"What happens when greatness does not occur?"

I will post in this regularly. Else, what's the point?

The past few weeks have been fairly eventful. There was work, and then there was significantly less work. There were lots of sunny days, a couple rainy ones. There was Ridhima's birthday. She bought everyone shots of tequila, and we danced our little hearts out to terrible music. It snowed that night, when we were walking home. I munched on falafel and watched my friends throw snowballs at each other, scampering around the desolate, white streets like little kids meant to be home sleeping. Yes, lots of tequila that weekend. My parents visited for Thanksgiving. It was nice, but strange seeing them; I can't really imagine what it's going to be like to go home for break after living on my own, making my own rules, single-handedly bringing about my own tragic demise for a couple months now. Ridhima and Shaun came to Thanksgiving dinner. I ate partridge, or attempted to. It was a wrestling match of sorts, and I'm not so sure that I conquered much on my plate besides the vegetables. It was completely surreal. I wish there were pictures. Bought a fedora. Some fabulous gun-metal gray oxfords..

I'm very much looking forward to going home for Christmas break, although seeing my parents has admittedly made me a bit anxious about it. I wish there was some way we could all just accept each other and get off each other's backs. I want to have fun over break, not conflict--that's what I'm putting on my Christmas list, anyway. I'm so looking forward to seeing all my wonderful friends. I miss their faces every day.

Tomorrow I have an oral exam, for French, which is going to be predictably nightmarish. I'm anything but fluent under pressure; I doubt there will be much noticeable difference between myself and a stammering donkey come the dawning hour of 4:30. However, after that, I'll have a grand evening of smoking and munching and drinking and just being a decadent motherfucker.

Tonight.

Wake up 5 pm. Smoke with Lucy. Doodle with Lucy. German Market w/ the gang. Fireworks. Mulled wine. Bratwurst. Ferris Wheel. More wine. Back to Lucy's. Stop at Tesco for liquor and snacks. Scrabble game on Lucy's big bed. Cookie party. Smoke more. Drink more. Words. Someone fucks the game up. We've been unintentionally cheating. No one's keeping score. Cranium? Too distracted. Banter. Everyone passes out. Wined out. Snuggle. Wake up. Out we go. Call Ben. Smoke with Ben. Call Rob. Smoke with Ben and Rob. Search for ping-pong accoutrements with Ben. Fail. Watch informercials and ridiculous late-night reality shows in the common room until 6 am. Laughter. Cynicism. A perfect saturday.

What a nerd.

So my step-sisters showed my mom my facebook photos, and all she had to say to me was, "They were so nice!"

Some days I think I'd feel better if I tried harder

I wish I could go back to before the papers were written, when, in the heat of procrastination, I must have thought of every cool thing there is to do instead of writing a paper, ever. Now I'm bored. And out of money. And hungry. I wish I had a Greasy Chinese Takeout dispenser in my room. One day..

I need a snuggle buddy. Just someone to hang around my bed and make me laugh, nuzzle my hair, and just make life in the box a lot more fun. I think I've mentioned something like this before. Honestly, I'm starving for human affection.

Things are changing. I'm sad. I need hugs.

True love..

..lies solely in embarrassing, mushy, kissy face screen-grabs.

"But nights are long in winter, when darkness comes down at four o'clock and people have time to think of everything."

It's saturday night, and I'm so exhausted from relentless pot smoking that I've opted to just curl up into bed, where I can be tired and silent and useless in a place where nothing is expected of me. By body needs a break. My mind needs a break. I've far surpassed any amount of legitimate, intellectually stimulating marijuana usage. Now I'm just getting silly; silly and slow. You know it's time to take a break when you just don't feel cool anymore.

This week was really tiring, and frustrating at times. It's left me feeling very honest. I want to be as honest with others as I try to be with myself. It's just so much more work to put on an act, even if it is an unconscious one. Fuck it, fuck it all. I want to communicate with people who want to communicate back. Where do I find these communicators? To my good friends: you've spoiled me! I just need someone to take care of me for the next few days, until I stop feeling like such a vulnerable little deer that people keep mistaking for a bear. You know, someone to move into my room, make me tea and bring me good food when I'm hungry, make sure I write my English paper, spoon-feed me cough medicine to put me to sleep, read me stories about positive people doing positive things..

God, I need to get laid.

This week on our show..

I've been experiencing this cold sweat thing every time I fall asleep lately. I guess that's kind of gross, but I've been feeling honest. I suppose I could blame it on my flannel duvet cover trapping the heat, but I've had this duvet cover for about two months now, and this only started happening recently. The only possible answer is a psychological one. Today, upon spacing out during my English lecture, I racked my brain for possible subconscious catalysts for the cold sweats. I guess there are several things that could be compiling to form one big cold sweat producing ailment, but there is one, definite possibility: Ira Glass' voice. I've been falling asleep to This American Life for the past two weeks or so, since around when the sweats began. Perhaps nasaly Jewish voices aren't as soothing as I'd always assumed. Ugh, perhaps my subconscious is being narrated by the talk radio lovechild of Woody Allen and Lou Reed.

