It is humid, and heavy in my head

I know it's absolute cheese and Robbie Williams, but iTunes just gave me new lolz at these lyrics and how he delivers them in a perfectly self-mocking silly pop way:

Hello. Did you miss me?
I know I'm hard to resist
Y'all can come and help me pick the sweetcorn out of this.
It's hard to be humble
When you're so fucking big
Did you ever meet a sexier male chauvinist pig

I'm gonna milk it till I turn it into cheese
Tell your babes in arms and OAP's
Come take a piece of me

If you drop me I'll fall to pieces on you
If you don't see me I don't exist
It's nice to meet you
Now let me go and wash my hands
Cause you just met the world's most handsome man
The world's most handsome man

Y'all know who I am
I'm still the boy next door
That's if you're Lord Litchfield and Roger Moore
If I've gone up in the world
Or is the world gone down on me
I'm the one who put the Brits in celebrity

Give in and love it
What's the point in hating me
You can't argue with popularity
Well you could
But you'd be wrong

If you drop me I'll fall to pieces on you
If you don't need me I don't exist
You voted for me
Now let me see a show of hands
Here before you stands

Can you make me laugh and sign this autograph
Though it's not for me
Flip a grin, shake a thing, name a shame
Then I'm out of here
It's not very complicated
I'm just young and overrated

Please don't drop me I'll fall to pieces on you
If you don't see me I don't exist
It's nice to meet you
Now let me go and wash my hands
Cause you just met the world's most handsome man
Here before you stands
Please don't drop me I'll fall to pieces on you
If you don't need me I don't exist
It's nice to meet you
Now let me go and wash my hands
Cause you just met the world's most handsome man
The world's most handsome man
The world's most handsome man
The world's most handsome man

I love my very dubious musical 'taste'. I am allowed to enjoy stupid music: one can only be a snob in one artistic pursuit, and since I use up all my allotted judgement by looking down on people who blindly follow the popular 'conceptual' art market, I am free of the need to uphold the pretence of good taste in music or film :D which is undeniably excellent news.

I need a job. Or to stop being silly with money and stop eating it away or drinking it away or needlessly travelling around the UK with it. Or buying examples of my aforementioned musical savviness on iTunes with it, or buying books on topics unrelated to my degree / seemingly ignorant of the HUGE to-read pile I have cultivated.

End Blog.

Oh and a final thing, over the weekend I realised just how excited I truly am for our Newquay holiday this summer. I may be romanticizing it to a dangerous degree, but when Dominic and I reminisced about dinner party times, about me nearly clambering fully-clothed into a bath, about the wine both in our blood and on my clothes, about the chatter and the fun and the ease, I left behind the last of my demons about going. And now..bring on week-long dinner party feat. The Beach!

Tuesday

Tonight we're going to do it all again for Helen's birthday: eating, drinking, partying, stumbling home, congregating in my room at 12 tomorrow hungover, wearing a mixture of pyjamas, tracksuits and last night's clothes, make up smudged all over our faces, laughing about the pictures, reminding each other about what we did and did not do, cringing, giggling, accusing and recovering. We always say, 'Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we poison ourselves and do stupid things?' but it happens over and over and we laugh and cry and vomit and hurt ourselves and embarrass ourselves and make new, deep, lasting best friends with people we know and often don't know. And we love it :P

This weekend was hot, and walking hand in hand just before dusk felt like a holiday - a heavy, scented night overseas - and I was happy talking to you until 1 about my ignosticism and your atheism and faith and Plato and Jesus. And even when we tossed and turned in the heat, getting frustrated with ourselves and each other and the night and you ending up on the floor and me, curled up under a bed sheet on the mattress, even then I was happy and would not have been anywhere else [except maybe Bradford, where I was originally meant to visit]. And even when I cried in the street, hot and bothered and feeling hard-done by, I was where I wanted to be :P Thank you.

I have loads of work to do, and German to revise, but as you can see, I am spending my time drunk and in love and blogging. I feel as though I am missing something though, not in a bad way, just in the way that I am not truly comfortable. I feel like there's something just behind my shoulder, out of my peripheral vision, that I really, really want to see but can't find the right angle. I think it's stress!

And I realise how long it has been since I immersed myself in my little blog world, so sorry for the neglect people!

Lucy
xxx

Flash..?

OK so calling this a bit of Flash Fiction would be lying. It's a bit that has been / will perhaps be edited out of the root of all the other Flashes. But I think it should be recorded for sentimental reasons [And sorry, I have *no idea* why it's double-spaced :S]:

His wandering fingers – as they sculpted her into someone new – brushed across the ridges of the map of her scars, faint and silvery like a spider’s web. “How did you get these?” he murmured, already losing interest in his own question as he began to prop himself up over her.

