kicking off the 2018 in review with the text one

It's been a big old year for me! It may have sucked on a global level, but I did an enormous amount of very worthwhile stuff this year on a personal level. I have grown as a person and made very deliberate moves to improve my health, happiness, and humanity.

Headliners:

• I got myself a referral to the gender clinic! And apparently there are some forms coming my way already which is exciting.
• Got myself a permanent job - I haven't yet passed probation and it's not all fun and games, but hey, it's money.
• I started my art blog (kesbeacon.tumblr.com) and have kept up with it nicely, making some massive leaps of skill.
• In May/June I ran the summer game, which was a full-weekend large scale tabletop game, featuring void steam trains, psychic metal knights, lots of weird cars, and 99 red balloons. It was gruelling and gruesome, but incredibly worthwhile, and I now count my GM team as some of my absolute best friends.
• I finished counselling, two years and two months after starting it! I didn't end it voluntarily but I think it was the right time. I've come so very far; this week in particular I've been genuinely happy and emotionally free in a way I'm not sure I've ever been.

Personal big deals:

• I'm on pills that should be improving my energy levels, and am hopefully experiencing their effects as we speak.
• I know what sexual attraction is like now! (weird. it's weird).
• I've moved in with two of my best friends in the world, even if the house sucks.
• ...I know I can break up fights now. Don't ask.

(Other) artistic achievements:

• My art is so very much better; I've made massive steps. Shout-out to my artist friends and acquaintances, whose presence has really inspired me.
• The hack of 13th Age I'm running this year is one that I conceptualised, created and wrote.
• I've run several workshops this year for a range of people on a range of topics.

I'm not really making any sort of resolutions for next year, beyond 'keep up the good work,' and 'take care of yourself better.' That's gonna be the tough part, with my job not being great and my house being stressful, given my wild panoply of various health issues. But hey! Onwards and upwards. Here's hoping the world doesn't end.

all my friends: '...you're a magpie'

Shiny things I have collected:

Marbles, a swirl of different colours, gifts in the main. Giant marbles like crystal balls, tiny baby marbles that clog up the marble run, matched sets and singles found in the rain-washed gutters, sorry attempts at handmade marbles of air-dry clay.

Buttons, all bright and shining and non-matching, indiscriminately, one from every plastic tube in the shop. Uneven, lopsided. Some of them inherited, a mother's mother's mother's collection, and others new, in little plastic bags.

Beads, also in little plastic bags. Cheap fake stones, easy-tarnished metal. Hours spent in weird dusty Cypriot bead shops, little Welsh back alleys, searching out the right bead for this project and that. Later, the jewellery I turned them into.

Pin badges, from charities and outings and tatty tourist shops, a trail of little rusty metal treading back across day trips and holidays and moments of boredom. Never worn, never displayed. Jewel-bright colours, a whole parade of accurate bird pins with no duplicates.

Coins, of different lands and different times, rusting and rotting, copper and silver and brass. My grandfather's leavings, father's findings, my own network, and some that I still wait for and still want. Coins that were money and coins that never were, commemorative, nostalgic.

Semi-precious stones, agate and malachite and pyrite and jade, in little bottles and pouches and boxes. Catalogued, researched, ruthlessly arranged, a natural history for little plastic people with little plastic eyes. Fake stones and real ones, vibrant and smooth.

Dice, all-sided, a jewel-toned array, singles and sets and strange materials. Ordered online with a pretext of use, a joy to share and to solitary roll, facilitating story and friendship and fun. Superstition and dice jails, the best laid plans gone awry, the best-designed sets split up.