the most horrific, searing pain of my life. they give me gas and air which is worse than useless, and only gives me the worst cottonmouth ever. every bump makes me scream, and they keep telling me to suck on the gas and air. my mouth is stuck together, and i’m hyperventilating because i feel like i can’t breathe. the blood pressure cuff keeps inflating and making my arm go numb. i’m trembling so much that they try to put a blanket over me, but i’m insanely hot. we have to take the long route and still get stuck in traffic – eventually my desperate moans convince them to turn the sirens on. we live less than a mile from the hospital, but that was the longest mile in the world. on a pain scale of 1 – 10, that ambulance ride was a 10, and i literally thought i might die.
i am brought screaming into the a & e, saying, “please help me, please help me, please help me.” the a & e people are soooo nice. my blood pressure is extremely low, my heart rate way up, and i really think i’m going to die.
hallelujah, they give me some painkillers that work, and i start to relax my deathgrip on the bedrails. a few minutes later and i can uncurl from the foetal position. for the first time in five hours, i begin to think i just might survive.
they’re all very concerned, so they do blood tests and xrays and decide it’s just a bad infection. after several hours, more drugs of various sorts, i’m feeling about 1000 times better, so i’m sent home with antibiotics and painkillers.
i can walk, i can breathe, i can even take the tube home. i feel like dancing.
life, as it turns out, is pretty good.
and thank god for the NHS. huge drawback: having to wait an hour for an ambulance in excruciating pain.
but every single person was incredibly professional and attentive and genuinely concerned. the hospital was clean, people were efficient – the nurses who heard me come in screaming even came back to check on me. and they didn’t even charge me for the prescriptions because as they said, “you have enough to worry about right now.”
i was truly thankful that (once i got there) i got great care, and was feeling much better quite soon.
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i’ve been debating whether or not to even mention this here, but figured if something goes wrong and i don’t reappear in this space, at least 2 people will wonder what happened
i’m having surgery tomorrow. it’s a very small, very routine “keyhole” surgery, leaving me with only a few stitches and a plaster. by the end of the weekend, i shouldn’t even be sore.
i’ve been very lucky in my life – pretty much the most invasive thing that’s ever happened to me was having my wisdom teeth out (after which i didn’t even get any good drugs! by law, you should at least get a few hits of vicodin!) consequently, i hate hospitals, and i’m rather nervous about all this “going under” stuff – the idea of having a blank space in my mental record freaks me out just a little. but what i’m even more anxious about is what happens to all the gas they inflate your stomach with (in order to see, supposedly) – let’s just say that the aftermath of the surgery may be more painful for jonno than it is for me
and the fasting! i can’t eat anything after midnight tonight, and nothing but water tomorrow morning. now, i’m usually not in the habit of late-night snacking… but the idea that i *can’t* makes me want to pop round to the kebab shop at some insane hour for a doner and chips. and lets face it – jen without her morning coffee will make for a very grouchy pre-op patient. java withdrawal plus nervous jitters just seems like an ill-advised combo, if you ask me.
also: i have to remove my nail polish, contact lenses and *all body piercings*.
that could prove interesting.
they also advise bringing a dressing gown (!) and slippers. do people still own dressing gowns? i wasn’t even sure what that was until someone told me it’s a fancy name for bathrobe. needless to say, i don’t have one, and even if i did, i wouldn’t bring one to the hospital to wear in front of a bunch of strangers.
so if you see some poor shlub wearing sweats, no makeup, glasses, random empty holes, shaking from caffeine delirium tremens and riding the northern line at 7am with a slightly panicked look on her face… that would be me.
see you all (hopefully!) on the other side 
sheryl crow – the first cut is the deepest (cat stevens cover)
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