1. Sheffield and old friends.  Especially when this includes innuendo, gin and tonic and jelly and ice cream.
   
2. The possibility of snow...
3. RICHARD ARMITAGE AND RUPERT PENRY-JONES ON THE SAME TELEVISION SCREEN THIS VERY EVENING!!!!!!  SHOCK HORROR WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME SPOOKS WAS BACK SO SOON?! *faints with delight*
   

So it seems the more I do the more I seem to be letting other people down, and myself.  Last night was great fun but time-wise I couldn't really afford to do it - with the result that I utterly failed to sleep past half past eight this morning out of worry, things just going round and round in my head about what I have to do (that and feeling like I'd been knocked round the skull with a sledgehammer, but let's not talk about that)...  I completely missed the Quaker meeting, second week running, and next Saturday is going to be the final night of four of Closer (at the Assembly Rooms, Wednesday to Saturday, 7.30pm, if you're in Durham GO it's going to be so good!) so it looks like that might be difficult because I will be absolutely shattered... and then the week after M is coming up... so much for trying to take something else seriously.  I'm trying to do my best but there is quite a lot of pressure from all sides at the moment.

When finally I managed to get my head straight enough to go outside and go down for lunch, several people asked if I was okay, and H, bless her, offered to sit down for a chat which was so wonderful of her, I could almost cry with how much that means at the moment, but if I'd stopped I would have exploded, and I don't as a general rule like plagueing people with every last thing that might be wrong.  So I shut myself back up in my room for another hour and wrote down everything I have to read, cases, tutorial stuff, chapters of textbooks, handouts, the lot.  It stretches to three pages - I basically haven't done any reading in the last week because of the theatre.  I don't begrudge it, I love that place, and the people too, and part of its appeal is that it is all-consuming.  (I basically haven't felt homesick at all since I've been spending most of my time there.  I wonder how many freshers have been drawn by this.)  But my resolution to actually do some work in the next three years... still stands.  For the time being.

So now I will actually do some of aforementioned reading and not, categorically not, get distracted by Facebook, Deviantart or finishing that game of solitaire.  Early night tonight methinks.

Two hour Tort lecture this morning (of which I was conscious for the most part and alert for approximately twenty minutes - my own fault for only getting back about 2.30 this morning, with no impression whatsoever being made by about half a gallon of coffee).  The lecturer did, on the other hand, point something out that I thought was worth sharing.

Tort law, for anyone who hasn't come across it, is basically the law of liability, that is, who's going to pay for damages.  (Actually it's not, that's just a hilariously simple way of putting it... but basically.  Basically.)  It's different from Criminal law, which is generally about wrongs against society (which is why Criminal cases are all R v whoever - R being the queen, the state, The Man to whom we stick it, whoever) where the main aim is punishment, whereas torts are committed against an individual (things like assault and battery, negligence, defamation, that sort of thing - and they're all claimant v defendant) where the main aim is compensation.  What the most part of the Tort course is about is negligence, which is enormous, umbrella-like, disgustingly full of case law (basically where judges use case rulings that have already happened as a guideline about how to rule next time)... and negligence is all about fault: you can't be liable for negligence, which is not to say that you can't be guilty of it, but you can't be liable for negligence unless whatever happened that was negligent was your fault and that a "reasonable, ordinary person" could have been expected to avoid it.

Anyway the point of this is that we were discussing, in the loosest sense of the term, a case where a twelve year old boy chucked a sharpened bit of steel at a fence, missed and gouged some poor girl's eye out instead.  And the point of this is, there's a bit of debate about whether a twelve year old boy would have known that it was a stupid thing to do and therefore not to do it.  Now I would have thought a five-year-old would be able to cope with the concept that you do not throw sharp things in the immediate vicinity of people's faces, but the judge, for some reason, found him not liable on the basis that, to paraphrase, "it's what twelve year old boys do."

Boys.  Twelve year old boys.  This is the point the lecturer was making: boys and girls, and men and women, are approached differently in court.  This is not as a result of the actual law, but of its interpretation: when they are young, girls are supposed to be more sensible and forward thinking, boys can be complete idiots and get away with it.  When they are adults, men are supposed to understand the full implications of what they are doing, women are supposed to be, effectively, a bit more lightweight.  If you're a defendant, being a little old lady or an eight year old boy is the best thing you could be.

