The Words Continue Their Journey
Margaret Atwood
Do poets really suffer more
than other people? Isn't it only
that they get their pictures taken
and are seen to do it?
The loony bins are full of those
who never wrote a poem.
Most suicides are not
poets: a good statistic.
Some days though I want, still,
to be like other people;
but then I go and talk with them,
these people who are supposed to be
other, and they are much like us,
except that they lack the sort of thing
we think of as a voice.
We tell ourselves they are fainter
than we are, less defined,
that they are what we are defining,
that we are doing them a favor,
which makes us feel better.
They are less elegant about pain than we are.
But look, I said us. Though I may hate your guts
individually, and want never to see you,
though I prefer to spend my time
with dentists because I learn more,
I spoke of us as we, I gathered us
like the members of some doomed caravan
which is how I see us, traveling together,
the women veiled and singly, with that inturned
sight and the eyes averted,
the men in groups, with their moustaches
and passwords and bravado
in the place we're stuck in, the place we've chosen,
a pilgrimage that took a wrong turn
somewhere far back and ended
here, in the full glare
of the sun, and the hard red-black shadows
cast by each stone, each dead tree lurid
in its particulars, its doubled gravity, but floating
too in the aureole of stone, of tree,
and we're no more doomed really than anyone, as we go
together, through this moon terrain
where everything is dry and perishing and so
vivid, into the dunes, vanishing out of sight,
vanishing out of the sight of each other,
vanishing even out of our own sight,
looking for water.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Monday, June 26, 2006
To continue last week's theme of using this as a vehicle for self-indulgent rambling...
Hmm. I'm plucking my eyebrows while Nik is pollyfilling cracks in a bathroom wall. Is this some form of hideous stereotype I promised myself never to become? If so, when did this happen?
Regardless, it's very peaceful. I've never been so relieved to get out of Oxford before, which feels very weird. It's only through getting out and coming back that you realise how much of a bubble the place is. That used to be part of its charm, but I spent most of the last few weeks railing frenetically against it in a desperate bid to seem happy and fun by drinking more Pimm's than anyone else. No, it didn't work; yes, I felt hugely silly; yes, the second I got outside the ring road I felt much freer than I had previously. Ah well. When I get back next year I'll have my own space, my own keys and my own life and (I hope) won't feel a huge sense of purposelessness in an atmosphere where you thrive on being manic and forever bouncing from tute to worthy activity to social to squeaky college single bed.
9th week was quite a lot of fun. I proved (three times) that it was possible to go out and enjoy myself without drinking, once in Kasbar, once for the football (people I texted for an alternative, I am disappointed in you) and once for the end of Tim's exams, and also proved (once) that curling up in bed with a bottle of red wine, some jam doughnuts and lots of episodes of Scrubs is something that must be done once in a while to restore sanity. I cooked a moderately exciting meal and swore at facebook a lot. On Friday in the Raddy, there was a large group of loud people sitting near us and one girl was insistent that it was possible to use three had's in a row in a sentence, though could not justify this with an example. However,
This is my last week of respite before actually beginning to earn some money in July. I feel dimly that I ought to go home-home, but I've been banned until my brother finishes A-Levels and it doesn't seem worth spending a grand total of 16 hours on trains and buses for the two days I might get at home. Particularly when I can't afford a ticket. Particularly seeing as here there is wireless internet and a pool, even if I was cruelly prevented from swimming on the day it was actually warm. Damn biology.
I was feeling old, but last night we watched the first ever episode of Spitting Image. And didn't really get most of it. So now I feel less ancient. Hurrah. And today I bought a lovely birthday card for my mum and found the shampoo I used to love and haven't seen for over a year and now I have a short-haired, new-shoed boyfriend.
