2007 has been a funny old year.
I haven't blogged most of it, because I haven't really had the time to do more than send the odd thought out into the world, 140 characters at a time, via twitter.
In a sense it's been a year of change, of realignment, of readjustment, of rediscovery.
I've been doing new things, and not doing things I used to do, and some of that's good, but some of it I miss, and one of the things I really have missed is blogging, so in 2008, as one of my many resolutions, I want to find the time to blog more often.
For now though, I'm focusing on what matters most, which is spending time with the man I love, and keeping in touch with friends and family throughout the evening.
There's pink fizz in the fridge, cooling, and there'll be fireworks on the telly at midnight, and in a year of so much change, it seems only right that I end the year as I started it.
Happy New Year.
May 2008 bring good things, for all of us.
My relationship with computers is a funny one. I've had a computer, in some form or another, for over 20 years now, and built my first PC about 13 years ago now (wow, I feel old), and other than laptops, which are difficult to build oneself and my very first PC, I've built all my computers myself.
I don't mean put together the circuit boards themselves, but I'd very carefully stalk the various components I wanted, and when they were all arranged, put them together. Slowly, carefully, and usually with a lot of swearing, the odd skinned knuckle and argument with my dad about whether I was doing it right they'd metamorphosise from pile of parts to finished object, and with shaking hands and bated breath, I'd push the button and bring my creations to life (I hoped).
I liked it that way. I knew each and every part, what was likely to fail, and how to fix it if it did, without having to face being patronised by some spotty oik at PC World who assumed that breasts = not interested or knowledgeable about computers.
When I got my first laptop, I got really twitchy about it, because I hadn't built it, but the need to have something portable overcame my twitchiness, and so it went on, and gradually, I moved away from desktop machines to laptops, figuring that they were the way to go, and with a port replicator and external hard drives, that a desktop wasn't necessary any more.
I was also resolutely a PC girl. None of your fancy pants over-priced can't open it up and see the guts macness for me. Oh no. Not my thing. I'm too much of a control freak, and the operating system is weird anyway.
Then I saw a demo of the accessibility features of OS X Tiger a couple of years ago, and was completely and utterly blown away. Much to my utter horror. Then everyone I knew started to get macs rather than PCs, and I kept telling myself that I didn't want one.
Oh no, not for me. Blah blah blah.
So I'm still not sure what happened, but on Saturday evening, at around ten past six, I found myself in a state of high excitement, elbowing slow moving Christmas shoppers out of the way on Regent Street so I could get to the Apple Store faster, because, after the longest, slowest building seduction ever, I couldn't help myself any longer and half an hour later, I'd lost my Apple virginity and was the beaming owner of a shiny new mac mini, courtesy of my fabulous other half, who understands that sometimes, you just gotta scratch that itch.
In the interests of manners, I waited all through dinner, and an episode of something or other before the siren song overwhelmed me and I performed the unboxing.
I was most disappointed that when I finally opened the box, a choir of angels didn't pop out and sing the Hallelujah Chorus, such was the build up in my head.
Almost a week later, I'm still finding my feet and figuring which way is up but I can tell already - she's (for it is a she, undoubtedly) is a saucy little minx, taking everything I, in my inexperienced fumblings, throw at her, and accepting PC peripherals without a murmur of dissent.
It's a little too early to tell, but I think it might be love.
Everyone will have not just a driving licence, but a public transport licence.
Classes will be taken from early childhood in the correct way to behave on public transport, and anyone found breaching those rules will be given points on their licence, much in the same way points are awarded from breaches of the driving rules.
When a significant number (say, 12) points are gained on the licence, you lose it for a period (say, 2 days), during which point you are banned from using public transport, at which point the slate is wiped clean and you start over again. Kind of.
If you rack up more points, then the banned period increases second time around, and you are forced to go back to public transport class, to relearn the rules, before being allowed back on public transport.
Children will therefore be expected to:
Sit properly on seats.
Not kick other passengers.
Not loudly comment on other passengers.
Not spit, throw things, play loud music through their mobile phones without headphones or otherwise annoy other passengers.
Adults will be expected to do the same, with the following additions:
Not climb over other passengers if they are in the window seat, especially when everyone's getting off the bus anyway because it's the end of the line.
Not play the passive aggressive elbows game, attempting to get as much of the seat as possible, leaving the person with the aisle seat in serious danger of landed on their arse in the gangway.
When the bus stops at the end of the line, wait a damn minute until passengers have exited instead of going against the flow of traffic to collect a large suitcase from the luggage rack, when on arrival at said luggage rack, no room is available to remove said suitcase until everyone has exited the bus anyway.
Not eat fried chicken or any other smelly or messy food.
If male, not sit with legs akimbo. You do not have balls the size of melons.