I have the greatest respect for every judge I have ever met, of whom there have been about three or four.  Judges get things wrong, depending upon your point of view, on a relatively regular basis; this is unavoidable but all the ones I have ever come across I have faith in the judgement, impartiality and goodwill of.  They want to come to the right decision, the right way, they want to be just, and fair.  They get knocked a lot, sometimes fairly, sometimes not so.  But there are some preconceptions that are so subtle, like this about men and women, that you can't get rid of them because on an individual level it is very hard to tell that they are there.

Presumably, as society becomes less patriarchal and stereotypes change, this won't happen as much.  I wonder how long it will take.

It occurred to me last night that my room is different to every other room on this corridor, no matter who it belongs to, they all have something in common that I don't have.

Photographs.

That's a bit odd, you might think.  My bookcase is the most full here, most likely, I have a few postcards up on the walls because I liked the look of them, and a cutting from Private Eye, but no posters, and no photographs.

I don't do photographs.  If you know me at all, you'll be aware that I'm not very good at being in them, and unless someone else asks me too I tend to feel a bit awkward taking them.  Part of this stems from watching the Queen's Jubilee on television when I was twelve, and thinking, taking part in something big and exciting but spending the whole time staring through the lens of a camera is such a waste, why don't you live it, then you've actually got something real to remember?  Of course this can be taken far too far.  Part of it stems from the fact that my mum doesn't like photos being taken of her, as a family we don't tend to take them, I know it's utter hogwash but I always remember the Aboriginal idea that it's stealing a part of your soul.  I don't believe it, it's just that remembering the story makes me feel a bit uneasy, like I'm being frowned upon by somebody I don't know very well.

So I have the best part of an entire blank wall in my room.  Or at least, this time yesterday I did.  I don't want to remember my friends through posturing portraits of us taken years ago, black-and-white shots where you can't tell who's who, I want to think about my friends as they are, or at least as I think they are.  Therefore I have decided to cover my walls in poetry, handwritten, typed out, all of it, I want the words up on my wall because the last year of my life has been all about the words, and the meanings, and when I think about where I feel happiest or most at home, the words are what is there.

The list is currently as follows:

• "Tarantella" - Hilaire Belloc
• "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" - Dylan Thomas
• "His Last Sonnet" - John Keats
• "Siren Song" - Margaret Atwood
• "Among the Multitude" - Walt Whitman
• "8 Count" - Charles Bukowski
• The first ten stanzas of "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" - Oscar Wilde
• Sonnet CXXXVIII - William Shakespeare
• "What Do Women Want?" - Kim Addonizio
• "Patrolling Barnegat" - Walt Whitman
• "She Walks In Beauty" - Lord Byron
• "Jenny Kissed Me" - Leigh Hunt
  
• "Footsteps" - http://thecuckoo.deviantart.com/art/Footsteps-100187627
  
• "Crossing the Border" - http://thewariefiend.deviantart.com/art/Crossing-the-boarder-84405969
• "This is the Sum Total of All Our Nights Together" - http://thefairie.deviantart.com/art/This-Is-the-Sum-Total-96904949
• "Bludgeoning Butlers" - http://sivia.deviantart.com/art/Bludgeoning-Butlers-81713050

All contributions welcome, whether I know you well or not.  It's all poetry, it's all good.  And if someone can get me a copy of anything Damn, Tricksey or Red, so much the better.

(One rule, though, I refuse on principle to have anything by William Blake or Emily Dickinson on my walls.  No ifs, no buts.  Not even Jerusalem.)

AMONG THE MULTITUDE - Walt Whitman
================

Among the men and women the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else, not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any nearer than I am,
Some are baffled but that one is not -- that one knows me.
Ah, lover and perfect equal,
I meant that you should discover me by so faint indirections,
And when I meet you I mean to discover you by the like in you.


If you had shown me this poem one, two, three years ago, I would have adored it and it would have been my favourite for weeks, partly because I am That Sort of Person and partly because it is That Sort of Poem.  Now, I like it very much because once I would have adored it, and that means something, I think.

Spent most of my free time at the theatre today.  I'm convinced they must think I'm some kind of hanger-on but there was a tech course on Sunday morning (which was a bit irritating, timing-wise... but what can you do...) and I signed up for backstage at the Freshers' play and another one, directed and produced by third years, the stage version of Closer.  The stage is white.  Well.  The stage this morning was black, and we painted over it before leaving for a lecture on the history of the European Union, so it is that sort of white that you can half-tell is black, really, underneath.  After that, I came back, and helped a bit; listened to the tech crew banter, stared up into the fly tower and tied gauze to the rails with dozens of bows.

