jampy

Previous post is a story I wrote for a writing challenge months ago, published here for your reading pleasure. Since it's Halloween, that makes it topical. Go me! Said challenge should begin again in about a month, if all goes to my inscrutable plan and Chris hasn't got sick of my stalling and run off to find himself someone else to inspire. He might hate my inscrutable plan.

Thursday night, so it’s the carnival on Beaumont Street. Same as every Thursday, but Wednesdays are Grace Park.

Crouching under the Ferris wheel, soft hairy moss wetting my jeans like a giant novelty foam hand held aloft at a football game, so long ago.

Alice was on my case about not eating with her again. The rucksack chafes, but a Tupperware container of marital guilt gently warms my left kidney.

Jim the spruiker calls for last rides, the children groan – unsurprised yet resentful. They knew the carnival was closing at 10, they’re up way past their bedtime, yet they didn’t really think it would ever end.

Waking up, lumberjack jacket balled under my head. Maybe half an hour later, although I don’t recall arranging myself for sleep, don’t recall falling asleep, and my watch doesn’t appear to be working.

From my hiding place, I can see them coming out. I wait. They separate, shout their salutations, head off to cars.

But Peter lives just across town. He walks. I follow him.

Peter doesn’t worry about walking alone, at night, in the bad part of town. Peter might not be Peter at all, perhaps he’s Jack or David or Sebastian. But he’s exactly the kind of big boy university football player they like to put in the Spook Shack. Peter doesn’t mind danger. Peter can look after himself. Peter can bench-press 190. Peter has a popular girlfriend who blows him every Saturday night. Peter needs the money to keep himself in designer jeans. Peter hears my feet crunching on gravel, and starts to run.

Wednesday night, Jasper didn’t run. Jasper yelled, screamed at me to leave him alone. Jasper pleaded, and begged. Jasper was relieved when I kissed him, then left.

The werewolves are more powerful than the vampires. But not as attractive.

Sometimes, the frightener needs to be frightened.

The Italian test wasn't nearly as bad as I expected, and this was probably helped by the fact that I'd done some fairly good study. There was less guessing than in the last test, and I almost passed the last one, so I think I'm a shoo-in. In any case, it's worth 5%, so I'll hardly be destroyed if I don't pass.

I'm working on my Semiotics essay now - my frustration with it hanging over my head has reached boiling point (metaphors work best when mixed) and I'm chucking something together. I have three hours to write another nine hundred words. I think I can manage the strain.

Stuck in my head: Planet, Schmanet, Janet - Rocky Horror Picture Show

Oh, I'm tired of uni. There is a reason why I haven't done four subjects at a time since first semester. I haven't ever managed four simultaneous subjects successfully, and now I'm trying to pull it off. So I have an overdue Semiotics essay, an Italian test tomorrow, an Italian essay due on Monday, and a big essay for English Honours due the thursday after that. It's one thing after another, and I'm just so tired. I just want to rest for a few days. I want to sit around, read something uneducational, drink lots of tea and spend some time with my friends. I want to have time to work on my projects, and write something interesting here. I want to not have to worry about the quality of my analytical writings. I want to have a big chat with my family. I want to watch a whole lot of pulpy TV. I want to have long relaxed days with my boyfriend, and time to get my tax return done. Mostly, I want this Semiotics essay to be done so I can stop worrying about it. I'm just going to have to ignore the crapness and get it done. Down, perfectionism!

Gosh, that was stylish. I make a change, and I go to pieces (as seen below). I considered deleting it, because panic isn't very stylish, really. But I suppose if you were interested in how confident people live, you wouldn't be coming here. If I could ration time for making links in my lovely sidebar, I'd be able to give you some recommendations of what to read while I'm dull and assignment obsessed. Perhaps soon. Mourn for me in my time of tedium.

Oh, Lordy. Oh, lordy lordy lordy. Yes, my template has been shitting me off for some time. I write a lot, I really need wider columns than this, I say. Yes, Heather, the morning you're meant to be writing three thousand words is not a good time to change templates. And this one is all funny with the css and the js and the morphing colours, and all your readers will desert you. And you don't write your best semiotics essays when you're stressed out about things, and judging by the fact your hands are shaking, it really looks like you're stressed. And this probably isn't a perfect solution, and I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and I wasn't going to bother changing my template until I moved my page, but I'm feeling all fussy about it. If you have an opinion, please let me know.

