white is not surrender, despite what you've been told.

No amount of coffee, no amount of crying, no amount of whiskey, no amount of wine, no nothing else will do, i've gotta have you.

Last.fm makes me happy.

Carved pumpkins with the flatmates tonight--third year running Amy and I have done this. A Sarah Lawrence tradition, now. "Even in thirty years," she said. "We'll still do this." It was cute. More flatmate bonding. My mother sent me Halloween decorations last year--a taste of home, from the years Justin, my mother and I would go all out decorating. Cars and passerby would stop on the street to take pictures. We turned our front lawn into a graveyard, hung ghosts from the trees, littered the lawn with skeleton bones, laced spiderweb over our railings, painted pumpkins on the steps. When I got a bit older, Roo and the girls would come and help. I remember freezing outside in hoodies and jeans, that leaf-burning smell in the air. It always seemed like it was cloudy. Perfect New Englandness.


Freshman year at Sarah Lawrence, my wonderful neighbor had sent me a care package of Halloween candy and garlands and the like. Marty, Amy, Eunice & I descended on the Gilbert kitchen--a term I use rather loosely--with the pumpkins we had procured, and dived into them with steak knives, pop music blaring in the background. We stuck them on the windowsills facing the North Lawn, with flashlights inside, until they finally rotted a few weeks later and the cleaning ladies got rid of them. I dressed up as Snow White that year, because that was my nickname anyway. The pale, pale skin, and my long black hair almost down to my waist. Wednesday Addams was Marty's other favorite nickname for me, but Snow White made the better costume. Sara, Victoria & I went trick or treating through Bronxville. Last year, Amy came over to AC 12, cooked a fantastic dinner, and we carved a pumpkin into a squirrel. It was amazing. AC 12 in general was pretty fabulous, but that night was especially good. We went trick or treating again last year--me, Amy, Joanna, Eunice at the end. The memories are so clear, but right now they feel like a different world.


Friday Amy & I will go on a ghost tour of Oxford, then hit up a pub crawl. The Iffley flats are having their own Halloween house party Saturday night which we'll all go to. I think I'll end up going as some Moulin Rouge type thing. Ransack my closet for my best corset, my petticoat skirt I always get compliments on. Something simple like that.


Went to the Bodleian to work today with Alex. Sometimes I really can't believe this is where I go to school, these are the places I get to study in. It just doesn't get old. And there's so much to see & do. None of us have even scratched the surface.

"i'm telling you from where i sit you're one of a kind"

I've been listening to Griffin House a lot. Thanks Amy for that new musical obsession. That, and Sugarland's "Very Last Country Song." What can I say? It's been running through my head. If life stayed the way that it was & lovers never fell out of love, if memories didn't last so long, if nobody did nobody wrong, if we knew what we had before it was gone, if every road led back home...

This evening it started snowing briefly, for the very first time this year. It's rather a mess out now, but we all ran outside for a minute, stood there shivering in sweatshirts and boots and blankets. It was bright and sunny this morning. Spent five hours in the Oxford IT getting my laptop de-virused, and emerge into the rain. English weather. Still, walking through the parks this morning was beautiful. And after my fiction tutorial, I actually felt excited to sit down and write. I haven't yet, but at least now I have a better sense of what I need to do.

Also discovered the marvelous fact that Oxford does indeed have a Masters program in creative writing. Absurdly competitive--only 14 slots and about 150 applicants--but in a lovely twist of fate, my literature tutor is the Director of it. I actually might be able to come back here, work, write, live. I really might be able to.

Like any place, the initial euphoria has worn off a bit--New York was always the same way for me after a while--but I'm more in love with this city than I've been with anywhere else. It's cosmopolitan& suburban, academic & arty, comfortable & surprising. At the very least, that sense of calm I felt on arriving almost a month ago has yet to evaporate. That's never happened to me before.

"Just be," Amy keeps telling me. "That's all you can do." It's hard not to look at her and want what she has--if only because she's integrating more easily, and I keep trying to do just that. Perhaps I shouldn't have arrived with any sort of expectations, but after last year/this past summer, I needed to have some & I needed to get away. Coming here was probably the best thing I could have done for myself.

