clockwatching

did you write the book of love?

Well, here I am blogging again. I swear, I only did it for the new layouts and pictures and things. I am a snazzy layout whore.

I didn't think I would be blogging again, I must say. I tried it, abortively, and I can't say if this time won't be abortive too. I think it'd be nice to try. I've certainly come a long way since I stopped before, although in a way it feels like I've gone back on myself, or not gone anywhere. Clock it all up to experience, my mother always says. And experience it will be, in the end.

One of the reasons I stopped blogging was because I worried about having nothing to say. Here I go, and I have nothing to say. I'd better save my rants and tirades and Parkin Updates (which are really just an unholy alliance of rants and tirades) for here in future.

I hope, I think. It's all gone a bit pear-shaped, but there are areas in which it is surprisingly right. Those which are making me happy despite all this rubbish. I just had a thought - I'll think of this year as a reconnaissance year rather than a wasted one. A gathering of information an things so I know exactly how to do next year and win. A bit like playing a computer game - once you die a few times, you know how to avoid it and you complete the level. That was an utterly banal comparison. I haven't played my computer game in days, because I'm stuck and it...isn't as addictive as I thought it was. Something that is addictive, however, is Heroes. Ohmygod. Only watched the first four, and I'm already in love. There must be a way of making the DVD work on my computer. I know not what it is, but we must find a way. Heroesis impossibly watchable, and I am in love with Hiro. Every girl needs a Hiro in her life.

I broke a nail on this. The first blog post is always a bit iffy. Preferably, the next one will be reassuringly filled with toast and other boring day-to-day doings. If I can at all help it, and stop Madonna going round my head for no apparent reason.

Here we are again for Round Three. My hands smell of hair gel, because I've been trying to make Scarlett's L wig for the Expo next weekend. Next weekend. Eeeek. And my preliminary essay is in on Halloween, which I incidentally STILL don't have a costume or an event for, and the day after is November. Which means TOO MUCH TO DO IN TOO LITTLE TIME. I feel even worse for Ev, who has to do all of that, on top of a Cambridge degree. I mean, my degree is certainly challenging and - well - difficult, but at least it's in a language I count myself more than fluent in. The L wig is not going well. I wish specifically anime costume shops existed, or that I had a better base to work with. Thank God I don't have to make a Mikami one too, that's all I can say. Thank you, Stuart, for having improbably accurate hair. Of your own. My own wig will be easy enough to deal with, although I still think it's too blonde. But you can't have everything. I'm very sorry to say (actually, I'm not sorry at all, I'm excited), that I ordered that beautiful Elizabethan corset from What Katie Did. It isn't strictly one hundred percent Misa-accurate, but I love it and if I have it I'll know I want to wear it, and anyway it's black and close enough and nobody can stop me so there. *Deep breath*.

I went belly dancing last night, and it was so! much! fun! It's dancing that isn't difficult, but you work hard. And I don't look ridiculous doing it, unlike contemporary dance (eek!) It's my kind of dancing. Also, I'm by far not the biggest girl there. There are some serious curves going on, and those girls are much better at it. The skinny ones can't do it at all. I laugh. I can, though. I keep rippling my tummy in a mirror and admiring it. And I get to wear my jingly coiny things from Turkey, so there, Ev, they are not completely useless.

Nano. Nano, nano, nano. I will think of your plot further than a vague inkling, I promise. I'll do it when I visit Ev at the weekend, between making her calming cups of tea and hugging her a lot. And fending off the hysterics.

My doings have been fairly uninteresting other than the belly dancing. I had a good seminar discussion today which reminded me of A-level English i.e. arguments flying back and forth like nobody's business. Some more odd people climbed through our window last night, and one of them was called Lex! Creepy Nano foreshadowing all the way! He really wasn't an interdimensional ambassador, though. I checked. Nor did he look like my Lex. My Lex is a gentleman. He shaves.

Sakura, I am getting back to you, I swear.