When I got back to college and into dinner, I saw some of the people from my corridor and sat down with them.  They asked me where I've been the last few days.  I said the theatre.  I did not say, and hiding in my room having an early night two hours later than planned, and reading poetry and science books and writing stories and thinking about people.

In answer to a question I was asked indirectly earlier this afternoon:  I blog because I'm excited, or sad, or pleased, or annoyed on levels from the strictly personal to the internationally political.  When things are written down in typeface that doesn't change, or have intonation, and people can't see you as you're writing, they imagine for themselves, and for the most part it looks far less emotional than it really is.  Therefore it is an outlet for self-expression that doesn't make me look like an overenthusiastic lunatic.  I think you find out more about a person that way.

This is something I have been doing a lot of recently, and I'm not certain why.

It is also an adjective, and the following things can be described as such.

I have come to the conclusion over the past few days that I am not a very nice person.  I have made a complete idiot out of myself on numerous occasions, I have been a hypocrite, a bitch, a liar for no reason whatsoever (not even because I like it! which at the moment I don't), I have thought things about perfectly nice people that it makes me sick to remember.  I have failed several people and probably insulted several more.  I have basically ignored any core values I might have had two weeks ago, and the worst thing about it is that I don't know why I have done it.  I honestly, truly don't understand.  I'm just obviously not the person I thought I was, and this scares me, because since, over the last three months, I've not been keeping a diary (time, energy, inclination, whatever) I don't have anything to refer to, to say, well, I was having a bit of a bad moment then, I need to apologise to so-and-so, or I need to get over this FAST.  So I am a completely different person and I've no idea where this came about, who it is or what I'm supposed to do with it.

Also I have just edited four expletives out of that paragraph.  This is something I have never had to do before.

Therefore my conclusion is that I don't have particularly many friends up here because in the real world, people aren't going to be tolerant of you all the time.  In the real world, they just move on.  Part of me wants to distance myself even further from the people who've been so kind and tolerant towards me, I don't want you to have to deal with this.  But part of me can't let go because then I really would be alone.

On Wednesday, I walked down to Tesco to buy some washing powder, and just as I entered the shop I felt so homesick I could barely stand up, or keep the tears back.  I stood in the queue wandering what I was doing there, convinced everyone was staring at me or judging me, with this washing powder and some sponges clutched to my chest (I could practically hear, "Who does she think she is?  Why didn't she buy this stuff before she came up?  What an idiot, I bet she didn't even think about it.  Sponges?  She's in catered, why the hell is she buying sponges?  Is this girl retarded?") biting my lip and trying so hard not to break down.  Following this I had a twenty-minute walk back to college, including some of the way back up Cardiac Hill, so I felt like red, breathless shit when I got back (why did they put me on a corridor with all the sportiest, most early rising, dedicated people with untold amounts of stamina and strength in their own powers of decision making?  WHY?) - but there is no rest for the wicked so straight out again I went to stand in a queue for fecking ages for dinner and polite conversation.

It was L's birthday on Thursday.  I sent her present on Monday but it didn't arrive; I feel like I've let her down.  I got some chocolate in the post that they'd picked out for me in Montezuma's in Winchester.  For some reason it made me cry.  Part of me wants to ring up my mum and tell her when I feel like this, but I won't, because she'll only worry more.

These are things that have been happening to me that are worrying.  I'm sorry to have to tell you lot but I have nowhere else to put them.  What worries me most is that it sounds like I'm getting the best deal here, also that M never mentioned feeling remotely like this last year (did you?  And if so why didn't you tell me?  I hate to think you might have been like this) also that the advice they give you before you come to university is "At weekends you might feel a little bit homesick.  Keep busy and just remember everyone else is feeling like this too."

Thought I'd just crack a joke for you there.

For possibly the first blog anyone has written in about the last week, I'm going to leave the G (or no G, depending on your perspective)-word alone, and engage in a passionate rant about something completely different.  And this something different, ladies and gentlemen, is the COST AND QUANTITY OF LAW BOOKS THIS YEAR.  Ye gods (or multiples/lack of same, equal opportunities, right?) but there are dozens of them, and they all cost about thirty quid.  On average.  And I was prepared for this but not quite so prepared for having to pay for them myself!