Marty, written to me: "you are beautiful. you are smart. you have an amazing career ahead of you. please, please do not settle for someone who is not worthy of your affections. you are at a whole different level than all the men you've ever been with...i am half inclined to start a committee to approve michelle's male interests! (in that case, you should meet some of my fairfield friends--they would love to assist you)...things tend to jump up and bite you in the ass a lot of the time. so chin up! i love you, and i don't love everybody. go live your life!"

This is why we have best friends. To remind us of these things.

Tonight, I am going to watch Harry Potter, I think. It is that kind of night.

freewrite.

"Figure out your views on writing, your views on life," I was told by my writing tutor last week. "They may not be what you expect."

***

I believe in all the cliches---love, beauty, truth--or rather, I want to believe in them. I want to believe in karma, but I've never seen it work to my advantage. I like to play myself off as a cynic, but I'm still ever the optimist at heart. I want everything, and worry I will get none of it. I don't believe in God, except when it's convenient. I don't buy religious rationales for all the horrible things that happen in the world. I try to live my life like its artful, immersing myself in academics and other intellectual pursuits, but I wonder if I wouldn't give it all up for the chance to be truly happy. But I'm basing my idea of happiness on a fantasy because I've never had the kind of relationship I'm looking for. I play out my own neuroses in my writing even as I play them out in my own life--or can't play them out, as it were. I don't know if I have what it takes, if my discipline is up to snuff. Maybe I've coasted for too long.

Because I can't be in person all the things I want to be. Because I can't say what I want to say, so I have other people say them. Because I don't know that I'll be able to live the lives I want. So does that make writing a selfish pursuit? Perhaps. I want to change the world, but to my own liking. I fight for the issues that affect me personally--or have affected--because I never give myself time to mourn anything. I am always looking forward, can never stay in the moment. Plans, plans, plans. "You are not happy." Maybe. Would I really trade it all for convention? My mother did the opposite. But I at least want the chance to fuck it all up. I take up fights that concern me because I want someone to say yes I understand. Why did I write that memoir? Because I needed people to know. Because I couldn't keep it all inside. Because I needed to know who else had had that experience. But no. More than that, I needed lots of people to say "it was not your fault." I needed lots of people to tell me I was strong, to be horrified, to be enraged--to have all the reactions I couldn't/didn't have--from myself or from the people I needed to have had them. Selfish vs. altruistic. Afraid I don't have any original ideas, so I just pop out what sounds good. What will it take for me to get excited?

Obsessions--male relationships. I keep returning to/writing the same ones. Trauma. Female relationships. Why do you do what you do? Beauty/aesthetic. I never slow down, and so do I really experience anything? When I melt, I don't write about it. Do I write the things that matter or the ones that don't? I am afraid to be told "you are not that good." Idealization vs. reality. Sex. Fantasy.

I don't write about happy families.

What rules do you follow? Don't you follow? What do I believe. Convictions. I need to have some more. Be angry. Be raw. Speak your mind.

I cried when I read that memoir in class. Visceral reactions. But I wrote it impassively. My best work has always been in one fell swoop.

"You like to turn things into a story, do you?"

I am more honest with total strangers than I am with you.

This is what I believe. There is no rhyme or reason but what we make ourselves. You create your own justifications.

I like my options. I am afraid of being tied down. Ergo, so are my characters.

I am too transparent.

I worry about dying young. About dying. About my mother, brother, father.

I treat sex like a game I know how to play but have to yet master the rules.

My mother always asked me "what's going on in that pretty little head of yours?" Things which I think but never say. If I say them outloud, that is worse, because the possibility of being rejected outloud would be worse than me not saying it at all.

I still think you and I could have/ should have ended up on an entirely different path. I wanted to kiss you before I left--before you left, that afternoon--but I didn't. I didn't want to risk it all getting screwed up all over again.

I use my characters to try on different persona's, different lives, but it's never that simple.

"So in love with your writing"--is it or is it not the same as me?


What I should tell Linda tomorrow: "I have to start something new. But where/how do I begin? I have trouble thinking of ideas. I used to use photographs. I need some way to feel inspired. I don't want to keep writing the same old thing. Because I think I'm better than what I've been doing. It just takes time to get there again."

