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meander (Thu, 01 April 04; 03:08pm)

I am not supposed to be writing this. What I am supposed to be doing is sorting out the clothes which currently sprawl from my half-open suitcase across my bedroom floor; I am meant to be doing laundry, packing for Student Cross and for next term, because I am only at home for another two days now, not including the week on pilgrimage, before I go back to Cambridge. I always intend to unpack properly during the vacation, put posters up, sort out my boxes of assorted useless - but important - personal things, but it rarely happens. I emptied the boxes of books, in a fit of industry, on my second day back, but the rest remains untouched. I delve into them when I need a particular thing and leave a trail behind me - small bottles from The Body Shop, rechargable batteries, cassette tapes, pens, an electric razor. The myriad smallnesses which, on the last day of term, are swept unsorted into boxes until I remember a notebook I need, my camera, my tweezers (I always panic when I cannot find my tweezers; I'm something of a compulsive hair-plucker). It's an odd mixture of organisation and chaos. I know the precise location of every thing in that mess of junk, I can find it in an instant, but then, absent-minded, I bear it off to whatever I need it for, scattering unwanted items as I go. Somehow, I never quite remember to either arrange them in my room or return them to their boxes; they remain on the carpet, and I know exactly where to put my feet so as to avoid them when I get out of bed in the morning.

Outside it is white-skied and rainy. The grass is very green. I drink tea and work my way through huge piles of ironing in front of Kenneth Brannagh's Henry V, go to folk clubs with my dad. My tin whistle-playing has improved immeasurably in the past two weeks; I'm much faster, have pretty much got the hang of Irish ornamentation, and have learned about fifty new tunes. I want to be good enough to take a whistle to Trowbridge and not be ashamed to play it. Perhaps at last I'll investigate some of the Cambridge sessions this term, which I've been meaning to ever since the summer of 2002, when the bassist of the Kate Rusby band recommended a number of pubs to me and I promptly forgot their names. I'll take the whistle with me next week as well; it's that sort of crowd. Real ale and isler and lock-ins, songs like The Pub with No Beer and There's Whisky in the Jar.

I'm trying to make a list of things I'll need for pilgrimage. Clothes are always a problem. Jeans and corduroys are out of the question - when it rains (and it will) they stay wet and heavy for hours afterwards. I have tried skirts, but without much success. I have one pair of combats and one pair of jogging bottoms. Fashion is no object, but two pairs of trousers for six days of walking? I shall to go into the village tomorrow and scour the charity shops for some minging ones I can throw away once we get to Walsingham. Charity shops have been kind to me lately. The other day, in a Scope dedicated to books and music, I found a three-volume Complete Works of Shakespeare, a Dean edition dating from about the fifties in red faux-leather embossed with gold. There was a matching Crime and Punishment. When I got to the till I discovered everything was half-price, and apologising to the shopkeeper dashed back downstairs to the shelves of classics, returning with an armful: Roget's Thesaurus, Middlemarch, a new translation of Goethe's Faust, the Complete Works of Byron, the Penguin Book of Love Poetry. They came to a total of £7.25. I'm currently reading a biography of Casanova by Derek Parker. It's appallingly written; sensationalist, suspiciously sympathetic and entirely uncritical (the author's sole source seems to be the subject's History of my Life, the accuracy of which he doesn't think to question) but quite entertaining. I'm always intrigued by portrayals of 17th century Venice, however unlikely. It's the main reason I liked Cry to Heaven by Anne Rice. That, and the hot Catholic boy-sex.

21 hours: keep turning


Io Bakchos! (Mon, 29 March 04; 01:31am)

When I got back home early this afternoon I was so tired I stumbled straight into bed without even emptying all the cushions, bedding and leftover food from the car. I'd slept most of the drive home (sorry [info]_aredhel!), and was so hungover my father tells me I was groaning, although he might be exaggerating. I woke up suddenly to warm sunlight flooding through the curtains and jumped out of bed, absolutely terrified I'd somehow slept through the whole evening and night and had lost hours and hours of time. Thankfully it was only half past five; it was the quality of light that had confused me. Maybe it is spring, at long last.

Sleeping during the afternoon always leaves me feeling disorientated. I associate it with last May Week; drinking wine in the early afternoon; sitting naked on my bed in an attempt to bear the heat and drifting off into slow, entangled dreams; stumbling home euphoric and overtired with Iain the morning after Jesus May Ball and collapsing into bed to the sound of birdsong, only waking up midafternoon in order to start the drinking again. This May Week promises to be just as madcap and hazy - I have plans involving psychoactive chemicals, and (although not at the same time) speed tea-party missions with the CULES crowd, darting from college to college to drink tea and eat cake in the middle of the off-limits courts, disappearing without a trace before the porters catch on. We're aiming to set up, everyone drink a cup of tea and eat a piece of cake or cucumber sandwich, take a photo, pack up and move on within two minutes, at as many colleges as possible. This will involve plastic cups and fake flowers glued to a large tablecloth, and surreptitious thermos flasks of tea.

Last night was equally madcap and hazy, but not in the same dreamlike, sunlit way. I hosted a readthrough of Euripides' Bacchae followed by a Dionysian revel. I was up until 5am on Friday night and awake again at 9am in order to finish the script in time (I put together a bilingual version based on Philip Vellacott's translation, but with sizable chunks rewritten), and I was panicking about whether [info]yvesilena would actually get there when I realised I hadn't given her directions, but in the end it all, somehow, came together. It was rather wonderful. There were thyrsoi and ivy crowns, bowls of grapes, drumming and (of course) wine. Highlights of the weekend included walking back from the bus stop singing an improvised evening prayer to make it Sunday so the Lent-abiding people could drink (I was very impressed by how much of the liturgy everyone knew, and we got to include our favourite passages from scripture, which was lovely), and Catriona's performance of Julian's "fire of pure being" speech from the first lesson in The Secret History. God, I love that passage, and she did it so very well.

[info]the_alchemist was also wonderful as a pervy, megalomaniac, teenage and distressingly sympathetic Pentheus, and [info]yvesilena as Agaue actually brought tears to my eyes during the scene where she lays out his body (her "Fly, hounds of madness!" speech as the Chorus Leader was also fantastic, and her reading of Greek absolutely fluent - can you tell I'm impressed?). [info]smhwpf was of course marvellous as Teiresias, and his huge narrative messenger speech - which are really difficult to do well - was extremely effective. Cadmus was played beautifully by the ever-talented [info]robert_jones, and [info]fluffymark and [info]_aredhel (who apparently know each other - small world!) were also fantastic as Guards, Herdsmen, and several Chorus members. I was very impressed with everyone's Greek (and there were even shouts of "Io Bacchus!" during the party that evening ... and of "oimoi" the next morning), which made the Chorus parts so effective, especially when accompanied by [info]the_alchemist's ad hoc bodhran skills. I'd felt very nervous about casting myself as Dionysus - it seemed unspeakably arrogant - but in the end it worked quite well, and as Catriona said, the point of readthroughs is to play characters you'd otherwise never get a chance to. My Dionysus bore a suspicious resemblance to Bowie as the Goblin King, but no matter. Huge thanks to everyone who came - for putting up with my disorganisation and the overly-complicated travel arrangements, for doing it all so well even while sightreading (due to my tardiness with the script), and for generally being fantastic!

The Bacchic revel did not include orgies or naked romps through woods, although it did involve a lot of wine, a lot of flirting, hymn-wars where we tried to drown each other out with different songs, and a remarkable rendition of a poem of epic length by [info]smhwpf. Hurrah for the oral tradition. At some point in the evening I ended up with Robert in the graveyard, sitting under a tree and talking for what seemed like hours. It was very cold, and the grass was damp and seemed vividly green in the moonlight, the shadows making the headstones, the daffodils and tussocky ground almost ethereal. It was very peaceful. If I didn't look beyond the graveyard wall I wouldn't have known I was in the twenty-first century at all; there have always been graves there, and yew-trees, and they have always looked this strange and beautiful in the moonlight. I can't remember what Robert and I talked about but I felt very close to him, in one of those quiet, unspoken ways. It was rather lovely.

I made the final alcohol count six bottles of wine, half a bottle of gin, a bottle of Greek brandy, and I think Sam had ale as well. No wonder I felt so rough this morning. I even went to church, although God unfortunately didn't see fit to reward my piety by curing my hangover. I'd say "never again", but I think we all know that would be a lie.

