(no subject)

[camrogers]

1. What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?
- Traveled broadly.
- Met my agent.
- Met a whole bunch of people I've known for years but never met.
- Climbed a glacier.
- Saw snow.
- Witnessed the whole 'midnight sun' thing.
- Earned the right to call myself a freelance journalist and photographer.
- Got offered a two-book deal.
- Got serious about a lot of things.
- Saw Peter Murphy play live, ten feet from me.
- Feel that I made things right with someone I wronged a long time ago.
- Saw the 4th of July fireworks in New York.
- Tasted black pudding and proper English cider.
- Fulfilled an ambition to give a publishing break to someone who deserves it.
- Attended the Edinburgh Comedy Festival.
- Stood naked before the raw code of who I am and came away perky.
- Got closer to my family.  That is a first, actually.
- Met my niece for the first time.
- Visited Graceland.
- Ate grits.
- Rode, and got familiar with, the New York subway.  I frickin' love the New York subway.
- Somehow there are four intelligent women interested in me simultaneously.  And I don't know what to do with that.  Really digging just making stuff happen right now.
- Got closer to people whom I never, ever would have expected to get closer to.
- Was able to be there for friends the way they've been there for me.
- Saw my first whale, off the coast of Reykjavik.
- Got my first dose of spa culture.
- Was given an appreciation for blues.
- Learned time and again that the world really is a very small place, and that everyone knows everyone.
- Got to watch Eurovision in a flat, with locals, in the country that won.
- Ate reindeer, boar, elk and bear.
- Had the best, most laughter-filled and soul-nourishing meal of my life.
- Got tattooed.
- Visited the Met.
- Had a moment on a Harlem street, on a hot summer day, that'll stay with me for a long time.
- Learned that it's possible to fry pretty much anything and make it good.
- Had someone pull a loaded Derringer out of their pocket, right in front of me.  First time I'd met an armed person not on a rural property.
- Saw kudzu.
- Visited Sun Studio.
- Accepted a few facts about my own mortality.
- Visited the Louvre.
- Couchsurfed.
- Walked toward the Arc de Triomphe at dawn.
- Went to Wave Gotik Treffen.
- Saw more bands this year than I've probably seen ever. 
- Tried proper Berlin currywurst.
- Managed to get by speaking the language in a foreign country.
- Crossed the Baltic.
- Saw the Long Man of Wilmington.
- Watched the fireworks over Edinburgh Castle from my friend's kitchen window.
- Got to follow my feet pretty much anywhere I went.
- On a sunny day in Paris I actually saw a beautiful woman in a floral dress cycle past, whistling.
- Slept in the attic of a Victorian-era workhouse for women, overlooking a medieval graveyard.  Rumour has it the same graveyard that inspired Gaiman's The Graveyard Book.  (This was also cavalorn and lucybond's house.)
- Got to play Little Big Planet with cavalorn in aforementioned house.
- Went to my first ball game. At Coney Island, no less.


2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
No resolutions made.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
qamar

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Not this year.  But annamaryse passed away, and that really kicked.  I'd never met her, but I admired her, and had always hoped we'd meet someday.

5. What countries did you visit?
Britain, Scotland, France, Germany, Finland, Iceland, USA, Qatar, Estonia.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
Decent income from writing.  Career focus.  Quality over quantity when it comes to people.  Peace.  Better sleep.  Greater fitness.  A break in the paramedic angle.  A grant.  More time with my family.  Maybe a relationship - still not sure about that one. 

7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
The date I left, the date I got back. 

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting overseas and subsidising it by selling articles about the places I visited.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not sure.  I would have liked to have proven to myself that I was capable of holding down that crappy job, but in my defense I think I needed a long break by that point.  Definitely wasn't firing on anything close to all cylinders.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Pulled a muscle in my wrist hefting my pack for the second-last time.  Still giving me grief, but not as bad.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Tickets.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Just about frickin' everybody.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
I'm pretty sure they know who they are.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Travel. 

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
See my answers to the first question.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010?
Anything by the Felice Brothers.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier.
ii. thinner or fatter? Thinner.
iii. richer or poorer? Poorer, I think.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Actual getting to know people. It always felt like I was flying out once we started getting a groove going. I averaged 2-3 weeks in a given location but wish I'd had more time to 'live' in those places.  And I wish I'd made it to Glencoe.  And Cairo.  And more writing.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Stressing. Definitely. And procrastinating.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
In Cooktown with my family.

21a. What LJ users did you meet for the first time?
cavalorn, lucybond, valkyriekaren, ed_dirt, kalinichta, rufus.

22. Did you fall in love in 2010?
I deeply suspect I could have if circumstance, illness and geography hadn't intersected.  Better I didn't, in hindsight, but nice to know it was there.

23. How many one-night stands?
One.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Drawing a blank.  Generation Kill was pretty good.  United States of Tara is pretty good, if a little uncomfortable.  Got a new appreciation for Doctor Who.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No.

26. What was the best book you read?
Dan Abnett is a mighty fine writer.  Regardless of what you may think of what he writes, he is the most gifted crafter of powerfully effortless eyeball-kicks I've read in a long time.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Felice Brothers. 

28. What did you want and get?
Travel, where I wanted, how I wanted, with whom I wanted - and I kinda got paid for it.

29. What did you want and not get?
Answers.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Drawing a blank.  I know I know this.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Don't recall.  I think it was a workday and I just laid low, saving cash, as I was leaving in a few days.  Did have that party at Gertrude's a day or so after, though.

32.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Truth.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
Utilitarian hot.

34. What kept you sane?
Me.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Not sure I had this.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Wikileaks/Julian Assange.

37. Who did you miss?
I found myself missing someone who never existed.  And I miss all those people who are too far away.  If ever I had a reason to get wealthy, it's airfare.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
There is no single best new person.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.
Way too long an answer.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Home on the Range, being sung in Suomi.