Regardless, it's very peaceful. I've never been so relieved to get out of Oxford before, which feels very weird. It's only through getting out and coming back that you realise how much of a bubble the place is. That used to be part of its charm, but I spent most of the last few weeks railing frenetically against it in a desperate bid to seem happy and fun by drinking more Pimm's than anyone else. No, it didn't work; yes, I felt hugely silly; yes, the second I got outside the ring road I felt much freer than I had previously. Ah well. When I get back next year I'll have my own space, my own keys and my own life and (I hope) won't feel a huge sense of purposelessness in an atmosphere where you thrive on being manic and forever bouncing from tute to worthy activity to social to squeaky college single bed.
9th week was quite a lot of fun. I proved (three times) that it was possible to go out and enjoy myself without drinking, once in Kasbar, once for the football (people I texted for an alternative, I am disappointed in you) and once for the end of Tim's exams, and also proved (once) that curling up in bed with a bottle of red wine, some jam doughnuts and lots of episodes of Scrubs is something that must be done once in a while to restore sanity. I cooked a moderately exciting meal and swore at facebook a lot. On Friday in the Raddy, there was a large group of loud people sitting near us and one girl was insistent that it was possible to use three had's in a row in a sentence, though could not justify this with an example. However,
"The good times she had had had been behind her for ages."
This is my last week of respite before actually beginning to earn some money in July. I feel dimly that I ought to go home-home, but I've been banned until my brother finishes A-Levels and it doesn't seem worth spending a grand total of 16 hours on trains and buses for the two days I might get at home. Particularly when I can't afford a ticket. Particularly seeing as here there is wireless internet and a pool, even if I was cruelly prevented from swimming on the day it was actually warm. Damn biology.
I was feeling old, but last night we watched the first ever episode of Spitting Image. And didn't really get most of it. So now I feel less ancient. Hurrah. And today I bought a lovely birthday card for my mum and found the shampoo I used to love and haven't seen for over a year and now I have a short-haired, new-shoed boyfriend.
Monday, June 19, 2006
"Excuse me, can I interest you in buying this dead horse?"
I had such good intentions. I came to update this virtually the second I'd come into the room, and it refused to work. Grrrrr. I pressed 'Refresh' a lot and then got sidetracked listening to I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, and checking my email (oddly enough I didn't have any new ones since checking half an hour previously), and trying to destroy a paying-in receipt with nail clippers.
It has been quite a long time since I actually provided any illuminating information about my life, as opposed to pointless yet amusing quotes or photo-spam. This may be because the last posts went roughly along the lines of: "Ooh! Oxford is sunny! All my friends have finished finals and nobody has anything to do except sit on lawns and drink Pimm's or (once the bank statements come through) Blossom Hill." There have been several inclement breaks in the sunniness, but not frequent enough to prevent my back turning bright pink. Other than that, my life has really changed very little, except that Nik is no longer doing finals and is now able to watch epic quantities of 24 with me.
I could talk about various difficulties (re-)fitting into already established social groups (that I may once have been part of); or feeling like an appendage to the boy (a dull one, that gets sleepy at parties and nags him about finding a job) instead of an actual person; or not having a particular purpose now the mad Italians have gone home and finding a life of unmitigated hedonism rather unfulfilling having not just finished some very stressful exams; or general distress about The Rest Of My Life.
This last is, actually, rather unfair. I have a plan, involving postgrad funded by EFL tutoring and translation/proof-reading and then becoming a critically acclaimed novelist, and if this falls through (i.e. the idea of stringing together enough words to constitute a respectable thesis or novel overpowers me) then a helpful website has thrown up several more career options which had me raving about becoming a lexicographer (can't you so see that happening?), and it doesn't bother me at all that of the handful of jobs I liked the sound of, in 90% of them financial reward plays "no part". It is hugely self-indulgent to worry about all this now when a large proportion of my readership consists of jobless ex-finalists for whom this angst is a good deal closer than a year away (*hugs* to all in this predicament), but the astonishing number of transitions, goodbyes and departures I've endured this year has given me a peculiar twitchiness and an irritating tendency towards self-analysis.