"I don't want to come to you tonight"

"It doesn't get easier to tell the truth. It always gets harder. The deeper you go the harder it gets."

Maybe I'm just kidding myself here.


"It's still early," Jessie reminded me. "Don't fret."
I try.

"I used to think of it as a plate glass window just begging for a brick"

Joined the Oxford Poetry Society this evening. Was very much like Dead Poets Society, albeit not in a cave and with British accents. But, like Dead Poets Society, completely male dominated. And I realize, coming after my last entry, this makes me sound like one-track feminist. But I wasn't the only one to comment on that fact. I mean the entire reading was made up of male Oxford students--specifically, attractive, swaggering, slightly pretentious male Oxford students, with varying degrees of talent. But nonetheless. Where are all the girl poets? And perhaps not surprisingly, sticking to strict verse seems quite popular, along with overtly religious themes & odes to lost love. It made me miss Tina's class. Give me some Sirens & Outlaws, please. Well, now that I have joined, it would be ridiculous for me to just sit back, mouth off, and not do anything. I want to inject some Sharon Olds-style life into this thing. Be rebellious, make people take notice. Though given my oftentimes lack of assertiveness, that could be easier said than done. But I at least want to try.


***

So, at the suggestion of my darling flatmate Jeff, who reads this blog, and was mildly dismayed no one would know who he was, here's a brief introduction to my flat. You have me, obviously, then Amy, who I'm so happy I'm living with. Apparently some of the girls back home have bets going on how long it will be until we kill each other, but quite honestly, it's working out perfectly. Last night over drinks (seriously, do we do anything else?) we both commented on how grateful we were to be sharing this experience with our best friend; how wonderful it is to go out and have adventures but to still know you have a built in security net. Anyway. Then there is Alex, from Wesleyan, who I totally adore. She's incredibly smart, cute, and does wicked imitations of her crazy tutors. The three of us spend a lot of time together, which I love. Jeff is from Swarthmore, and also quite smart and very charming, not to mention an excellent cook and an avid golf player, on the Oxford team no less. He lives next door to me. We all love him. Finally, we have Mark, from Reid. Mark is an anomaly. I have yet to really figure him out. But anomalies can be a good thing.

Kind of like the monkey head we found at the bus stop this morning. Anomalies. It keeps things interesting.

Now to go finish Dracula. Enough with this procrastinating. Indeed.

"That quiet voice, it's rising up again"

It has been one of those days. Even at Oxford I guess you're bound to have them.

It was just so fucking frustrating to hear that even at Oxford--especially at Oxford--this place that is supposed to be (or at least, I have fashioned it to be) this liberal, intellectual, spirited haven--even here, they have all the same problems Sarah Lawrence did/does, and maybe more. Listening to the girls at WomCam talk today (Women's Campaign--Oxford's feminist society) it was all I could do not to burst into tears. I spent two years fighting that battle. Yes, I learned how to do it--how you do (and don't) navigate administration, how you get information out, what information there is to get out. I know how to fight that battle. But do I even want to? Again? I was honestly aghast to hear they have absolutely no services for survivors of sexual assault; that the only place you can go is a rape crisis center, which is run by barely trained volunteers with no counseling experience and limited hours, and is itself always on the verge of collapse. Sarah Lawrence's excuse was monetary. They just never had the money, for a variety of reasons. And after two years, we finally reached some sort of compromise. It wasn't entirely adequate, but it was better than before. Take Back the Night last year was, for me, the culmination of that particular struggle. Standing there with Erin, watching the writings of all those girls burn, both of us silent, somber, invested in it for entirely different, equally important reasons--I will never forget that moment. I knew even then it would be a memory that even years later, would define Sarah Lawrence for me. But what's Oxford's excuse? The University is endowed with billions; the town itself is more than well off. It's not like they don't have the money. They just funnel it elsewhere. "Into more leather couches"--wryly declared by the American graduate student who's been living in the UK for years and was the instigator of this particular conversation in the first place.

