this time last year i........

shit, things were kinda goood!

Put like that, I've had a great year.

Everything is more or less the same apart from that. Same lingering feeling that life hasn't quite taken off. Same optimism that good things are just around the corner.

... had shorter hair, probably only shoulder-length.
... was just starting to work at my current workplace.
... had both a mother and a father.
... was still the only driver in the household.
... had just become used to driving Dad to dialysis.
... was looking forward to some happy little routine.
... had never experienced the crushing blow of unrequited love before.
... was trying to be this super-independent person.
... had only female friends, most of whom I was trying to avoid.
... was probably at the same weight I am today.
... had just recovered from my lone bout with walking pneumonia.
... was still very bitter about all music press-type people.
... had just gotten into Ladytron, after hearing a lot about them.
... was still a fan of Duran Duran, Japan, David Sylvian, Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry... hell, pretty much everything I list as a musical love today.
... had more time to myself than I do today.
... was probably a little less interesting a person.

I was also thinking about how I was going to go on the anti-war march the next day, which I did with my friend Phil, and then went down to Blackheath and spent the evening in a Blackheath pub with lots of people I hadn't seen in years. Twelve months later I now live next door to that pub, which I hadn't forseen at the time. In fact, I was living with my parents and very much looking to get out of there, I had more money, I was thinner, fewer girls would admit to fancying me and I had just put Massimo Maccarone in my fantasy league team, which seemed like a good idea at the time. I was posting to ILX a lot less, and had fewer friends from the forum at the time.

On balance, I am much happier than I was then.

the wind whipples lazily through the esplanade, the violin player's been paid to leave our enchanted couple alone for a too-brief moment of respite and mutual wonder, and as her eyes well with a growing intimacy, their wine untouched, forgotten, and all the cares they thought they had melting like the sun into the sea, he gently touches her hand with a masculine assurance and whispers "Marlene Deitrich?"

-- Tracer Hand (tracerhan...), September 27th, 2002.

My longest post was a defence of Transformers

I had a bank balance in credit, a lot of good intentions (swimming forty lengths once a week in particular, which never even happened once), and no idea at all what the next year would hold. I still don't.

My joy at Teddy Sheringham scoring against Arsenal was tempered with despair at Chelsea putting four past Tottenham.

Me too. Sigh.

This time last year, I was miserable, depressed, borderline suicidal, bullied at work, drinking too much and generally being an arse. This year, I'm not.

I don't know if I'm happier now: I'm pretty much in limbo.