Come on back to the war

[devi]

You know those bits in films where the story skips forward and there's an establishing shot showing something that indicates what time we're in now? Newspaper headlines. A pop song. Colour schemes. Jeans suddenly baggy or skinny, hair suddenly fouffy or 'fro. I had a moment like that this summer on the tube at West Ham. In front of me there was a row of people reading newspapers with the Olympics all over them, and some dubstep went 'wommmmm' on my headphones just as we passed a row of wind turbines. Look, it's 2012!

I am posting to LJ from underground, on my commute, with my tiny pocket computer. This morning feels a bit like that. I am wearing glasses. My jeans are indeed skinny. I am listening to an old ultraruby mix (British Summertime). My hair is the same as it ever was. Hello world! It's been a weird couple of years. How were yours?

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Comments

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Our year? Exiled from Leytonstone in June by rapacious landlords, ewtikins and I will shortly be returning to the bosom of the Enleytonment.

Or the lower lumbar spine of it, nearer to Leytonstone High Road than to Leytonstone Tube.

I gather that you are somewhere in E11 too?

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Close - near Leyton tube. Pint in the Red Lion some time?

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

Hello! My last couple of years have been all angst and spreadsheets in South London. I haven't got the hang of smartphones yet, or silent discos, but I have finally understood leggings.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Bah to angst and spreadsheets! In my experience they tend to make each other worse.

(Leggings are brilliant, though)

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

My last few years have also been weird but also FANTASTIC. It is lovely to see you back! x

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

There's been a great deal of FANTASTIC in mine too, actually. Possibly the hardest and also best years of my life to date. And thank you! *heads on over to your journal*

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Composed mostly of adventures in the past, be it literary (17th-18th and 19th century), historical (Renaissance-Napoleonic, Napoleonic-modern), fictional (campaign set ten thousand years before Spellbound) or anachronistic (back in the SCA).

Also, I wear ties and sleeveless cardigans now. Ties and sleeveless cardigans are cool.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I can picture that on you, actually. How is your course going?

[shewho.livejournal.com]

hello there! how the devil are you?

(fancy planet angel on friday? ;) )

my year has mainly been composed of trumpets and wine.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Hmph, for once I am not going to Angel, because Saturday is full of things. Namely Cory Doctorow and the Levellers. (not on stage together) (that would be bizarre)

Are you playing trumpet anywhere I can see you in the future?

[venta.livejournal.com]

My last few years mostly involved changing cities (from Oxford to London). Except I live in Ealing and commute out to Reading every day, so it doesn't really feel like real London. Of late I've barely been going into central London - probably less than when I lived in Oxford - and I feel I need to sort that out. London is full of all the things and I should visit them.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Aha, yes, I recognise that one. I did a lot more Londony things when I was coming down from Oxford about once a month than I do now.

Is that a knackering commute? Do you have to go east to get on the London-Reading train or can you pick it up on the way?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

This year has been a bit up and down I guess, but the ups have been lovely. I've got more seriously into board game design, which I'd not more than tinkered with before. And met some excellent new people. And set and run my first pub quiz(zes). And other such fun things!
Not much music though, that's definitely been lacking. Not been to any gigs apart from local bands this year. Need to fix that!

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

2013 should be the Year of More Live Music. What are your local bands like?

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I have been made redundant from a job where I thought was nice and cosy (boo), become a published author of furry fiction (yay), and moved from Bromley to Forest Hill (which has elements of both boo and yay about it).

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I read and enjoyed the furry fiction! (I came to see how you were doing when you filled in my poll a while back.) Are you doing more? Sorry to hear about the job :(

[shermarama]

Mostly in the last couple of years I have moved to the Netherlands and started working as an actual proper engineer, which is great, but the Netherlands tends to defeat the time-establishing shots. The pop songs on the radio are either from the 80s (so much Phil Collins) or sound like it, while the rows of wind turbines are years old already. Last week the new passenger tunnel opened in Rotterdam station, and the express-type supermarket in it has the first self-service tills I've ever seen here; Dutch people are mostly still eyeing them warily and then queueing for the normal tills, while I just go ahead and use them and try and work out when they started appearing in the UK. 2006, maybe? Before or after I moved to London? A good few years ago, anyway.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

I think they've been more common over the last few years actually, or maybe it's just that I'm using big supermarkets more regularly.