It was just beyond frustrating to hear these girls talk of how they're unable to speak up in front of their male peers; how "feminist is a dirty word;" how the latest bop theme is "Spartans and Sluts" and how that's widely considered respectable. How they run assertiveness training workshops and study skills workshops for women because Oxbridge is notorious for having a finals gap between women and men. How this is still considered in many ways an "old boys school," and as an American, who's spent the entirety of her undergraduate career thus far at an especially liberal, predominately female campus, I am just having a hard time understanding--or rather, accepting--all of this.

Yes, I could--and maybe should--fight that battle again. But walking back in the rain, it was all I could do not to cry.

"Reducing the world is an adult skill"

I will...never ever drink that much whiskey again in my life. Having generally stuck to such things as vodka & orange juice, or girly cocktails, or, here, ciders, I was so very dumb and didn't realize drinking jack & coke is not like those other things. Hence, four drinks later, I amazingly am still upright, wondering why I'm not feeling anything when generally by that point I would be on my ass, and now, nine hours later, I kind of want to die. And I have never had a hangover in my life before. Oh god. Now it's all one big blur. We went the Oxford Union bar, which was absolutely amazing in its sheer classy pretension. Outside there literally were guys in tuxes smoking pipes. Brilliant. And the library looked like something out of Clue, complete with dusty old volumes and velvet draperies. Then we went to the Eagle & Child, where Tolkein and C.S. Lewis used to sit and write, and then we went to the bar underneath the Oxford Union, where the contrast between that and the Union bar itself could not have been greater. Think pounding music, grungy basement setting, and unwashed gothy children throwing them back. Then, after somehow carrying on an entirely lucid conversation with Rachele about our double tutorial, I arrived home around 1:00, only to have some sort of conversation with Fayez about his philosophy of neuroscience course. At some point on the walk home I had "fucking gorgeous" screamed at me by a carful of drunk? British boys. And yet it is never quite that flattering.

So. Somehow today I have to: outline my literature tutorial; start said literature tutorial; plan lowkey dinner gathering for tomorrow evening with the assistance of Amy & Alex (after we couldn't help but comment on the overwhelming attractiveness of Jeff's grad school student golf team captain, he took it upon himself to invite him over, saying I specifically would cook for him) Yeah. I can't cook. So we are having a gathering instead. Also. Must stop feeling nauseous. Right away please. I am already so off schedule.

"I went to bed dreaming you hard, woke with your name like tears on my lips"

It is now almost 1 in the morning, and I am wide awake. You'd think, after spending almost 12 hours reading Portrait of the Lady, until my head was pounding and I thought my eyes were going to fall out of my head, that would not be the case. Somehow, it is. I enjoyed the novel more than I thought I would, though the ending absolutely sucks. So much for female empowerment. Lets all run back to our sleazebag husbands for wont of propriety. Though I think next week I will space out my time in a saner fashion, if Dracula is anywhere near as long as Portrait. Though Dracula has got to be more enjoyable than 636 pages of Henry James in two, almost three sittings. Also, reading in Blackwells makes for a nice change of pace from the library. Somehow, I am less distracted. Which, weirdly, goes against my usual habits. In any case, I can also drink chai while I read. They frown on that in libraries.

I should carve out some time to write emails, send postcards. I always mean to, and then the time just..disappears. Trust, at least, that I'm thinking of you, even if I'm sucky at the whole communicating thing as often as I would like.

Other things to do: sit in a graveyard, for another Oxford description. Contrastingly, sit in the University Parks. (so pretty!) Then write these things up. Go for more walks. Take pictures. Delete old pictures from camera so sim card has room for new pictures. Take a yoga class? Write actual letters. Go out on weeknights. Spend less money. Learn to cook things other than pasta. Not get sick (er). Take Bri's advice.

Obama is leading in the polls, more substantially than before, it would appear. I am still waiting for my absentee ballot. Fairfield Town Hall, why are you so slow?

I am discovering you can forget about a lot when you're away. Alternately, I still choose to remember too much?

One of these days I'll bury him/them for good. Really. Just a matter of time.

“Learn to ask for what you want. The worst people can do is not give you what you ask for which is precisely where you were before you asked.” — Peter McWilliams

^A mentality I should embody. I'd probably be better off I did. Instead of clinging to the belief that somehow asking, and being refused, is worse than never asking at all.