It's just that sometimes I feel like the quote in the introduction to all the Folio editions of Beauvoir, that quote that I can't remember or translate about feeling torn between living life and writing about it; like how I updated this almost every day in Lyon, because I was bored and miserable, but as soon as Sainsbury's has Pimm's, Cava and strawberries on special offer, I can go days without stringing words together; and this choice between dullness/misery and productivity versus (most of the time) contentment, good company and not feeling the need to lock myself away with a computer may replicate itself later in life with something (I hope) of more worth than this. I feel passionate about so many things, but at some point I have to stop them, and describe them, or else I go mad.
My problem is not that I don't know what to do: I've known that since I was 5. My problem is that what I want to do scares me.
I'm scared that I'm not as good at it as I think I am. I'm scared that I won't have the discipline to find out. I'm scared the fear of rejection will turn me into the sort of person who hoards things in drawers and that all my descendents will find fourteen unfinished novels and say I could have been quite good, it's a pity I wasn't. I'm scared the ancestral curse will get me, and I'll give up being creative and notable in order to breed prolifically, like all the women I'm related to did while my Grandpa gets a CBE. (Sorry. Just had to drop that in.) Indeed, in a Shakespeare's sister sort of way, we could extend this beyond my immediate family, but that's a whole different ball game. I'm scared it may be incompatible with a normal life, whatever that may be, and whether I even want it.
There's a Margaret Atwood poem which sums up how I feel pretty accurately, but not even Google can find it. It begins "Do poets really suffer more than other people?" if you want to look it up. (And I recommend you do.)
And now I'm going to curl up in bed, with my diary, and Le Journal des Faux-Monnayeurs.
oh but now, old friends, they're acting strange
and they shake their heads
and they tell me that I've changed
well, something's lost and something's gained
in living every day.
It has been quite a long time since I actually provided any illuminating information about my life, as opposed to pointless yet amusing quotes or photo-spam. This may be because the last posts went roughly along the lines of: "Ooh! Oxford is sunny! All my friends have finished finals and nobody has anything to do except sit on lawns and drink Pimm's or (once the bank statements come through) Blossom Hill." There have been several inclement breaks in the sunniness, but not frequent enough to prevent my back turning bright pink. Other than that, my life has really changed very little, except that Nik is no longer doing finals and is now able to watch epic quantities of 24 with me.
I could talk about various difficulties (re-)fitting into already established social groups (that I may once have been part of); or feeling like an appendage to the boy (a dull one, that gets sleepy at parties and nags him about finding a job) instead of an actual person; or not having a particular purpose now the mad Italians have gone home and finding a life of unmitigated hedonism rather unfulfilling having not just finished some very stressful exams; or general distress about The Rest Of My Life.
This last is, actually, rather unfair. I have a plan, involving postgrad funded by EFL tutoring and translation/proof-reading and then becoming a critically acclaimed novelist, and if this falls through (i.e. the idea of stringing together enough words to constitute a respectable thesis or novel overpowers me) then a helpful website has thrown up several more career options which had me raving about becoming a lexicographer (can't you so see that happening?), and it doesn't bother me at all that of the handful of jobs I liked the sound of, in 90% of them financial reward plays "no part". It is hugely self-indulgent to worry about all this now when a large proportion of my readership consists of jobless ex-finalists for whom this angst is a good deal closer than a year away (*hugs* to all in this predicament), but the astonishing number of transitions, goodbyes and departures I've endured this year has given me a peculiar twitchiness and an irritating tendency towards self-analysis.
It's just that sometimes I feel like the quote in the introduction to all the Folio editions of Beauvoir, that quote that I can't remember or translate about feeling torn between living life and writing about it; like how I updated this almost every day in Lyon, because I was bored and miserable, but as soon as Sainsbury's has Pimm's, Cava and strawberries on special offer, I can go days without stringing words together; and this choice between dullness/misery and productivity versus (most of the time) contentment, good company and not feeling the need to lock myself away with a computer may replicate itself later in life with something (I hope) of more worth than this. I feel passionate about so many things, but at some point I have to stop them, and describe them, or else I go mad.
My problem is not that I don't know what to do: I've known that since I was 5. My problem is that what I want to do scares me.
