Genesis, again.
I am very bad at sticking to things. (Which is odd, considering that I was described, at one point, as being 'sticky', in French, which was entirely, exactly true). I am bad at New Years resolutions precisely because of this, and so don't tend to make them very often. This year I have three, although they're all fairly abstract: Be a better boyfriend, Get in shape (both physically and mentally), and Don't turn back. I think the third is the most difficult one, in some ways, because I'm not entirely sure that I want to; but I'm reverting to the way I was before in some ways, and I don't like it. My doctrine of being open to new things that I've adhered to since the summer (that was, I suppose, probably playtested in Germany) is still in force, and allows me to let myself eat mushrooms and fish, but omehow it doesn't seem to be working very well. So I must try harder; which, I suppose, could be another resolution. Try harder.
I slept very badly last night, because when I tried to go to sleep I found I couldn't, and things bounced themselves around and around my head and swirled and sang and had little parties and generally tried to prevent me from nodding off, like they used to do, which irritated me. I suppose part of that comes from the thoughts I had about New Years (which stem, probably, from my musings on ritual and paganism and religion and why we can't just run away, but that's another kettle of fish) and partly from the very good book I had just finished reading.
New Years itself was spent at Caroline's, and was very pleasent indeed. I got to meet some of her debating friends, who were very cool, even if they thought all of us who lived not in London were uncultured and illiterate, &c, (which they didn't really) and we hung around and chatted and ate chocolates and failed to get Leo drunk or get him to dance. (The alcohol - or rather, the lack of it - was very nice, actually; between thirteen of us, there was about three bottles of champagne and five cans of beer, one of which was Murphey's and no one would touch, and no one had to get drunk and do sillier things than usual, which was nice). Caroline had decreed that we all had to wear smart clothing, which for the guys varied between jeans and a bow tie to a velvet jacket and trousers and a waistcoat, with Joe and I in the middle, and foir the girls meant an excuse to wear a variety of very cool things, and everyone looked very lovely. We nattered and litened to music and played half a game of Monoploy (which I eneded up becoming vaguely involved in despite myself, and by twelve Helen and I owned about half of London and had a grand total of twelve pounds) and watched a couple of really bad girly films, which was fun; and we vaguely escaped at one point because the moon was out and I was pretending it wasn't cold, and went for a walk in the moonlight and sat on the roundabout it the park in the field, and then waited outside for Helen's dad to pick her up, and then after I discovered that the back door was now shut and locked I had to knock on the window again to get let in, and Caroline refused and made me wait outside for a bit, and then her parents came back just as she was about to let me in (she says), and I perched on the edye of the sofa and watched the film again. Everyone was vaguely drifting in and out of being alert and tired at this point, and I was ruminating on the idea of New Years - or rather, the changeover between Old and New - as an anticlimax, and feeling out of sorts for reasons unknown and sat and played with meine_kleine's hair for a rather long while because it is nice. And then my doldrums wandered off to other places, which was good, and then everyone went off to sleep or bicker about not sleeping, and us guys had a male bonding moment when we moved the furniture to create room, and Leo slept under the table.
We didn't end up with comic moustaches, and Caroline's dad makes awesome tea and awesome scrambled eggs and is a wonderful man, and it was a very nice evening. :D
(Also, Joe is scarily like me in certain ways, only better at it; and one person who shall remain nameless believed that Fellatio was a Shakespeare character. :D)
The other thing I wanted to post about was books. I read a lot, but never have a record of what i read, so I thought I would keep one, starting this year, on this journal. (All the cool kids are doing it, anyway). I deliberated about writing my Christmas books on it, but they were last year - but for the sake of full disclosure I shall mention that they were mostly older books than I usually read to appease those teachers who want me to read more 'real' books, and I read Brave New World, which was okay but not so amazing (I think that if I'd have read it when it was written it would have been amazing, but it was nothing new); The Penguin Book of English Short Stories, published in 1966, which wasn't bad; Steppenwolf, which was excellent and poetry-inspiring (almost), although it got a little silly at the end, Blackberry Wine by the woman who wrote Chocolat, which was rather good (if not old), and Heart of Darkness, which is an English set text for this term and is pretty good. I read something else as well, but unfortunately I can't remember what it was.
The book with which I ushered in 2007, however, was not old at all. Wicked: the life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West is the type of book that I love best: it takes something that we know and turns it on its head, and it does so in an entirely logical way. Why, exacltly, is the Witch in the film so Wicked? Because everybody says so, and she's as green as she'd painted. Isn't the fact that the Wizard appears in Oz and then very rapidly installs himself as Lord of All That He Sees (and if anyone gets that reference, I will be shocked and rather impressed) really rather dodgy? And, you know, the Wich of the North has got to have a life too...
So Gregory Maguire takes these thoughts, and from them builds a story that is about what it is to be human, and about apathy, and about terrorism and politics and free will, and family and religion, and about madness. It's a beautifully written book, and a grown up book (rather than one that is for children) and a wonderful jounrey for a single character, and I would recomend it whole-heartedly. Ephelba is a wonderful, wonderful character, and reminded me too much of people I know, which was really rather scary.
