New Year

2009. That means it's about 1 year until it turns 2010; fearful for the dual reasons of being 10 years since 2000 (which is horrific as I can remember it as if it were about 5 years ago) and because it's the name of that god awful movie with John Lithgow (no, not Raising Cain....or Bigfoot and the Hendersons....or Cliffhanger....etc)

Last year was a bizarre mix of interesting and damn shite. The first half seemed good: new year spent with Shake (always good for a laugh), the first official Mitch and Murray tour, buying my own flat....Then the second half went odd: seven months living with the in-law (not an unpleasant person, but it was a trial), the rise of my depression again, work crushing me slowly, Granddad's illness, Dave's illness, the slow trudge of every day life, money problems....But then there was Mao. Bless her.

This year is full. I've got 5 gigs booked up already and I have to record 4 tracks worth of the new album by April. I have my dissertation to write (I was thinking about power and knowledge, but now I'm toying with a discussion on democracy from a sort of Laclau & Mouffe angle) and a world of excitement at work. I also have my first self-organised trip abroad with college, taking the kids to Paris. I think I've fucked that up already.

The annoying thing is that I can see more and more what my parents have always said and yet I'm not at the point where I can embrace it. They always told me that as you get older your birthdays, christmases and new years cease to important. The pass as a day like any other- a blockade of routine rather than a welcome break. It's painful cock; I have paperwork and prep to do, an album to record and (god forbid) the desire to do things for myself and yet you have to spend time doing nothing because anything but that just isn't christmassy. I remember one year I started to read Marx and Engels' "German Ideology" on Christmas morning because I was going to teach from it when I went back to work and Dave got upset with me. Instead I had to put down the book and just do nothing- because that's what Christmas is about. It's about being in the company of others whether you like it or not.

However, I can't embrace it. My parents manage to shrug it off nicely and just see it as something that they have grown out of and now they enjoy their holidays and weekends more than before. For me I don't find the days that fun, but I see them as a signpost of time passed. Each Christmas I think "Fuck, I'm nearly 30 and I'm quite a bit fatter than I was this time last year". New year is a monitor of my social life- a gradual reduction in the amount of people spending it with me until one year I'll just go to bed at 10 and listen to Radio 4. Birthdays are just a shocking pile of knob and are an excuse to drink myself into ridiculousness.

I ended up having one my usual conversations a few days ago. There's a poster on one of the college walls that has Anne Frank on it and that quote about (and I paraphrase) "No matter what I see, I can't help but believe that all people are good deep down". Apparently that vacuous naivity passes for profundity these days. What people forget is that the diary was written before she was sent to Auschwitz. Ask Primo Levi if he felt that humans were fundamentally good when he was being lined up for selection or beaten for collapsing out of exhaustion. Humans so good that they steal bread from each other. My problem isn't Anne herself; she was a young girl who had a marvellous grasp of language for one her age. However, I think it's ridiculous for adults to look upon her optimism as something grand and not incredibly short sighted and, frankly, a little stupid. I'd give her from the moment that the shaver touched her head before she changed her mind.

OK, it sounds cruel but I have a point. I'm sick of bland optimism and faith in others, and yet I want it as much as she does. I'm not one of these wonderfully happy nihilists who like being miserable (as if it gives one a higher state of consciousness). Misery is a blinkered view, utter tunnelvision. I loathe seeing things from the angle of a whiny little brat. This is why I stand outside of myself. My socialism requires an optimism- I couldn't realisitcally believe what I believe without believing that we could actually work well together. However, I can't help but look at the world and find it utterly disappointing. And on the other side of things, I can't help but want to spit at people who find a reason to smile in all things. On Midlands Today on Wednesday, a woman explained how 15 members of her family had been killed in a single day in Gaza. Can we do this? Like fuck we can.

Anyway, the eternal pessimism isn't so everlasting. I see the next few months as painful but entertaining. Whenever I get to the end of a blog entry I realise I've run out of pseudo-profound shit to reel off.

By the way, help oppose the GTC's new proposals about teacher conduct. Apparently they want college disciplinary procedures to extend to activities outside of work that might be seen as against our "role model" status. For example, if I get drunk outside of work I could be disciplined for it and could have to agree to some form of counselling or medical help in order to get reinstated.

Cunts.