Much as I'm sick of having every second damn entry here about my uni work (or lack thereof), it's most of what's busying me right now. I could talk about finding respite in tea, or reading HPatPoA, or how I saw some of the Errol Flynn Robin Hood this morning. But it's all really what I'm doing in avoidance of work, in fear at what I perceive as being the poor quality of my writing, my ignorance of the recognised semioticians, my lack of coherent rhythm and argument. I think the Daylight Saving Day tends to make me feel spring feverish - there's all this sunlight, and it's six p.m., and I want to go out and play! Missing an hour is confusing me, and I feel that I have plenty of time, but it is getting late. I'll get off the computer in a minute, do my Italian spiel, and do a bit more of the Semiotics thing. Oh, when will I have time to be creative and entertaining?

Listening to: Soul Surfing - Fatboy Slim

As cool as Google URLs are, I wasn't going to go out of my way to find one for me. I've known for some time that searching 'jampy heather' brings my blog to the top of the results list. Ah, the many advantages of made-up words. But then my referral logs showed me this beauty: Google "whatever moves your furniture" and my page is the only one that comes up. It's a phrase I pinched from Dark Angel, so I would've thought that plenty of fangirls/boys would have used that phrase in the past. I am the king of fangirls.

I didn't write my Semiotics essay yesterday. Not only am I a bad panda for such procrastination, I'm a sad panda because writing an essay in a weekend is much scarier than writing an essay in three days. Four, if you include Monday, since I can hand it in a day late and only lose 2%. There was quite some panic when I looked at my chosen question and realised that I had to refer to a bunch of guys, but it's under control now. I have a page of notes, and I can start writing the essay any time I like.

I won't start writing it tonight, because I'm going out. There's a netmeet. Whenever I tell people I'm going to a netmeet, they think I'm a geek, and worry that I'll be stabbed. And then I tell them that my mother is going as well, and then they think I'm strange and lame. It should be nice, though I'm not sure what I'm going to wear. Perhaps my new blue velvet jacket. It makes me feel all set for the gymkhana.

My family is strangely multilingual. Little snatches of languages become part of the vocabulary, and then they combine in somewhat surreal ways.

Me: Mein fuss tut weh.
Claire: Poverina!

The loft bed was delivered at eleven-thirty. The deliveryfolk were not only punctual, but kept me informed, calling when they were five minutes away to warn me of their immenent arrival. They also assured me that they really didn't mind carrying the boxes up stairs, explaining that they were very heavy and looking concerned at the idea of one so frail as me (!) carrying such heavy things. I've probably overanalysed their behaviour there, but they really were very nice. I applaud your good service, Fantastic Furniture!

Earning my ire, on the other hand, this week: Sydney Buses. These have recently taken to being seven minutes early, and that's by their time, not mine. Also pissing me off currently is enetation, which seems to fuck up all the damn time. I think I need a new commenting service. And a big, hairy finger to BlueSkyFrog who chose to promote Red Dragon to me by leaving a clip of Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter as a voicemail on my phone, ranting about the nature of fear and the victim/evil bastard relationship. There was nothing at all in the message to indicate that it was an advertisement, and consequently it scared the shit out of me.

My sister's bed is being delivered today. I called the number on the scrap of paper just after 8am, as instructed, and was informed that they would deliver the item in question between eleven and one-thirty. Now, a two-and-a-half hour window isn't so very long for delivery persons, but I suspect they'll actually arrive around six. Or perhaps I should get dressed now, so that I'm not in my pyjamas when they show up.

For quite a while I've been regretting taking Semiotics. My delightful marks in the assignment reduced this feeling somewhat, and I was feeling only mildly disgruntled at the position I'm in as I sat down in my lecture today, four days before the final assessment for the course is due. At the end of the lecture, a man who had been assisting the lecturer by distributing the hand-outs (it continues to amaze me how people will walk straight past a paper-laden chair in the middle of the doorway) stood up and informed us that this was the lecturer's last lecture ever, quite likely, as she was retiring from full-time employment with the university.

I was suddenly grateful to have taken the course - although I feel ignorant for understanding little of the nebulous material covered in lectures, I feel my understanding of textual analysis has been greatly enriched by my study. The knowledge that this was my only opportunity to undertake such a course makes it more worthwhile and in addition to this, I had so much fun with the essay that I can't really complain. So here's to finishing the course, and having as much fun writing the essay as the assignment.