5 hours: keep turning


fetish filter (Fri, 19 March 04; 04:32pm)

I explained in this post that I am in the process of putting together an informative website on BDSM, which a number of you have very kindly offered to contribute to. I realise you all have busy lives and therefore asking you to write essays or articles for which you will not be paid is possibly a little over-optimistic. I'm therefore taking a slightly different approach. I will be posting a series of polls, asking questions about your own approach to BDSM. Answers can vary between simple yes/nos, short explanations, or greater detail if you want to give it. Partly this is to make it easier for you to contribute (it's simpler to answer a direct question than to write something that stands alone), which means I will have a greater (and more realistic) range of perspectives than simply my own, and partly this will enable me to compile a "FAQ" answered by a range of individuals, which is a feature I'm keen to include on the site.

I would really appreciate it if everyone could fill out the poll below letting me know if you're interested in taking part. This doesn't mean you're agreeing to actually contribute, just that you want to read the posts and have the option.

Poll #265476: fetish project
Open to: all, results viewable to: none

Do you want to be on the filter for BDSM-related polls and posts asking for contributions?

View Answers

Yes
54 (87.1%) 54 (87.1%)

No
8 (12.9%) 8 (12.9%)

Would you be willing to let me interview you by email?

View Answers

Yes
44 (75.9%) 44 (75.9%)

No
16 (27.6%) 16 (27.6%)

Do you have any ideas for questions which I should include in the FAQ, or questions you would particularly like or dislike to be asked?



If you aren't on my friends list, you won't be able to be on the filter. If you want to take part, leave a comment and I'll add you.
18 hours: keep turning


silly memeage: "Ten Fictional Characters I'd Do" ... (Mon, 15 March 04; 10:20pm)

(from various people including [info]mirabehn and [info]the_alchemist)

in no particular order:

1. Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)
2. Fitzwilliam Darcy (Pride and Prejudice)
3. Severus Snape (Harry Potter - not necessarily limited to canon, either) ... and Raistlin (Dungeons and Dragons - or rather, Dragonlance, as I've been somewhat embarrassingly reminded), who counts as the same character because of the obvious imitation :)
4. Captain Jas Hook (Peter Pan)
5. Captain Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean)
6. Han Solo (Star Wars)
7. Captain Jean Luc Picard (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
8. Willow (Buffy the Vampire Slayer; both Evil Vamp and the usual version)
9. Steerpike (Gormenghast - and no, not necessarily the Jonny version)
10. Camilla (The Secret History)

Hrm. I detect an inordinate number of men of military rank. Oh dear. And not that I'm feeling submissive at all at the moment ... ahem.

Characters omitted so as not to dominate the list with a single fandom/actor: Wickham (P&P;), Willoughby - and Marianne, for that matter (S&S;), Sirius and Remus, preferably at once (HP), any of Alan Rickman's characters ever (particularly Jamie from Truly, Madly, Deeply and the torturer from Closetland, but he even makes Brandon (S&S;) sexy...!), Indiana Jones, Spike (BtVS), Henry (tSH).

Hee. Acronym central. I'm sure I've forgotten people. If there's anyone I clearly fancy the pants off whom I haven't mentioned, do remind me.

Edit: Wentworth. Rochester. Tomas, Sabina, Tereza. Leatherclad!Ezri. Ohh, I'm sure there's thousands.

62 hours: keep turning


Indonesian Formal (Wed, 10 March 04; 12:57pm)

As I've already mentioned, on Monday we held an "Indonesian" themed formal hall for charity. This was an endeavour of the Chapel Wardens, an ecumenical group of Christian volunteers who, since our new chaplain formed the group last term, have met weekly for lunch and to radically change the way religion operates in college - primarily in order to provide an alternative to CICCU. Keith, the new chaplain, is young, geeky, and an ex-natsci - the archetypal St Gargoyle's "kum ba yah" curate - but genuinely nice. This term has seen huge amounts of new innovations: a Tuesday meditative night prayer service, led by one of us each week in a different style (so far we've had Anglican, Catholic, Charismatic, Taize and Iona - the one I led); an ecumenical start of term emphatically-non-CICCU service, twice-termly Catholic mass followed by an evening meal; student participation in intercessions; inviting evensong guests to formal afterwards with the choir, and thence to port in the chaplain's room; a pancake party; and finally, the superhall for charity. One of our grad students, Susan, works with a scheme which helps rehabilitate gibbons into the wild after they have been rescued from being kept as pets, and one of the conversation areas they are released into is Mintin island in Indonesia. The people of Mintin village have always been helpful and supportive of the scheme, and before she came back to England last time Susan asked if there was anything she could do for them to express her appreciation. The village is almost entirely Christian, and they have been building their own church - but so far, due to lack of resources and funds, it does not have a roof, and they mentioned this to her. Susan worked out that because of the exchange rates they only needed about £80, so she decided to put it to us to come up with a fundraiser.

Hence the formal hall. We added £2 to the price of each ticket, Susan designed an Indonesian menu, we decorated the hall with garlands of paper flowers and images of jungle canopy projected in light onto the walls and ceiling, exchanged the candelabras for tealights in glass holders and bowls of floating candles surrounded by garlands, scattered petals on the tables, set up a speaker system to play low-key tribal music during the meal, and put on the tickets "dress: JUNGLE".

It was an incredible success. The costumes were fantastic - even the Fellows abandoned their suits and ties for outrageous tropical shirts - the food delicious (several people said that foodwise, it was the nicest formal they'd ever been to), Keith introduced the meal with an Indonesian grace, pronounced surprisingly fluently, and after Susan had said a few words explaining the purpose of it, her supervisor (who was sitting at high table) stood up and "said" a welcome speech in gibbon. This had been arranged without our knowledge, and it was unbelievably cool. I never knew somone could open their mouth that wide; each hoot grew louder and higher than the last, and when he bowed and sat down he was greeted to spontaneous applause. In fact later in the meal it even inspired a Chinese Whispers in gibbon to go round the hall, although I think it got lost somewhere along the way.

In the end, after funds from tickets and from a collection which was taken after the meal, we raised £209.48, which was wired to Indonesia this morning. Afterwards we retired to the bar for pool and disastrous karaoke, which was highly entertaining. Iain has a video somewhere of me drunkenly singing "A Whole New World", but I think it's pay-per-view (and I want a cut, ok?!)

( photos of peoples' outrageous costumes )

13 hours: keep turning


Dawn Treader (Tue, 09 March 04; 11:04am)

On Saturday, [info]the_lady_lily, [info]devalmont and I went to the Girton Spring Ball. This was mainly because the theme was "Dawn Treader", and at the end of last term I saw a poster for it in the Classics Faculty and immediately ran to Liz squeeing "A NARNIA BALL!!! WE SO HAVE TO GO!" but I've since been converted to Spring Balls in general. Unlike their May counterparts, the year is still cold, and so rather than being an open air funfair-cum-music-festival they take place for the most part indoors. About twenty different rooms of various sizes and functions were decorated in different ways and with different themes: there was Aslan's Den, which had cushioned nooks in the walls hidden by curtains (for sex or smoking, presumably, although we didn't enter into one ourselves) and laid-back live folk music being played; Nightmare Island, a rave room with flavoured oxygen available instead of alcohol; the Magician's Study where magic tricks and comedy were being performed; a series of rooms decorated as "islands", each with a different theme (a film room, a speed dating room, a games room) and different kinds of drink available accordingly; Dodgems (outside); the Faun's Glen where beautiful topless gold-painted fauns gave massages; a lazer quest (cunningly disguised as "cave quest") and huge amounts of food and drink from salads and fruit to burgers and donuts. There was far more live music than we could ever hope to listen to, but we managed a substantial amount and got a few hours of serious dancing in, which was definitely necessary.

