(no subject)
I don't seem to be doing a very good job of proving that I am not dead. Four out of seven people refuse to accept it: purplefringe and wanderlight are merely unconvinced by my claims, whilst meine_kleine and lil_monk are both convinced that I am in fact undead (is it something about the underscore?). Of the remaining four people in my sample thus far, one of them has (affectionately, I shall presume, for the sake of my health) called me a loser, one has expressed unalloyed positive sentiments and one has complained bitterly about the fact that she has obviously hired the wrong hit-man.
It seems, however, that my very unconscious is also trying to contradict me, if perhaps only retroactively. On Thursday night (or probably Friday morning, technically) I had an ever-so-slightly disturbing dream. It was curiously precise and rather short: I dreamt that an old man (who was elderly but by no means frail; gnarled and weatherbeaten like old oak, or like teak furniture that has been left out in the garden for many years) came up to me, announced that his name was Erich Fromm and said something about 'the office of Barbara Zeeland', although I cannot recall if he announced that that was where he was from or whether he asked if that was where he was.
Then he shot me with a revolver, and I woke up.
(Erich Fromm, it turns out, was a psycho-analyst and social philosopher of some not inconsiderable renown. Barbara Zeeland, on the other hand, though somewhat familiar, does not seem to have been a historical of fictional personage of note.)
It wasn't quite a nightmare, because at no point did I feel a sense of dread or terror or even particular discomfort. It was simply a shock to the system; it was the first dream that I've ever had in which I died (or at least, suffered any kind of significant medical trauma; this idea of having died is a retrospective presumption) and also the first I've had that caused me to physically jerk awake. The fact that I still recall two days afterwards that the man who shot me was called Erich with an 'h' is also a rather unusual feature.
However, I am not dead.
How, then, do I explain my prolonged absence? Partly it was geographical: after returning from Switzerland I went Up North (first to Durham by way of Beverly in Yorkshire during which interlude I found the Humber bridge on a grey day hauntingly beautiful and then on to Bamburgh) and then returned home. Quite what I did in the indeterminate time between my return and the start of school I cannot recall - several incidents stand out, and certainly nothing happened that would cause amnesia, but the time seems a little bit of a blur - but eventually the holidays ended and go back to school I did. School started wonderfully and has, in the main, gone downhill from there: the one exception to this bathetic descent into the real world has been the form for which I am a prefect, because they really are rather wonderful.
There are some other things of note, but they shall be talked about at other times. Right now I should do some work.
It seems, however, that my very unconscious is also trying to contradict me, if perhaps only retroactively. On Thursday night (or probably Friday morning, technically) I had an ever-so-slightly disturbing dream. It was curiously precise and rather short: I dreamt that an old man (who was elderly but by no means frail; gnarled and weatherbeaten like old oak, or like teak furniture that has been left out in the garden for many years) came up to me, announced that his name was Erich Fromm and said something about 'the office of Barbara Zeeland', although I cannot recall if he announced that that was where he was from or whether he asked if that was where he was.
Then he shot me with a revolver, and I woke up.
(Erich Fromm, it turns out, was a psycho-analyst and social philosopher of some not inconsiderable renown. Barbara Zeeland, on the other hand, though somewhat familiar, does not seem to have been a historical of fictional personage of note.)
It wasn't quite a nightmare, because at no point did I feel a sense of dread or terror or even particular discomfort. It was simply a shock to the system; it was the first dream that I've ever had in which I died (or at least, suffered any kind of significant medical trauma; this idea of having died is a retrospective presumption) and also the first I've had that caused me to physically jerk awake. The fact that I still recall two days afterwards that the man who shot me was called Erich with an 'h' is also a rather unusual feature.
However, I am not dead.
How, then, do I explain my prolonged absence? Partly it was geographical: after returning from Switzerland I went Up North (first to Durham by way of Beverly in Yorkshire during which interlude I found the Humber bridge on a grey day hauntingly beautiful and then on to Bamburgh) and then returned home. Quite what I did in the indeterminate time between my return and the start of school I cannot recall - several incidents stand out, and certainly nothing happened that would cause amnesia, but the time seems a little bit of a blur - but eventually the holidays ended and go back to school I did. School started wonderfully and has, in the main, gone downhill from there: the one exception to this bathetic descent into the real world has been the form for which I am a prefect, because they really are rather wonderful.
There are some other things of note, but they shall be talked about at other times. Right now I should do some work.