In 2012, I resolve to work even harder than I did in 2011. To prove myself in my career. To get everything I can out of this amazing opportunity that I’ve been afforded. To grow as a person and as a professional in my career.

I resolve to use my spare time for the things I love: writing, reading, finding new music, sitting in coffee shops, cooking good meals. Less TV, more intelligent conversations. I will finish up and edit my book. I will start writing a new one. I will keep a journal.

I will do another mini triathlon, and I will train for it this time. Maybe I’ll even run a 5k. Either way, I will drag my ass to the gym that I pay for, on a semi-regular basis, and kick my own ass on the treadmill.

I resolve to see more of my neighbourhood. To actually take time to explore the beautiful area I live in. This will probably have to wait until the spring.

And keep taking chances. Sometimes it doesn’t work out, but when it does, it’s worth it.

Here’s to 2012.

Happy 2011.

It was a difficult time for me. I was unemployed, broke, disheartened and seriously questioning the path my life was taking.

I asked the world that 2011 bring me these things:

Wishing that maybe next year I’ll have more than $7.

Wishing that maybe next year I’ll have someone to kiss at midnight.

Wishing that maybe next year I’ll be stumbling home to my own apartment downtown.
It’s been a long year, but I do have slightly more than $7 and I’ll be celebrating the New Year in my own apartment in the city.

And I will have someone to kiss at midnight.

It’s funny how things change.

In many ways, I will be happy to see 2011 go - too many awful things have happened to the people I love this year. But on the other hand, I also got my dream job, a beautiful new apartment, a new car and, yes, even a new boyfriend.

For the next few days I’ll be thinking of some resolutions for 2012 - but truth be told, I’m happy. Right now. Here. Doing this. Being me.

You know, it’s okay
I’m kinda happy here for now
I think I’ve finally grown up
And got myself a love of now

- The Waifs

Today is laden with memories of another day. It is a slow motion reel playing on the walls behind us as we talk about how things have changed in the last two years.

A day spent with her reminds me of a weekend two years ago, with cold and winter hanging in the air of another city, another country. London, 2009: an adventure in small indulgences. Champagne, high tea and the best of brownies. A misguided attempt to walk the city in brand new heels. A failed venture to eat dessert for dinner. A hilarious experiment in balance on ice; we were skating at the Tower of London and she fell when I fell, to laugh with me on the ground.

In late November, I think of how time passes. How can London be two years ago? How can we be where we are now? How are we going where we’re going?

Late fall, or early winter: it’s the first of many snow falls. A different country. A different day. But still an adventure in indulgence, filling the walls of spa with the same chatter, despite the “Silence Please” signs all around us.

I was pretty impressed by my answer. So, it would seem, were they.

But I keep thinking about that concept, especially this month. In my new job, I learn something new nearly every day. And, I’ll admit, quite a few of them are by learning from mistakes.

I want to get back in to my writing. This time last year, I was writing my book for NaNoWriMo. Now I spend my spare time watching Extreme Couponing or the Food Network. My excuse is that I spend the majority of my work day writing - emails, reports, proposals, etc. But it’s not really an excuse.

So I’m going to get back in to posting here by talking about what I’ve learned this month.

I learned that you should always backup your computer. Yup, I learned that the hard way when my hard drive failed while installing Snow Leopard and I then spent two weeks trying to figure out if I was ever going to be able to see hundreds of pictures again. 300 dollars later, I have them. And a new hard drive. And an appointment with Time Machine every Sunday morning.

I learned that when you budget your money too tightly, something inevitably happens that you have to spend a huge amount of money on but can’t afford. See above.

I learned that New York City isn’t so bad afterall. And that the best part of a trip can be eating good food with a person you love.

I learned that when your museum director says jump, you write a million e-mails about your plan and then jump. Even if you think it’s a bad idea, because they’re your boss.

I learned that when you really need it, someone will help you out if you just tell them your problem.

I learned that you have to get over being shy, quick, when you’re at a conference where the sole purpose is networking and getting to know as many people as possible.

And I learned that food tastes better when someone delivers it to your room and you get to eat it in bed.

I don’t know how much I’ll follow through with my renewed posting here, but I’ll give it a shot.

Some years we get fatter, some years we get skinnier.

Our bank accounts go up, or down.

We buy less beer, more wine.

Pay less rent, sign more contracts.

But always, we get older.

I’m perplexed by the idea that in one day I can be both “m’am” and “girl.” That I look both older and younger.

In between. Guess that’s why they call it mid-twenties.

If I were to sum up what I wanted for this year and all others to come, it would simply be “more.”

More sunsets. More laughter. More friends. More chances. More mistakes. More life.

Because we get older. And if this year has taught me anything, it’s that you never know how much more you have.

Almost.

But there really were giant marshmallows in the field.

The first time I saw them, I remember blinking, checking my eyes, saying incredulously: “What’s that?!“
“Oh, just a field of giant marshmallows,” my dad replied.
“Really…?”
“Where did you think marshmallows came from?”
“They grow in fields?!” And they did. Giant white cylinders against the horizon. I craned my neck to watch them as we drove past.