(I'm not entirely sure why I love this kind of thing so much, but I do consistendly enjoy it, whether it's Maguire or Neil Gaiman or Angela Carter cenestpasunewok or whoever doing it. Everything is a matter of perspective.)
So yeah. That was the first book of 2007. May there be many more.
I slept very badly last night, because when I tried to go to sleep I found I couldn't, and things bounced themselves around and around my head and swirled and sang and had little parties and generally tried to prevent me from nodding off, like they used to do, which irritated me. I suppose part of that comes from the thoughts I had about New Years (which stem, probably, from my musings on ritual and paganism and religion and why we can't just run away, but that's another kettle of fish) and partly from the very good book I had just finished reading.
New Years itself was spent at Caroline's, and was very pleasent indeed. I got to meet some of her debating friends, who were very cool, even if they thought all of us who lived not in London were uncultured and illiterate, &c, (which they didn't really) and we hung around and chatted and ate chocolates and failed to get Leo drunk or get him to dance. (The alcohol - or rather, the lack of it - was very nice, actually; between thirteen of us, there was about three bottles of champagne and five cans of beer, one of which was Murphey's and no one would touch, and no one had to get drunk and do sillier things than usual, which was nice). Caroline had decreed that we all had to wear smart clothing, which for the guys varied between jeans and a bow tie to a velvet jacket and trousers and a waistcoat, with Joe and I in the middle, and foir the girls meant an excuse to wear a variety of very cool things, and everyone looked very lovely. We nattered and litened to music and played half a game of Monoploy (which I eneded up becoming vaguely involved in despite myself, and by twelve Helen and I owned about half of London and had a grand total of twelve pounds) and watched a couple of really bad girly films, which was fun; and we vaguely escaped at one point because the moon was out and I was pretending it wasn't cold, and went for a walk in the moonlight and sat on the roundabout it the park in the field, and then waited outside for Helen's dad to pick her up, and then after I discovered that the back door was now shut and locked I had to knock on the window again to get let in, and Caroline refused and made me wait outside for a bit, and then her parents came back just as she was about to let me in (she says), and I perched on the edye of the sofa and watched the film again. Everyone was vaguely drifting in and out of being alert and tired at this point, and I was ruminating on the idea of New Years - or rather, the changeover between Old and New - as an anticlimax, and feeling out of sorts for reasons unknown and sat and played with meine_kleine's hair for a rather long while because it is nice. And then my doldrums wandered off to other places, which was good, and then everyone went off to sleep or bicker about not sleeping, and us guys had a male bonding moment when we moved the furniture to create room, and Leo slept under the table.
We didn't end up with comic moustaches, and Caroline's dad makes awesome tea and awesome scrambled eggs and is a wonderful man, and it was a very nice evening. :D
(Also, Joe is scarily like me in certain ways, only better at it; and one person who shall remain nameless believed that Fellatio was a Shakespeare character. :D)
The other thing I wanted to post about was books. I read a lot, but never have a record of what i read, so I thought I would keep one, starting this year, on this journal. (All the cool kids are doing it, anyway). I deliberated about writing my Christmas books on it, but they were last year - but for the sake of full disclosure I shall mention that they were mostly older books than I usually read to appease those teachers who want me to read more 'real' books, and I read Brave New World, which was okay but not so amazing (I think that if I'd have read it when it was written it would have been amazing, but it was nothing new); The Penguin Book of English Short Stories, published in 1966, which wasn't bad; Steppenwolf, which was excellent and poetry-inspiring (almost), although it got a little silly at the end, Blackberry Wine by the woman who wrote Chocolat, which was rather good (if not old), and Heart of Darkness, which is an English set text for this term and is pretty good. I read something else as well, but unfortunately I can't remember what it was.
The book with which I ushered in 2007, however, was not old at all. Wicked: the life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West is the type of book that I love best: it takes something that we know and turns it on its head, and it does so in an entirely logical way. Why, exacltly, is the Witch in the film so Wicked? Because everybody says so, and she's as green as she'd painted. Isn't the fact that the Wizard appears in Oz and then very rapidly installs himself as Lord of All That He Sees (and if anyone gets that reference, I will be shocked and rather impressed) really rather dodgy? And, you know, the Wich of the North has got to have a life too...
So Gregory Maguire takes these thoughts, and from them builds a story that is about what it is to be human, and about apathy, and about terrorism and politics and free will, and family and religion, and about madness. It's a beautifully written book, and a grown up book (rather than one that is for children) and a wonderful jounrey for a single character, and I would recomend it whole-heartedly. Ephelba is a wonderful, wonderful character, and reminded me too much of people I know, which was really rather scary.
(I'm not entirely sure why I love this kind of thing so much, but I do consistendly enjoy it, whether it's Maguire or Neil Gaiman or Angela Carter cenestpasunewok or whoever doing it. Everything is a matter of perspective.)
So yeah. That was the first book of 2007. May there be many more.