I'm scared that I'm not as good at it as I think I am. I'm scared that I won't have the discipline to find out. I'm scared the fear of rejection will turn me into the sort of person who hoards things in drawers and that all my descendents will find fourteen unfinished novels and say I could have been quite good, it's a pity I wasn't. I'm scared the ancestral curse will get me, and I'll give up being creative and notable in order to breed prolifically, like all the women I'm related to did while my Grandpa gets a CBE. (Sorry. Just had to drop that in.) Indeed, in a Shakespeare's sister sort of way, we could extend this beyond my immediate family, but that's a whole different ball game. I'm scared it may be incompatible with a normal life, whatever that may be, and whether I even want it.
There's a Margaret Atwood poem which sums up how I feel pretty accurately, but not even Google can find it. It begins "Do poets really suffer more than other people?" if you want to look it up. (And I recommend you do.)
And now I'm going to curl up in bed, with my diary, and Le Journal des Faux-Monnayeurs.
oh but now, old friends, they're acting strange
and they shake their heads
and they tell me that I've changed
well, something's lost and something's gained
in living every day.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
"Francis Bacon wishes to meet the Earl of Sandwich"
For the second day in a row, I have been abandoned by the boy, and have immediately turned on Radio 4 and started to eat salad (my poor vegetable-starved body...) and today I found myself laughing so hysterically at I'm sorry I haven't a clue that I thought I'd post some gems from the opening round. (The brief was to come up with responses to traditional chat-up lines.)
And now I really, really have to get on with the washing-up...
Where have you been all my life?
Well, for most of it, I wasn't even born.
Haven't I seen you somewhere before?
Yes. I'm the receptionist at the VD clinic.
The name's Bond. James Bond.
The name's Lost. Gert Lost.
Come on. Don't be shy. Ask me out.
All right. Get out.
Those clothes would look great in a crumpled heap on my bedroom floor.
So would you.
Your legs must be tired - you've been running through my mind all night.
Yes, it was lovely... all those wide open spaces.
Is that a ladder in your stockings or is it the stairway to heaven?
Yes, it is the stairway to heaven, but I've already got an arse up there.
And now I really, really have to get on with the washing-up...
Thursday, June 08, 2006
It's Pimm's o'clock..... Again......
Sorry for not updating much this week. I was competing in the Regional Floor-Hopping Championships and never in one place for very long, not to mention having far too much fun.
Friday was my last day at work and my lessons went really well. I also took them to the Multimedia Centre to do things on computers, which baffled most of them and entertained me hugely, and in the afternoon I chaperoned them to Windsor Castle, which was really fun, though it was rather stressful. And I was so tired that in the evening I effectively went to Botley Road and collapsed on the sofa in front of the TV. I don't think I was much fun, and couldn't face Risk, but I was very well looked after.
Saturday was Catherine's birthday and we had Buck's Fizz and cake in front quad and then I went to meet the first of seven finalists who have finished lately. Turf, fish and chips, wine - excellent. I got talked into singing with Hertford Choir on Sunday, and subsequently recruited for a madrigal group, which was... random. But I got free dinner. And free wine. And free tea. And then Thomas bought me Pimm's in the KA and it had fruit in. Joyfulness.
I have spent the last three days in an extended Pimm's-induced stupor, punctuated by mad dashes to Merton St to cover people in glitter. It has been fun. Lots of people are very happy, and I get to join in the fun, despite having earned it neither with exams of my own nor by providing emotional support. I have drunk in four different colleges and the Parks and it is SUNNY. Joyfulness. I was going to write this post entirely using quotes and pictures, but I can't remember anything anyone said. Ever.
Except this:
"Aah, I'm so happy. I just want to talk to everything. The trees, the flowers..."
"There are no trees."
"True. There's a cloud."
"You could talk to the cloud."
"I could. Hello cloud."
Also:
One comatose, hungover, beglittered boyfriend, free to good home.