I saw Donnie Darko today. It's a damn fine film. I thoroughly recommend it, and if you have trouble figuring it out, check out the website. I suppose I had a head start in having seen the site before I saw the film, but really, it's not that obtuse. In any case, the film has left me feeling sanguine yet sombre, and I've been listening to songs from the Donnie Darko sountrack along with the American Beauty original score.

Song of the Day: Mad World - Gary Jules

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had

Yesterday, I replaced the laces in my incredibly comfortable sneakers. The old laces were stuffed, you see, grey and moth-eaten-looking. I now have new, white laces in there. Since the sneakers are old and somewhat stuffed themselves, the laces appear to glow. The whiteness of the laces also, in my opinion, draws attention to the oldness of the shoes. Therefore, I've been considering active attempts to dirty up my laces. I thought rubbing dirt into them might work, or perhaps I should take them out of the shoes and jump on them somewhere dirty, like the backyard or the kitchen floor after I've been cooking. But the laces are so pretty, so perfect and so clean that I don't feel I can dirty them up yet. Perfection fades quickly enough.

I love the way my mouth feels after a cup of Irish Breakfast tea. I love the smell of mangoes ripe to bursting outside my kitchen window. I love red t-shirts, black rollerball pens and my overly pocketed backpack. I love it when I'm at my boyfriend's house and he's not there, but I can smell him all around me. I love cool cotton sheets in summer and long, hot baths when it's raining outside.

Sometimes, like now, I feel sad without quite knowing why. Sometimes I have to close my eyes and have a look around inside, to see if I can figure out what's wrong. Current possibilities: My arm hurts. I didn't get enough time with my boyfriend this weekend. A girl I'm friends with has ultra-in-jokeyness with her friend, and it makes me feel left out. I didn't get much uni stuff done this weekend, and I have a huge essay due a week from tomorrow. ICQ shits me with its always popping up asking me to search for more friends, as if I don't have enough friends already. Vague orange juice induced nausea. Harry Potter shirts in adult sizes don't seem to exist in this country.

I hate the name Kelly (as a first name for a girl). I have a psychic suspicion that my auto-disconnect is coming up. I've been watching Girl, Interrupted. My eye is itchy and sore. I didn't really eat much today, so it's possible I'm getting low blood sugar problems. I haven't seen my friends in a few days, and nobody seems to update their pages any more - I just want to connect with someone, almost anyone, and there's nothing here, no-one willing to open themselves up to me. I hope I'm open here. Because my eye is all itchy, my nose has become congested and this, somehow, makes me feel like I'm crying. I'm not, though. I think I just need some sleep.

Much as I love my new sneakers, find them the most comfortable and supportive I've had since my basketball boots (alas, Nike, with whom I have quite some ethical issues) and exclaim that I've been walking almost non-stop for two days and my feet don't hurt, they do a bit. The little toe on my left foot is sore. My little toes are quite strange, really, almost deformed, in that the toenail grows almost horizontally, and apparently snagged on my sock, leaving my toe feeling inflamed and irritated, much like my eye. I just did a word association test. I wasn't much able to concentrate on the words, and so my answers came out a bit funny. I don't think I have issues with love, but the rest looks about right, really. I'm actually feeling better now. Time for bed, I think.

I have issues with...

violence water love money submission

Take Word Association Test

The Friday Five on Sunday

How many TVs do you have in your home?
Three: One downstairs, one in my mum's room and one in my room. My one is a tiny black-and-white one, but the case is red. I picked it up at a garage sale about a year ago, and haven't watched anything on it yet. I just step over it on my way to the shirt drawer.

On average, how much TV do you watch in a week?
More than I should. Maybe eight hours a week? The judgement that I watch more TV than I should is based on my beliefs about how my time should be spent: doing uni and so forth, rather than watching zombie TV. I make no cultural judgements about the quality of TV as a whole.

Do you feel that television is bad for young children?
No. That is, I don't think the TV itself is the bad part. Television as babysitter is very bad indeed. Kids watching horrid things that I refuse to watch, like 80s horror movies, is quite a worry. Parents exercising too much control is also weird, like my friends when I was younger who weren't allowed to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because it was too violent.

What TV shows do you absolutely HAVE to watch, and if you miss them, you're heartbroken?
Right now: Dark Angel, Buffy, Daria, Alias, Band of Brothers. Apparently I like violence and cynicism. I used to be way obsessy about The West Wing, but that's dropped off the radar.