Slightly in shock.  On the plus side, the world is a better place for several reasons this morning, which I shall quantify here:

1. Coffee, scones and crossword mid-morning.  This is my natural habitat.
2. In-depth discussion of Why Turkey Should Categorically Not Be Allowed Anywhere Near Europe, and why we should join the Euro - with someone who knows about and has an opinion on same, and that opinion is not anywhere near the lines of foreigners-loss-of-culture-bloody-French-Rule-Britannia.
3. I found a ten pound note I'd forgotten about in my purse.  Therefore the world and everything in it is beautiful.  A tenner!  How often does that happen?  Thrills.
   

So yes, you are all lovely people and I admire you intensely, the UK Constitution is a glorious topic for a 9am lecture and so very interesting, and the lecturer is so very lovely as well.  The sun may not be shining as such, it may be as freezing outside as my little sister's death stare (be afraid be very afraid) but in my heart it's spring and here's to sharing the love.

Beats yesterday when the homesickness kicked in.  Didn't even realise I do homesickness.  Apparently I don't that often, but when I do, I do it in style.  Which is something, at least.

Well, I've just got back from my first ever Quaker meeting... and it was surreal.  Very surreal.  My poor dear mama gave me the advice not to sign up to anything and be careful what I let myself in for, but then when she was eighteen someone tried to brainwash her into a cult, so I suppose she's a bit jumpy.  Anyway the point is, complete lack of brainwashing, time to just think about things, very lovely people... and this is something I would like to be associated with.  I think it is beautiful and welcoming and thought-provoking, and dare I say it a very mature way of thinking.  I was a bit worried (well, yes, very) to begin with, never having been to anything of the like before... and an hour of silence, well, it's pretty hardcore ("Don't even swear in your head, Fiona, God can hear you and if He's laughing at you too there's no hope for you ever again.") but you know.

Not sure quite what else to say about it, there are hundreds of things buzzing round in my head but I think I should probably organise them into some semblance of order before spewing them out on the internet, right?


What I was otherwise going to say was something that I (sort of) drafted this morning before I left, so bear with me because it is without the addition of coffee and hence, most likely, sense.  Oh and it's a bit of a rant as well, I seem to do these things fairly often.  But there we go, see what you make of it.  Partially in response to Jenny's blog on religion and the like, I thought I'd say something about, amongst other things, believing in Science.

The point being that it is an utter misnomer.  Science as a word comes from the Greek "scientia", meaning knowledge.  i.e. That which we know, not believe, but are certain of.  Or are near-certain of (here the theoretical mathematician in me comes out in force and starts sniffing about types of proof... but near enough.  Let's not quibble over the little things, yes?), but which is based on cold hard evidence, test tubes, telescopes, bit of occasional clipboard action, you know the sort of thing.  Therefore believing in science, I don't think is an option - we've got more quantifiable, observable evidence for all kinds of scienctific "facts" (and don't bristle at the use of quotation marks, please, they're there in part to help me organise my thoughts) than we have for quite a lot of religion, spirituality, et cetera, et cetera.

So let's just for a moment take science as a given.

(I am about to make a jump to the quantum, which I am aware is in no way observable but still.  Bear with me.)

This is what I base my beliefs on, to a very core level.  The proton and the electron are made of completely different things - things admittedly about which I know next to nothing, just that they're different.  I'm not a scientist past GCSE.  But the point is that they are, and the point is that their charges are equal and opposite to a degree such that in a mass as big as the world, bigger, in fact, as big as everything that has ever been in the entire universe, the differences between them are so minimal as to make no discernable difference whatsoever.  Now, I'm not advocating seven-days-intelligent-design-animals-came-in-two-by-two type arguments here, but what I am saying is that it's difficult to dismiss that as coincidence.  Not impossible, after all, most things are possible in the human mind (that's why we have Creationists, right?), just mind-bogglingly difficult.  My hypothesis is that there is some form of information in there, something that we can't get at (and is it worth bothering to try, seeing as there is a high probability we'll never be able to comprehend it? this is not rhetorical.) that, if you like, regulates the charge of the proton and the electron.  Makes them equal throughout the universe, with so damn little variation.

