New Year’s Resolution no.3

….was to blog. So here I am. Blogging. About what? I’m not sure yet. Maybe about my newly discovered love of beautiful art? Maybe about my renewed fascination with the history of Ham House because of my fabulous new book about it? Maybe about cake?

Well, let’s start with the cake. Here is a box that once contained a chocolate orange cake.

Danda had one peice. Someone else ate the entire rest of the cake, thinking it might help with her cold because oranges contain vitamin C, right? That someone else had been sworn off sugar because of the sugar headaches and achy teeth caused by their new job as a cake maker. The someone else now feels chocolate guilt and wishes not to be named.

Talking of new jobs, it’s been an interesting year. In the space of twelve months, the following things have happened;

1. Got two new jobs. One I disliked. One I loved. Thankfully I am now in the one I love!
2. Lost a good friend to the murky depths of Texas’ capital punishment system.
3. Went to France (for lunch), Italy (for my birthday) and America.
4. Visited the NASA space centre.
5. Became a ghost tour guide.
6. Made this (the website, not the art)
7. Became addicted to Candy Crush, Breaking Bad and Modern Family.
8. Purchased the most expensive (but most worth it) book I’ve ever owned.
9. Discovered pretty art and fabulous painters (current favourites are Sir Peter Lely and Van Dyck)
10. Got to know the life of the river better, via my walk to work. (And learnt about the importance of knowing the tide times!)
11. Got reacquainted with my childhood best friend when she came to stay in the spare room.
12. Had a cold for a month.
13. Watched family jet off for a new life under the Australian sun.
14. Met a fellow blogger for the first time.

There has been a lot of change in the last year, some of which I’m still getting used to. Here’s to 2014! I wonder what will happen.

It started with Fjaroabyaggo

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to meet another blogger? One you didn’t already know outside the blogging world. Have you ever wondered what it would be like if that blogger also wrote one of your favourite blogs, a blog that made you laugh out loud or gasp in horror? There are few blogs I love more than Sean Smithson’s. I love seeing that there’s another post there to read. And every time that little email notification comes through telling me “Sean Smithson” has liked one of my posts, I silently high-five myself and think, “Yes, Laura, today’s post was good.”

My blog, edgy as I like to imagine it is, has got nothing on Sean’s, which, by the way, is not his name. I’ll get onto that. Sean’s blog leaves mine in the dust. He gets stuck straight in, in a way that is almost-brave/almost-stupid. A fine example comes from his ‘How to stay single in your 30s’ post: “If you find that ladies are just drawn to you or that your friends absolutely insist on trying to set you up, then try the following – Be a mildly obnoxious asshole on dates. You need to get the balance just right so that she’ll sleep with you but won’t want you to call her ever again.”

Honesty is definitely the best policy in Sean’s world. O yeh, so that’s totally not his name. But it’s close enough and easier to work out how to pronounce. It was certainly a new experience to be quite far into a conversation and have someone say, “O, by the way, wanna know my real name?”

I forget what was written about Fjaroabyaggo to prompt the joke that there was going to be a trip there but that is how it started. It somehow grew from that into a fully breathing, walking, talking person at the tube station. He didn’t look slightly loser-ish or studenty. He wasn’t clutching a crumpled balance sheet or accompanied by a hooker.

He was tall-ish, well-dressed and well-spoken. He was also courteous and eloquent, quite a surprise after the Sean of the blog. It’s not like I was expecting a total knob end but, you know, something a little more rough around the edges. The thing is, he is also the person in the blog, the person who lands himself in these brilliant/stupid situations. It’s not something you’d realise unless you knew the blog. And it’s kinda fun once you have realised it and he mentions calling hookers to come over to his parents’ house while they’re in bed.

What’s not to love?

The reason for this post is taking me forever to get to. I guess because I’m trying to make you realise how brilliant this man is so that by the time I get to my point, you’ll already like him.

Well, he’s writing a book. Could there be anything better than a good writer with no inhibitions telling you about all the most ridiculous situations he’s been in? A quick peek inside the book is going to look something like this email conversation we recently had:

Sean: “It’s going to be a book of short stories. That way, they can read about the time I was with a hooker on my mum’s living room floor while she slept upstairs on Tuesday’s tube journey. And perhaps on Thursday, they could read about the time I shit my pants before a date…”

Laura: “I would love to read about the time you shit your pants before a date. What’s the general gist of that story?”

Sean : “Just that I was on my way to a date and shit myself whilst trying to fart. Obviously things got a lot worse during the course of that day.”

Need I say anything more?

This book of utter fabulousness (that’s a word) will be out in January. Good job there’s Christmas inbetween to keep me entertained during the wait. And don’t you worry, I’ll do the remembering for you and keep reminding you about it 🙂