Perhaps more blogging later, when I've finished Death Note Episode Two and seen my mother a bit.

Staggering like birds against a hurricane

Well, here I am again, battling my way gallantly through storms of internet-free days and incompetant PC World technicians (but what can you expect, I mean really, their warehouse - it is bright pink. BRIGHT pink.) Am amazed I made it to a second blog entry, really. I pray the god of the mountain goats that I won't turn into a myspace whore with a post every five minutes along the lines of 'I'm going to get some toast now'. 'OMG, I'm eating the toast, it's amazing'; 'the toast is gone. Woe'. This would be pointless and also utterly spurious, as I haven't eaten toast since I got here.

New Cross continues fine as ever, a glorious No Man's Land between the Peckham boys and the Deptford boys. Why didn't I go to Cambridge again?

The rash is on its way out. That is not the point. It never should have turned up in the first place. Bloody skin.

I went to the cinema on Saturday night to see 'Children of Men' with the flat mates. It was a grim and bleak vision of the future with lots of shooting. OK, it was essentially a shoot 'em up, which some of our number found boring, shallow and irritatingly testosterone-filled. However, I quite liked it. There were sweets and lots of guns. I might read the book. I'm displaying a serious lack of eloquence today. I really want to/need to/damn well should do a couple of posts on Sakura. Or a couple of hundred. But I'm really not happy with my writing at the moment. I can't even manage a faintly entertaining blog. (Seriously, why do my fingers persist in typing 'blog' as 'blong'? Is it Nature's way of telling me to condense my posts?)

My ears have been ringing on a near-constant basis since we moved Thom's record player into the kitchen. And those odd chaps from Cambridge came round again last night, bringing one of their flat mates with them. She was slightly odd and spent the evening coming on to me. I was completely uninterested. It's becoming a slight social stigma here, i.e. the flat mates all moan about not getting any etc etc and I just...don't care. I'd rather go to the Library. I'd rather do nearly anything. I just don't give a flying watermelon. I'm probably emotionally stunted. Well, good. While the cat's away, the mice shall play. Or should that be while the rampant teenagers are doing revolting things behind closed doors, the sensible going-to-get-a-good-degree people are getting into the German Expressionism section before the rush? Ha.

Actually, the idea of there being a rush for the German Expressionism section amuses me. I keep going there in the hope of meeting an actual German expressionist.

I'm terrified about NaNo this year. I really worry, not that I'm not going to be able to write anything, but that what I write will be so much utter rubbish. I think I write better in the summer. Or maybe just this summer. I can think perfectly well at the moment: beautiful things keep coming to me, but the only thing I'm writing are haiku. A lot of haiku. The minimalism appeals to me. I compose them on-the-go and then forget them. They just blow out of my mind like a lot of autumn leaves, and that lipstick that blew out of the window. I love autumn, though. Even though autumn is everything I thought of as bad, up until recently. But now I don't mind, autumn seems lovely anyway. I think it's still going to be special when I'm ancient.

I really do not know what I'm ranting on about. It's all got a bit German Expressionist, hasn't it? It'd probably be much more meaningful if I could sprechen die Deutsch. Then you'd all think I was being dreadfully meaningful instead of spouting whatever pops into my head like an intermittently leaky drain. Well, I say 'you all', but I suppose what I really mean is Stuart. I failed a bit at this blog-starting up, didn't I? It was supposed to be telling you what I'm doing.

I think I sound depressed in this post. I'm not depressed, I'm just contemplative. Say the word contemplative out loud ten times and it doesn't lose all semblance of meaning, unlike a lot of words when you do that. Particularly 'napkin'. I abhor that word anyway.

I miss my friends, simple as that. University students aren't quite the same, somehow. I've sort of forgotten how to be me.

I found something today.

In my hopeless pursuit of the internet, I discovered my computer retained my old favourites (un-updated, of course). And I found something from exactly this time last year. One of those things that bring everything flooding back, and it wasn't bad, not really, and I only listened to Vaughan Williams twice and cried once, so it was alright, really. Really.

