The New Year

I thought I'd pause the vacation posts a moment to share some thoughts about the last year. A few things before I get started... There are three emotions I despise more than anything. Here they are in this order: 1. Boredom 2. Awkwardness 3. Poverty. Yes, it is a feeling.

Things that do not bore me:
* being a tourist in any city
* drinking wine with, well, anyone

just love old-chum.com

* watching the kind of movie you can watch over and over again and never get sick of it. You know the kind...Ferris Bueller, Goodfellas, Beaches, Wedding Crashers, Old School, Vanilla Sky, Great Expectations
* admitting something for the first time to someone you don't know all that well and feeling as though sixty pounds has been lifted from your shoulders
* finding new music and playing the sh*t out of it (or replaying an old favourite like Redemption Song for, like, two hours. Yeah, I'm that person)
* talking to my friends for hours
* cooking
* teaching (might not be my favourite recreational activity, but it most certainly has never bored me)
* the following activities in bed: reading, watching tv, writing, daydreaming
* sitting in front of a fireplace (like this one from old-chum.com)

I like the resolution I made last year:
don't resolve, just do.

I did do.

2010 was FULL of monumental events. I traveled to Thailand, New York City, Austria, and Germany. I lived on three continents. I came to grips with life with, and consequently, without, the Ghost.

Fairly certain I got this from theyearwas91, but can't be entirely sure. Sorry :(

I have a job that makes me happy, keeps me entertained, and challenges the living daylights out of me. I live in a big, warm house in a town full of kind people. My best friend is doubling the size of her family in a few months, coming to see me in February, taking folic acid, and nesting in her own house (there are four of them after all). Life is working itself out, as it always does.

Planning our trip to Spain is well underway. I have flights booked to Pisa to visit with Mum and Doug, then to Malaga to meet with Nathan, then back home from Barcelona.

Sheila brought us a TV to have for the year. A proper flat screen tv too...that also plays DVDs. This place has been nothing but abundance.

Resolutions for the year?
Don't we all have some?
Aside from the standard of keeping
wheat, dairy, sugar, and alcohol at bay,
(you know, all the things that taste sooo good)
I resolve to DO.
Go, ask, tell, smile, laugh,
calm down, hype up,
live.

I'll get back to the vacay posts. We only have a few left. Thought I'd share some movies I've watched recently in case you were curious. Black Swan was supposed to be great. It wasn't: it was aggressive instead. Not sure what else to say about it, aside from the fact that Natalie Portman looks amazing that thin. I hate that it's true, but there you have it.

Since Love and Other Drugs was a remake of the most ridiculously cheesy, predictable, bad movie of all time, Sweet November, I naturally hated it. What a let-down. I really didn't expect a Keanu Reeves-inspired cop-out by Jake Gyllenhaal.

Then True Grit was a HOOT. It was slow and not exactly action-packed (a typical do-my-laundry-and-pause-this-film-many-a-time-such-that-it-takes-four-hours-to-play-till-the-end type of film), 14-year old Hailee Steinfeld who plays the female lead was mind-boggling. Thanks for the suggestion, Mum.

127 Hours ended the London Film Festival in October with a bang. Allegedly. I couldn't get tickets :( It was sheer gruesomeness, but lordy, what an adrenaline rush. I couldn't sleep after I watched it.

I just hope Blue Valentine lives up to its rave reviews. Ryan Gosling usually does not disappoint.

I also hope your day,
your new year,
your life
is going as smoothly,
working out as well,
feeling as natural
as mine feels today.