“A violent relationship.” The stock answer, the dull and practised testimony every other intrigued lover had received and accepted: by this point they weren’t interested in her life story unless they were in it, and in her. She touched his juvenile back, felt the muscles just firm under his skin.

“I think you’re lying.” Tom rolled off, his erection abruptly gone. She lay naked beside him, feeling too embarrassed to lie there topless, but too self-conscious of the moment to cover up. She worried he’d mistake her nipples’ hardening in the cold for arousal. She worried that her body was looking old now, was too papery fragile compared to his golden tautness. She worried he’d ask her questions she didn’t want to answer.

“Then why ask?” She covered her shame with barbed wire, gnashing.

“Because you need to be vulnerable to answer me truthfully, on anything.” He was right, was always right, stupid clever little boy.

“I honestly don’t want to talk about it.” She followed his lead and started re-dressing, turning rumpled clothes the right way round and pulling knickers out of tangled jeans.

“I do. You think I’d come here every weekend, put out for you and not ask about it? Don’t you think we should at least talk sometimes? I know I’m just your hobby, but at least give me a little credit.”

Helene winced inwardly at the harshness of his self-awareness. ‘I know I’m just your hobby’. And oh, wasn’t he just, for a while. Until his insight, his care, his glittering curiosity. How can she not care back? How can she not fall a little, even if it was just for the dream of his friendship, his brotherhood.

“What makes you believe you’re just a hobby?” She was almost dressed now, angrily, jerkily putting on her blouse.

“Can we not change the subject?” Tom was dressed, perched on the end of the bed, pulling the sheet from the mirror. “Why do you have scars on your legs, Helene? Why do you cover the mirror when we have sex? Why do you look at that letter when you think I’m asleep, every time?”

Anger and hatred clamped her jaw. How dare he.

“Because I loved somebody once. That’s the answer to all of those. Do you even know what love is, Tom? Do you even know what it can do to someone? Have you ever lain at night wishing for sleep because it’s the only time you’re not thinking of them, and in dreams sometimes they’re still there? Because I have, all of those things and that is why. For everything.”

Tom looked at the stately figure standing away from him. He looked at how beautiful she must appear to some people, how sad she was, how they both needed this. For love, for lack of love, for the absence of hatred and of feeling altogether. Compassion and the need to cry – how great that need was becoming recently, not just this moment but more and varied moments – tore at the muscles in his throat and distorted his tidy mouth. He stood up behind her, this exotic sexual being, and put his arms round her waist.

“Sorry.”

And they both knew that it wasn’t love, and was only lust with the picture of another held in focus, but they went back to bed and kept their sacred ritual because the routine was all they had.

JHGKSHJG

OK so today is rapidly approaching the status of 'Ultimate Fail'. It started well, with lie-in, pleasing amounts of revision, Philadelphia cheese sandwiches but decided it was going to ruin itself later on with a distinct lack of St. Michael's and All Angels (I should not feel as disappointed as I perhaps do) for a variety of reasons I can't be bothered to elaborate upon right now, and this absolute ultra-stress over Student Finance. For some reason they have rendered it impossible for me to log in using my ART ID, but due to 'security reasons' they will not tell me which bit of information I have got wrong. And the deadline is next Friday. And due to a fragile hormonal mood, I am taking this way out of proportion (like to the level of contemplating legal action) and dreading the phone call I always seem to have to make, either to UCAS (my fault), to Lloyds TSB (naughty person's fault) or Student Finance (completely and utterly their fault). Why are my application processes *never* as simple as everybody else's seem to be?!

Anyway, to sooth my tumultuous soul I'm going to go have a shower/bath, get into bed, possibly eat some sugary snack and read, either about Hans Holbein the Younger, God or Garden Plants and Flowers Through the Year. *stress* (What a different mood I was in this time last week!)

Saturday

Home! The garden is jungle-like right now, seriously overgrown. I am unsure whether I like it better as it is or not, it's lush and green and pretty luxurious but the plants are kinda swamped by weeds etc. I did say to myself before I left for uni again: 'I will sort this garden out in the summer!' since the whole job thing is not looking too bright, but I'm not so sure now. A little patch of our own verdant wilderness seems pretty romantic :P

Here tomorrow?:

Tuesday Eve

(Look what I found! Seems as though I've always been kinda obsessed with the old-fashioned woman :P)

Ahoy ahoy. In bed (I accidentally wrote 'inbred' there..I'm not that) and feeling pretty pleased with myself. Why? Well, yesterday I spent a good, silent hour or two studying in the library with Georgie and Kate - excellent work-buddies! - and although today has been a bit more of a revision fail, I still managed to drag myself out of bed for the elusive Tuesday 9 o'clock lecture. I rewarded myself with an earlier shower and pyjama hour, and with shutting my door sans guilt to read *books for pleasure* by the light of the lamp. It's not that I don't love the sounds of the house, it's just that privacy and solitude are sometimes lovely things and often what I miss most about home (besides Sunday dinner). Tomorrow I promise to return to optimum levels of work :)






Fell in love with a girl,
I fell in love once and almost completely.
She's in love with the world,
but sometimes these feelings
can be so misleading.
She turns and says "Are you alright?"
I said "I must be fine cause my heart's still beating.
Come and kiss me by the riverside, yeah, Bobby says it's fine he don't consider it cheating now"

Can't think of anything to do yeah,
my left brain knows that our love is fleeting.
She's just looking for something new,
and I said it once before but it bears repeating now.