I do wish more of the trees changed color here. And orchards/apple picking. Even in Oxford, there is nothing quite like a New England autumn.

i am nowhere near as good at balance as i am reflection.

currently procrastinating from finishing off another Oxford description.

this is my problem as a writer. (interestingly, declaring yourself a writer has made for controversial discussions over here. apparently many are of the opinion that doing so is pretentious, or idiotic, or simply untrue. we are 'writing students' i am told. not writers. personally, i've always thought of myself as both. what do you think?) whenever I drown in other work (i.e. literature classes/tutorials/essays, etc) i immediately let that take precedence, since it demands the greatest amount of hours, or so it seems. reading lengthy novels, complicated criticisms of said novels, and writing a coherent, ideally innovative or intelligent essay--all of that takes time. or at least i let it. i came to sarah lawrence predominantly for their writing program. i wanted to write all the time, and so we do, but every year i have let other classes push aside my writing classes. paula's trumped rachel's freshman year, even though rachel's was and is the best class i have taken. julie's, however interesting it was (and it was, to be sure) trumped tina's poetry workshop. and now, my literature tutorial seems to trump my fiction one.

i'm well aware that's not how it should be, but i don't know how to work it any other way. and so i panic and take short cuts, and in the end, i'm only screwing myself, since this is primarily what i'm here to learn, why I came to Oxford. take today, for instance. my fiction day. task--come up with 10 pages of writing. out of writer's block stemming from not having written anything creative since last may, and any actual fiction since, oh, my junior year of high school! i ultimately resort to revising, somewhat, the beginning of a novella i had started and never finished. the revision, not nearly as extensive as it should have been, to be fair, still served the purpose of acting as a starting place, and more importantly, letting me figure out where i want to go. now i know, at least tentatively, what i will do for next week. though i can't help but view this week as kind of a cop-out, especially since i didn't turn in ten pages of fiction last week.

i want to be able to write. creatively. and do it well, without anxiety. so how do i do that? how do i relax, find the time, not let one course dominate the other? i worry that if i don't figure that out, i'll never be a real writer, i'll never finish anything, i'll never be able to fashion this into some sort of career. i'm so particular. i can't be sleepy to write, or restless. then it becomes work, and though it is work, should it feel like work? it sucks all the enjoyment out of it. and sometimes i'd rather just read, and i do, voraciously, but perhaps not as much as i should. i fuck around on facebook and other people's blogs, wasting time. tomorrow i have to get out of this flat. even though I have to read the entirety of Portrait of a Lady, I will at least do it in the Radcliffe Camera.

i read at wadham's open mic night last night. there is so much freaking talent at that school. i wish i was musical. sadly, i am not, but sometimes i can write decent poetry. i wouldn't mind reading again.

alex and i were talking today, after drinks with the chaplain (how cool, to be standing in a four hundred year old chapel, as the chaplain keeps pushing more wine on you), saying we really want to meet more oxford/wadham kids, and aren't quite sure how to do that. i am already sensing how quickly time will fly. every single day flies by. it seems far longer than two weeks.

"every single girl on this Programme is going around waving her [metaphorical] panties at every cute guy to pass her by."--katie. sad but true. don't particularly want to be that girl, but of course we are. no one wants to pass up this opportunity, away from sarah lawrence's awkward incestuousness.

right now, amy is out at a pub with two of my flatmates, and i am here, "writing" and soon to be reading. lame. but i am sick, and didn't feel like going out and drinking. everyone is sick. "fresher's flu," they call it.

snippet of conversation i had with x person, after telling them i do tend to get what i want, at least academically: "yes, but you aren't happy." in response i made some inane comment, when i should have said, "well, not entirely, but i am." in any case, i didn't want what he wanted. at least not now. i'm young. i'm ok. it will be fine.

For you, Jo.

