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?

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Good idea!

[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

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

I don't think I would get by without finding something to angst about, and I've learned to quite like spreadsheets, so it's all OK really!

[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.

[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]

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*

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

My current work project is basically fighting future angst (huge project trainwrecks further down the line, people getting eviscerated by my pitbull sort-of-boss) with a 1,500-line spreadsheet, so I can understand that.

[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?

[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!

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

At present, pretty good; I'm on schedule and doing fine with the essays and such, and interested in the course material, which always helps. Although I'm thinking of getting a time machine so I can go back and teach Milton a skill called 'brevity'.

Ask me again when the results of the first assignment come back in January, of course.

[shewho.livejournal.com]

boooooooooooo! (i have things to do on saturday too but can't really turn down my little brother's brithday!)

next scheduled gigs:
windmill, 8th december with keith totp (probably several other bands on but i don't entirely know)
buffalo bars, 12th december with thee faction, steve white & the protest family, eight rounds rapid, and, er francis wheen. should be fun!

[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).

[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.

[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]

That's like a Jasper Fforde book in waiting. Imagine the abject gratitude of thousands of Inter Cert students.

(I'm sure the results will be great)

[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!

[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]

[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.

[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!