If you had the power to create your own television network, what would your line-up look like? Press Gang. Lots of Press Gang. Mysterious Cities of Gold, a cartoon I vaguely remember from my childhood with associations of great excitement. Also Dr. Katz, The Muppets and Space Ghost Coast To Coast. And at night, lots of good documentaries. Probably the British kind, largely about ancient things. Good documentaries about old things are what you need on TV when you should be in bed but aren't, for whatever reason. Also Hornblower, which ABC showed just enough of to get me hooked, and then they took it away. In much the same vein, I'd love to see the television series based on the Sharpe books which I so love. I may have to make a more extended list of my Dream TV Lineup as I think of more shows I miss.

Ugh. Two and a half hours of hardware shopping is enough to turn even the nicest family members into snarky beasts. I did buy some comfy sneakers today, though, and a Metz t-shirt (beware the judderman, my dear...) My head hurts. I'm heading over to Andrew's place to hang out tonight. There I shall consume butternut pumpkin soup with cumin, and peach iced tea. The plan was to get some work done, but that's looking pretty unlikely from here. I think there's a whole sack of sleep there with my name on it.

I feel like I haven't written honestly here in days, because I've been hiding something. All week, I contemplated attending a play! writing workshop that was being run at uni today. I felt that it was a good idea, that I'd learn things and feel like I was doing the sort of thing I wanted to do at uni. I've never been a joiner, and walking into a room full of people I don't know is always hard for me. But it was harder still, because going there meant that I was an aspiring writer of one kind or another. Declaring ambition is scary, because other people know what you want to do, and then they'll know if you screw up, and if you do nothing to achieve your goals. In high school, I never told anyone I wanted to be a writer. A lot of my friends wanted to be writers, would sit down and write a novel on a rainy afternoon. Since I didn't do such things, 'writer' was clearly not a classification available to me. The fact that I wrote endless journals apparently didn't enter into the calculation.

So, I thought I might go. I told few people about this. I didn't write much of anything here this week, partly because I had a bastard of a week and partly because I've been feeling quiet and sneaky about these plans. I wasted a lot of time this morning, and even managed to make myself late. Of course, walking in ten minutes late, dazed and breathless, only to be immediately asked what you love is far more socially difficult than arriving on time, but don't tell my brain that. And I had a great time. Drama isn't really my thing, and the workshop didn't convert me, but I learned a lot about character and dialogue. Simple lessons, but important ones.

Weirdness Purity Test.
You answered "yes" to 76 of 116 questions, making you 34.5% weirdness pure (65.5% weirdness corrupt). According to the scoring guide, your weirdness experience level is: Certifiably Weird - It’s amazing you can understand humans at all!

Scariest search ever: female werewolves wearing tight leather skirts. And I'm number two. Whatever moves your furniture.

Third instalment of the fic is up.

Sweet relief. After a day of blogger server errors, I'm able to do things here again. Aahhhh.

I survived my two presentations yesterday. I wasn't nearly as prepared for the Italian drama one as I would have liked, and I didn't have any notes prepared. The reason: I was planning on writing up my spiel at uni before class. However, there was a kitchen accident, and I spent the morning mopping pumpkin soup off the ceiling. Not the best way to start the day, I can tell you, as I was disgruntled and lightly Pine O Cleen scented, as well as underprepared. I mumbled my way through it, and a classmate later refuted my assertion that I'd made a dick of myself. Whether or not she was just saying that to be nice, it made me feel better.

The Ancient History talk was better. I had time beforehand to write myself out some fairly extensive notes, and I went at a cracking pace, largely because I was nervous and I felt as though my voice would break if I didn't keep going. Annoying Bint wasn't there, thank heavens, or I might have resorted to physical violence when she made the inevitable stupid comment. And now I have no more presentations to make this semester. With any luck, I'll have enough sense to steer clear of subjects that involve public speaking next semester.

So much for my sneaky plans of reading an English translation of the Italian one-act play I must expound upon tomorrow. Alas, I must add a thorough translation to my task. I have been exceedingly distractable today, and despite all the things I must do, all I can think is what I want to do. In fact, the things I want to do are seizing my time by force - concentration in my Ancient History lecture is impossible, and I become bombarded with ideas for my many projects.