Of course, at some point I learned that they weren’t really marshmallows, though I’m sure I believed in soundly for at least a few weeks. They were just white plastic wrapped bails of hay.

I’m starting my first grown up job on Monday. Today, I bought a suit.

But when I was driving through the stretch of fields this morning, I swear for a second they were still full of marshmallows. But don’t worry, I kept my eyes on the road to avoid hitting unicorns.

After almost six months of unemployment, four months at a nowhere job, nearly a hundred job applications and several interviews, my throw away year is over.

Next Monday I start a job that will be, hopefully, the first step in my career in museums.

The funny thing is that the day before I found out, I got an interview for the government job I’ve been waiting for since September. When it rains, it pours.

It’s like the world decided that I was ready to move on. Ready to move forward. That I served my dues, that I had gained sufficient humility and insight from the experience and finally they would let me move on with my life.

But I have learned many things in the last 10 months.

I have learned what I want and what I don’t want. I have learned how to find worth in your life outside of your job. Because not having a job doesn’t make you worthless, though it certainly makes you feel that way. I have learned so much about myself from working a job just for the pay cheque - a job I never anticipated, with people that I never would have met otherwise, for better or worse.

I’m terrified to start on Monday. This job is so big. I know that I can do it, but I know it will be so hard. But I’m ready for a challenge.

Maybe I wasn’t ready in September, fresh out of a 160 page dissertation.

It’s 5:52 am and I can’t sleep. But it’s from the excitement of it all, I swear.

I often wonder where this failure comes from, since I grew up surrounded by loving relationships and I’m quite good at friendships. But I suck at relationships.

In my defense, some of the objects of these relationships have been less than deserving.

Of course, I chose them, right?

I don’t care about your band by Julie Klausner is one of the most surprisingly good books I’ve read in a long time. I read the first few pages standing in a bookstore in Toronto waiting for a friend to meet me, and I was hooked. Julie Klausner is a hilarious writer. The surprising part, however, is that I don’t normally like non-fiction. And especially not self help… which, to be honest, this book is bordering on. Technically it’s the autobiography of Julie Klausner’s romantic attempts.. and failures. But it’s presented in a very “self help” type way.

But that might just be because I identified so much with it. Honestly, it might as well have been the biography of my own love life. Just a switch of a few names and she might as well have been talking about my life.

It was refreshing.

Refreshing to see that other intelligent, capable women make similarly awful choices when it comes to men. Refreshing to see that one can survive a series of bad non-relationships and still emerge as a relatively functional person.

Because I am largely surrounded by people who are good at being in relationships. Good girlfriends and good boyfriends, people who are always in relationships. Or people who have even less experience with relationships than I, largely because they make better decisions than I when it comes to getting involved with someone who, logically, is just not worth their time.

“There are two kinds of girls who drift toward the more unsavory characters in the dating pool. There are, first of all, the kind of girls who’ve been ignored, abandoned, or otherwise treated ambivalently by their dads, and look to creeps as a means or replicating the treatment to which they’ve grown accustomed…. The other kind of girls who wallow in the Valley of the Dipsticks are the ones who know they deserve better. These are the girls with the great dads; the ones who had their decks stacked from the outset, who knew it couldn’t get any better in the guy department than the one who taught her how to ride her bike… This category of girls, in which I include myself, has a tendency to exceed her allotted bullshit quota for boys she likes, if only because her stubborn mind will not reconcile the notion of wonderful things ever coming to an end.”

“And there are so many guys. I remember the first time a friend referred to a guy I liked as a ‘man’ and I made a face like I was asking Willis what he was talkin’ ’bout. A man is hard to find, good or otherwise, but guys are everywhere now. That’s why women go nuts for Don Draper on Mad Men. If that show was called Mad Guys, it might star Joe Pesci, and nobody wants to see that. Meanwhile, I know way more women than girls. There’s a whole generation of us who rode on the wings of feminism’s entitlement like it was a Pegasus with cornrows, knowing how smart we were and how we could be anything. The problem is that we ended up at the mercy of a generation of guys who don’t quite seem to know what’s expected of them, whether it’s earning a double income or texting someone after she blows you. There are no more traditions or standards, and manners are like cleft chins or curly hair  - they only run in some families.”

The book made me laugh. It made me cringe. It also made me think a lot about the kind of behaviour that I accept from “guys” that I like. Behaviour I would never accept from a friend or even a colleague.

Anyway, it’s a great book. Read it! Well… if you’re a girl.

Yesterday, I spent the day napping and cuddling with my cat, Harley. In the last couple of days she had been having trouble walking and moving around. We decided to put her down last night. She was 19 years old, and we had her since I was 6. I grew up with her. I used to dress her in doll clothes and drag her around the house. When I was older, she had a knack of knowing when I was upset. She would always appear and I would bury my face in her fur and cry. An animal’s love in so heartbreakingly unconditional. In truth, I like animals more than I like the majority of people in the world.

It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I love you, Harley!