It had long been a Cambridge ambition to go to a ball in drag, and I decided that Girton Spring Ball (being slightly less formal than some of the May Balls) was the place to do it. After abandoning the Prince Rilian plan when I found out it wasn't a costume ball, I decided to hire a suit. This was more complicated than I'd imagined. Firstly, I didn't get served. I don't know whether it was gender discrimination or not - I imagine they simply didn't realise I wanted to be served and assumed I was just waiting for someone - but it took them well over half an hour to get to me. My request to hire a tailcoat was received with some incredulity, and I was beginning to get annoyed, especially when I found out they didn't have a single frock coat available in my size. The smallest jacket they had was a DJ. But oh, when I tried that on - it felt incredible. So comfortable, for a start, and I had pockets, and my breasts weren't really obvious at all, and the trousers fit so much better than stupid tight girly hipster trousers do - in fact they were much more flattering in general. I'd borrowed Catriona's top hat so I decided to wear it anyway - I mean you shouldn't with a DJ, officially, but seeing as I'd already abandoned convention I thought I may as well. I haven't taken the suit back to the hire place yet. I love it so much. I want one of my own.

I wasn't convincing at all, of course - women tended to grin at me (I think they assumed I was a lesbian) but men just felt uncomfortable. A few of them liked the hat, though, and asked to try it on. But the best part about cross-dressing was the dancing. Dancing in a suit is an entirely different skill to dancing in a dress. Different parts of your body are emphasised, your posture is different, and looking good in girl's clothes involves a different type of movement to looking good dressed as a man. You carry yourself differently. It's the same with dancing. I'd never really thought about it before, but as soon I tried it I realised I was going to have to get to grips with an entirely different skill. Dancing like a woman is all about your hands and your hips, where your weight rests; dancing like a man is about your shoulders and your feet. Rather than keeping the beat with your hips, you keep it with your shoulders; you look down rather than up; and instead of using your arms to illustrate the music, you use your feet. It was a fascinating experience, and even if I looked a complete fool I think I got quite good at it - at least, better than most of the other men there, although I probably still looked stupid in comparison to the women. But I've discovered I like man-dancing, and as it would look daft in women's clothes (not because of gender stereotyping, simply because of what different clothes do to your body), I'm obviously going to have to cross-dress more in order to get to do it.

Anyway, photos are here. I need to go and work. What with three hours sleep on Friday night, four on Saturday night, and dress rehearsals and auditions to be a pirate at Robinson May Ball and play performances and a jungle-themed formal hall which I helped organise to raise money for a village in Indonesia, work has been neglected somewhat over the past few days. I have two essays to do in three days, as well as language work and more performances. It's the end of term after that, but I can't afford to think about that quite yet.

84 hours: keep turning


new layout (Sat, 06 March 04; 11:23am)

Finally, something new at art-fag.net, although not what I was expecting. I got back from Catriona's at 3am and somehow this happened (the images are for a livejournal layout I never got round to using) and I didn't get to bed until 7am. I woke up three hours later and now have an essay to write, a tailcoat and dress shirt to hire for Girton Ball tonight, and various errands to run before I have to stay up until 7am tonight as well.

I think that a power nap is probably in order at some point before this evening. That and lots of caffeine and other additives. Still, it feels so damn good to be making things again.

45 hours: keep turning


interesting meme (Thu, 04 March 04; 12:18pm)

(from [info]blackmetalbaz)

1. Does my username suit me?
2. Is my journal's title cryptic or descriptive? What do you think it means?
3. Does my journal expand your knowledge of me?
4. Do you think my bio describes me well? If you knew me in real life and found it, would you be able to guess who it was describing?
5. Which of my interests surprises you the least?
6. Which of my interests surprises you the most?
7. Which of my interests needs explaining?
8. Which of my userpics suits me best?

25 hours: keep turning


Request for submissions (yes, pun intended) (Wed, 03 March 04; 01:31pm)

As some of you may already know, I'm working on a BDSM website for my domain. I'm intending it to be informative more than anything else, written for people who have never really explored the scene or don't know anything about it rather than old-timers (although there's no reason they shouldn't find it interesting). I want to raise awareness and discuss issues, which would work much better if there were a number of different viewpoints other than my own.

I'd really like it, therefore, if any of you wanted to contribute. You can choose to either be named or anonymous for each piece you submit; if you want credit for your essay on gender but would rather that your description of your abduction fantasy was kept un-named, that's absolutely fine.

Here are some ideas/starting points for things I'd be interested to hear about (although please feel free to suggest any other topics):

. your story - how you realised you were dominant/submissive/switch, descriptions of formative experiences. what are your particular tastes? why do you think these appeal and not others?
. how you define these terms - what do "dominant", "submissive", "sadist", "masochist", "master", "mistress", "slave" etc mean to you?
. what it means to you identify as dominant, submissive, sadistic, or masochistic, and how this relates to the rest of your personality (are you only dom/sub etc in a sexual sense, or in all areas of life? if there's a difference, is this an area of tension? how do you reconcile your dom/sub side with the rest of your character?)
. what it means to be in a sadistic/masochistic relationship that is not dom/sub, or vice versa
. whether you have any moral or ethical objections to your fetish, and how you have worked through these (if you have)
. whether there is any clash between your fetish and your philosophy or religious faith, and how you deal with that
. gender issues - I'm particularly interested in hearing things from anyone in a d/s same-sex couple. How do "dom" and "sub" relate to "femme" and "butch"? If you identify with more than one gender, is your dominance/submissiveness affected by which gender you are at any one time?
. thoughts on "24/7" or full-time enslavement (have a look at www.enslavement.org.uk for information on Internal Enslavement and Total Power Exchange) - how much crossover is there between your sexual dominance/submission and the rest of your life?
. if you're comfortable with it, I'd be fascinated to hear descriptions of any favourite fantasies - the more elaborate, the better!
. thoughts on self-injury - how do you separate the BDSM from self-harm? is your submission/dominance ever self-destructive? is this a bad thing? do you think enacting dominant/sadistic desires ever has a negative impact on your emotional/mental health?
. how has acting on your desires affected you? what happens when you are unable to act on them?
. how do you feel during a BDSM session? how much of the pleasure is sexual /mental /emotional /psychological, and in what way?
. safewords - absolute necessity or a sign of lack of trust?
. playing in public (e.g. at a play party) - how does this differ from more private play?
. the dynamics of play involving more than two people
. what do you suppose are the "reasons" for your dominant/submissive inclinations? what does it suggest about your personality? can you "explain" it by any event in your childhood?
. the relationship between BDSM and actual corporal punishment during childhood - if you've experienced both, how do they interrelate?
. the relationship between BDSM and abuse. this is an incredibly difficult and sensitive issue, but I do know some submissives who were sexually abused as children - and even some submissives who have come from abusive relationships, but continue to be submissive. thoughts? what about dominants? can an abuse victim ever experience "healthy" BDSM that is not in some way related to their previous suffering, do you think?
. the relationship between BDSM and depression

I have a few people in mind I'd particularly like to hear from (you know who you are) - there isn't really a deadline for this, as I can keep on adding things, but I'd like a couple of pieces in the next few weeks so I can get the basic outline of the site up. These topics are all things I have opinions on, but I'm loathe to write on all of them without an alternative viewpoint to "balance" it. I'd be particularly interested in receiving writing from any dominants, as most of the people I can think of who might have something to say on this are submissive. Writing can take the form of essays, short pieces just explaining your thoughts on a topic, fiction or descriptive prose (e.g. for the section on fantasies - I want this to be informative (I think the recurring motifs and ideas in fantasies are incredibly fascinating, especially when you compare those of several people from different backgrounds) but also I imagine it will make quite erotic reading - it would be nice to celebrate that, rather than try and do it completely academically) or even poetry. If you want to be credited you can provide a small bio for the "contributors" section with as much information as you want to include, contact details or not. If you want to remain anonymous you can post your submissions (or links to them) in anonymous comments to this entry; otherwise either post them here or email them to me (melusine @ cantab . net).