I believe this is a kind of spring fever, the restlessness that comes near the end of semester, leaving me utterly vague, intractable and filled with a kind of longing for free time. At this point, I think I should thank whatever higher powers there may be that I have no job at this point, as gainful employment would be another tax on my time, and at this point I don't feel able to do anything I need to do in a manner that utilises my whole ass. Somehow, writing about things other than my academic woes is difficult. I don't have time for creativity, and my blog has not yet begun to seize my attention in the way that some of my writing has. Look forward, kind reader, to more interesting entries soon. I hope your anticipation shall not be in vain.

I got my essay back today. With a sense of pleasant surprise, I found that I have been awarded one of the best marks of my academic career, and that my lecturer found my essay witty and insightful. This is a bit of a relief, it must be said, as my sense of self-as-academic took a bit of a battering recently, with the revelation that an essay I submitted was, if not crap, certainly not up to the standards to which I hold myself. It's also a bit of a relief, as I have two presenations on Wednesday that I've been dreading. I won't be marked on either of them, just the idea of sitting there for five minutes making a dick of myself is enough to stress me out. So tonight, I listen to the new Harry Potter soundtrack [with realplayer, schñarfed from TLC] and try to learn some things about contemporary Italian drama, and the Amarna period in Egypt.

Harry last night was great. Movies outside are good, because you can talk quietly and the sound doesn't carry to people around you. But bad, because people talk loudly, berating their children for stupid things, like sitting on their shoes or not wearing the red trackpants, and feel the need to comment loudly on the film. There were some very annoying people there. Also, it was hella windy. I was glad for the strange black polarfleece garment I had purchased that morning, and I actually took to lying rather than sitting to try and keep out of the wind. Next time, I'd take more blankets. And possibly less food - Julia, bless her soul, likes to cater. I shall complete my weekend by doing a tokenistic amount of work, and reading lots more of Golden Fool. I had trouble getting into it at first, but now I'm well and truly hooked. Soon it'll be over, and I'll be sad again at the loss of my beloved characters.

Essay is complete and submitted, but I'm really quite disappointed with the end result. I have such high standards for myself that good enough just isn't good enough. But I made a really stupid mistake with this one, and I'm all freaked out about it. Hopefully, they'll let me hand in a new one on Monday. In the meantime, I'll just panic about it for a while. When I get freaked out and self-doubting like this, only one person can help me. I have the best boyfriend ever.

I am so sick of dealing with banks. The keypad on our cordless phone is getting a bit old and wonky, so it's really hard to push the numbers once, rather than three times. Which makes it difficult to enter endless digits for a computerised system. I really don't have time to deal with it now, either, as the English faculty office closes at 4pm and I have to type up my essay and add bits. Endless frustration... smash bank!

I finished the book. Worst Ending Ever. I really mean that. Utterly gratuitous, and the final paragraph is just him begging for a commission to do a sequel. He wrote two sequels, as it happens, but from what I hear, they're even worse than the first.

So now I'm writing an essay, and I find myself using the words 'expedition' and 'provisions' a lot. This makes sense, because they're relevant to the subject matter, but they also happen to be two of my favourite words. These words remind me of when I was younger, around five I think, and I was staying at my Grandad's house. All my cousins were there at the time, so there were seven of us kids there and nearly as many grownups. It was Christmas, I think. My Grandad's house was in a semi-rural area, and it was a fairly short walk across a hanging bridge and along the riverbank till you got to The Bush. Expeditions took place roughly on a daily basis. One of the members of the expedition was chosen to be the Quartermaster. The Quartermaster carried the Provisions - those tiny, two-square Cadbury chocolate bars. My Grandad would find me a 'Kangaroo Stick' - a walking stick roughly the right length for my diminutive stature, generally the end of a slender gumtree branch which rebounded when I pressed down on it.

My Grandad had names for all of us - I was Scallywag, and my cousin Ben, from memory, was Scallywompedigig. Or was it Rapscallion? When I asked Grandad where he got the names from, he claimed to have a special page in the back of his dictionary. I desperately wanted to find that page, to see what other names there were.

A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
- Mark Twain.
Oh, how right Mr. Clemens was. There are but eight pages remaining in my reading of Robinson Crusoe, and yet I still cannot bring myself to complete it. Admittedly, this is largely a result of fatigue and lethargy. I need to write an essay this evening, but feel unable to do so in my diminished condition. Should I attempt a nap? It should be noted that I am extraordinarily bad at naps. I find it very difficult to fall asleep during the day, however tired I may be, and should I succeed in falling asleep, it is quite likely that I would not wake up until a rather advanced hour of the night. It should also be noted that I am bad at being up alone at night, as can be seen in my previous entry. I would really like to put on my pyjamas and relax this evening. I'd like to drink several cups of tea, enjoy the company of my friends and family, and take some time to write and read at leisure. I haven't allowed myself this luxury in days, and I can feel my brain becoming cluttered.