What generally happens to me the first week(s) of a new year--and especially when I feel the need to prove myself to someone (which is most of the time, as it stands)--is this. I work ridiculously hard, freak out a lot, and convince myself I am utterly incompetent, my new professor will think I am a moron, and I'll be ripped to shreds. This is my mindset for the days leading up to when my first essay is due. This past week, triple that anxiety. Keep in mind, none of us have written anything remotely academic for a good five months. I was about ready to tear out my hair or burst into tears. I bang out, over the course of an excruciating two and a half days, what I think amounts to eight pages of babble. This morning is my first literature tutorial. As I sit down, and he begins to read my essay to me, stopping now and again to make a comment, I experience something entirely unexpected--a sense of relief. It's nowhere near as bad as I thought. It's certainly not indicative of my best work, but it's passable. There are some good points. I'm doing fine. As Rachele and I headed out the door (I have a double tutorial with her), he told both of us, "you're off to an excellent start." Thank god--and Rachel Cohen, and Julie Abraham, and even Paula Loscocco. I have been groomed well at Sarah Lawrence. I can do this after all. I'm sure every week will be much of the same hair-tearing-out-oh-god-my-brain-is-exploding, but I can do it. For next week: reading Portrait of a Lady, and writing on the topic of "alliances"--cultural, social, why women make the choices they do, etc. After that, just in type for All Hallows Eve here, it's Dracula.

My fiction tutorial also went well, though I rambled on like an idiot, stumbling over myself every time I actually paused to listen to the words coming out of my mouth. I also, thanks to a miscommunication, didn't have the ten pages of fiction I was supposed to, and focused on the wrong literary aspect for my creative reading, but she was fine about that. She even liked two of the Oxford descriptions I wrote, ironically, the ones I thought were my worst. My task today is to find another 4 places to write about, and do so. Later on, the girls in my flat are having some of the Wadham people who live in Merifield as well over for tea, and tonight I'm thinking about heading over to Wadham's open mic. Definitely to listen, perhaps to read some of my own poetry as well. We'll see. Tomorrow is my fiction day, where hopefully I can bang out ten pages, though I have absolutely no idea what I want to write about. Which, you know, is a problem. Then the rest of the week will be devoted to Portrait of a Lady. I'm trying to find a schedule that works, and still allows me enough free time to feel sane.

What else? I'm sick, which sucks. Amy is convinced it's because of stress. I'm convinced it's because of all the germy undergrads passing things around. In any case, I am on day four of a sore throat that won't quit. My uncle passed away unexpectedly last week, which led to me having a major emotional crisis thinking about the ages of my own parents, and a tearful middle of the night phone call home to Eunice. I signed up for a million different clubs at Fresher's Fair--the Isis, etcetera, and Call & Response, which are all literary magazines; a salsa dancing club, Oxford's feminist society, various left-leaning political groups, and the Law Society, among other things. The Law Society, shamefully because they are known for throwing the classiest events, and having the cutest men. And well, I need to get laid. Not right now--I can't even think about sex right now--but eventually. The pub crawl presented one such opportunity, thanks to a pair of blond & drunken jocks hitting on me & Alex, but that was just not going to happen. At all. Coincidentally, I have been spending more money on drinks than I even want to think about. I hit four of the pubs on the pub crawl before deciding I was having trouble staying upright, and it was time to quit. Though I was with it enough to turn to Alex, who was starting to express concern over me, and say "don't worry, I'm lucid enough to know the exchange rate is not in my favor." Indeed. But it is getting better, bit by bit.

Sat in Blackwell's for an hour yesterday before my tutorial, and met three freshers, one of which was quite attractive, and they quizzed me about America. "It's a big place," I kept telling them. "It's not like I've seen most of it." I did, however, know more about Oxford than they did, ironically, telling them about the book tunnels under the Bodleian and various other such things.

Essentially we read, write, wander the streets, stress to each other, sleep a little and drink a lot. I'm trying to be a little less shy. I'm better in small gatherings, not so good in bars. I sit there with my drink, smile prettily, wait for people to smile back. Oxford will be good to me, I think.

That is all.