51 hours: keep turning


Week 6: update (Tue, 02 March 04; 12:57am)

i. Fascinating lecture by Henderson on Friday, on Horace's Epistles. He was talking about the problems with self-analysis and self-presentation in published correspondence, and it was all strangely relevant to livejournal. I shall transpose:

"A livejournal is not a posthumously published diary, a "raided file" (as is Letters to Atticus, for example); it is a deliberate imitation of a diary in a self-conscious prose style, the author trying to write themselves into getting their mind straight. The personality presented in their entries is inconsistent depending on which reader they have in mind when they're writing - which persona is most true, and which does the author prefer? Their Self is being drawn out, experimentally, as we watch. They're trying to catch themselves out, thinking about the relationship they're constructing with the reader as they construct it. Are the many facets of the writer a question or an answer? The result is aporetic, inconclusive; there is no "real self", as when we write for an audience we are always putting on a front. Is this a weakness? A satirical kind of self-preservation? If all the journal entries are completely unified, does that denote an integrated personality or someone who has forgotten how to be human? In the end it's just people going about their lives in the usual way - but the difference is, they're thinking about it. It's creating an informal, tangental biography written as if in context, theorising through practice. We don't have time to do philosophy; we have a life to live."

ii. On Friday afternoon I attended the casting workshop for the Cambridge Greek Play, a production of Oedipus Tyrannos performed in the original language. There were two of these workshops, but I had to miss the first one because I had three hours of supervisions that afternoon, and at the end of the second when I realised that that was it and they were not going to arrange another, I felt disadvantaged. I had been on show for less than half the time the others had (although the Friday one was the more useful as it involved small-group performance; the Thursday one had, apparently, been a more general movement session), and I was worried this would affect their casting decisions. I didn't feel I was a long way below the standard of the others, and there are so few of us auditioning in any case that only a couple of people will not be offered parts, so we shall see. Of course I desperately want to be in it, but it will involve a lot of re-arranging my plans for Easter, as I'll be required to stay in Cambridge for a fortnight for intensive language workshops. I hate waiting, I get anxious if I can't plan what I'll be doing when. I'll know for certain on Wednesday.

iii. I usually don't give anything up for Lent because I go on pilgrimage for ten days over Easter Week, and it's generally accepted by the people I go with that walking 120 miles with blisters and a hangover is penance enough for any sinner. If anything, this Lent in particular I'm trying to eat more, not less, because although I'm generally a lot more emotionally stable than I was for most of 2003 I still have a lot of hang-ups about food. This is only exacerbated by every single Christian in college and on livejournal going on and on about their fasts. Yes, I know fasting makes everything feel sharper and more alive. I know it's an almost painfully beautiful sort of purity and I know it can feel good despite the hunger pangs and dizziness. Please don't remind me of these things. I do not need any more triggers than I already have to put up with. (Eating Disorder Awareness Week was only a month ago; have you forgotten already?)

This Lent I am giving up fasting.

iv. On Friday evening [info]the_alchemist and I went to the Treasure Trap (a Cambridge-based live-action roleplay using a system which originated in Durham) tavern interaction with hurriedly thrown-together characters and costumes (my costume didn't even fit my character), but despite our inexperience and other misgivings really enjoyed ourselves - I know I did, at any rate. Sara Who Has No Surname went, during the course of the evening, from being a slightly mad wild-child gardener-witch with Fire magic to a Wilderness character without magic at all (when I realised I couldn't have magic and any sort of skills in their system), and then to a butch, boozy, flirtatious swordswoman who takes great pride in describing herself as a "bodyguard" and teases Hermia (the body she's guarding - a noblewoman alchemist, as played by Catriona) outrageously, with that mixture of scolding and cosseting you can only get away with when you've been dressing someone since you were eight and they were ten. This was not planned. I'm sure it was just the combination of wench-corset and leather bracers that did it. Still, I want to take her on an adventure sometime and see what she's like in her natural environment (i.e. outside) before anything becomes more concrete, as I still like the idea of the mad woodland fire-witch and want to see if the character and I can reach some sort of compromise. It's been very long time since I've roleplayed properly and, although it took me a while to get into it, it was fantastic fun. Now I just need to get my parents to send up my hiking boots and leather trousers so I can put laces down the legs, and I'll be set.

v. The lent term Downing College Music Society concert was this evening, and included the choir singing Bach's Kantate 147. The orchestra and choir weren't bad, nothing to worry about, but the soloists were frighteningly, professionally good. They were all old Downing choir-members, the alto only two years older than me, and I was absolutely in awe. Recently I've been thinking I'm becoming quite a good singer, but no. I am a very long way off. Wow.

vi. Rehearsals for Diary of a Nobody are going well, better than I expected - turns out my low opinion of my fellow cast members was a hasty judgement. I've been making posters for the student performance and hunting down an appropriately foppish waistcoat. There is talk of changing as many lines as we can on the last night for the maximum possible amount of gay innuendo, but I suppose that largely depends on whether or not we'll be drinking real port on stage.

vii. It is my brother Kieran's 18th birthday on the 3rd, and today I spent a contented morning roaming Cambridge for things to put in a parcel for him. The eventual haul consisted of: a huge dark red knitted scarf from Tie Rack, a pair of Eeyore toe socks, some cannabis scented incense, a large bar of Green & Blacks milk chocolate, a James CD, two sachets of Cadburys marshmallow toppers hot chocolate, two pretty candles with dried leaves and things in, a packet of honey roasted cashew nuts, and a Spiderman card with an "8 years old" badge, to which I have added a "1" because you need a badge to wear to school and the "18" cards never have them. The idea that my little brother is an adult and allowed to vote and get married is a scary one, but when I think how young and silly I was at 18 I'm reassured; he's still a teenager, and I don't have to stop teasing him about it quite yet.

viii. while posting the above, I found in the post office a complete set of the Lord of the Rings postcards of the new limited edition anniversary stamps featuring Tolkein's original illustrations, for 30p each. I bought all ten. I may be a postcard-and-Tolkein-obsessed geek, but I am at least a happy one.

26 hours: keep turning


how RPG-based Secret History fanfic was born (Tue, 24 February 04; 10:09am)

Just in case you haven't trawled through the fifty-something comments on my last entry (which is more than likely), I'm re-printing this for your amusement and delight:


[info]sisuphos: You're rapidly shattering my Secret History image of you. I just can't see Henry playing RPGs somehow.
[info]the_lady_lily:

Oh, I don't know...

"You need to convince the democratic assembly of Athens to attack the island of Lesbos before the sun sets. Your nominated orator has a rhetoric level of five, but you're hampered since you have a statue of Pericles in your hallway and have been known to associate with the dangerous free-thinker Socrates..."

(mutter from background - "told you talking to him was a stupid idea! Told you!")

"...but you did support the last three votes on the grain supply, which means the people will at least give you a free hearing. Demodocus is sitting to one side looking sly, as if he knows something you don't. You need to roll a three first off, to attract the attention of the Assembly..."

(Shouts of complaint from other players)

"Well, you did insist on wearing something unpretentious and unprepossessing. Come on, are we playing or not? Put down the wine, Charles, we haven't got to the evening yet. No, we can't have an impromptu orgy in the middle of the bloody Assembly. I do wish you'd take this seriously."



Genius.

19 hours: keep turning


two things (Mon, 23 February 04; 11:44am)

1. Do any of you know of any LARP games running in Cambridge or about to start? I'm getting the roleplaying bug and don't really have enough people to scrape a group together; besides, I don't really want to have to DM. (I'd prefer something more freestyle than dice-based, but either is good.)

2. In an attempt to explain my lack of posting/commenting/emailling over the next few days (as well as to sort things out in my head), my schedule until Wednesday:

( busyness )

65 hours: keep turning


Peter Pan readthrough (Sun, 22 February 04; 09:59pm)

I met up with many many strange people (as in strangers - although they are all strange, too, in a deeply wonderful way) yesterday for [info]fluffymark's birthday party and a readthrough of Peter Pan, which was a fantastic success. Highlights included: [info]andrewwyld's remarkably eloquent (and grammatical!) Tinkerbell (and his suggestion "drink every time someone says something gender-bending!"), [info]mirabehn's casually cruel Peter (and beautiful tin whistle playing), the dialogue between Hook and Peter where Peter imitates his voice, which was done quite uncannily by [info]mirabehn and [info]the_alchemist, quite how many rude bits there are if you're looking for them, and [info]robert_jones proving to be very very good on the piano.

Many thanks to [info]the_alchemist for having the idea and putting all the effort into organising (and for having the most extravagant costume by a mile), [info]fluffymark for hosting it, and everyone else for being there and being so damn talented!

I'd already started in on the alcohol during the readthrough, and toppled about afterwards being what Ellie described the next morning as a "delightful, inoffensive drunk" - which probably means embarrassing - before passing out on the sofa at about 11pm. I didn't regain consciousness until the next morning (someone actually had to put me to bed - thankyou so much, I'm so sorry) and don't remember a thing after about half past ten, which is incredibly disconcerting. I've been hungover all day but it was very much worth it, although it's stupid to drink so much at parties and miss most of them (I even missed the non-sexual stroking orgy! although we had something similar this morning with many soft toys and foot massages and toast and tea, so I don't feel quite so left out.) Remind me not to in future, especially on the back of an unusually anxious and sleep-deprived week five ...