Up late at night, just about anything is funny. I start laughing like Beavis and/or Butthead at the dumbest things. Then everyone else goes to bed. I plan to go to bed fairly soon, after I get things achieved, but then I connect with something, or someone, and when it's gone I feel sad and alone. The house is so quiet and still and dark, it might as well be empty. Everything seems a bit too hard and, if I dwell on it, a slow, cold sickness brews in the base of my spine. My plans of sleep are shattered - I fear lying in bed, unable to sleep. I fear insomnia, and the way it affects me. It doesn't happen often, thank God. And I am prepared, in some ways: many of my favourite books, the ones I can always connect with, lie next to my bed, prepared for just such an eventuality. I almost relish the opportunity to read one of them again, although it's not the cheeriest. Then again, I want their company, not an attitude transplant.

Why write anything at all, when it may be misconstrued? When what I want to write is frustration and anger about a conflict in my life, but the writing will make the conflict all the worse? When my words have already been taken amiss, when my opinions, beliefs, emotions are extrapolated from but a few small words on a screen? How can any writing convey me and how can I escape the myriad difficulties that occur with an informal medium that lacks inflectional distinctions? And how can I really write about what's going on when I'm trying to be so damn diplomatic? How is it that I give a shit what you think of me when you clearly don't give a damn about my feelings? Hey, don't worry, this isn't about you.

One of my standard expressions of frustration and boredom is "It makes me want to stab myself in the eye!" This was oft-repeated while I was slugging through the more boring sections (there are less boring sections?) of Robinson Crusoe. Naturally, while I was watching Cast Away, I managed to actually poke myself in the eye with the piped edge of a large green corduroy cushion. My eyelid had apparently folded in on itself, the eye getting drier and rouger as the tears leaked in two steady streams down my face. I can't say anything nice, today, so I won't say anything at all.

[link schñarfed from Julia] They say I'm a Hufflepuff. I hang my head in shame.

I've read a little over half of Robinson Crusoe. Considering I was intending to have finished it by the end of today, this is bad. I also need to watch Cast Away in order to compare the two in an essay due on Thursday. It's only 1500 words, so it should be okay. Failing that, if I hand it in on Friday, I'll only lose 2%.

It's a public holiday today, so the whole family is home. Breakfast, at 10:30, is waffles, mine with Nuttella or peanut butter, or just butter. The smell of cooking batter drifts upstairs, drawing me down.

[Link schñarfed from Julia]

Happy dance! I didn't even have to cheat to get that result.

Buffy last night was great. I accidentally stayed later than I intended to, leaving my fella at home, wondering where I was. Not good, really. But there are few things funnier than a horny drunk male friend openly hitting on the shy virginal ultra-straight boy. Nothing says it like, "Please, let me give you some head!"

I saw Clockstoppers today. Not a bad kids' movie, and the time-travel was well thought-out. There were some great lines, but the scriptwriter really hated the annoying younger sister. She wasn't just bratty, she held pretensions of being some kind of nemesis bratty younger sister. It was cringeworthy, and I could have written better. The actor they had for that was really annoying, too.

Dinner tonight will be pasta that looks like fish skeletons with some extra-garlicky sauce. I love my garlic. This shall be followed by Caramello ice cream.

Which Harry Potter Man Should Be Your Lover?

Yes, I know that makes two HP quizzes today. I'm excited, because the Australian premiere of CoS is approaching, and also because I'm arranging a group of people to see a free outdoor screening of the first HP film soon, which will be nice.

I've read sixty pages of Robinson Crusoe and, what's more, I've actually started enjoying it. I'm cleaned, buffed and polished. I have no idea what to wear, as it's hot and stormy-looking, and I have to pack for at least one other day. My beloved sneakers let in water, alas, so I cannot bank on them for rainy weather wear. Current plan involves wearing my favourite short jeans and slides, taking full-length jeans and a jumper. That way, if it's cold/rainy, I can wear my motorcycle boots, which are at Andrew's. Wasn't that fascinating, boys and girls? Off to Julia's now, for Buffy.

