Semi-sunny Wednesday afternoon.

We were a tiny but amiable gathering at poetry, fifth week having apparently fried everyone's poetic circuits, and read our stuff over the clinks of someone playing snooker at the back of the bar. It always surprises me how much I like this (with the exception of the snooker players, whom we all wanted to kill), and how it actually works; it makes you want to write. One girl, who we hadn't seen before and who was very reminiscent of the Laura character in "Brick", sang two awesome self-penned songs in a strong, clear voice and then scarpered. And apparently she'd never sung in public before. Where stars are born!

Anyway, I read the stuff I haven't read before, and got probably the best response on "Overdetermination", which is sort of my favourite as well. Afterwards we went up to Vicky's room and talked about The Conflict Between Art And Happiness, which is worrying Vicky, who feels quite content but creatively dried up. I suppose the problem is that you have to be very conscious of things in order to write, but once you become conscious of being happy, you stop being happy and become poignantly aware of the fleeting nature of happiness, etc, instead. And then you can write. (But then having written something makes you happy again, and so the cycle goes.)

What makes me happy in a wholly non-poetic way, at the moment, is that Maggie Gyllenhaal is rumored to have taken over Katie Holmes's character for the next Batman film. YES THAT WILL BE AN IMPROVEMENT, I THINK. And also honey-oatmeal cookies, and going to formal tonight. What makes me less happy is that I do not have an apartment in central London from which I can take glamorous internship positions in publishing companies over the summer. And that all the summer jobs start on July 1st. I'd like to have more than one day of vacation.