From my room, which is directly above it, I can hear my sister sobbing loudly in the sitting room.  For fuck's sake I wish she'd pull herself together.  It's theatrics.  I've done it myself, it's theatrics.

I am an angry person and I know, I know I can be a poisonous little rat when I want to and I am hardly aware that I'm doing it unless someone tells me.  So why, when I am trying so damn hard to keep myself under control, do I suddenly become the verbal punchbag for everyone else in this household who is also capable of blowing up without warning?

THIS is fucked off.  THIS IS.  But twelve-point Times New Roman doesn't sound any different from my normal.  So I hope you know that I don't look any different to normal, either, except for a slight redness around the eyes and a complete inability to concentrate on anything now because in my mind I am shaking with anger and I can't do anything about it.

The last post was twee.  Disregard it.

Sat on my bed listening to Seth Lakeman wearing the best piece of clothing I own.  This is a pair of knee-high lacy socks knitted by my good self, started at the beginning of August and finished on Sunday.  Picture included, with artfully added knitting book visible in bottom left corner, hurrah for me.  Sorry it's a terrible photo, I took it ten minutes ago by desk-light with a webcam.  Anyway, they're fantastic socks, and I love them to bits.  They also have pink hearts on the heels.  How exciting!  I shall be wearing them non-stop for quite some time, I'm thinking.  New project, socks again, grey-green, mid-calf, more complicated lace.  I refuse to be defeated by what is effectively bits of string and sticks.



I've been reading over old blog and have discovered that I'm really very bad at communicating when I'm not happy, even sad posts seem to turn out quite contented but in a slightly more agitated way than usual.  I wonder if this is just me reading them over in a certain way but I really don't think so.  It's odd how these things turn out.  And anyway, I have come to the conclusion (can you call it a conclusion if it's only for the time being until further evidence comes to light? because that's what I mean, by the way) that I am really quite a two-dimensional person.  I don't seem to have any mode other than stressed but enjoying complaining about it, or perfectly contented, sparkly and optimistic thank you very much.  This is somewhat worrying; nobody wants to be boring, or have really no concept of empathy whatsoever, and there's only so far imagination can get you.

And have you ever noticed that nobody wants you to be self-contained, ever?  Even if you happen to be in that happy state where perhaps you can be, and can cater entirely for yourself, there are always legions of people who want to be let in and told everything and have everything shared or explained to the nth degree.  This is confusing me at the moment; I can't get my head around the fact that I have struck a delicate balance where I'm getting things done, but not too stressed, and talking to people, but not going mad and retreating to my cave every fifteen minutes... and obviously there has to be some let-down somewhere and it's that I'm not being inclusive enough, apparently.

Which sounds like a small thing, but it is bigger than one might thing to get wrong, it transpires.

I am aware, and apologise for the fact, that I have just started two consecutive paragraphs with conjunctions.  Adjourning for dinner now, I feel.

People.  Can't live with them, can't hide in a cupboard all your life.  Argh.

First of all, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, you lovely lovely person you, and don't eat too much or you'll feel sick, or at least save room for pudding, yes?

The surprise refers to the fact that I've sat down in the last few days and read a book.  Which is not much, maybe, especially to me (you've seen the size of my booklist) but I haven't done it for coming up to three months.  So this makes me very happy indeed.  Added to this I am currently sat on the end of my bed sticking Strauss' waltzes and the New World Symphony onto my computer.  And when I've found this Glen Miller album I *know* is somewhere in the house (pointed glare at sister the younger) I'll be set for lovely new music to listen to when I go back up to Durham and actually want to get on with some work.  Hah.  Anyone spot the flying cow?