So, the second I get my second instalment ready for submission, fanfiction.net goes apeshit. I'm feeling Murphy's legislation is more at work in my day than I would like. As it was down for weeks last time, I've poked them up here: part one; part two. They don't look snazzy, and the pages don't include my penname (whirlygig) or the title of the thing (Ron and Hermione as Boris and Katya. It'll make sense later). They're shabby precisely because it's a stopgap measure, and I hope not to have to rely on this for an extended period.

It occurs to me that I might have enjoyed my day more if I ate. I got up around nine and, at that point in the morning, you really might just as well wait for lunch. Well, lunchtime came with its own surprises, so I stayed at the computer. My stomach was gurgling by this stage, but it's nothing I haven't had before. It wasn't until I was about to go out that I realised that I hadn't eaten. So I ate a sandwich at five p.m. This is really pretty significant for me, as I tend to get all cranky when I get low blood sugar. Somehow, it didn't happen. Much. Admittedly, I didn't interact with others much today. I was considering dinner, but then it was just too hard, and I'm also curious about how long I can go without food, now, before my stomach starts digesting itself.

A whole day gone and little achieved. Actually, I got a lot done. A whole stack of writing prompted by an unexpected source. Also, I caught up with my e-mail. Offered assistance to a sick friend who I'm glad to hear is feeling better. Further improved my skill at Collapse. A bit of an emotionally exhausting day, and I felt guilty at having spent the whole day on the computer and having done no reading. Then I had to go and rescue la mia sorellina who, alas, had a shitty day at work. I resented this interruption of my day but, of course, I got heaps of reading done on the bus, and I feel my day was well spent. Avoidance can be productive, obviously, and had I spent the whole day in my hot little room trying to read, I would have been all cranky and, I suspect, got little reading done. Instead, I read in the balmy sunset while waiting for the bus. I'm 15% of the way through the book and feeling optimistic about the rest. Will read some more tonight (or so I plan) and some more tomorrow. Visiting a friend tomorrow evening to watch some Buffy, which will be nice.

My family lives in a terrace. Well, more accurately, they're terraced shops with huge homes behind. Fairly snazzy, really. But we share walls with people. There are some necessary allowances to be made when you live in close proximity. Music seems to be the main one. Currently, the neighbours on my right hand side (whose house adjoins ours the full length of the house) play piano. This happens at any time between six in the morning at ten at night, and always strikes me as extraordinarily loud. I had suspected that the piano was right up against the dividing wall, but walking home a few days ago, I heard the piano playing loud and clear in the street, when I was effectively on the opposite side of their house. Perhaps it's just extraordinarily loud. The playing is inexpert to say the least and, while their selections are ambitious, playing glaring errors quickly does not make them any less erroneous. Frequently, we turn our own music up rather loud.

On the other side, the houses are not fully joined, separating after the frontmost room to allow for a side passage. Naturally, the bedroom windows face each other in a rather uncomfortable way: when we had only recently moved in, my sister and I walked into her room to see a naked man sitting on a bed playing keyboard. They also liked to do the washing-up naked. Needless to say, we installed curtains fairly quickly.

The neighbour on that side, after the naked people, was a rather frightening woman who climbed our fence and sent angry, nasty notes when she believed we had been damaging a plant she had installed on the dividing fence. Then she got over it and gave us a crystal, and was, after that, excessively, frighteningly nice. It was, it must be said, a bit of a relief when she moved.

Downstairs at that house lives another character. This one we know little about, but we believe he is the hairdresser who works in the adjoining shop. I would never let him touch my hair: we hear him loudly, repeatedly, phlegmily clear his throat every morning. We have been known to imitate this, but it seems to only encourage him.

The current neighbour on that side is fairly new. He seems to live alone, and works shifts, or so we believe. He plays loud heavy metal type stuff, at any time between four in the afternoon and midnight. This becomes more tiresome, as the sound cannot be dampened any further, and we certainly don't want to be playing music of our own at that hour.

Other irritations lie in the constant traffic noise (although one becomes accustomed to this rather quickly), the occasional barking of dogs, and the loud tolling of a bell on weekdays. I was puzzled by this, until I realised that it came from the nearby kindergarten. This rather explained the laughing-screaming noises of children playing. I hadn't thought about them too much, and had somehow expected an assortment of lightly filthy ragamuffins to be playing in some nearby dusty back lane.

