with but a crystal parapet / between

We were walking back from the library, and he said, "The lake looks frozen."

It did, the thinnest sheen of ice over the black water. "That'll hold our weight," I said. I picked up a stone from the path, went down to the waterside and flung it out, heard it skitter over the ice's surface. "See? I said. "Safe."

"You've woken a goose." Something far out on the lake was making honking noises.

"They deserve to get woken up by me for a change."

(Title from "The Midnight Skaters", by Edmund Blunden, which is otherwise a little dark for today's mood. But lovely.)

Start your day with squids*

I do love deep-sea submersible footage. In this case of unidentified cephalopods. They have huge undulating fins that seem to be how they swim - their arms are long and thin with a sharp, elbow-like bend and look completely ineffectual - and they're beautiful in that oddly horrifying way. The Tiburon footage is the best, I think.

*I do realize that everyone else has been up for hours already. I didn't even go out last night, and yet somehow I slept for eleven hours.

down down down down.

Today there has been waking up to find snow on the ground and my iPod, which was lying by the open window, so cold its batteries had almost gone flat, chocolate tea (from Teapigs, a fine idea in theory and quite good in practice, but I think the base tea they use is too malty), "The Turn of the Screw" in bed, going for a run along the Strays in the sun and melting snow and having my path blocked by an enormous, shaggy-pelted brown cow (actually it had horns, so I suppose it was a bull, but it was placid), copyediting an essay for one of my housemates and being given cookies as a reward, four hours of queer theory, the massive cognitive disconnect brought on by having "I Kissed A Girl" by Katy Perry (yes I own that song, what of it) turn up on my iPod shuffle after four hours of queer theory, dinner comprised of avocado, egg and pasta (sort of blandly delicious mixed together), further chocolate tea in the company of my library buddy, a lot of Brideshead Revisited analogies, some actual reading aloud of Brideshead Revisited, and, now, the Florence and the Machine cover of "I'm Going Down" on repeat.

I have so much reading to do tomorrow that no mortal could possibly accomplish it. But I'm pretty happy.

s-m-r-t part 2

Oh yay, procedural essay done, or only in need of having a few internal contradictions resolved (aren't we all), some infelicitous phrases revised, 150 words pruned and a ton of references tracked down. Then there's MLA formatting (described by one of my lecturers as "a complex and difficult pleasure, like eating blue cheese"), and trying to give the impression that I've read more than one critic, and choosing a title that isn't an incredibly clichéd and inapt Shakespeare quotation. But mostly it's done. I've spoken to one Ph.D student who says the guy who's going to be marking it is ruthlessly honest and will make me cry, and one who says he's quite nice, so I think it's in the hands of fate.

Popular fallacies

Tonight I found out that the use of the word "reification" in conversation will stop a roomful of computer scientists in their tracks with delight. People started coming in from the kitchen, going "WHAT DID YOU SAY?"

"I've never had such a positive response to one word before," I said. "Apart from 'sandwiches', possibly."

"Sandwiches. There's a thought."

(Semi-relatedly, it's quite late at night and I've just realized I don't really have any breakfast foods. Soup for breakfast: disgusting? Does the answer depend on what kind of soup it is, and how late I get up?)

From a study carrel in the graduate room, where I have just slagged off T.S. Eliot's opinion on Wilkie Collins's novels, Wilkie Collins's opinion on Wilkie Collins's novels, Freud's opinion on people, and psychoanalysis's opinion on literature in the space of 400 words: A LINK. This one is to the WORDCOUNT project, which tracks every English word that gets used and sorts them by popularity. It does names too; mine is very slightly more popular than "daft", and very slightly less popular than "depicted".

pop cultural briefing

Kate Beaton is being amazing lately. In the second one from the top, panel three, that's basically the facial expression I always imagine on Robin Hood.

Also, fine, whatever, I'll see it.

s-m-r-t

A point I'm actually going to make in my procedural essay, under the heading of "similarities between Miss Havisham in 'Great Expectations' and the Moonstone in 'The Moonstone'" (which isn't the topic of my essay as such but it looks like it'll come up):

- They are both yellow.

