(no subject)
The cure for homesickness, by the way, is going home.
I had been very scared for the Women and the Archive symposium and have lost far too much sleep preparing. The memory of that terrible presentation I gave at Casco is so painful, like a cheese grater to the ego, that I couldn't have borne it to do badly again. Anyway, it went well. I sop up praise so thirstily, I am like a Vileda Mop of intellectual insecurity.
N came along as a surprise and also came up to parents with me, which was a bit of a sacrifice as it meant two long train journeys back to Bristol today and sleeping on the sofa when we got in, because both spare rooms were taken up with sister and baby. We felt very teenagerish on the sofa together. But hey, it was N. N and his lovely, lovely, long-legged sylph-like self, and his questionable obsession with my bum, and his ability to tangle himself up with me without feeling cloying or too hot.
then getting up in the early morning, because toddler Joseph needs attention from six am, and unlike in Amsterdam, it's spring in England, and that means gentle warmth and birdsong and taking your coffee sitting next to the cat flopping blissfully on the flagstones, and taking bacon and eggs with the door to the patio wide open, talking about paint samples with mum, and N being dutiful and pleasant, and taking Jojo for a spin in his little trike round the garden.
Running through Victoria station to get to my parents' house as quickly as possible on Thursday early evening, I nearly shouted 'I missed you London!' at the top of my voice. Which would have probably have got me arrested. I've stopped caring or wondering why, but London is just the place for me and that's that. I had to go the length of Brick Lane on the way to a meeting on Friday and there it was, shock horror, people of different ethnicities - and, significantly, of visibly different cultures - hanging out, posing, and joshing with each other, right there in front of my eyes. There's a slight jaunt in the step of over-trendy, peacock-like and asymmetric teens. Getting on the tube and seeing how people dress, scummy, or too hyper trendy, or ridiculous, or unkempt, or dowdy, or self conscious, but with flair and total enjoyment. Yeah, I look fucking cool. People in Amsterdam? They wear clothes. That's what you can say about Amsterdam. In the same way that you can say They tolerate black people. Ok, this analogy is getting a little tacky. And then trying to move around in this city that inconveniences you so gratuitously badly - transport was a nightmare - and you wonder why it's still ok, and it's because the texture of the inconvenience is the texture of the city itself, staring at 1930s tiles while you wait on a platform and consulting the perennially cheerful tube staff, or posting on up to another tube stop on Embankment and the light in the plane trees has this pearly, warm quality. And on the South Bank I saw the poetry guy, the guy who makes a living by giving his poems for nothing or for whatever monetary gift you wish to give, and he has won his court case because he isn't selling anything, which is two big fingers up to the assholes who want to clean up the South Bank. I've been getting his poems ever since I moved to London. I was chatting to him and then these two lairy lads from the pub nearby were all like 'Aaa-aah, it's a poet, innit' and I was thinking, here we go, poor guy must get so much shit. Then one of them came over with this air that was sort of swaggering, pokerfaced, and tongue in cheek all at the same time: 'See, there's this girl I like. What can you do for me.' And poetry guy gave him a poem and he was like, sweet, thanks mate, and I thought I MISSED YOU LONDON.
I had been very scared for the Women and the Archive symposium and have lost far too much sleep preparing. The memory of that terrible presentation I gave at Casco is so painful, like a cheese grater to the ego, that I couldn't have borne it to do badly again. Anyway, it went well. I sop up praise so thirstily, I am like a Vileda Mop of intellectual insecurity.
N came along as a surprise and also came up to parents with me, which was a bit of a sacrifice as it meant two long train journeys back to Bristol today and sleeping on the sofa when we got in, because both spare rooms were taken up with sister and baby. We felt very teenagerish on the sofa together. But hey, it was N. N and his lovely, lovely, long-legged sylph-like self, and his questionable obsession with my bum, and his ability to tangle himself up with me without feeling cloying or too hot.
then getting up in the early morning, because toddler Joseph needs attention from six am, and unlike in Amsterdam, it's spring in England, and that means gentle warmth and birdsong and taking your coffee sitting next to the cat flopping blissfully on the flagstones, and taking bacon and eggs with the door to the patio wide open, talking about paint samples with mum, and N being dutiful and pleasant, and taking Jojo for a spin in his little trike round the garden.
Running through Victoria station to get to my parents' house as quickly as possible on Thursday early evening, I nearly shouted 'I missed you London!' at the top of my voice. Which would have probably have got me arrested. I've stopped caring or wondering why, but London is just the place for me and that's that. I had to go the length of Brick Lane on the way to a meeting on Friday and there it was, shock horror, people of different ethnicities - and, significantly, of visibly different cultures - hanging out, posing, and joshing with each other, right there in front of my eyes. There's a slight jaunt in the step of over-trendy, peacock-like and asymmetric teens. Getting on the tube and seeing how people dress, scummy, or too hyper trendy, or ridiculous, or unkempt, or dowdy, or self conscious, but with flair and total enjoyment. Yeah, I look fucking cool. People in Amsterdam? They wear clothes. That's what you can say about Amsterdam. In the same way that you can say They tolerate black people. Ok, this analogy is getting a little tacky. And then trying to move around in this city that inconveniences you so gratuitously badly - transport was a nightmare - and you wonder why it's still ok, and it's because the texture of the inconvenience is the texture of the city itself, staring at 1930s tiles while you wait on a platform and consulting the perennially cheerful tube staff, or posting on up to another tube stop on Embankment and the light in the plane trees has this pearly, warm quality. And on the South Bank I saw the poetry guy, the guy who makes a living by giving his poems for nothing or for whatever monetary gift you wish to give, and he has won his court case because he isn't selling anything, which is two big fingers up to the assholes who want to clean up the South Bank. I've been getting his poems ever since I moved to London. I was chatting to him and then these two lairy lads from the pub nearby were all like 'Aaa-aah, it's a poet, innit' and I was thinking, here we go, poor guy must get so much shit. Then one of them came over with this air that was sort of swaggering, pokerfaced, and tongue in cheek all at the same time: 'See, there's this girl I like. What can you do for me.' And poetry guy gave him a poem and he was like, sweet, thanks mate, and I thought I MISSED YOU LONDON.