New Year’s Eve

And here we are again, on the cusp of another new year and the end of the old. For me personally, 2011 has been momentous, challenging, crazy, wonderful, strange, and a whole host of other adjectives. This year, I turned 25 – a quarter-century! – and moved from Australia to Scotland. My second book was released. I made new friends, started new projects, worked new jobs in a new country, discovered cooking, threw a surprise birthday party for my husband, traveled to France and Germany, read over 150 books, got involved with the local Feminist Society, blogged a lot, took masses of photos and drank an extraordinary amount of cider. Without wanting to sound twee, it’s been a year when I’ve not only grown up a lot, but noticed myself growing, and in some instances consciously orchestrated the growth, as opposed to having random maturation thrust upon me by the eddying whims of adulthood. After so much blundering about, it does feel a little as though I’ve got myself together this year, or have, more specifically, got myself into a position from which next year can be confidently tackled – which, frankly, is a relief, because as the process has inevitably involved a certain amount of floundering, doubt and despair, it’s nice to have something to show for it, however hypothetically.

Politically and environmentally, though, the world has been in turmoil. It’s far from inaccurate to describe 2011 as a year of revolution: beginning with the myriad uprisings and calls for social justice known collectively as the Arab Spring, we’ve had rioting in the United Kingdom and the worldwide spread of the Occupy movement. There have been devastating earthquakes in New Zealand – the latest happening just this week – tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Japan, global financial instability, and the horrific rampage of Anders Breivik in Norway. At the level of society, 2011 has marked the passing of Steve Jobs, Anne McCaffrey and Amy Winehouse, among others – figures whose deaths have had an impact on both our landscapes cultural and emotional landscapes. Even if it hadn’t already been notable as the first year of a new decade, 2011 has made its mark on history.

There are lots of reasons, then, to look forward to 2012 – social progress; political redemption; a fresh start; ongoing hopes for self-improvement; the challenge of unknown horizons; the simple satisfaction of peeling the first, crisp page off a new desk calendar. I have Ambitions, internets, and come tomorrow, I’d very much like to share them with you. But until then, I shall round out the year by sharing with you this picture of my husband dressed as a Doctor Who/Dalek hybrid. Because I can.

Happy new year!

Right At Home

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I have a shoddy neck. And back. And shoulders. Basically the whole spine region is sort of borked. Partly this is a genetic thing: my mother has many of the same problems I do. Injury has exacerbated them. For instance: I spent the last few years of high school carrying a heavy bag for prolonged periods of time. By heavy, I mean I once weighed it on a good day and it hit ten kilos. And by prolonged periods of time, I mean I walked an average of eight kilometers every school week for three years between my house, school and various train stations while lugging it around. It wasn’t a backpack, either: it was shaped like a gym bag. There was literally no other way to carry it than on one shoulder, usually my right. The practical upshot of this is that nearly ten years later, my shoulders make a sound like marbles grinding together if I so much as roll them. Other people can hear this noise if they stand near me. Sometimes they can hear it from across the room, if there’s no music playing. Then there was the time I slipped while working as a waitress, landed square on my hip and wrenched my whole back out for a week and a half. Ever since then, I’ll sometimes feel as though my hip has popped out of the socket, which means I suddenly start limping while my back twists. It always goes away after ten minutes or so, but it’s a little disconcerting when it happens. Every couple of days, I get vile tension headaches and a pounding pain over my left eye that feels like someone’s using a nailgun on me. I once kronked my neck so badly that I spent three days in a stupor, having been prescribed a cocktail of codeine, Panadine Forte and valium, during which time I could barely move. And so on.

These problems first became apparent when I was ten or eleven. I’d wake up in the morning with a ripping pain in my neck, unable to turn my head to the side. At first, I’d spend the day at home with a hot pack wrapped over the affected area and moving like Lurch in the Adams Family. After about the fourth time this happened, my parents realised I wasn’t just having a run of bad luck and took me to get it checked out. I was too young to really remember what the doctor said, but came away with the vague knowledge that my neck was crap, and that I needed a special pillow to help me sleep without hurting it. The pillow was expensive, smooshy and filled with goosedown, and as soon as I started using it, I felt better – or at least, I stopped waking up every second day in pain. Over the years, various people have suggested that I see a physiotherapist to see what’s changed since then. This is sound advice that I’ve never followed, primarily because physio is expensive, but also because, day to day, the situation is manageable. Lots of people have worse problems. I can cope. And a large part of that coping is my special pillow.

We bought it when I was, at most, eleven. I am now twenty-five. That means I’ve been sleeping with the same pillow almost every night for more than half my life. It has grown up with me, molding to fit the shape of my head. It is the most comfortable pillow I have ever used. It has accompanied me on innumerable sleepovers, holidays, school camps and weekends away. It came with me to college. But when we visited the UK in 2009 – and when we moved back here in January – it stayed behind. Or rather, it stayed in storage. For the past few months, it has been, along with all our other possessions, in transit, awaiting the day we finally found a place of our own and could take it home again. In the interim, I’ve had to use the cruddy pillows they give you as part of student accommodation. I have woken up most mornings with a sore neck, despite having spent upwards of ten minutes each night scrunching, twisting and rearranging the damn thing so as to try and make it comfortable.

We signed a lease on Sunday. The house is furnished, so we moved right in, but though it was an undeniable step up from where we’d been, it still didn’t feel like home.

Yesterday, we got up a little after 6am, caught the bus to Dundee, rented a van and moved all our thing into the new house. It was glorious. It was brilliant. All the creature comforts we’ve been living without were restored to us in one fell swoop. I spent the whole day unpacking, storing away all our things, most of which were books (well, mostly my books, if I’m honest) in neat little storage spaces.