Anyway, photos. These were very dark, so I've upped the brightness on a lot of them which has made them grainy. Sorry about that. But rah!

( photos! )

30 hours: keep turning


w**k (thanks to Z for the utterly crude pun) (Sat, 21 February 04; 01:39am)

Stoned. Fascinating conversation with Iain this evening. We were talking about work, and our reactions to it, which is more interesting than it sounds - I'm continually anxious about work, how much I'm doing, how well I'm doing it - an anxiety which is aggravated by the fact none of our work is graded, only corrected - and it was really helpful to talk frankly about it. I aired a lot of my stresses and it was good to have someone who genuinely gets it, and to hear how positive we were both beginning to feel about it this term. It's not that I regret the choices I made in my first year - I had fantastic fun, and no matter what anyone else says I think the whole experience was a positive one, and changed me for the better in a lot of ways - it's just that I had this constant background anxiety and guilt that I wasn't doing enough, wasn't taking enough advantage of being here, I mean for fuck's sake, being at Cambridge.

The most obvious thing that changed that initially was the breakup, which necessarily forced me to go out and do lots of things for me, out of self-preservation more than anything else. I'm trying very hard not to make it sound like going out with Iain somehow stopped me leading a fulfilling life, because that's completely untrue. It was just that my entire attitude was off-focus. Even at the beginning of this term, when between choir, being a chapel warden, auditioning for plays, getting to know loads of people in the goth scene and becoming friends with Mark and Catriona I had a full, active, sociable, life and was pretty happy, it still wasn't right. I was neglecting my work, and I handed in two appallingly bad essays. It was during the Democritus supervision, when I was still shaking from the plagiarism accusation, that I was forced to think about it. Although I believe it was an unjust criticism, it was clear something needed to change. Sitting there, half-listening to Sam and Platanakis debate atomic motion, I experienced one of those odd moments when your entire perception suddenly shifts. The world looks different. It occurred to me that, actually, the whole time, I'd been handing in substandard work. The supervisors hadn't commented because they're academics, not teachers, we're meant to get knowledge more by osmosis from their mere presence than actual activity on their parts. But I hadn't been writing undergraduate essays. My arguments were non-existent, my thinking unoriginal. I'd been scraping along thinking I was still a fresher, assuming someone would tell me how to change it, simply forgetting I was responsible for my own development. The realisation got swamped by the more immediate rage about the unfair accusation, but the next week, writing the essay on Virgil, I saw it had clearly affected me. I did a much better job and had a flush of satisfaction for about three days. I can do it, I've just been too tired and apathetic and scared to really try before. I've written two more since then, and have actually changed the way I work completely. It's like something's clicked.

That sudden panicked fear, that stomach-dropping moment you realise actually, you've been looking at it wrong all this time, can be shattering. I had a false one this morning; that is, something occurred to me, and after believing it for five minutes and considering the implications I worked out it wasn't true after all, and breathed normally again. I was in a Latin practical criticism supervision and we were reading Horace, one of the satires, a comic piece which is a mixture of aesthetics and gratuitous crudeness, and swathed in layers and layers of irony. Every time you think you've got to the bottom of it you uncover another aspect which colours your reading again. To really try to explain would take an essay; but I was sitting there, finding it hard to grasp quite what was going on beneath all the various shades of suggestion and association, and I thought, what if it's not just that I'm tired, I'm actually too stupid? I don't mean in a self-deprecating, melodramatic way, because obviously I'm bright, but not if I'm not the brightest? That my supervision partner and my supervisor really can understand things in more depth, hold more contradictory ideas in their head at once, penetrate the fug of irony and intertextuality and misdirection with far more clarity than I? What if there's a level of thinking I just can't get to? It was a numbing thought. I looked down, thought about the passage again and realised it was crap - if there's one thing I can damn well do, it's grasp a text. At second-year level perhaps, but nevertheless easily and well, inasmuch as anyone can at this stage. No, that was bullshit. But believing it, however briefly, was appalling. I'm worth nothing without my intelligence. Whatever faults I have - and there are many - the one thing I do have is my mind. It sounds awful now I come to write it, but I suppose I've never really doubted that there's not much, in my subject, (I mean we're not talking maths here, okay) that I can't eventually grasp; and that most of the time I'm fairly quick. I never doubted I had the talent to be an academic, I only doubt I have the focus and self-discipline. God, how appalling. Maybe I really am deluded. But I always took it for granted. And even as I'm writing disclaimers for fear of sounding horribly arrogant, I suppose I still do believe it.

I've just never had the right attitude. And obviously I'm not going to drop everything and become a conscientious worker overnight, but something is changing, I can tell. One thing that really affected me recently was reading The Secret History. Like most of you, I experienced excruciating jealousy. But I realised - even though I don't have such genius, super-rich, enigmatic friends - I have no real right to be jealous. I'm taught daily by fellows just as brilliant, inspired and eccentric as Julian, I live in an environment just as beautiful. I am instilled just as powerfully, in lectures and supervisions, with a sense of the sublime beauty and mystery of ancient literature, society and language. Surely everyone who reads that book wishes they were in it, but I realised, fuck, I am in it. Or I could be. But I'm wasting it. I mean Richard is screwed up and has just as trashy, sordid a social life as I, but even he will happily spend hours reading Greek. Engrossed. When did I last let myself have that passion for my subject? Sure, I love lectures and supervisions, but when did I start taking those for granted, losing the fervour to do this for myself?

While I was reading it I had to write a Greek Prose (I was unreasonably, geekily excited to read about someone else doing Greek Prose Composition in a novel), and I attacked it in a firmly Henry mentality. It was scattered with minor grammatical errors (sadly, I don't have his knowledge) but it was original Greek - I handled the complex mixture of conditionals and oratio obliqua as if it were completely natural. Somehow I found a way of sitting and looking at it where it all seemed obvious, and when not obvious, fascinating, and a grim pleasure to unravel. It was an incredible experience, actually. And obviously I haven't changed - but I've found a place in my head I can go to work, and it's wonderful.

Now if I can only find time to work inbetween the choir practices, play rehearsals, Music Society dinners, drinks with the Bishop of Durham, pancake parties, chapel services (the night prayer I'm leading and the Ash Wednesday communion) and maybe even seeing friends on occasion, I'll be fine. If I can find time, goddamnit. The essay's due in on Wednesday and I have a total of ten hours, not including sleep, in which to do it. Let the games begin.

15 hours: keep turning


the grass is riz (Thu, 19 February 04; 04:39pm)


Thursday.

( I woke up this morning and it was spring. ) It is a big, cold, glorious, blustery day. I went to the computer room this morning to print off my history essay and Peter Pan script and as I stepped outside again into the dazzling sunshine I saw two ducks, not on the grass as usual but lurking in the tiny courtyards behind T staircase, where the laundry is. I grinned at them, but they were oblivious.

The essay went very well, in the end. It was something of a disaster at first because I missed the late-night festivities on the biggest night of the year in order to sleep, so I could attempt the essay during the day tomorrow. However, my singing lesson came and went (as usual, it was excellent and made me feel great about myself), as did the play rehearsal (also good: I am playing Flight of the Bumblebee on the kazoo in the dinner party scene - !! - and have been instructed to play Frank as a complete fag, which is very cool) and I still hadn't started the reading. I went to choir, came back, and managed to find a myriad things to do - applying for jobs at May Balls, having an incredibly interesting (if somewhat incoherent on my part) conversation with [info]mijra and eventually fell asleep at 1.30am having done a negligible amount of work. I set my alarm for 6am, got up, did another hour and then went back to bed, not waking up until three hours later. The essay, I should point out, was due in at 6pm yesterday and I'd been intending to get it in before 9am.