Friday was my last day at work and my lessons went really well. I also took them to the Multimedia Centre to do things on computers, which baffled most of them and entertained me hugely, and in the afternoon I chaperoned them to Windsor Castle, which was really fun, though it was rather stressful. And I was so tired that in the evening I effectively went to Botley Road and collapsed on the sofa in front of the TV. I don't think I was much fun, and couldn't face Risk, but I was very well looked after.
Saturday was Catherine's birthday and we had Buck's Fizz and cake in front quad and then I went to meet the first of seven finalists who have finished lately. Turf, fish and chips, wine - excellent. I got talked into singing with Hertford Choir on Sunday, and subsequently recruited for a madrigal group, which was... random. But I got free dinner. And free wine. And free tea. And then Thomas bought me Pimm's in the KA and it had fruit in. Joyfulness.
I have spent the last three days in an extended Pimm's-induced stupor, punctuated by mad dashes to Merton St to cover people in glitter. It has been fun. Lots of people are very happy, and I get to join in the fun, despite having earned it neither with exams of my own nor by providing emotional support. I have drunk in four different colleges and the Parks and it is SUNNY. Joyfulness. I was going to write this post entirely using quotes and pictures, but I can't remember anything anyone said. Ever.
Except this:
"Aah, I'm so happy. I just want to talk to everything. The trees, the flowers..."
"There are no trees."
"True. There's a cloud."
"You could talk to the cloud."
"I could. Hello cloud."
Also:
One comatose, hungover, beglittered boyfriend, free to good home.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
"It's three o'clock and I'm confused"
The ethernet cable is evil. It is making me update every day. I am turning into an egocentric geek. Help.
I had a to-do list for this afternoon. It went like this:
I have been prevailed upon to go to Windsor Castle with the Italians tomorrow afternoon. From the sound of it I'll have to do very little and get paid £25 for it, and it stops me annoying Phil by hanging around Botley Road all afternoon. I stopped to share the good news with my students on the way out and was rather confused when one of them asked me if I had an Italian boyfriend. I said no, which is true, but in by baffled state, I forgot that this in itself didn't preclude the existence of a boyfriend of any other nationality, and that rather vital piece of information was lost in translation so she then proceeded to try and set me up with her son... Every day this week has been mad. I wonder if the entire rest of the summer will be equally exciting.
After I got home, I then went to Cowley Road, repeating in my head the mantra, 'I am going to Tesco for salad dressing and NOTHING ELSE, I will buy ONLY salad dressing...' I should have also included, 'I am going to Oxfam for Fairtrade tea and NOTHING ELSE, I will NOT buy any shoes, books or birthday cards...'
Oops.
Right, I'm now going to add 'eat dinner' and 'go to pub' to my to-do list, so I'll have a chance of crossing off at least two more things before midnight.
I had a to-do list for this afternoon. It went like this:
- eat lunch
- put Suba's number in my phone
- uninstall Spider Solitaire from my laptop
- plan lesson on daily routines
- plan lesson on something else
- research Windsor Castle
- pump up bike tyres
I have been prevailed upon to go to Windsor Castle with the Italians tomorrow afternoon. From the sound of it I'll have to do very little and get paid £25 for it, and it stops me annoying Phil by hanging around Botley Road all afternoon. I stopped to share the good news with my students on the way out and was rather confused when one of them asked me if I had an Italian boyfriend. I said no, which is true, but in by baffled state, I forgot that this in itself didn't preclude the existence of a boyfriend of any other nationality, and that rather vital piece of information was lost in translation so she then proceeded to try and set me up with her son... Every day this week has been mad. I wonder if the entire rest of the summer will be equally exciting.
After I got home, I then went to Cowley Road, repeating in my head the mantra, 'I am going to Tesco for salad dressing and NOTHING ELSE, I will buy ONLY salad dressing...' I should have also included, 'I am going to Oxfam for Fairtrade tea and NOTHING ELSE, I will NOT buy any shoes, books or birthday cards...'
Oops.
Right, I'm now going to add 'eat dinner' and 'go to pub' to my to-do list, so I'll have a chance of crossing off at least two more things before midnight.
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