overlap

Exactly twenty two years ago right now was my first encounter with someone who changed my life in many, many ways. I'm lucky that my memory serves me well, and I don't sit looking at the calendar waiting for dates to come round, but I do have the odd moment of realisation that 'ooh, today is *that* day'. In that same vein, I have previously noted on here such things as paying off my negligible student loan, and the anniversary of last time I signed off. Which is but one reason why I'm a) not a fan of the festive season and all the mandatory fun it brings with it, and b) happy to leaven my minor disappointment at this redundancy thing with the knowledge I have lived through plenty worse. This grasp of historic context also means I'm in a good position to embrace the forthcoming change with a degree of acceptance. I am, and have been for some time, in no doubt that I've been enjoying the fat years. I'm happy that I have seen every band I could ever want to, rock stars dead too early obviously excepted, so I really don't expect to be feeling that I'm missing out when my gig-going inevitably tails off for a bit. I'm also definitely not thinking 'I wish I'd worked a lot harder over the last few years, even though I'd still be getting the boot no matter what I'd done'. You may imagine! The end of the year usually brings lists of the year's best shoes, the year's best dinners, the year's best Chris Hoy, and the year's best, well, everything, so I guess I'm just getting in on the act early. * as well as being descriptive, I've a feeling the Neil Sedaka song of that name would be one of the first examples I heard of a song with overt lyrical dexterity, however laboured you may think the working in the names of all the months is. And it's stuff like that and the Everly Brothers that were among the first things I ever heard and actively listened to, and ultimately responsible for me ending up spending quite as much time and money on music as I have - influences can come from funny places, and not necessarily where you expect.