The manifesto/this year

Part the first:

I have founded this blog as a replacement for my badly neglected livejournal blog. A secondary motive for the change is to put some distance between myself and a username chosen in my early teens, which has somehow stalked me all the way into early adulthood..

The Manifesto, my vision for this blog, tantalisingly promised by the title - doesn't exist. I've tried that before and I just end up failing hopelessly, so I'm just going to write whatever I want to write, exactly whenever I feel like it! If you think that shows a lack of discipline, then: a) you are correct, and b) go away.

Part the second:

This year! It's been fun. The nearest thing I had to a new year's resolution was (is! I'm keeping it up) to try something new every month. For Christmas, I got a trumpet from recession-busting European supermarket, Lidl. True story! Cheap, German-made brass instruments make excellent gifts. I spent January making farty sounds and finding out why the spit valve is called the spit valve. I can now eke out the Family Guy theme tune (to my own amusement and absolutely no-one else's!). It's fun to make loud noises.

In February, I had a go at oil painting. I got into a lovely calm state when I was actually painting, it's a relaxing and focussing process. I 'm pretty shit at art, though. I tried to paint Peter Griffin (can you see a pattern emerging?), and his face is a mess. I just slapped on more paint to cover my mistakes, so he's bulgey and misshappen, like a freakish cartoon elephant man.

March: I've been learning Esperanto. I said I would do this years ago, so I'm making good on that. I'm not doing it so much for practical reasons, but because I think it's a good idea, and fuck it! Why not? Having said that, after completing an email course and reading a few extra bits over the month, I've had comprehensible conversations with a Pole, a Spaniard, a Brazialian and a Frenchwoman, all in Esperanto. Mostly, I've learned that stamp collecting is still in in Europe, and that Brazil is hot.

I might try boxing in April.

Bye.