non-peevish post
I usually post when feeling peevish, but this will be a rare non-peevish post, with distinct moments of cheer.
Although I've been working like a madwoman, speed-reading Gothic novels in the bath at 2 am, while attempting simultaneously to wash my hair (not one I'd reccommend - hair never quite rinsed, notes damp and illegible), it's because of making up for a truly good weekend in Paris with the beloved at the house of some friends. I have had a terrible teenage crush on Paris since I showed up there for a summer aged 19, with a rucksack, approximately threepence and a scholarship that involved staying in a convent, and it is particularly ravishing in autumn, with the leaves turning in all the parks and all those terribly chic small children wearing their winter clothes in the Place des Vosges. Much fun was had. Conkers were kicked in the Tuileries, horrible gossip was exchanged in the world's best felafel place, a drab eavesdropper's paradise with the same unfeasibly camp waiter who never gets any older, just more and more pumped and gravy-coloured. Cocks were snooked at the shoes spotlit like holy relics along the Rue St Honore. Much French came back and showed off unstoppably. Compatriots dressed up as leprechauns in town for the Ireland-France world cup qualifier were avoided. (Well, you can't really point out the irony of CHOOSING to dress like the kind of racist cartoon Punch spent the entire 19thc printing to someone who is currently puking into his leprechaun hat, complete with detachable orange beard, handy for drips.)
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my undergraduate seminars are turning out surprisingly enjoyable, even if they insist on reading the 18thc novel as a kind of fore-runner of chick lit. And my insanely enthusiastic MA class brought in the makings of a very good cocktail yesterday and discussion of the contemporary novel was smoothed by much well-blended gin, cointreau and lemon juice. (This is quite possibly a sackable offence, but...)
In other news, I went to a party at one of the restaurants in Selfridges and admired the beauty of the waiters while eating complicated hors d'oeuvres off outsized spoons.
It's been ... interesting.
Although I've been working like a madwoman, speed-reading Gothic novels in the bath at 2 am, while attempting simultaneously to wash my hair (not one I'd reccommend - hair never quite rinsed, notes damp and illegible), it's because of making up for a truly good weekend in Paris with the beloved at the house of some friends. I have had a terrible teenage crush on Paris since I showed up there for a summer aged 19, with a rucksack, approximately threepence and a scholarship that involved staying in a convent, and it is particularly ravishing in autumn, with the leaves turning in all the parks and all those terribly chic small children wearing their winter clothes in the Place des Vosges. Much fun was had. Conkers were kicked in the Tuileries, horrible gossip was exchanged in the world's best felafel place, a drab eavesdropper's paradise with the same unfeasibly camp waiter who never gets any older, just more and more pumped and gravy-coloured. Cocks were snooked at the shoes spotlit like holy relics along the Rue St Honore. Much French came back and showed off unstoppably. Compatriots dressed up as leprechauns in town for the Ireland-France world cup qualifier were avoided. (Well, you can't really point out the irony of CHOOSING to dress like the kind of racist cartoon Punch spent the entire 19thc printing to someone who is currently puking into his leprechaun hat, complete with detachable orange beard, handy for drips.)
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my undergraduate seminars are turning out surprisingly enjoyable, even if they insist on reading the 18thc novel as a kind of fore-runner of chick lit. And my insanely enthusiastic MA class brought in the makings of a very good cocktail yesterday and discussion of the contemporary novel was smoothed by much well-blended gin, cointreau and lemon juice. (This is quite possibly a sackable offence, but...)
In other news, I went to a party at one of the restaurants in Selfridges and admired the beauty of the waiters while eating complicated hors d'oeuvres off outsized spoons.
It's been ... interesting.