Last night, I had a very odd dream - I was walking down a road with a friend of mine who shall remain nameless, in the woods, in the middle of the night.  And for some reason, I was sure she was about to try and kill me, and I wasn't sure why, it was just a nagging feeling.  But of course, you can't say this to people on the offchance that they are psychotic and will just get on and do it, or otherwise you'll just offend them.  So we kept going.  And then off to my left I saw Van Mildert's pond (although how I know it was Mildert's pond I have not a clue, I think it was just big enough, and this isn't a friend from Durham anyway so I've no idea how she knew either) and I looked down at my feet and I saw on the road a twenty pence piece.  So I picked it up, and immediately I thought hang on, I've dreamed this before.  And what is supposed to happen next is that I put the twenty pence in my pocket, we walk towards the pond, she pushes me in and holds me under and it falls out of my pocket by the edge of the pond.  So I thought, this is horrible, and now I know it's going to happen I'm not going to stand for it.  So I turned around and just ran, without a word, back up the road through the trees.  And she ran with me, and just as we came out into the open she caught me around the neck and was pulling me back towards the pond, and I had this 20p clutched in my hand, and eventually I managed to break free and just run.  And as I got back out of the trees I saw another friend, just wandering about, and he looked at me in surprise and suddenly I realised that he knew all about it and wasn't expecting to see me because he was expecting me to have been drowned in Van Mildert's pond.

I'm not entirely sure what this says, and I'm not sure that I like it.

This was my advice to a friend of mine the other day.  It's the home straight, now, you've just got to stick your head down, not look either side of you and just run like your life depends on it.

While mid-essay, I find that one's wordcount changes according to who you're speaking to.  With people on your course, it decreases but about 10%, or 100 words, whichever happens to be the more however far you've got.  With people on other courses, it increases by about 10%, or 200 words, whichever is the closest to finished without actually being there.  With friends, just add 100 words and be done with it.  With my parents, take the difference between where I am now and the word limit, and add half of it to the current total.  Which is nice because someone'll always think you're at least halfway there... so that's one person in the world who's not panicking.

But I like days, you see, where I just sit, and work, non-stop, for hours.  And don't eat, or sleep, or move, or think about anything except what is directly in front of me.  Just every so often.  It makes me feel like master of my own universe for a bit, and I can ignore everything else.

Anyway, the point is that it's due in tomorrow, and I spent five hours straight in the library writing it today.  Also that it's still not finished and I don't want !!! social calls tonight, I want to get it done and pack.  And sleep.  But apparently I don't get a choice in these matters.  Twice.

So I am going to go now and do some washing and pack and drink coffee and try and get on with something useful.  I'd ask for moral support but I'm increasingly beginning to think that maybe morality isn't my strong suit.

They told me you had been to her,
And mentioned me to him:
She gave me a good character,
But said I could not swim.

He sent them word I had not gone
(We know it to be true):
If she should push the matter on,
What would become of you?

I gave her one, they gave him two,
You gave us three or more;
They all returned from him to you,
Though they were mine before.

If I or she should chance to be
Involved in this affair,
He trusts to you to set them free,
Exactly as we were.

My notion was that you had been
(Before she had this fit)
An obstacle that came between
Him, and ourselves, and it,

Don't let him know she liked them best,
For this must ever be
A secret, kept from all the rest,
Between yourself and me.

-- Lewis Carroll

The thing about Facebook profiles (yes, this is going to be one of those) is that suddenly, the moment you look at it, you're presented with a potted history of a person for about the last three years.  What they looked like on their eighteenth birthday, say.  In-jokes they have partaken in since finishing their GCSEs.  Summers and summers of fancy dress parties, trips to the beach, nights out at the pub, birthday parties, evenings dressed up at restaurants with friends.  Evidence of past boyfriends and girlfriends.  Favourite books, music, the obvious bits.  Job history - and what they thought about it.  And personal writing style.

So it's a bit of a shock when you're reading about someone you've always considered to be very strong and in control of themselves, and what they've written, maybe six months or a year ago and you find that you can hardly pinpoint how or why, but you just want to give them a hug and tell them not to be angry, that you think they're an okay person without them having to prove themselves.

Hugging someone on the grounds of "I was Facebook stalking you and about a year ago you wrote something, I read between the lines and, it looked like you needed to feel a bit better about yourself, so I just wanted to tell you that you're a really great person," is probably not the cleverest or most appropriate thing to do, especially if you've only known the person in question for two months, and besides don't know them that well and haven't seen them in nearly two weeks anyway.