Move bags immedately to ground level when boarding public transport, as opposed to keeping them at shoulder height to bash the faces of those lucky enough to get a seat. I know you're pissed off you didn't get a seat, but that's just the way it goes sometimes. Passive-aggressively injuring people with your possessions is not going to get you a seat any faster.
Apologise if, when things are particularly busy, you jostle, stand on, pull the hair of, or otherwise infringe the personal space of another passenger unintentionally.
Not stand blocking the door so people cannot enter or exit safely.
Wash, and wear deodorant.
Not stop dead immediately upon entering or exiting any form of public transport.
Not stop dead immediately on the stairs exiting any station. Your mobile phone messages are not that important. They can wait until you get clear of the stairs.
Move right down inside the fucking carriage, asshole. Other people have places to go and people to see too.
On the bus to Brixton this morning, I had a bit of a Moment.
Standing there, cramped and hanging on for dear life, I looked down to see two pushchairs, side by side.
Kid a was white and kid b was black, and as I watched, kid a reached over and took kid b's hand, and they smiled at each other.
"Aww", I thought. "Two kids, having fun, together, with no thought to the differences between them. Tis the season for peace on earth and goodwill to all men, after all, and why shouldn't it extend to the children. Maybe there's hope for us after all."
... and out of nowhere, Whitney Houston started singing in my head. You know how the song goes.
Then the needle scratched the record, cutting Whitney off in her prime as I realised that kid a wasn't just being friendly. He was using kid b's hand to try and make him punch himself in the face, and when that didn't work, he instead slammed it repeatedly against the buggy tray, and when that didn't work, stood up and tried to smack him over the head and poke at his (very short) afro hair, which made kid b quite confused, then uncomfortable, then a bit scared.
As kid a looked to his mother for approval and kid b looked to his mother for help, both mothers continued staring out the window, lost to the commuter daze, and the cute christmas hope-for-all blog post that was being composed in my head as I watched took a rather darker, less inspirational turn.
Cliches aside, last week was just one of those weeks.
I'll give you a couple of examples:
After carefully checking that my mp3 player had battery power left, as soon as I tried to play it, it decided it was only kidding the time before, and flatly refused to play, pleading "Low Battery!", as if that's any excuse.
Then, as soon as I decided to get my hair cut, after a full year of not having it cut, my body put a stop to me feeling too smug about how good my new hair looked, by deciding to grow another head - or three - on my chin.
Which would have been fine, if the only thing I had to do last week was go to work, and spend the rest of my time hibernating until Mts Vesuvius, Fuji and St Helens saw fit to blow their tops and go, except it wasn't that easy.
Last week, I was invited to, and attended part of, the Yahoo Web Developer Summit, a three day workshop for web dev staff, plus special invited guests. Once again, if all I'd had to do was attend, that would have been fine, but oh no, I'd managed to sabotage myself there too, by being the only person foolish enough to answer "Yes", when asked if I'd like to do a talk.
I actually love talking (as anyone who's ever met me can testify), and I especially enjoy talking to people about web accessibility, even though I always get a little nervous. This time though, it was almost the dictionary definition of "preaching to the choir", as the Yahoo web dev team is made up of some of the best people working in webstuff at the moment.
So there I was, all psyched up and ready to go, but with the worlds biggest spot mountain range on my chin. Doh. When asked if I minded it being video'd, I really didn't think I could say no because my chin had decided it was 15, not 31.
Which is why I haven't posted a picture of the new hair yet. No matter what I do, this thing is just not going away, and photoshop can only do so much.
There was one bright point though - I must have caught Murphy on his lunch break, because instead of it being a week earlier, when my hair was a mess and I felt like a frump - when I randomly passed my Ex while walking into a building, it was when I had good hair, make-up, flattering clothes and fabulous shoes on, and that really doesn't happen often.
The time has come.
I've been letting my hair have a bit of a rest, after several years of abusing it with hair dye, and so it's been left to grow (more by accident/laziness than design, truth be told) for the last year, and as a result, it now reaches halfway down my back.
Which is nice, because I've got lots of lovely long hair to swish around, and not so nice, because it takes ages to dry, gets caught under my arms, tangled in everything and is so heavy it flattens to my head making me look unfortunately like Nana Mouskouri on a bad day when I wear it down, and so I tend not to, scraping it back into a severe (and, if I'm honest rather unflattering) bun at the back of my head.
So in a few minutes, I'm off to throw myself at the mercy of the stylist in the salon around the corner from work, with no real idea of what I want, other than shorter, and less like a 70s hippy.
This could get messy.
Tomorrow: hair-dye, and whether I should stay my natural hair colour, or go for something a little bit more interesting.
... the online home and (not very) alter(ed)-ego of Ann McMeekin, a recently freelance Web Accessibility Consultant.
... passionate about many things, most of which will turn up on this site at some time or other.
... contactable via email.
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