"1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure," Elizabeth II said during a speech marking her Ruby Jubilee that year. "In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an annus horribilis."
That year was marked by a series of scandals and upheavals surrounding the British royal family: separations, divorces, intriguing revelations, and a fire at one of the Queens homes. A few weeks later, it would be announced that her son Charles would separate from his wife, Diana.
I don't really follow British royal affairs, despite the proximity of the monarchy to many aspects of British pop culture that I do follow. (No, I haven't been watching The Crown, either.) I have had to do a little reading to understand the context of that quote - that term, annus horribilis - just to be particularly sure that it suits the past year, even if it's very likely that people have tossed that term around to describe 2020.
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Since we all seem to be talking about the same things these days, here's another one of the same old.
I'm back at home today. I haven't been here for two months, I think? The last time I was here, it was because I had an appointment with the doctor, who also happens to be my parents' doctor, which says a lot about my age and the stuff I now have to deal with, at least medically. Maybe it's best to say "I'm back at my parents'" instead, but that feels a little too final.
I have been at the flat for nine months now, and with every passing day it starts to feel like a more permanent arrangement. Not that I have anything against it. It's where things are headed at one point or another. But you know this year. Everything permanent has been packaged as temporary, and most of us have not really wrapped our heads around it, unless the change is so profound - a death, perhaps - that we are left with no choice but to deal with it.
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I rediscovered Elbow's "The Birds" yesterday.
Apparently I last played the song six months ago, which is a pretty long time considering how I still listen to a lot of music on the daily. I used to play that song much more frequently, though. Once a week, perhaps? Twice? It was a song that you could just immerse in, get lost in.
It helps that the song is eight minutes long. It also helps that the album it came off of was built to be immersed in. Build a Rocket Boys! came at an unusual time for the band: long a critical darling, with a dedicated following and seemingly happy with it, they broke out massively with the release of "One Day Like This" in 2008. Suddenly, a band known for its dense, lush, introspective songs had a following who are looking for a sweeping, emotional anthem.
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There are two landmarks, sort of, in friendships and relationships that I've been quietly apprehensive of ever since I've become aware of them.
The first one is the three-year mark. I've noticed that, whenever I become sort-of best friends with someone - I really mean be comfortable enough with someone to tell them stuff I wouldn't usually tell other people - the whole thing would last just around three years. By that point, either we drift apart, or in one particular case, there's a big fight and we just stop talking to each other. Yes, this is a leftover from when I publicly cared about not having my own circle of friends. I still do, but I'm tired of repeat myself on the blog, not that writing it all down makes my case. Either that, or we've all grown up and-slash-or gotten too busy to care about it. Or I've accepted that while I'll have people I'll choose to tell my problems to, I'll never really have a circle of friends at 31.
The second one is the eight-year mark. This one's trickier and a little more specific, but a little more vague because I've only seen this happen to someone, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't apply to everyone.
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