[Edited because I had forgotten that things can't be more or less ubiquitous]

[cosmolinguist]

I got a job! It's perfect for me. I could not ask for better.

I've spent the last couple of months starting to pay back the smallest part of all the drinks people bought me and the favors they did for me while I was skint. Working part-time, I'm still not flush with cash, but it does feel like that in comparison.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Delighted to hear it. I am also in a Decent Job, and no longer a starving freelance. I still half expect my company to forget to pay me for eight or nine weeks, the way my old clients used to.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

I've been making jewellery, fighting the DWP, watching a lot of red kites and falling more & more in love with paper and ultramarine.

My hair, also, is the same as it ever was!

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Kick their arses for me. Also, ultramarine+++++

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Hah, I was just saying on Monday that I'd be bringing the greetings of the internet to you on Sunday - I'll just bring news of my year instead.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Trade you for feijoadas and possibly cake?

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Last two years? Difficult to summarise. It will probably be easier in another two years, once the passage of time has made clearer to me which bits matter.

Hopefully you'll be back before then, though!

[zenithed.livejournal.com]

Welcome to Space Year 2012.

Things are doing pretty well. Doing science by day and being a geek by night. Still living with Jo in Islington, but my girlfriend lives in Leytonstone so I end up there a couple of times a week.

I am wearing glasses and cycling now, so am probably subject to Hipster Creep (the early Radiohead single that only cool people would have heard of).

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Hipster Creep! Oh dear. My glasses are rather thick-rimmed and I love my bike, but I will never forsake it for a fixie because coasting is far too much fun.

Give me a shout if you're in Leytonstone and at a loose end?

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Woo! / Oww! / Woo (again, twice)! / Grrr!

What's your novel called? OMG NOVEL :D

[boxcat.livejournal.com]

Last 2 years:

* Wrote a book which is doing rather well.
* Started a company.
* Became an international superstar DJ rockstar programmer all-purpose technical gimp

My hair is not the same as it ever was. This is largely because I now have to interact with venture capitalists on a semi-regular basis. I see the inside of Heathrow Terminal 5 far, far too often.

Still, on balance, things are mostly pretty damn amazing, and I am kind of left wondering what I'm going to do if this all crashes and burns, because working for someone else again is more-or-less unconscionable by now.

[the-elyan.livejournal.com]

Oh, not bad, ta - ups, downs, quite a lot of boring bits in the middle.

Off to Venice tomorrow, so the next couple of years will at least start better, viewed from here.

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

Promoted, exhausted. And Nelson just won best book at the Comics Awards!

[haggisthesecond.livejournal.com]

Enjoying self-employment in the last couple of years, not enjoying some medical issues quite so much, but still happily living in our little flat on the river. Quite a dab hand at making soup, these days. Glad to see you posting again!

[nisaba.livejournal.com]

I appear to be living upside-down, as I moved back home to Australia last year. I'm missing autumn leaves and long summer nights and Guy Fawkes fireworks and friends, but otherwise I'm loving it. Still waiting impatiently for science to invent a teleporter though.

Great to see you back here.

[concourse.livejournal.com]

Married and living in a pretty cottage with two cats. Still working for OUP but my internal clock is ticking loudly. Part-time student, doing undergraduate Law with the Open University, just to use my brain a bit more. It does feel a bit out of the loop out here but life is pretty nice. Good to have you back online!

[juliet]

There was that whole baby thing. Although I have seen you at least once over the last couple of years so you're up to date with the new house & all that stuff.

I will say again: come visit! Or let us come visit :)

[triskellian]

I'm PhDing along. I'm now the world expert in how to get a boyfriend in the UK in 1964, and am gradually acquiring weapons and skills towards defeating the 'academic unemployment' big boss at the end of the level.

...And am surprised by that metaphor, which isn't one which I'd have expected from my own brain, being a non-computer-gamey person, but which seems deeply appropriate anyway.

Hi! Good to see you!

[eponymousarchon.livejournal.com]

Helllooo!

You have been missed, dammit!
Me? Still doing evil things to minons and miscellaneous students at the University and plotting feenish things. :)

[eponymousarchon.livejournal.com]

Speaking of feenish things: Spodmeet, next friday. Beee theeeere. ;)