Flickers of life from down under
gryphonrose: Of course I'll read your magnificent novel! Also, we need to start working on BBC submissions.
Erm. I'm not quite prepared to do a review of 2008; I'm still disengaging myself from it, to be honest, and while some good things happened this past year, not so good things happened this past year, too, and I'm discovering I'm not quite ready to face those monsters yet.
Things I am doing for 2009: Going back on Atkins. For those of you who watched me do it the first time, you know that I was careful and made sure I wasn't damaging myself. For those of you who didn't, I was bloody careful and had a full check-up from my family doctor when I was about 2-3 months into it. It may not be right for everybody, but it is right for me. My aberrant internal chemistries calm the hell down; my resting heart rate drops by 10 BPM; my cholesterol and triglycerides fall to the basement--in a good way. My blood pressure becomes textbook perfect. And I feel a hell of a lot better: no brain-fogs, more energy, better sense of well-being.
I've stuck with it since 2 January, with a slight deviation to finish off some grapes I didn't want to have to throw out. I'm already feeling a difference.
Writing a radio play for the BBC. This'll be interesting; it's not a format I've written for before. And I have no idea what I'll write about. We'll see what emerges as time goes on; I'll post snippets here, if anyone's interested.
Learning to play drums. Yeah, you read that right. I had lots of fun with Rock Band (I was designated drummer), and I wanted to try out the real thing. Had my first lesson this evening; turns out I'm not so bad a beginner. I understand the basics of reading music, and learning the specifics of drum notation isn't all that hard, and I'm reasonably coordinated (hell, coordinated enough to perform complex martial arts forms with a live Japanese blade), and I can keep a rhythm. I got to bang around a real kit first time out, too, which is enormously fun and utterly addictive, especially when the sounds you make are reasonably music-like! Squee!
Practicing iaido. This one will have to wait a while. I gained a lot of weight in the latter half of 2008, and it's quite telling on my knees, which hurt like a mutha. Once the weight comes down south of 190 lbs., I'll probably be in good enough shape to begin the basics again, which I'm looking forward to. As a corollary: I will be attempting 1000 cuts before 15 January, which requires no kneeling, but does require about 45 minutes and a whole lot of stamina.
Calming the hell down. I amaze myself at just how over-sensitive and highly strung I am. I simultaneously thank you all for dealing with me and apologize for being spaztastically insane. I tend to panic far too close to the short term. I get very myopic. I'll probably be adopting some Buddhist practices to mitigate those things, as that seemed to help me in the past.
I'm sure there are other things I'll be tackling in the new year. One of them will be Immigration, which have been very silent over the past few months. Well, they did say they wouldn't get to my application before March.
I wish you all the very best and brightest of new years, and may this one be better than all that have come before.
Cheers!