Well, let the troubleshooting begin.

Blame it on the pits

I've been swamped with work. In a matter of two days I've completely conquered the University of Edinburgh library, and even stayed until about closing last night, slaving over research for my Art History paper. Afterwards I met up with the lot for drinks at the Library Bar, stumbled in cinematically with my cumbersome stack of old, smelly books on old, smelly art . I hadn't eaten anything all day, so the two Newcastles I consumed went straight to my head and it was good, clean post-library devotion fun, but getting myself up at quarter to eight this morning (the earliest I've risen since my move here) after a mere three hours of cough-stricken slumber was significantly less enjoyable, mostly because of the mysteriously nasty hangover hiding in my stomach and head. Boy am I a lightweight. So anyway, I popped out of bed, orally went down the list of things to accomplish before I could come back to my box and crawl into bed (I've begun talking to myself, it's wonderful) and got my sorry, sluggish ass out the door, into a taxi (fuck it), and up the steps to the library where I shuffled around returning books, climbing staircase after staircase, trying not to puke, and pillaged the fourth floor for any information on some seriously boring, seriously irrelevant "Dutch masters," which I then copied into my notes at a table by a very sunny window that made me so hot I felt like I was going to keel over from dehydration. Needless to say, it was far too sunny a morning. Then it was from the main library to the Art History library, an annoying trek, but made less annoying by the morning's first and only salvation: a breakfast sandwich. Yes, the force is strong in the Breakfast Sandwich. Its healing powers are unmatched in terms of greasy, toxin-absorbing matter. And so the day ensued, boring errands, hours spent in dispassionate studiousness for "my fun subject". Tomorrow morning I have to get up early again, for Art History nonetheless, to give a presentation on a dusty old Jan Steen painting that no one ever has, nor ever will, give two shits about. "My fun subject," has not been so fun this week. But next week will be better. Next week I will feel accomplished, and I will feel relaxed.

Change

I got a sassy new haircut for Obama.

"I forgot how fun it is being friends with a heterosexual male."

Great sunday. Big breakfast of poached eggs at Dean's, followed by a stroll around the pond, and the first two Bond movies watched from a duvet nest on the couch and accompanied with lots of really premium munchies.

Do you smoke enough weed?

Today was a right lovely day. I managed, with the help of Dean's incessant wake-up calls, to roll out of bed no later than quarter to one, when I threw on a sweater and scarf, listened to some Macy Gray (my breakfast of choice), and began the journey over to his flat--a trying, albeit familiar, journey. At least once a day I find myself shivering at the bus stop, waiting, for what seems like a very long time, for the 29, which I always seem to miss by about two minutes. Once on the bus it takes about 15-25 minutes to cross town, depending on the traffic and level of hustle-bustle in the city. Today was a busy day. By the time I reached Dean's the morning sun was beginning to segue into the prolonged dusk that arrives every day at around 2:30, and seems to last for hours. Hours of dusk. Later, I would comment on how lovely it is to be able to exist in that kind of light for such a lengthy period of time, and I would realize that I'm actually beginning to love it, just a little bit. But not now; now I was feeling the bottle of wine that I topped off last night and trying to figure out whether to suppress or give into the ever-growing urge to tell Dean "fuck it," and just borrow his bed for a very long, marijuana-induced snooze. But going to the Modern Art Gallery had been my brilliant idea, and I'm trying not to be lazy. I'm trying to have integrity, or at least convince my friends that I do. I brought some of my mom's Fed-exed homemade cookies with me, a token of my appreciation for him letting me cat around his apartment all the time

So, yeah, we went to the Gallery. And it was absolutely wonderful. We walked the back way, along the river, through a damp forest of sorts, the path carpeted in wet, yellow leaves and mud. We went up moss-covered stone stairs, crossed wooden bridges, stopped to observe the ducks and trade whatever duck knowledge each of us had filed away in our brain. Runners sped past us and old ladies puttered about with their dogs, who all looked very pleased. At one point a brigade of three boys on bikes made their way past us down the path, and when we caught up with them, they had discarded their bikes and were now intricately observing their environment. One was taking pictures. I liked to think that they were gathering clues, like the Hardy Boys. The path finally spit us out right onto the back of the Gallery. We saw just enough art, didn't overdose (it's easy to do that with modern art). Then we sat on the terrace and indulged ourselves with big vats of coffee and cake, talking shit and gazing out upon the lawn and the trees beyond it and the tops of buildings peaking up over the trees and their silhouettes against the faded, amber sky, and that's when I realized how lovely the dusk is.