Thus it was that myself, Ali, and Sam, all of us in the same supervision this afternoon and none of us having finished the essay (Ali hadn't even started it) found ourselves comparing notes on msn. Ali said she had crippling period pain and was going to use that as her excuse, so the two of us spent some time on concocting an email for Prof. Millett. "I might actually use the phrase 'women's troubles'," she remarked facetiously, and I said, "no! I've got a better idea. Say it in Latin!" There followed an intent discussion wherein we tried to convey exactly the right amount of gravity and irony; admitting the ridiculousness of the email but at the same time still succeeding in moving the supervision. The email which was actually sent ran as follows:

Dear Dr Millett,

Please accept my apologies but I have been suffering with an unusually
acute case of menstruus cruciatus for a few days, and as a result have
been unable to complete the essay on time. Although both Helen and Sam
intend to hand in essays this morning they understand that this will not
leave you much time to look at them, and therefore would also be happy to
reschedule today's supervision (4pm) if you were able to accommodate
this. Otherwise I am not sure I would feel able to attend today in my
present condition.

Sorry for the inconvenience,
Alison

("present condition!" I giggled when I first read it, "it makes it sound like you're pregnant!")

We'd spent some time debating between cruciatus and dolor. In the end we decided that although both could refer to either physical or mental pain, dolor had more of a sense of "anguish", and wasn't quite appropriate. And besides, cruciatus has distressing but unavoidable associations with the Rowling curse, thus providing an ironic little bilingual intertext pun on "the curse". Which is always fun.

He replied within five minutes: "Dear Alison, You poor thing! By all means let us reschedule. With best wishes, Paul." The man is wonderful. I handed the essay in half an hour later and the supervision will take place next week. I was very pleased with the essay - not a masterpiece, but good enough. After my first two disastrous attempts this term and the mess that was last term I was beginning to despair of ever producing a decent essay with relative ease, but the last three, after initial hazards, have all turned out okay and come together fairly quickly as soon as I got into them. I'm beginning to feel a little more hopeful about a 2.1 this summer.

16 hours: keep turning


madness, pre-midnight (Mon, 16 February 04; 11:47pm)

For the past few days I have felt strangely dislocated, as if I were on a bewildering cocktail of drugs. It is only severe sleep-deprivation, I think, but I am not tired, only distant, anxious in an empty, out-of-focus way. Today I sat down to read while I drank a cup of tea and looked up again to find it was three hours later. I wanted to continue reading but felt a sort of emotional sickness at the idea, put the book down and stared at a point on my coffee table, trying to assemble my thoughts. I could not work, that I was out of the question. I picked up a tin whistle and played Salley Gardens, plaintive and halting, and was shocked by how loud the notes sounded in the strange silence produced by the constant, unregistered whir of the computer fan.

In the end I walked over to the boys' house, hoping that Iain would be in, rehearsing what I was going to say as I padded, hands shoved in pockets, across the paddock in the cold dark. He wasn't there and I chatted to his mates instead, conducted a mission to retrieve chunky milk from the fridge, laughed in genuine amusement. Stepped outside again into the star-encrusted night with my emotions temporarily in place; cheered only superficially, but enough.

It’s an odd addiction, reading. A strange, cruel sort of pleasure that leaves you stranded, afterwards, disorientated, blinking in the sudden and unwanted light of reality. Dazed, like the calm after a storm, but with nameless things still raging inside, unvoiced. Reading for protracted lengths of time is a self-indulgent, guilty pleasure; like an orgasm, shivering internally with bursts of surprise and delight but outwardly showing nothing. A petit mort, a temporary losing of the self. It is a vice, I’m sure of it. A sin. I am anxious, now, afraid to pick up the book in case I lose time again, but I cannot resist. I go under for too long, testing fate, staying in the beautiful, mysterious deeps for as long as I can bear it before rising again to the surface and taking great, desperate gulps of air.

I cannot stay in that place forever. But having glimpsed it once, I feel at times like these that I will nowhere else know that same piercing clarity of happiness.

17 hours: keep turning


The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to Zen (Tue, 10 February 04; 01:49pm)

Dr Pattenden, presumably as bored by Latin prose composition in the style of Seneca as I was, interrupted our supervision today to tell me a story about the previous Bursar at Peterhouse. Apparently the guy started a society, the purpose of which was to invite eminent business men, gangsters and suchlike, to dine with the students. The students would, he hoped, talk to them and learn how to get on in the world. He wanted to call it "Streetwise", only something more high-brow, so in the end it was named "Sapientia Viarum"; the wisdom you get from the streets. Only sapientia is like sofia in Greek, something altogether loftier, and via is the M11, the interstate. What he wanted (Pattenden explained with a wry smile) was "Sollertia Vicorum", sollertia being a skill you learn through practice, and a vico being the backstreet where you learn it. Which led to the question, what does "Sapientia Viarum" actually mean? The concept was somewhat incongruous, and in the end the closest Pattenden could come to a translation was the wisdom picked up on the motorway: "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to Zen". Apparently the society has since been disbanded, which is unfortunate - I'd have joined it just for the sake of the name.

29 hours: keep turning


train-writing (Sun, 08 February 04; 11:35pm)



On Friday [info]maga_dogg unexpectedly gave me a small suede-bound notebook, and I have started writing in it: it's been a long time since I've really written for myself, and it's made me remember how important it is, how much it makes me feel like me. Most of it will stay decidedly private, but occasionally I might transcribe things into here, so my public and private voices don't become too separate. I'm including these scribblings from today as accompaniment to the photos - I should probably add it's not trying to be Proper Writing, just random emotive train-thoughts, unedited and unashamed. I was in an odd, wistful mood. I usually am when I'm travelling through the fens; the sky is so big it seems to make my heart expand just looking at it, and anyway, the countryside always tends to make me maudlin.

( loneliness, and sky-pictures )

42 hours: keep turning


frustra et partiones (Sun, 08 February 04; 11:27pm)

So last night = the happiest I've been in a good while, the sort of ridiculous, silly, drunk happiness that comes with good friends and good music and alcohol and fitting comfortably into my 20" corset. I didn't get much sleep, I'm not thinking straight and I've been overtired and emotional today but I want to write yesterday down before I forget, like I put off writing about the munch and the Calling and then suddenly it was too late and I'm liking my social life at the moment, I want to record it. However, I am fuzzy and sleepy and this will not be in proper sentences.

Seeing [info]verte was particularly lovely this time because I'd been worried all week that our friendship was changing and not in a good way, but there are times I like to be proved paranoid. She bought me coffee and we gossiped and laughed about men and things (the day I cease to find the goth social scene a source of tongue-in-cheek amusement, please shoot me in the head) and had one of our proper long walking-through-cities conversations that I've missed, and I bought a long velvet skirt from Oxfam to rip up and wear that evening. We then met up with[info]beeswing, whom I don't see nearly enough, and the three of us had extortionately priced tea and Jamaican Ginger Cake ("Traditional Yorkshire Parkin", apparently, but I know jamaican ginger cake when I see it) in Betty's Tea Shop, which is one of those posh tourist places where the waiters have ankle-length black aprons and you pay to satisfy your curiosity rather than for what you actually get.

It was a wonderful afternoon, actually, wandering through York talking and stopping to buy ribbon and beads from craft shops. Then cocktails at the Evil Eye (where they asked us for ID - the cheek! - and I laced the corset which might become Gabrielle's with the ribbon I'd bought), gothing up at her house and back into town for the gig, which was Zombina and the Skeletones (I can't remember the name of the support band) and utterly fantastic. Standing and grinning to utterly feel-good music, being given a quadruple of Southern Comfort when I'd only asked for a double, lusting after a beautifully vulnerable guitar/keyboard player with fake blood running down his face who incited unprecedentedly dominant urges in me (although when we told him afterwards he didn't seem very impressed), chocolate-flavoured water, and [info]verte and I dancing by ourselves in front of the stage and being thoroughly leered at, although we didn't manage to get anyone else to actually join in. Afterwards we bought chips and pasties and ate them on the way back before putting on several more layers of clothes and shivering our way to the station to catch the 1am train. It had snowed a little, earlier, and the wind was far too cold for fishnet stockings. On the train I dozed and over-heard snatches of conversation which seemed to make no sense: "the planet Earth kept stopping! and they had to get everyone off, put them back on and re-start it again ..." Or perhaps I dreamed them. We ended up playing drunken twister with her flatmates before falling asleep to Singing in the Rain. Yes. Happy. There should be more days like that.