And if there is some form of information out there... that isn't in the least bit evidence for benevolent omniscient omnipresent anything, but maybe the information is what God really is.  After that... I can't persuade anyone of anything.  Make the leap yourself, if you like, or don't, it is entirely up to you.  Perhaps I should read some Dawkins, I haven't and I keep meaning to, I'd like to see what he has to say about it.

The only truth we're ever going to know is that which we can collect ourselves, with as much evidence as we can get our hands on.  So by all means read the Bible and other religious literature, if you're defiantly atheist.  If you're religious in any way, try the other way about.  The Koran has some of the most beautiful poetry in the world in it.  But collect all the information.  That, I think, is as far as anyone can ever hope to get.

It's up for discussion now, I'm going to go and have some lunch.  By all means leave a comment with your views, or send me a message.  I'm really interested.  Not just today.

Lots of people went off to Newcastle last night, bedecked in violent neon for a night out.  I didn't, partly due to being knackered post-Studio of the previous evening, partly because I don't really like that sort of thing.  So about 20 of us stayed in, ate pizza and watched Run Fatboy Run and The Commitments (which I liked, but would probably love were I particularly awake at the time).  It was excellent.  I have an odd feeling I was being flirted with for a lot of it by a certain somebody (hereafter referred to as Blazer Boy From Studio) who is lovely, but I sort of worry either it was blatant or I'm reading into it - either of which is Not Good.  Slight crisis of conscience here.

And then today I dragged M round town in the rain looking for Tesco, which we utterly failed to find, got lost about half a dozen times (whichever road you walk down, you will end up back in the same place.  Honestly.  We tried.) and then spent £7.80 that I'm not sure I have on coffee.  Am currently drinking some of aforementioned and it's very good, but still.  It'd better last me the term, at least.  M has good taste in comedy.  It's all good.   With swarms of really nice but either partygoing or very quiet girls around the place, it's nice to have someone to talk to about interesting things.

Still a bit of a blank on the poetry front, though.  It was always going to be.  I think I've met one person studying English.  If, on the other hand, you want to talk about Geography or Natural Sciences, you're absolutely set.  There are legions of them.  And they're all called Sarah.

There are all kinds of things here I can't quite get over - yesterday, the Grey Law students got the tour of Law-related Interesting Things, i.e. where to hand in essays, lecture theatres, seminar rooms, and the evidence of a benevolent God that is the Palace Green Law Library.  And when we all got inside, nobody was talking.  Nobody was taking the piss, acting bored, it is a beautiful place where you can just inhale the smell of dusty book and listen and hear nothing and everyone appreciated it.  This makes me unspeakably happy.  I can't quite comprehend quite how unfailingly enthusiastic all the Freshers' helpers are, or in fact how you don't even have to whistle because the momen t you think, "I could do with someone telling me what's going on here" there's one right in front of you strolling up the corridor grinning.  Also the food.  I do not understand the food.  (L will appreciate this: there was spaghetti bolognese for lunch today.  Four days in and BINGO!)  At the moment it is very nice, and there is lots of it, but there is the Evil Catering Woman who shouts at you for taking three things from the tray or not telling someone you've finished the milk.  I am not sure if this is a honeymoon period either.  I suppose, as with many things (! Philosophy connection) you just have to take what you can get when you can get it and enjoy it while it's still there.

*thoughtful*

Scene.

We are sat here, in this hall, at these long tables with white tablecloths, silver candlesticks, flowers, bottles of wine.  Earlier today, everyone looked eighteen, maybe just about nineteen, but now over the dresses and shirts and suits we are wearing our gowns, and feel twenty-one at least.  Backs are straighter, the hall seems golden.  At the high table, there is smiling and we are concerned only about Pete the Porter, prowling up and down the tables.

Everyone stands; few people know why.  The grace is said.  In Latin, and this, if I hadn't been sure before, is the moment I know this place is for me.  Grin.  Adjust the gown, we sit.

Starter, main course, pudding.  Baked Camembert with onion chutney, roast chicken, chocolate mousse stacked into a pyramid.  Wine, red and white - but not too much.  We are going out later, to the bar, down the road at eleven o'clock, but now we are civilised.  Mature.

Speeches.

The JCR President stands up, and with Welsh lilt tells us to get involved, that this is not a business and nor is it a charity, not really, that we could all do anything, every single one of us, if we try.  The opportunity is there.  (The candlelight sparkles.)  The Master of the college speaks, too, maybe a little longer and more pompously.  University may be preparation for the rest of the world but that is not the be-all and end-all.  Last night's karaoke replays in my brain, those were the best days of my life... maybe this Australian Shiraz is getting to me.

