Friday, December 30, 2005

nabokov

Syncope – loss of sound, consciousness
Oneiric - suggestive of dreams
Chasubles – preist’s robes
Roiled - turbulent
Ineffable – indescribable, overwhelming
Parquet – wooden floor
Linden – tree with fragrant leaves

I shall read Nabakov with help of a dictionary, then my life will be enriched like the post-composted university lawns

Thursday, December 29, 2005

strict schedule

strict writing schedule. just keep forgetting to blog. have successfully stayed away from expensive gym, citing health care reasons - tooth reacting to cold air plus friend's advice to start eating healthy before exercising, which seems sound - obviously, utter bollocks of an excuse.

made list of writers i have to read soon as i can get library access again - Borges, nabakov, carver, irving. maybe mailer, though im not a big fan of war fiction. right wing action ones yes - loooved alistair mclean as a kid, read everything he ever wrote, but left wing agonising psychological political dramas.. well, shouldn't judge before i read should i? i did love Apocalypse Now, after a fashion.

too lazy to correct typo. should get back to novel.., i've been holed up in my room last 4 days, with no contact with humans xcept for regular msn and flatmates in the kitchen. working wonders for concentration..., im half in this world, half in my novel world.. wish i could completely go into it for a couple of months... but work descends with the onset of term 2, jan 14th. and oh hell, new years eve party to attend, that so gonna shatter my routine and concentration. and yes, running so low on food; have to flyvisit sainsbury tom morning - im thinking aloud. must stop. get back to writing. yoo hoo.. ok, pretending enthusiasm... writing is exerting.. and im a lazy bunny.

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Beastly Chirstmas


This is my idea of a nightmare. Everything shuts down for the holiday season. I mean absolutely everything. I'm shut up in my room, sick. no medicines. worse.., no books, not one single book to read, no television, no internet, nothing. I'm not sick enough to be unconcious, I'm only sick enough to not venture out, plus I have toothache. Everyone's gone home. The whole world's gone home.

Straight out of a Stephen King novel.

Thankfully, there's internet, and i'm getting better. i have a couple of friends left, stranded like me, and my flu's goin away. But the book situation sucks. Been reading on the net, but despair at having finished sherlock holmes collection, and that was ideal for net. everthing else, i need physical book.

ah.... agatha christie. not in the same league, but will do.

need real books...

was lying in bed reading from laptop. simulation: lay on side, tilted laptop to simulate book, shut off vents, laptop overheated, tripped itself shutdown. Horror. Thankfully, switched on alright after it cooled down.

whew!

no laptop will equal total death in current situ.

asked dyslexic friend who's never been to library to borrow books for me - he goes 10 mins before closing time (final closing time before christmas vacation), can't find anything I want, stays till lights go off, triggers some alarm, gets caught by a horde of security guys, and calls me up to describe how he grabbed two books just as the lights went off, but wasn't allowed to check them out. urrgh.

Well meaning orphan friend (like myself here) cooking 'traditional' vegetarian christmas dinner tomorrow. Last year I couldn't eat a bite of the bland veggie nightmare. Tomorrow, I'm taking honeydew melon and chocolate cake and red wine for strength.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Burning Down

Went to bed sickie. Spent most of day in bed. No gym. Cold has ripened; fruits greener and thicker. More satisfying to blow.
Random bit of grossness please be excused.
Why am I writing in this weird disjointed fashion? Brain refuses to make effort. Numb.
Tooth behaving. Only hurts like a bastard when I let cold air waft over it, or hot. It likes things to be luke warm. Considering this is december and in student acco, everything is either too hot or too cold (radiator, shower, kitchen taps, basin taps, people's attitudes... now I'm getting carried away. So the trick to keep tooth happy is to keep my mouth absolutely shut.
Annoying about gym. Don't want to fall more sick by venturing in cold (5 minutes walk) to gym, exerting oneself on treadmill, take shower each time before entering steam, sauna, blah, finish with a shower, wade back in cold winds to warm filthy room and collapse sick again.
But come what may, I'm going to gym tomorrow. All that money!
Having said that, maybe I shouldn't mention that I'm venturing all the way into town to watch the Wallace and Grommit movie. Even if I'm in deathbed, I will drag myself to it. Been looking forward to see it since months. Went with cucumber man when it came to the cinema, but was soldout. Probably one of the few housefuls in the history of Lancaster Cinema. Usually it's empty, and stinks. And the usually practical Britons have slipped up this once where they have an 'interval' before the movie starts. I'll never be able to understand the logic of that. Why would people want a wee/snack break 5 minutes after they have sat down?
Anyways its now running in Dukes, and I love that place; they don't have weird intervals.
Going to see movie with this guy called Kuan Fu. Looks like Jackie Chan. I call him kungfu. Can you blame me, with a name like that? He is the first chinese (oops, Taiwanese, I think) guy in the world to fancy an Indian chick. Or thats what it feels like in this Indian/chinese proliferating place where they have absolutely no eyes for each other.
rrrrghhh..., must crawl back to bed to recover from exertion of writing blog entry, and be in presentable condition for kungfu.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Misery...