"Fiction is like a spider's web"

Things have been so crazy hectic here, I've ended up writing in this not nearly as often as I promised myself I would. Hopefully that will be remedied in the future. And I have to get around to posting pictures this weekend. It is going in the schedule. You know how I do. So, a quick recap: Saturday was London. As I've never been anywhere in Europe, with the recent exception of parts of Spain, I pretty much wandered around with Amy, and later on, Jeff, completely agape, taking in as much as we could in an afternoon and evening. The wonderful thing is London is only about an hour away from Oxford and buses run all day and all night, for the relatively decent sum of 10 pounds. The Programme took us to the Tower of London--full of bloody history, some interesting buildings, and hilarious tour guides. The place where such notables as Anne Boleyn and Guy Fawkes were executed. From there we were left to explore on our own. Amy & I headed to Westminster Abbey, St. James Park, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park (by which point the fog was rolling in and I couldn't help feeling like I was wandering through a moor ala Wuthering Heights), and Herrods. Which was five floors of pretty things I will never be able to afford, but Amy & I did buy some excellent tea & split an amazing strawberry tart. On our way to finding the bus station--which became an adventure in and of itself--we ended up having dinner in this cute little pub. I've had so many people refer to me as "love" or sweetheart." It's kind of refreshing change from New York. We crashed on the bus, and came back to our flat for a low-key nightcap before wandering off to bed. Sunday...I don't even remember what we did. It feels like I've been here far longer than a week & everything is beginning to blur. There has been lots of exploring the city centre--chock full of useful department stores and amazing bookshops (Blackwells = heaven) and cute clothing stores, and oh god, the architecture. The Radcliffe Camera, the undergraduate reading room in the Bodleian, is this impressive, gorgeous building that tourists aren't even allowed into. And I can saunter into whatever I want, and actually do work there. It's so surreal. I can't imagine having to go back. The States seem a million miles away right now. We went to the College Bar again last night (each Oxford College has one) and stayed for a few hours meeting other Wadham students, most of whom have been lovely & congenial & eager to talk. One somewhat geeky Wadham fresher who I've bumped into half a dozen times but can't recall his name definitely has developed a crush on me. Which is cute. Though at 17 & 18 they're rather young for us. However, attractive men are a dime a dozen here. Also refreshing. I can't remember the last time I've been surrounded by a group of intelligent, attractive, polite guys who actually seem to care about what you're saying. So far, it's been a frequent occurrence.

Tonight the Sarah Lawrence girls in the flat next door to ours had a bunch of us over for dinner & drinks. We reminisced about Sarah Lawrence, talked about the election, told summer housing horror stories. It was a lot of fun & exactly what I needed tonight, as the combination of sleeping too little & running around every day has hinted at signs of possible sickness. And tomorrow will be more than enough debauchery I am sure, as it's the official Fresher's Week Pub Crawl--10 pubs, and then a Club night. As last night I was fairly sloshed on a pint of cider, I'm not so sure how well I'll do..

I met my fiction tutor yesterday--this older woman who lives in this tiny house literally across the street from a meadow, and has all these cats, and her study was chock full of books. I think it's going to be so good. She gave me my first assignment--to pick four or five places in Oxford--a mix of the monumental and the slightly dodgy--and stay there for fifteen minutes each, jotting down my impressions, leaving myself out of it. A lot like what I used to do for Rachel in my first year studies. Then I go back and write half page descriptions of each. Rather interesting, and it will give me a perfect excuse to wander around Oxford--and also an opportunity to get over my fears of being lost. She also assigned me a book which I really meant to start reading tonight, but that may not happen as I'm fairly exhausted & have to be up early tomorrow for Wadham's club fair. The Art of Fiction by John Gardner. I also have weekly "creative reading" assignments, where I go to the town library in Oxford, pick five or six books at random, open to a chapter, and see how they talk about character or scene. I'm expected to turn in roughly 10 pages a week, which seems manageable. I'm excited. Though I have no idea what places I should write about. I've been taking suggestions: Cornmarket Street on a Saturday morning; the Christ Church meadows, Magdalen grave yard, the shops near Cowley--there's so much to choose. Tomorrow I meet my literature tutor, who is the head of the department at Wadham. Hopefully he won't be too intimidating. I've heard wonderful things about him. It's also a double tutorial, with Matt, so that might relieve some of the anxiety.

I plan on signing up for loads of literary magazines while I'm here. If I could get on the staff of the Isis that would be absolutely amazing, not to mention looking pretty damn good on my resume. And I want to do Call & Response, the zine that goes back and forth between Wadham & Sarah Lawrence. I also should head over to the gym right near our flats, even though its rather pricey, and see about yoga classes. I'm going to have to find some way to zen out when my stress level rockets.

