"When I count there are only you and I together"

It is one of those weeks. But this will pass.

As it is Oxford, there are always things to brighten the day. Tea with friends, leisurely & ridiculous conversations, poetry readings, planning future excursions.

Mainly it is rainy & I am tired & have a cold & Eliot, despite the reading of innumerable essays, is still rather incomprehensible to me. Or, more to the point, I just don't have the wherewithal at the moment to care as much as I should. Fifth week blues. The constant writing is getting to me. It's like running a marathon, they say. You just keep going.

Today all I wanted to do was nap. I didn't of course; contented myself with large cups of chai tea (I miss my chai mix from home; things to bring back with me) and looking cute. Looking cute helps when it is miserable out, I have found. Also, took shortcuts on my fiction writing, as I was crunched for time. Not good, not good. I'm turning the best parts of my old work into an odd fictional mosaic. It sounds ok but doesn't feel right. Maybe Sunday I will fix this. Saturday is London all day. Maybe I just need a change of scenery.

I am beginning to formulate lofty goals for winter break, aside from the lounging in front of my Christmas tree & reading & baking & visiting friends. I will write, write, write (fiction) all the time, so I will actually have a cohesive sense of what I want to do when I come back in January. I will consider this term an excercise in disiciplined writing & leave it at that. I need more of a balance. Literature cannot dominate my academic life. I'll be screwed for my senior thesis; for graduate school. I've got to churn out something good. And soon. Winter break then. Every day, I'll write.

I am itching for a change again. Wasted time browsing vintage clothing websites--a favorite pasttime of mine. Arty fashion blogs, arty sex blogs, I'm enamored of things of those sort. There's a woman who sells gorgeous fifties style polka dot dresses with wide, swinging skirts and narrow waists; halter dresses & satin concoctions. I am determined to own one in the foreseeable future. I like pretty, fanciful things. Lace slips & suede boots. Party dresses & fishnet. I need to get my hair trimmed, and then either chop it off or grow it out long, long, long again. Shorter would make me look older, but I miss the down-to-my-waist hair. Maybe. I am undecided. These are the things I think about when I can't possibly stand to read any more Eliot. I dreamt last night he was trying to kill me, Eliot, and even though I knew this, I was still hoping he might explain his poetry to me. Make of that what you will.

Hair dye. It's time for it to be dark red again.


Home is close & yet it seems a long way away. The past infuriatingly reared its ugly little head & there was nothing for me to do but walk away. Too late. It's always too late for these kinds of things. There I go waxing vague again. Sometimes I can't remember myself at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, even if I try. There were too many incomprehensible decisions made. What did I know? Not enough, that's for sure. No, people don't change. Not like that. You don't get more chances after things like that.

Bed. Tomorrow: essay writing (I am going to take the stance of 'it is what it is' and move on); London-planning, Quantum of Solace seeing. Oh Daniel Craig. I do love men with an edge.