Other things I have been doing today: listening to Sharon Shannon and Lau and Flook and miscellaneous other wonderful folk music (and discovering I can now recognise Eliza Carthy's voice instantly - admittedly, it's not that difficult), watching "Murder by Death" with a friend who is ill, drawing Celtic knots, and copying them very small on my left arm.  I was never much good at art, and there were things I preferred to geometry.  But this is all by the by now, because it doesn't matter at the moment how accurate or beautiful it is because I'm just working through it.  Whiting up my arm for a background.  Doing my working in very pale pink, and going back to cover it up once I've outlined in black.  Following the pattern round...  One day I'll do it on someone else, more intricately and hopefully with more success.  But for the meantime, an hour well-spent, I think.

  

Heh.  So, the story goes a bit like this: I was coming up to college, having just walked home from the theatre at about half past eleven at night.  Immediately prior to this, I had seen a good friend of mine who I hadn't seen in more than passing for a good two weeks, and ascertained that he wasn't avoiding me and that of course he will give me the notes to tomorrow morning's tutorial.  I hadn't been expecting to see him; it just so happened that I had spotted him doing the lighting at the end of a comedy sketch show I had been to immediately previously, during which I had met about half a dozen people I didn't know, and about another half-dozen that I did, mostly from very different places.  And the reason I had got this far was because I'd just left ballroom dancing about twenty minutes previously and been convinced by my partner to come along.  And I'd been late to dancing, by a few minutes, for the main reason that I was so chuffed with myself for tearing round Hollingside West getting four of us co-ordinated for a formal next week with appropriate arrangements for wine that I'd ignored the time completely.

All of which culminated in me walking up to college at about half past eleven at night, thinking that I've changed a lot in the last few months.  One hell of a lot.  I mean, six months ago I would never have pictured doing it.  Four months ago I would have been terrified.  Two months ago I didn't know anyone on my corridor to organise around, or anyone at dancing to be convinced not to work by.  Law has made me more argumentative (and perhaps I might be permitted to say more likely to be right?) and more pro-establishment.  Dancing lets me fail and laugh at it.  Theatre lets me be practical and do things other than mental argument.  And by some magic, dare I say it, I have become more sociable.  Less inclined to bite people's heads off as soon as it gets to 11pm or something doesn't go my way.

Maybe it's a feature of university, but I've noticed that so often these days one is forced, if not to see oneself as right, or good, but at least as valid.  Says the one in a sparkly dress in the changing rooms at the YMCA (another brilliant find, though I say so) this afternoon - there are parts of me that I still don't like, and I could list them just as easily as before, in fact I'm half inclined to say the list would be longer now, but at least I've got the hang of this validity.

Which basically means that I am allowed to dislike myself vocally; you are not.  And even I have to watch how often I talk about it.  How deliciously British.

No joke.  "Rhapsody in Blue" by George Gershwin has been on my desert island discs since about the age of twelve, and it has just been reaffirmed as my favourite piece of music in the entire world.  Again.

Also Marcus du Sautoy was the guest yesterday, so I've been thinking about this a lot...  As it is, then, the list looks a bit like this:

• "Rhapsody in Blue" - George Gershwin
• "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" - Pink Floyd
• "Danse Macabre" - Saint Saens
  
• "In These Shoes?" - Kirsty MacColl
• "Rotterdam" - The Beautiful South
• "Another Suitcase in Another Hall" - Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber
  
• "Race to be King" - Seth Lakeman
• "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of These)" - Eurythmics

My book would be the complete Encyclopedia Britannica.  Because there would always be something to do.  (But if that's not allowed, which if memory serves me correctly might well be the case... then it'd have to be the complete Harry Potter series, on the grounds that it is my comfort reading and reminds me forcefully of all that is grounding and comforting about my family, home, and incidentally bed.)

And my luxury would be a very large supply of plain paper and coloured ink-pens.  Hurrah.

So go on, I'm interested.

A year ago yesterday, at nine o'clock in the morning, I walked into an interview that I hadn't prepared for very well, and had a wonderful morning in one of the contry's most beautiful cities, feeling very uncomfortable, going very red and stuttering a lot.  Such is life.