The weird dreams have continued. I've partially resigned myself to thinking I might be stuck with them for awhile. And most of them I can't remember upon waking. I'm just left with fleeting impressions.

I've been too busy to have been anything but happy. Everything else feels so far away. In some strange way, I'm having the Orientation I never did have. All the experience of two years of college work behind me but without the baggage I dragged along. It all feels so irrelevant here. A clean slate. Most of the Sarah Lawrence people don't even know that much about me. A perfect balance. For the first time in such a fucking long time, I don't feel that profound sense of longing. It might still be there, momentarily buried, but for now, anxieties & anticipation aside, I'm starting to settle. Which is good, yes? I'm trying not to look for anything or anyone. The next time I'm chased, I need it to be right. Or at the very least, more right than it's been.

I couldn't sleep a few nights ago & started re-reading Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. I had never finished reading it back in high school, but had underlined all these passages I found particularly relevant. It was interesting seeing what still (and more importantly, what no longer) seemed to strike me. "Writing can be a pretty desperate endeavor," she writes. "because it is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong..."

I imagine I'll go back to her as the trimester progresses.

I have no idea what I want to write about for my fiction tutorial. I need inspiration, which, amazingly, I feel I'm lacking. Maybe I'm just rusty. Or maybe my wanderings will be just what I need.

"My months change like seasons these days..."

Tonight, our first real bonding night, was wonderful. After all the practical filling-out-paperwork-sessions of this morning & afternoon, we had a four course, ridiculously English, dinner party at the Great Hall in Wadham, with about 100 guests in attendance--SLC Program students, Wadham staff, and various tutors. Jeff & I (one of my lovely flatmates) ended up sitting across from this totally sloshed professor who kept winking at all the girls & regaling us with Wadham lore. The whole time I kept thinking, "this is exactly what I pictured it to be." I wish I brought my camera. With these long tables and candles everywhere, it really did look like something out of Harry Potter. And all the drinks, good lord. All everyone drinks here it seems is wine. Glass after glass. And then off to the College Bar, for more drinks. And then we had Pimms--the British equivalent to sangria--once we returned to our flats. A solid six hours of drinking on and off, no wonder I'm still tipsy.

There our five of us in this particular flat, five more next door. We're living in North Oxford, the ritzy side of town, where mansions go for one or two million quid at least. The flats are gorgeous and huge. I have a massive room, and terrace doors that open onto a private lawn. Now if we had heat, and could figure out how to use our oven and gas burners, things would be just entirely fabulous. My flatmates are wonderful--Amy and I are the only two Sarah Lawrence students, Jeff is from Swarthmore, Alex from Wesleyan, and Mark from Reid--and there are all Sarah Lawrence students in the flat next door. The next day I have that isn't utterly insane--probably sometime next week--I have to wander around Oxford and take pictures of everything. And then post them. Right after I post the ones from Spain.

"I thought I was on the set of Gossip Girl when you two walked in"--drunk Wadham student to Alex & I. Were then warned by other student to be wary of Oxford men who like to rack up American girls like a game. There will be none of that. I'll have to come up with some sort of screening process. Yes. Hah.

Tomorrow I see my mother for dinner in town, and then I don't see her again until Christmas. I spent two plus weeks with her, and by the time I arrived in Oxford I was going a little nuts. Yet now that she's leaving, I'm really going to miss her. And this afternoon was not at all how I wanted it to be, especially after the nightmare I had last night, where I was off somewhere doing something, I don't know what, except I felt guilty about it, only to come back to receive a phone call saying that she might have died. Woke from the dream in a jolt, 5 am, crying. I know she's worn out, fed up, ready to go home. She's starting to look her age for the first time & that scares me. I saw her for about forty minutes this afternoon, after getting lost in the rain, and by the time we finally found each other I had barely any time before having to rush back to get ready for tonight. And I didn't tell her what I wanted to tell her, because I would have started to cry again. What can I say? I still need my mother. Anything else is intolerable. And it's hard not to feel like time is ticking by....

I can't quite figure out what my style in this should be. Who my audience exactly is. I don't even know who really reads this for sure. How personal (or not) to get.

Bed time.