I wasn't so happy today, but I put that down to sleeplessness and hangover. Felt lonely and randomly tearful on the train, which was delayed an hour and a half in Stevenage so when I got back I was already late for choir. I needed a shower because there'd been no hot water that morning, my bike has finally broken, I got an email from my dad saying I forgot my mum's birthday on Thursday and several from people complaining I hadn't written them back, which all somehow combined to create an absolutely foul, stressed, weepy mood that had no apparent cause. I arrived late to choir to find about six new people, one of whom had taken my music and my seat so I had to stand off the edge of the pew because there wasn't enough room. It was most likely just tiredness but I couldn't cope for some reason, and after ten minutes of trying to hold back tears excused myself and left again, which was hugely humiliating. Iain was the only person willing to actually cheer me up, so I drank tea and we played computer games and he made me eat, which helped. I got several text messages from worried choir members as well, which made me feel simultaneously better and guiltier.

In the rooms ballot yesterday I picked a large, middling-priced room in my second-choice house, as my first choice was half-full of the boys currently on my floor and another year of us getting in each other's way is best avoided. It's all worked out unexpectedly well, actually: they're in number 38 Lensfield Rd and I'm on the top floor next door, but the top floors of 38 and 36 are joined to form a single corridor, and as well as myself are three girls I know from chapel, two of whom I think are lovely and interesting and want to be better friends with. I spent the final day of last term watching Labyrinth and The Princess Bride with them, and deciding I liked them very much indeed. Plus I will have the perfect kitchen, with french doors opening out onto the paddock, our own washing machine and two ovens. I shall cook ambitious meals and throw dinner parties, and afterwards we can sit on the grass and drink obscene amounts of wine. Yes.

15 hours: keep turning


sôphrosunë (ah, the joys of transliterating accents) (Thu, 05 February 04; 05:27pm)

Somehow - I don't know why - I didn't start writing the essay until about 2.30pm this afternoon. It makes no sense, as I was up by half past nine. I cannot account for the missing four hours (four because one was spent in rehearsal for Diary of a Nobody, which was fun but didn't do much to restore my confidence in the quality of the production). So I find myself with fifteen minutes until I have to go to choir and only a page completed (although I have vast quantities of written notes), and have no choice but to hand it in later this evening, after the deadline. It's frustrating and disappointing, but at least I'm happy about what I'm writing, even if it's taking a while.

I'm paranoid about my essays after the Democritus one was handed back unmarked and accused of plagiarism. This was exaggerated and unfair, but I was shocked to realise, skimming through it, how little I'd expanded upon my sources. The whole essay was a disaster in the first place - it took about five days to write (as opposed to my usual two), I had not attended the lecture on Democritus last term and so had no idea where to start, none of the books were available from any of the libraries and I had to rely on two incredibly specific, complex and not entirely relevant articles. To try and give me a starting point I found some lecture notes online and used them as a basis - which was what I was accused of plagiarising. I'm not trying to excuse myself - my first reaction was one of shame and guilt rather than indignance. However, although the structure of the main argument was recognisable due to my being horrendously hungover, not thinking straight, and short of time (all my own fault), over half of it was material from my other reading and my own arguments. I still think the supervisor over-reacted, but it did make me realise how much my standards were slipping. I've been so excited this term about having a social life and actually having friends in Cambridge I have things in common with that I've made it a priority over work. Balance, Helen, balance. Moderation. Distance. Come on. And so I am thinking harder about this essay than I have in a long time, and it's exciting, but I'm so unused to working properly (I haven't, really, since last summer) that it's taking far longer than it should. I still have the approximate attention-span of a goldfish.

I keep having to quell my indefatigable optimism that chirps up frequently with "it's fine! you're doing well! at least the essay's good! don't worry about getting it in on time, it's only Emily Gowers, she won't mind! no really, you're doing great!" Balance again: I have yet to find a medium between this voice, which is encouraging but not very helpful for actually getting things done, and the self-hatred, which isn't very effective either considering what it preys on is hopelessness. I need to be resolute; firm but fair. Anybody know any cognitive exercises for improving self-discipline? Willpower and emotional goads don't seem to have got me anywhere, and I'm somewhat at a loss.

18 hours: keep turning


library, and rooms ballot (Thu, 05 February 04; 12:26am)

I have just got back from my first shift working in the college library. This is something I've meant to do for extra cash since I got here (we aren't allowed part-time jobs during term other than the ones available in college, which are limited to a maximum of 6 hours a week so as not to disrupt work) and I'm glad I am. It was an odd experience, actually. I worked from 8.30-11.30pm and the library was practically deserted; I was allowed to have work with me but there was no computer, so I sat in the swivel chair behind the spacious front desk with crit on the Eclogues in my lap and scribbled notes by hand (not something I ever do, except in lectures). The windows in there are very high, which is wonderful in the daytime as it makes it spacious and airy but at night the blackness of the glass gave an odd sort of mood, combined with the whine of the catalogue computers and the electric strips which make your retinas ache. I felt studious and private, with the whole place to myself - at last, I am an official librarian! However, I mainly entertained myself inbetween essay preparation by texting Alex pretty much continuously about the weekend, since I seem to have developed an attention span of approximately eight minutes.

On Saturday, as well as seeing [info]beeswing and going to a concert in the evening, it is the annual rooms ballot in college. Ever since term started I've been mulling over my dilemma: I am top of the ballot, which means although I have complete choice over which room I have, I have no choice at all about who I live with. My friends in college (mainly, this translates as Iain and co) are mostly intending to live in college, in rooms very like the ones I've been in for the past two years; big, pretty, but no facilities such as central heating and personal sinks. I would like to live with people I know, of course, but unfortunately I have developed an intense desire for a house. Downing owns a street of three-storey Victorian terraces which back onto the park at the end of the quad in lieu of a fourth wall. Some of them are no better than the staircase I'm in at the moment, but some are almost "proper" houses: I want a large kitchen with ovens and a freezer and a decent sized fridge and a dining table! (I currently have none of these things - only a cramped "kitchen" with two hotplates and a microwave.) I want to be able to cook. I want a living room, with sofas. I want a washing machine, so I don't have to lug binbags of clothes halfway across college every other week. It's almost childish, a panicky, selfish I want!!! which snaps at anything in its way. But because I am about the third person in the year to choose my room, and because with Ruth and Ed already decided to live in college our syndicate is rendered slightly redundant, if I decide to live in a house I will have to live with whoever else decides to choose rooms there, whether they are trendy girls or rugger boys or an established friendship group or not.

Nevertheless, this is what I have decided to do. Although at the moment I am sharing a floor with a group of six lads who essentially treat the corridor as their flat, leaving their doors open, having loud conversations outside my room at 2am, and generally making obscene amounts of noise and making me nervous to even go into the kitchen for a cup of tea, and although this makes life in college rather less than rosy, I am willing to take the risk. For a start, because of the nature of the syndicate system (groups of three or four) it is highly unlikely I would be the "odd one out" again - even if I do end up sharing with an unfriendly clique, there'll be a couple of other people simply there because they like the house. And it's more likely than not that I'll like whoever I share with - there can't be that many antisocial groups in college. Besides, a house is more private than a corridor - whereas here our rooms face each other in a small square, in a house I could have a room on the third floor and would be separated from all but one other inhabitant by a flight of stairs, thereby ensuring my privacy. It would also result in my meeting (and hopefully befriending) other people in my year in college, which can only be a good thing.

It doesn't sound it, but it's been quite a terrifying decision - I do like my security! - but now I've made it I feel a great sense of relief. All that is left is to spend hours studying the rooms list trying to decide on the perfect, cheap room in the perfect, big-kitchened house. Hours which I do not have, as I have an essay on the Eclogues to write. "Does Virgil idealise the countryside, with reference to, etc." One of those über-fun questions which give you no hint whatsoever as to what you should write about; ultimately more interesting, but much harder to start. Also I have to resist the urge to over-use Henderson's lectures; I may love his style, and he may be a promiscuous sextagenarian with long grey hair behind his ears and a bald pate, but this does not make him an ultimate authority. I have to remind myself of this often, as I have the unhelpful habit of considering the brilliance of a scholar to be in direct proportion to their eccentricity.