In other news, I've started blogging again. I should probably change that to 'hello Stuart'; who is oddly delighted by my black-edged ramblings. I can't think why, but here it is anyway. We've finally got the Internet (more or less, give or take a few more trials and tribulations), so as promised, I am starting it. The NTL process was long and torturous, and incolved much ringing of tech support lines who were having technical difficulties (WTF Geordie man?!) and physically abducting harmless (ha!) NTL men. It culminated in a beautiful and wonderful communion of us gathered round the screen gazing at Google. And do you know, once it was there in front of us, after all this waiting, we couldn't think of a thing to look up? Not a single thing. We ended up with 'cheese'. Meaningful, non?

I went to see the Maly Theatre Company's King Lear last night. It was in Russian, which was not neccessarily a bad thing, and it certainly had its moments. However, it also significantly lacked its moments, too; and as Lear is a very long play even with a cut-down Russian script...the moments where it lacked moments were more considerable than th emoments where it had moments. Ahem. Overuse of 'moments', but you see what I mean. The design was beautiful, though, and the relationship with Goneril, Regan and Cordelia (and, to a lesser extent Lear, although I didn't like him) was wonderful. It was portrayed realistically. I always think in the old BBC dramas G and R are like snakes rather than sisters, whereas these two were more like...well, Ev and Rosabelle, actually. In an evil sort of way. Sorry, you two - you obviously aren't evil power-grabbing manipulators; I think your dad is safe for now. But they were like REAL sisters instead of - gah. Point made. I also like the intermittent piano passages played by the Fool. And how the piano played by itself after the Fool died. The melody carried on, unfinished, when he wasn't there to carry it on. However, the beautiful and haunting moments were rather outweighed by the passages of large bearded Russian men shouting at either other. And the other passages of said. Oh! And Edgar was very sexy, and didn't at all warrant being laughed at by the Americans behind me.

Americans! They are lovely, mostly, but I am sick of them. I'd like a night out where I only hear English voices. Or maybe I'd like a night out where I only hear the voices of people I know. Although those are increasingly heard, as I have a bad habit of ringing people late at night these days/ Sorry I woke you up, Stuart. Actually, I'm not at all sorry. It was nice to talk to you.

I was going to say something else, but I've forgotten and I don't feel like ranting. This'll be too long anyway, as my blog entries always are.

Edit: I've remembered what I wanted to talk about: the Death Note anime! I'm absolutely in love. It's so true to the manga - although if anything Light is even sexier, and there's voices! I'm in love with it. I doubt I'll ever get excited about an anime so much ever again. It's up there with Saiyuki. It's been a year since I first heard of DN, too. I'm marking this beautiful anniversary with giving it all my love. I'm going to buy as much DN merch as the London Expo can offer me. Need to buy some more Misa costume, actually. Including a wig - argh. None are the right colour! I don't want bright yellow or Barbie blonde, or even ash blonde, although I'll have that if I have to. What I'm after is closer to ginger. Well, strawberry blonde. I know what colour dark hair goes when you bleach it (unless it's the magical hair of Alex). It goes hideously orange, and gains a life of its own. And NO, I am not bleaching my whole head just to be Misa. I'm not that dedicated. Ev, I repeat and reiterate, you are going as my Light. Repeat ad nauseum until taken on board. I mean, imagine how strange it would look for L and Misa and possibly Mikami to wander round without their arch-nemesis/boyfriend/God!

Over and out for now (am strongly tempted to write 'kiss me, Hardy', as I did in my first ever blong entry. I shan't.)

I'm not going to blog any more, everyone.

Bye.

Life is officially over. Goodbye, world. Everything has ceased to have a point.

Yes, that's right, Bleak House is over. Why, why? Why to so many things? Why did Jarndyce have to be noble at the last minute? I can't bear it.

Yes, I loved it and now it's gone. I cried buckets and you all must comfort me, on pain of being cried on again and many, many time worse.