Today, I have just wandered up from a distinctly more beautiful library, to which I sauntered through the snow post-Human Rights lecture.  This afternoon, I am going to a talk by Vince Cable with people who are interested.  This evening, I am going to a ball with a lot of lawyers, definitely to eat well and enjoy myself, and probably to make a lot of Lord Denning jokes and ignore the fact that I have an essay I should be starting.  When I got up this morning, it was snowing heavily and there were people outside my window making a six foot tall snowman.  I sat and watched them from the warm with a dressing gown and a mug of coffee.

There are some people who would consider this to be second best.  To whom I ask: in what possible way?  Also I would like to assure them that the apocalypse is not coming, not for some time at least.

The snowman made me smile.  (Also as I was walking down to a lecture I saw by the tennis courts that something else six feet tall and made of snow has been constructed, unfortunately I don't have a photo of this.  It did make me giggle though.)

   

...goes a bit like this: mid-case reading for a Contract essay, I find in the judgement of one Lord Justice Slade of the Court of Appeal the following:

"After a lengthy trial... the judge delivered a very full and careful judgment covering 137 pages of transcript, to which we pay grateful tribute."

Judge humour makes me smile.

(In other information, I think Live Spaces is playing up.  Obviously if you've got here it's not too bad but it's sodding about with letting me on the page, and font and whatnot.  Not particularly impressed...)

"Sometimes you feel expensive,
Sometimes you feel so cheap,
You can roam the streets a king while everyone's asleep..." - The Beautiful South

The problem is this: I have discovered, decided, whatever you like, that I do not like being looked at.  It unsettles me.  It makes me feel like I've got something to live up to.  I despise it.  Especially when I am thinking about it.  I do not like wearing skirts, or close-fitting clothes without something baggy over the top, I do not like dressing to feel pretty except when M is about when I feel a lot more secure about it.  The fact is that the idea that anyone else finds me attractive scares me and I do not like it.  Part of this I am sure is that it is pretty personal and yet I can't do anything about it, ultimately: "No, you don't, or at least you shouldn't and here's why," is inappropriate and unnecessary (and besides, it involves sharing the "here's why"), and on occasions, "Please don't, you're scaring me and I don't like it," is just no help.  I am physically weak, light, and I do not want to offend people.

There is the train of thought that I know a lot of people have that it's good to be told you look nice, to have attention paid to you, to make you feel better about yourself.  But I feel alright about myself, really, overall, and the bits I don't like are not going to disappear, or do anything but glare with metaphorical "oh really?" raised eyebrow, because somebody's paid me a compliment.  And maybe I am a little extreme but I could live without compliments.  I could.  Especially physical ones, but all of them, really.  And I'd far rather be considered capable than pretty.

This, this is why I've decided I prefer behind the stage to on it.  This is why I enjoy dancing, and I enjoyed dancing so much last night at the Snow Ball (with ballroom dancing - very much fun!) that I'd like to find an opportunity to get onto the team and do it competitively (I wasn't going to but I've just been talking to K and she's convinced me that it's feasible... at some point...), because people are watching what you do rather than what you look like.  Maybe that's counter-intuitive.  This is why I like the law: because it is your argument, not you, that is being debated.

I'm aware that I've just equated "being looked at" with being looked at in a certain way.  I certainly don't like the latter.  I don't know.  Everything else depends on circumstances.  I just, sometimes, wish I could be invisible.  Just for a bit.  Just until I could retreat to my cave.

On the plus side, I spent an hour this morning doing the Jive and the Quickstep and the Viennes Waltz.  I am tired, but satisfied.  I had never Viennese waltzed until last night, and I'm aware I'm not particularly good at it, and that I'm too worn out at the moment to be able to jive in the least bit convincingly.  But sod it; I enjoyed it and it's something it's very easy to get wrapped up in.  And there is something, is there not, in the rise and fall?

For all this talk of one thing and another I'm being very pretentious at the moment.  But if you understand what I mean, well, I suppose that's alright then.