During 2019 we lost Tardar Sauce - the One and Only Grumpy Cat. We also mourn the passing of Peter Mayhew, the ONLY good thing about Blade Runner - Rutger Hauer, Toni Morrison, Godfrey Gao and Marie Fredriksson.
So what happened in my life during 2019? Well...
- I cut my hair again. Shorter than ever. Finally found a hairdresser that gets me.
- I saw Dylan Moran again together with my very best bestie.
- I bought 18 new books during the Big Book Sale... It's not a hoarding problem if the shelves don't buckle under the weight...
- I can happily inform you that Dara O'Briain is still hilarious.
- Had my backpiece finished with a brutal 6 hour(!!) sitting. (...and then an additional hour or so for more detail...)
- My ginger room-mate Sengir turned 7 years old.
- The White Buffalo was a great experience.
- I went to Berlin(!) to see Loreena McKennitt. Magical is what it was. AND she played my favourite song.
- The Medieval Week on Gotland!
- I turned 31 and had a party on Hobbit Day. It felt epic.
- Amanda FUCKING Palmer!!!
- A Halloween fancy dress party. I LOVE THIS STUFF.
- Hannah Gadsby was brilliant.
- My childhood favourite band Nordman was in town to celebrate the 25 years since they released their first album and I was there.
Ok, so 2019 has been a year of many firsts; of highs and lows. Coming into summer I felt like I had neglected myself by trying to survive a bad work place situation. I managed, by some miracle and a little help from my boss, to get myself away from that situation. Within weeks I had gone from absolutely no energy to energy to spare. And I had the rest of the year to enjoy it!
And did I enjoy it.
Top picks of 2019
Movies: I didn't have the same amount of time to spare to get myself to the cinema but the best experience of my cinema year was, hands down Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. I absolutely adored it. Other movies I enjoyed was The Favourite and On the Basis of Sex.
TV shows: I have so much love for The Umbrella Academy! Finally got a third and a fourth season of Queer Eye and I cried my damn eyes out (THE FEELS!). A new season of Killing Eve that won all of the awards well deserved. I was thrilled to discover Warrior. A last and final season of Elementary and how I'll miss it now that it's gone... Handmaid's Tale gave us a confusing and frustrating third season. Gentleman Jack was great. STRANGER THINGS, OH MAH GAWD.
Books: So many books (a total of 84), and I made even more of an effort to read books not written by men (37 this year). Autonomous by Annalee Newitz. The next novel in the Newflesh series by Mira Grant; Deadline. Sarah Gailey's American Hippo turned my insides into pink fluff and made me want a hippo ranch. The thrilling steampunk zombie air ship ride that is Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. Some oldies but goldies; Maskerade and The Last Continent by Sir Terry Pratchett. Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch, and I finally got my hands on the legendary short story collection I am Legend by Richard Matheson. Kindred by Octavia E. Butler made me more certain of how much I adore her writing. I would also highly recommend Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape - an anthology edited by Jaclyn Friedman.
Comics: Sunstone #6. MY HEART. MY FEELS. I've been recommended Southern Bastards on Goodreads so I gave it a go and actually enjoyed it - but I've been known to enjoy the 'Violent Old Bringer of Justice' before.
Events: Life expectancy has risen. Child poverty has gone gone. A man in London is the second person to ever be completely cleared of the HIV virus, once and for all proving that living with HIV is neither a death sentence nor incurable. Researchers have found a plastic-eating mushroom that is edible to humans; not only giving us the opportunity to get rid of our massive amounts of plastic garbage but also offering us a hopefully tasty food (with our normal human luck though this mushroom with develop immense intelligence from eating our garbage and kill us all, but heeeeeey! That sounds an awful lot like a problem far into the future). Researchers have also found a way to convert all blood types into the universal type O that all people can safely receive. YouTube has finally actually officially banned white supremacist content (lets not question why it was allowed to begin with...). Humpback whales have come back from the near brink of extinction! Globally, renewable energy sources make up around a third of our power capacity. Global suicide rates have dropped 38% (though trans youths are still four times more likely to attempt suicide than their cis counterparts - help protect our trans kids! Support them! Save them!).
Now's the part of the review when I tell the old year to fuck off and invite the new year, and decade, in with wishes for more hugs, love, sex and friendship.
Get your ass in here 2020 and join me in the fun.
Now's the part of the review when I tell the old year to fuck off and invite the new year, and decade, in with wishes for more hugs, love, sex and friendship.
Get your ass in here 2020 and join me in the fun.
