things I did not have this time last week

- an apartment inside the city walls (I LOVE THIS APARTMENT, WE ARE GOING TO HANG EMPTY PICTURE FRAMES ON THE DOOR LIKE IN FRIENDS), starting July 1st: this will be the first time I've lived somewhere without a porter's lodge since 2004, though Sarah will probably fulfil certain porter-like functions, like knowing where my keys are

- a - what are they called at this stage? romantic interest? let's say "male-type involvement", which was his suggested phrase - who for some reason lives four hours away

- a three-year partial-fee-waiver scholarship that, to be honest, I don't remember applying for (I applied for about four at the start of term, but as far as I know none of them were for that particular sum; still, awesome)

- absolute contractual certainty that I'm staying in York for the Ph.D

BUT NOW I HAVE THESE THINGS.

the journal of pre-raphaelite studies is hilarious

"More than three decades have passed since I invented the field of Pre-Raphaelite studies...[name of art historian] said to me when we first met in Chicago a few years ago, 'It's like meeting Moses!' Modesty precludes my accepting his analogy..."

last night

"Do you want to come back to mine and do a guest entry in my diary?" he said.

"No," I said.

(Apart from that it was an excellent evening; we decided (more accurately, I decided) that instead of going to the boring cocktail bar we always go to when the pubs close we should go to a park, and so we all ended up lying on the grass in the Minster gardens, shivering and laughing and periodically going "This is so much better than [the boring cocktail bar]". The great outdoors.)

on the road to the dissertation

"I just don't think you should confuse the reader for the sake of some catchy alliteration."

[As if I have been accused of witchcraft] "I wasn't going for alliteration."

"Yeah, sure you weren't."

[Genuinely hurt] "I WAS TRYING TO AVOID IT! THESE THINGS HAPPEN!"

In which I am unexpectedly enthusiastic

Someone just walked by under my bedroom window, shouting "I'M WALKING WITH MY ARMS CROSSED BECAUSE IT'S SOOOOO COOOOOLD". I love living above a footpath.

Incidentally, how pleased am I that I decided to go to a Eurovision party the very year Norway won, apparently, the biggest landslide victory ever? (Moldova were actually my favourites just based on sheer joy, costuming and use of the phrase "HE-HEY", but even so.) Why do I suddenly care about Eurovision? Am I going to burst spontaneously into "Ja, vi elsker" in the library tomorrow, halfway through typing a derogatory sentence about Dante Gabriel Rossetti? Or get confused and burst spontaneously into "Du gamla, du fria"? Nothing's impossible!

In which everything is ruined

I AM NEVER TAKING BENADRYL AGAIN. It's eleven AM, I'm meant to be doing a highly critical reading of pre-Raphaelite death culture and instead I CAN BARELY SPELL. I SPELLED "SPELL" "SEPPL" TWICE.

I suppose I could see being accidentally high on antihistamines as a way of accessing more creative pathways of my mind.

ETA: scratch that, this is going pretty well.

In King's Manor, reading twitter feeds (I AM GOING TO START WORK NOW) in between looking out at the lovely sun-dappled trees and the blue sky and searching for train tickets to London. Considering how much of my time IRL I spend complaining about dissertation panic, it's oddly sunny in this blog at the moment.

it is the weekend

Last night I made several people happy by making them run up the Clifford's Tower hill and then slide down (we also did some yoga at the top). Can't believe I've never discovered, in all my time of Clifford's Tower-conquering, that sliding down is the way to go. Probably safer than the stairs and less conspicuous.

Then I went home and was delighted by the internet, and now we're going to get lunch at Pret (the plan on my part is whole-leaf tea and something bacon-related) and eat it in the Museum Gardens, followed by a Jane Austen for Amateurs lecture.