brokenmnemonic

There are quite a lot of reasons that I should be at least a bit sorry to see 2016 go; after all, the year had more than its fair share of crappy things going on, but I did get to go to a great con, I lost between 6 and 7 stone in weight (less whatever I've put back on the last week or two), I still have a job, and there are still people who talk with me periodically, despite me being scattered, unreliable, and frequently out at the swimming pool.

A lot of people have been kind to me this year, and that's definitely something I'm grateful for. The less free time I have, the more I appreciate people being will to share some of theirs with me, whether it's as company or in other ways - through book and comic recs, for example. I don't know how much I'll be capable of in 2017, but I'm going to keep trying. I managed to do a few things this last year that I don't think I could've done the year before, and I need to keep pushing forward with that.

There are also four other reasons for me to be grateful, ranging from small to tiny; I have three nieces by family, aged 16 months, 4 months and 3 weeks, as well as one niece by friendship, who's about 4-5 weeks old, and all of them are absolutely gorgeous. I'm stupidly happy about getting to be an uncle so many times over - especially as I get to be the geeky uncle who keeps sending books and toys while all the other adults are generally being much more mainstream. I'm also pretty sure I'll be a disaster in a lot of ways, but hopefully none of my four nieces will ever doubt that I adore them.

2017 doubtless has its fair share of shuddering, unspeakable disasters in the offing, but the world doesn't get to end, nor do the arseholes get to drown us in hateful acts and deeds, because my nieces have to grow up in this world, and I want them to be capable of living free, loving who they want to, and to know that things will get better. So, I've got some work to do in 2017...

Happy New Year, everyone. You rock.

And yes, there will almost certainly be jelly beans at VidUKon 2017.