And then we stand again, two hundred and fifty students and staff, to sing the college song.  We begin to clap.  And then, complete with actions and vague semblace of a tune, we sing.  "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are grey SKIES GREY SKIES GREY!"

I look over and the Master is joining in.

When we get back to our rooms, there is a noise from outside.  Over the trees, further down the hill from the next college, there are fireworks.  In the cold and the dark we stand, shivering, with people hanging out of windows.  These are the people.  This is the place.

If this is a cliché, I don't care, I'll live it anyway.

I've not done badly with my family and friends.  Particularly, well, both of them.  Maybe we only really realise this when they're not there, or maybe I have been gaily realising so for several months and this would explain a few things.  To be fair, I don't know how rare a family of four, two parents, an eighteen year old and a fourteen year old, enjoying a meal and each other's company, is.  Among my friends, I wouldn't have thought very.  But what do I know?  I have no idea what you lot are like when you're with your families.  Just like it's always odd when people meet my family, or come home with me, because I'm a different person around them.  Not that I mind.  The point of this paragraph is that they're all wonderful and I love them.

Tomorrow (and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day, you know the stuff.  I'm quoting Shakespeare.  This is me getting worried) I am meeting many new people, some of whom are bound to find this blog sooner or later.  I'd quite like now to ask them in advance to please, like me, maybe quote something beautiful at me so that I know that here is someone with whom I can get on, or pick holes in the logic of something I'm saying or, you know, mention last night's vice-presidential debate (egad!  I've been without internet or newspaper for 24 hours, I have no idea what happened!  Nick Robinson, where are you when I need you?!) or how Boris Johnson as London mayor may or may not be nothing in comparison to getting the bloke behind international Bra Wars back to help run the country.  Or failing that, don't raise your eyebrows at me because I think they're exciting, or interesting.  And don't laugh at my knitting.  Maybe you can tell that THE PARANOIA IS SETTING IN - it'll all be fine, soon, I'm certain of it but if I had a wishlist, politics, artisan crafts and poetry would probably be on it.

This does not mean I am closed-minded to anyone who does not consider these important.  Not at all.  You're talking to the girl who spent most of her fourth year at school (Year 10, dear.) writing and revising a list of Ten Specifications For The Perfect Man.

Oh, sod sod sod.  Don't mind me.  I'm just brainspewing.

J, you are an exceptional human being and you restore my faith in humanity and to a slightly lesser extent myself.  For this I wholeheartedly salute you.  (Also I am determined to co-write a book with aforementioned sister at some point, whether she was aware of this or not before... well, she is now.  Dammit.)  But the point is this: thank you.  Very much.

Twelve hours.

My mother and I get along famously.  This makes me very, very happy.  I'll miss her because she is one of my best friends, I think.

Today.  Yes.  You know.

I screwed up, quite a while back, but quite significantly and repeatedly.  I do not like my younger self.  I would ask why people do not tell me at the time when I'm being a bitch, and need to grow up.  It turns out that they did say so, after all.

"Do you remember the time you didn't speak to me for a week?"  No, and this scares me.  Why don't I?  Did it really mean that little to me and that much to you?  I remember deliberately not speaking to my sister once; it lasted twenty minutes before I felt too guilty to continue.  If I am this sort of person why am I allowed near anyone else?  If I have this tiny a level of self-awareness, why am I let near other, more fragile, egos?  How do I reconcile this with my view of myself?  And why do I still have friends, especially from back then?  Not a fucking clue but I know I shouldn't have.

Notes on a letter to someone I used to know but now no longer speak to, that hasn't been written and will never, as things go, be sent:  Memory.  You and me.  Costa.  Politics.  Dow Jones.  Inability to forget.  E-mail.  Friendship.  Contact.  Easter.  Perhaps.  Ice.  Please.

Except only some people read this, and I'm sure you're reading this as an academic exercise.  Someone told me the other day that they love what I write, and several others that they like my style.  Forgive me-- for once in my life I don't mean to be argumentative, but I need to know.  WHY?

(If you feel determined to answer which you shouldn't be, don't feel you have to in public.  Also somebody has been checking this site three times a day.  I can see you.  Thank you xxx but I can't understand it.)

(To three? people: I don't lie about kisses.)