I've never had a toothache before in my life. I have it now. It's not pretty. I also have a monstrous cold moving in like monsoon clouds. Heavy, with the flashes and chills and wind factor. The works.

Joined posh gym today. The first time in my life. Insane. Can't afford it; but convinced myself that I deserve to spend the money I saved by not attending graduation ceremonies by splurging on something luxurious, as well as beneficial. Loved the treadmill. Revelled in steam room, sauna and jacuzzi, hoped steam room will flush out all the viruses, but they've come back with full vengance now. Will go again tomorrow and stay in steam room till I feel the mocrobes boiling.

Now have to buy posh track suit to wear in posh gym, and posh two piece swimwear. Eurrgh. Upside - Theres a free fruit basket from which I can grab lotsa fruit, but attendees always looking; so will restrict myself to one/two. Damn.

Felt stupid when during induction, instructor had attitude that said, you little rich foreigner, you're never gonna use all the equipment here, you're just wasting my time. And I didn't have any intelligent questions to ask. Dabbled with cross trainer but forgot how to set it, so pretended to exercise diligently for 10 minutes whilst watching a rather dumb cartoon show on the mounted TV.

Tomorrow treadmill half hour. Row boat thing - 15 minutes. Steam and Sauna 10 mins each and jacuzzi 10 minutes. Havta get money's worth. Oh yes, 2 fruits.

woe this toothache and cold. can't afford bloody dentist.

Monday, December 19, 2005

GODDAMN Foghorn

Wish I would stop sounding like a goddamn foghorn. Deafening, nasal. Wish I wouldn't splutter out half chewed phrases that begin in a rush of heat and stop in awkwardness.
What I want to be, is thoughtful, considered, with lilting tones carefully weighed and gracefully uttered. What I want to do is sing out sentences in which every word is chosen, inevitable, lstring out into a gurgling lush river.
What I want to be is goddamned Oprah.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Wibbly Wobbly Christmas Do


Got a vibrating soap and extra large long johns for this guy Rob, Susie's fiance who I hardly now, and the bugger wasn't very impressed. 0 sense of humour. waste of £ 1.99 .

Got Alex, big Ed's girlfriend, wild cherry and strawberry flavoured lubricants, perfumed rose petal type bath stuff, and a counting book on bananas, he he. she i think liked them, but typically, didnt manifest any sort of enthusiasm.

Tony disappointed me. I was so thrilled that i got him the perfect presents. Jokey that they were. I even felt, all giggly and lightheaded while paying for them, that if I were him, I would fall in love with me the instant I opened the wrappers. Narcissa.

I got him a pair of boxers as he keeps forgetting to wear his underwear to work; a really cool 'Be a Detective' book with a file of info about a crime he should solve, complete with a Do not Disturb Detective at Work door sign, a badge, clues etc, in film noir Philip Marlowe style, wich is precisely why the gift, as his favourite genre in his film studies is that and we have been discussing Holmes and Raymond Chandler a lot between burgers.

Also a cute story book about a cat into which I slipped a written quote about the unadulterated cat thats there on top of my blog - this because he and Emma have 2 cats.

He just frowned several times, was insulted that the boxers were too small, that the quote was bizarre and the detective book childish. Even complained to me about the silliness of the things.

Hmmm..., why do I bother? Silly cow. Me of course.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Giggin' Frogs



http://www.nwmangum.com/Frogs/
I'm not sure how to arrange my thoughts about this webpage I came across. On the one hand, its monstrous (notice with particular intensity the captions), on the other, I made the bar frogs picture my desktop background.