Last night, for the first time in months, I slept with my special pillow. Though all my muscles hurt from a day of hard work, my neck is fine and free. We’ve really done it. We’ve really moved to Scotland.

And suddenly, I feel right at home.

 

News!

So, I have this whole half-written blog about the internet scuffling over steampunk this week that I want to post, but right now, I just don’t have the energy to finish it, because in less than two months, Toby and I will be moving from Melbourne, Australia to St Andrew’s, Scotland, where he has accepted a job. So, huzzah! But also exhaustion. Because two months is not a particularly long amount of time, and there are a hojillion billion things which must be done before then. The most significant of these involves teh visas, acquisition of which is guaranteed to break the human spirit faster than a crash course in waterboarding. Also, selling our unwanted possessions on eBay, figuring out what to do with our cats (who will eventually be coming with us, once the 6 months it takes to get them pet passports are up), buying airline tickets, looking at accommodation, getting those things we do want to keep freighted over, attending my sister-in-law’s engagement party, travelling to Sydney for an early Christmas and my mother’s 60th birthday, dealing with the next round of edits for The Key to Starveldt, finishing up my job and ending our lease, to say nothing of the fact that, prior to learning Toby had got the job, I signed up for NaNoWriMo.

So, a bit busy, then.

Having only found out about the job a week ago, it’s taken until now for the full reality of it to sink in. We’ve been running around organising things, telling people and trying to figure out what to do next, with the result that only today did it actually hit us that we are moving to Scotland. This resulted, not unappreciably, in a form of localised collapse, viz: multiple naps, a trip to Max Brenner’s for chocolate frappes, the renting of the new Sherlock Holmes movie (because action films starring Robert Downey Jnr are soothing unto my soul and, yea, also pleasant to look upon), and a world-first decision not to attend a friend’s karaoke party on the grounds of exhaustion.

By way of properly comprehending the import of this last, know that I will happily walk over poisonous snakes and swallow hot glass if it means I get to sing Kiss By A Rose in front of other people, many of them strangers. Because I love me some karaoke.

So, yes. Busy! But just for tonight, we will revel in a glorious state of pretend un-busyness. With Nicoise salad.

Solace Mentions

Tomorrow, Toby and I start moving into our new apartment. The preparations necessary to facilitate this happy event have made this quite a big week, but we are both extremely excited. Not only will we have our own space again, but after nearly eight months of separation, we will be reunited with our cats. Huzzah!

In celebration, therefore, here are a few new Solace-related links:

– Two reviews, one by Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus, and another by Donna, a teenage reader;

– A redux of the Sydney launch I somehow missed the first time around, courtesy of Kat at BookThingo, which wins bonus points for featuring actual photographic evidence of my encounter with Scott Westerfeld;

– A detailed interview with the wonderful Tania McCartney; and

– A pair of blogging appearances: one with Fragments of Life, wherein I expostulate on writing advice, and the other with William Kostakis, on the joys of being published.

Also, as of this moment, Solace & Grief has now been available for just over a month. Which staggers me, in a thrillish sort of way. Happy Thursday, everyone! Whee!

Moving On

Tomorrow, my husband and I will leave the house we’ve lived in for nearly four years, ever since we first moved to Melbourne. With the exception of the few clothes, books and things we’ll be taking with us to the UK, everything we own is in boxes, ready to go into storage for the next six months. Our bookshelves are bare, the daybed is stacked on its side, and thanks to Toby’s overzealous packing of the kitchen utensils, we’ve been living on tinned soup, frozen pizza and takeaway for the better part of a week. The cats have been in Bowral for nearly a fortnight. I find myself lying awake in bed, staring at the shadow-tinged walls and wondering how we’ll remember the place in a year, two years, five, ten. Physically, it’s a skinny terrace that feels like a train station. The bathroom is the size of a postage stamp with barely enough room to turn around. Leaky pipes have caused the paint on several walls to flake. There’s mould on the ceilings and not enough powerpoints. The ceilings are high enough that changing lightbulbs is a royal pain, even with a stepladder – the bedroom has stayed unlit for over a year, and only half the hall and lounge bulbs work. Even if we had one, there’s no space for a dining room table. The rent has increased 30% since we first moved in. Like hermit crabs in a too-small shell, we’ve gradually outgrown the place, accumulating more books, films and possessions than comfortably fit the interior, so that we’re constantly living amidst our own clutter.

But for nearly four years, it’s been ours. It’s the first house we picked together, the place we lived while engaged and to which we returned after our honeymoon. Toby’s parents and sister all ended up living in Albert Park because we were there, sliding down from Queensland in the space of three years. I’ve lived in other places since starting university, but this is the first house that’s felt like home. And small though it is, cramped as the bedside tables are and as much as the dodgy washing-line makes me grumble, I’ll miss that about it.

Between tomorrow and the 20th, we’ll be staying with my parents-in-law, whose current house is just up the road. Despite all the preparations for our five months in the UK, I didn’t quite believe we were going until earlier today, because I hadn’t really processed that we were leaving our little house forever. Whenever I think about getting on the plane, I feel a rush of exhiliration: we’re nearly there. We’ll be overseas until January 2010 – just two months before Solace & Grief is published. Next year is already significant. But 2009 is the year its all been built on: the year I signed a contract, went to my first convention, (hopefully) finished the sequal, spent my first New Year’s Eve in another country, visisted Scotland, celebrated my second wedding anniversary – and there’s so much still to look forward to.

But until then, I’m taking a moment to remember our funny, thin, impractical house. We’ve loved it, and now we’re leaving. Chances are, it won’t remember us, unless it turns out that walls have memories as well as ears. But we’ll remember it.