Lucy
xxx

Sunday 10 May 2009

Hola.

Today was a memorable day. I've typed out about three drafts of this one opening paragraph in just the last 2o minutes, with little snatches of suitable words and phrases floating around, but no way of sewing them together (*frustrating*). I want to talk of the church, and the service, and who I went with and fundamentally what it felt like. But maybe it's just way too early. Suffice to say, it was definitely not as though I felt nothing, but it is definitely the case that I don't know what I felt, or why. A couple of little bits stick in my head on replay, one particular sentence right in the middle that felt like a poke in the ribs, a look, the realisation halfway through that everyone from the clear Christian to the complete surprise was present. I felt like a n00b, obviously, but I didn't feel embarrassed as I was certain I would. Mostly, I felt happy (although that's a weird word for it, tbh). I just felt. And the surroundings were *gorgeous* - art historian heaven.
And it was really, really lovely to build on this sweet and slow-moving friendship.

Away from all that, I went babysitting in London this weekend with Laura, Kate and Kate's little red eye. Watched a veritable plethora of films, including Bridget Jones's Diary and The Wedding Singer. Ate crisps, laughed at Kate's little red eye and badgered Anneka over the phone. Got drawn on by a three-and-a-half year old. Rediscovered the absolute joy that is PlayDough.

Love,
Lucy
xxx

EDIT: And I suddenly really, strangely miss being in an orchestra :|

Friday

Wow, has it really been this long?

Experiencing some extreme bodily fatigue. We were one step away from a pyjama party last night, singing Spice Girls over bottles of wine (and I was even wearing pyjamas - the only one). Fun! :)

Told everyone here that this weekend Georgie and I are going to church, and was faced with resounding choruses of 'why? :S'. Why indeed! Two different reasons. Will see how it goes, and undoubtedly tell you all about it. Or maybe not, depending on outcome. (Just heard a lyric from Helen's room: 'The Bible is like Chinese Whispers'. I loved that game!)

I am seemingly failing at communication right now, so will go cook potato wedges (mm).

Until next time!
Lucy
xxx

A poetic blog for Duffy and for Sunday

"Then tossed our fiery drinks to the back of our crimson
Throats.
Bad girls. Serious ladies. Mourning our dead.
So I was hard on the Beast, win or lose,
When I got upstairs, those tragic girls in my head,
Turfing him out of bed; standing alone
On the balcony, the night so cold I could taste the stars
On the tip of my tongue. And I made a prayer –
Thumbing my pearls, the tears of Mary, one by one,
Like a rosary – words for the lost, the captive beautiful,
The wives, those less fortunate than we.
The moon was a hand-mirror breathed on by a Queen.
My breath was a chiffon scarf for an elegant ghost.
I turned to go back inside. Bring me the Beast for the night.
Bring me the wine-cellar key. Let the less-loving one be me."

I only did one Carol Ann Duffy poem at school:

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

We had to write a response using a similar extended metaphor for love:

Take this, a strawberry cream, a dream.
A sweet, soft declaration of trust and lust.
A promise so beautiful, yet just as strong
As the fleeting brush, shy touch of a
Cloud.
Or this, a hazelnut whirl, a twirl
In lovers’ arms, a passionate glance, enraptured trance.
When it comes to the crunch, the fire is there,
But the honesty, interest…?
Beware.
Toffee surprise? Dry your eyes, all lies.
The vows are broken, words were spoken
Loud, in your ears. They ring and wrench,
Hard to chew, so longing, tough, just cry.
Why?
Maybe the chocolate square, how dare
They show their happy glow, it hit below
The belt. You wish. Anything to break the mould
Of green eyed flares, you must ensnare their
Hopes.
Or Turkish Delight, not right, it’s fright.
So scared they’ll up and leave, you believe,
They’re just too good, they’ll slip right through
Your grasping fingers like jelly, too bright and free to
Stay.

WEEKEND

"Yes, there's a staggering volume of mediocre art being talked up by fools. But there are real talents and real ideas too. The critic's task is to identify what is good and defend it come hell or high water – and to honestly denounce the bad. Art history can help in this task by enriching your perspective. Writing can give you a flexibility in how and when you want to engage. But engage we must. Engage we will." - Jonathan Jones

LATER: Oh dear. I just read 'chance' as 'charnce'. *shudders violently*