3 hours: keep turning


sleep when you die (Mon, 02 February 04; 10:27am)

Strange, time-warped weekend. The Democritus essay which was due in on Thursday afternoon didn't get finished in time, as I had a 2-hour intensive Latin grammar supervision which I'd forgotten about. It was with the lovely Mark Bradley, who made me tea (the other two didn't get tea; ha! although they were also late) and grinned as we shivered our way through the supervision in scarves and gloves; it took place in a little-used room in college, whose high ceilings and large windows looking onto the snow rendered the three electric heaters he'd set up completely ineffective. I suggested that next time if it was still this cold we just had it in my room, since Mark doesn't have a study in college. And no, it wasn't just a ploy to get him into my bedroom.

Anyway, the essay dragged on and was neglected on Thursday night as I had to go to the pub for Ian (not my ex)'s birthday, which was actually fantastic fun, starting with white wine and tequila slammers in Wetherspoons and ending up at an underground salsa bar for carling and silly dancing. It closed at midnight and I intended to finish the essay then, but had drunk more than I realised and fell asleep instead. Nor did I get up early the next morning to do it. I managed to put in about an hour and a half, in total, inbetween lectures and my Chapel Wardens meeting and the readthrough of Diary of a Nobody, but when I got back with only an hour until the supervision I got an email saying it was cancelled anyway. The readthrough, incidentally, was fairly embarrassing - I'm pretty sure I'm one of the best actors there, which isn't saying much, and if the others are good then they have no sense of comic timing or, erm, characterisation. Perhaps I'm expecting too much of the readthrough, I don't know. I'm not sure I want anyone who knows me or has any respect for me to see the thing, though.

Friday night was, as [info]the_lady_lily concisely put it, playtime: she, Mark Bradley and myself in Pizza Express for wine, gossip, discussing who's having affairs with who in the Classics faculty, and debating which Sex in the City characters we were (we decided Mark was about 2/3 Charlotte and the rest Miranda). Other topics of conversation: gender, sexuality, goth, feminism, porn writing, and illegal drugs. We are such fag hags. Trying to persuade Mark half the female undergraduates had crushes on him (this is true, but I won't mention names) before they realised the obvious; "is it obvious?!" he asks, astonished. Yes, dear. Yes it is. Double absinthes in a trendy cocktail bar by the river, reclining alternately on the leather sofa and the table. Me smiling sweetly in between my comically outrageous lies to a man chatting us up at the bar, before catching sight of Mark making his way back from the loo and telling the guy, "look, our boyfriend's back now," and both of us slip our arms round his waist as the jerk makes a face and disappears. After discussing discrimination and reactions to it, Mark persisted in responding to everything we said with "that's a very gendered statement!" until we all creased up laughing; stumbled back to Newnham with Liz promising to show her The Princess Bride because it is essential viewing for every cultured individual. And when I checked my email I'd won this corset on ebay. Good times.

Saturday I spent recovering and writing emails before getting a call from Catriona and going to see her for the evening. She was, as usual, fascinating and lovely company (as well as being quite sublimely beautiful), and she showed me Closetland, a strange, sexy film with Alan Rickman interrogating and torturing a woman accused of being a political subversive. Clearly she is innocent, but the methods used are impossibly psychological and complex, including him blindfolding her and pretending to be a fellow prisoner as well as another torturer. There are continual allusions to BDSM; in the Japanese asymmetrical rope bondage positions he ties her in, in the table onto which she is strapped face down and anally invaded, in the tape he plays while she tries to resist sleep which repeats endlessly "pain ennobles both the giver and the receiver". She breaks down and tells him about her abuse as a child, and he claims to have been the man who did it, and that he is not working for the government at all but only seeking personal gratification, although personally I think this makes no sense and was merely another psychological ploy. In the end she finds a place in her mind to which she can retreat to withstand the pain, and although it ends in the knowledge it will continue possibly for years, there is a seed of hope. It is followed by an Amnesty International advert, which is all very well, but if it's an anti-torture film why focus so much on sex? "You'll know when I'm going to hurt you," he tells her as she anticipates a blow, "it's the suspense that's the important thing." Either it was intended to be genuine eye-opening anti-torture only the director was secretly fetishistic, or it was trying to achieve both at once, which seems a little inconsistent.

After that we watched Ian McKellen's Richard III ("do you want to watch Richard III, or talk about sex?" I asked with a grin, and she laughed) and drank more wine and port. I don't remember how I cycled home, but remind me not to drink for two nights in a row ever again, as I spent all of Sunday groaning into my pillow inbetween throwing up. Somehow, I managed to finish the essay (which I found out when I surfaced at 1.30 was due in at 5) but I cannot vouch for its quality. I missed an important choir concert as well as rehearsal and evensong in the afternoon, and slept for the rest of the evening. I despair of me sometimes. Still, I had interesting dreams involving my brother and I hiding in the back of a truck with two Alsatians before waking up to find ourselves locked in a chest in the middle of the sea. Danae and Perseus, much?

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7 hours: keep turning


belief questionnaire (Sat, 31 January 04; 05:42pm)

Do you believe:

In god? Yes; not the god of any particular religion (although I'm more sympathetic towards Christianity than any other faith) but I believe in a life-force that pervades everything that is, a force that is coherent and benevolent and without which we would not be alive in the same way, which is conscious, sentient, and vastly more than the sum of its parts. It is the universe; the universe would not exist without it, and vice versa, but it simultaneously transcends the universe. In the same way: it is the life in us, and yet is also far greater and more mysterious and wonderful than we can ever hope to comprehend.
In ghosts? I'm not sure. I tend to be skeptical when people report sightings of one and I've never seen one myself, but I don't see any reason why they shouldn't exist. I think it's more likely that places can absorb emotion from humans than that an actual spirit exists there; I've had strong emotional reactions to places before finding out something had happened there.
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2 hours: keep turning


more annual snow-induced goodness (Wed, 28 January 04; 07:13pm)





Instead of writing my essay this afternoon I pulled on boxers, combats, two pairs of socks, trainers, two jumpers, two hoodies, oversized gloves and my hat with the stars on, and frolicked in the snow. Ed and I, joined variously by Ruth, Richard, Mike and Iain, commited acts of war against total strangers which were gleefully reciprocated, sculpted a low-to-the-ground snow elephant, wrestled, made snow angels, and generally got ourselves covered in the stuff. For me times like this bring out the best parts of the college environment; everyone considers the quad their back garden and people you've never met before come out to play. Groups of strangers embark on projects together to build snow replicas of college statues and eight foot monsters grinning through the windows of Master's Lodge. The photos here (I've uploaded mine there as well, including the two I've posted above) really capture that for me - everyone in college united for once by our sense of the beauty of the place. It lowers everyone's inhibitions. The Master sent a congratulatory email this morning to everyone in college commending the sculpture on his steps; well 'ard rubgy lads caption their photos of the chapel "incredibly cheesy ... but look how beautiful!"; pouting girls with perfect nails join in snowball wars with the best of them. I daresay it won't last long, but I'm going to enjoy it while it does.

21 hours: keep turning


snow, and putative erotica (Wed, 28 January 04; 01:12am)

Kneeling on my bed at 00.57am, in my grey fuzzy sheep pyjamas and bare feet, head and arms through the open window and clouds of snow clinging to my hair:



The flash from my camera, without which the entire image was dark, reflected off the nearest flakes and did not catch the full thickness of the fall; the view through the crack in my curtains is almost solid white now. There is a glimpse of it in the swirl of movement around the lamp, but it is moving too rapidly for the light to catch it.

This morning I made a decision: to write porn in my spare time for cash. It pays well (about $100 for a short story), I've read my fair share of it and know what they expect, and I have no shortage of material already in my head which will not take much time to write down. Ali and I spent over an hour trying to decide on a pen name for me. Sylvia Dryden? Alicia Rousseau? Lena Markov? In the end I have settled on Julia Devereux, although I am uncertain as to the copyright/payment issues involved with using a pseudonym. My first piece will be for the 2005 anthology of "paranormal" erotica and is to involve a night-long wiccan midsummer rite to make the sun rise, including lots of beautiful, powerful, emotional spiritualism and magick, ritual sex, and a sacrificial victim tied to a tree - from whose point of view the whole thing is of course described. I'm sure I can sneak some softcore BDSM into it as well, if I try. Ideally I would like to start it tomorrow, but I have an essay to write on Democritan atomism. I don't think I need tell you which subject matter I find more stimulating.

30 hours: keep turning


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