This seemed like a really incisive idea before I went for dinner, but now my blood sugar's improved I'm just not sure.

Genio loci feliciter

Yesterday afternoon I ended up in the Yorkshire Museum gardens, where I've never been before, even though they're only two minutes off the main shopping street in York. Close to the entrance was a moss-stained stone tunnel; I stepped inside and saw a little churchyard nook filled with yellow leaves on the other side. It was probably only ten metres away but took a long time to reach. I walked slowly between two rows of sarcophagi that lay against either tunnel wall like broken teeth or shipwrecked sea chests.

Beyond the churchyard was a broken archway, a lawn, a round, sloping depression in the ground and a curved, ruined wall. Five cross-shaped windows cut into it showed gleams of white light. There were more stone containers with yellowing grass growing in them. I sat down on a bench, drank coffee from a paper cup and had that feeling you're always hoping for as a tourist, the sense of not being supposed to be there.

The tunnel and archway turn out to be the undercroft and chapel ruins of the medieval St Leonard's Hospital, and the curved wall is what's left of the Multangular Tower. The whole thing was as close as I've ever gotten to the standard Romantic experience of the sublime (though I suspect for different reasons than that link suggests).

here I go again

In the library again, Sunday night, rain thundering on the skylight, wind howling, fireworks exploding far off, etc. Whispered conversation:
"...the one I really want to do as a panto, though, is Oedipus."
"Obvious choice."
"With the subtitle 'Mamma Mia!'."
And by the time we were done singing in loud whispers, everyone else had left.

Hand-eye coordination

In the college bar, a couple of hours ago. I'm losing badly at pool. My opponent is trying to encourage me, Americanly.
"Are you PLAYING TO WIN?"
"Not really."

"To dwell means to leave traces."

I'm on the lower floor of the King's Manor library, which surprisingly has wireless internet, alternately reading the Arcades Project (which I generally insist on calling "Das Passagenwerk" in an extremely German accent) and BLDGBLOG. They tesselate beautifully.

Note to my mother: I'm going to see "Death of a Salesman" tonight, so sadly won't be available for Skyping until quite late. But I'll ring you when I get in.

I love my work

Ian and I were sitting at the back of the lecture theatre, sharing a Dairy Milk (Ian has a psychological block about vending machines, so I had to be deliberately vague about the provenance of the chocolate) and waiting for Andrew Davies to show up, when Sarah came up to me with tear-tracks on her face. "I just finished "A Tale of Two Cities"," she said. "I need a hug."

In which a pretty good weekend is had

Last night I discovered that if you wear a black lace evening gown to Vodka Revolution on a Saturday night you don't look out of place at all, but small almost-empty pubs where you look ridiculously overdressed are still preferable. Also that going out with someone who's worked as a bartender is excellent because you always end up drinking the best possible thing.

Then today I discovered that the university library, which has only one copy of the Derrida book my entire class needs to read for Tuesday, has two copies of Stephen King's "It". And they don't have Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project in translation, but they do have the book he (Benjamin) wrote about smoking weed. My crush on the library is fading fast. Fortunately tonight it had the asset of containing Ian (the one I went to college with; as ever there is a wealth of people named Ian in my life), and we stayed in the conference area and talked most of the night, then did a token half-hour of work before getting thrown out.

Zeniths and nadirs

The absolutely best part of last night was discovering that John wearing round glasses (Alaina came as John Lennon but ditched the glasses quickly, so they were up for grabs) looks JUST LIKE a younger Rupert Giles. JUST LIKE. I was hyperventilating with joy and had to put my head on my knees. The worst parts were my decision to let someone put the disgusting Scottish energy drink Irn-Bru in my wine (to turn it into "Scottish wine"), and that I lost my feather fan at some point. And in between those extremes it was quite good.

It was also nice to come home to new photos of the puppy, which is still about the size of two apples but is starting to develop real ears and a proper little nose. It's interesting to see something gain mass so quickly. My dad says he thinks it's "still quite cute" in a manner that suggests this is highly controversial.

Now within the next five hours I need to do some work and bestir myself to go out again. Oh the social whirl.