At our last place, things were worse. The walls were half-a-metre thick, but that didn't stop the sounds of the upstairs neighbours talking in tongues drifting through the antique moulded ceilings. I'm not kidding, that's what they did at on a Saturday night. This was frequently mingled with screaming, as they left their three-year-old daughter in the hall so she didn't interrupt. It was a small block with only as many parking spaces as flats so, naturally, whenever they had one of these soirees, their friends would park in our space while we were out. We'd have to yell at them to move their shiny navy-blue sedans with chrome fittings. I'm all for tolerance, just not when it interrupts my lifestyle, and there are few things more disturbing than a child crying for hours on end. Also, they could never hear the bell (somehow) so their teenage son would spend ages yelling up at their flat, trying to get someone to let him in.

Conclusion: 'Hell is other people.' (Jean-Paul Sartre) Hell is people who aren't my friends or my family, people who have no consideration for how their actions impact on others. One day I'll buy a big house on a hell of a lot of land. I'll have many dogs and a big verandah. I'll play loud music, but it won't carry to the edges of my property. I'll take to sculpting metal things, and be seen frequently with an oxy-torch in hand. I won't buy any crappy chocolate bars from fundraisers over the age of twelve. I'll scream when I feel like it. I'll have loud sex under my frangipani tree. I'll have thick white cotton bedsheets that snap like sails when I lay them on my enormous wooden bed. I'll have smooth, hard, cold wooden floors and a loungeroom with couches and a fireplace. I'll have a bath that's big enough to relax in, and deep enough that my knees aren't exposed. I'll have that elusive quilt: heavy enough to make me feel safe, yet light enough to use in summer. I will frequently have visitors, but I'll be forthright enough to kick them out when I'm not in the mood. I will most certainly not tolerate loud people, inconsiderate people or real estate agents. The emotionally clumsy will be given firm warnings. I'll have enough bookshelves to house all my books, and enough time to read them.

I think of myself as an organised person, but other people don't. My room is messy, but clean. That is, there are clothes everywhere but I know where (just about) everything is. I put dates on all the handouts I get in class, but I just stick them all in my red document folder. My favourite books never touch the bookshelf: they live on the floor by my bed. This works for me. Similarly, I keep all my mp3s in chronological order, the order in which i up/downloaded them. Very few people understand this. I've tried putting them in alphabetical order, but that doesn't work. I can't always remember the artist name or even the title of the song, but I can usually locate them within this temporal framework. Also, my most recent songs are likely to be the ones I'm the most enthused about, so it's good having easy access to them.

Still no job. Still haven't read Robinson Crusoe. And, what's worse, my holiday is half over! *quiet scream* Really, I'd like to spend a few more days at home, doing little. Perhaps reading something I don't have to read, cooking and writing. Lots of writing. I'm planning on updating my fanfic in a couple of days - I just need to fix a couple of things, make sure my subtle hints are as subtle as I think they are.

I have five reviews, and none of them are from family members! Life is good. Still not living up to my own (perhaps unrealistic) expectations of how much work I should be doing. I've been writing, though, and I can never feel time is wasted if I've been writing.

I was thinking about what I'd write, if I were to write a something for NaNoWriMo [link schñarfed from Biz Stone] I really don't have time for that right now, but I thought briefly about writing something autobiographical, about how my life would be if it were exactly as I wished it were. But then I realised that I don't want to make any major changes in my life. I do wish I had a job, for instance, and a couple of small, niggling arguments with Andrew today leave me feeling my life is less than perfect. But I like being a struggling student. I like my boyfriend. Being rich and famous at this point at my life is ludicrous, and I'm not sure that's something I ever want.

Deep down, it seems, I'm satisfied with this little life I have. Or am I just unable to envisage something grander? What a depressing notion, and one I'd never considered until I wrote it. My life doesn't look that pathetic from the inside, anyhow. I really am a happy person, and not just a sad bastard pretending to be happy. It's difficult to refute the accusation of self-delusion, no matter what you do, and now I have the same kind of tedious, self-absorbed post that I strive to avoid.

I like my toast a gentle golden brown, two thin layers of very-crisp with endless fluffiness between. I bite off a piece and separate the crispy layers with my teeth, sliding my tongue inside the fluffy whiteness. The layers separated, I chew the whole lot up (the crispy layers crunch against each other, thus reversed) and swallow.