live through this

I'm feeling a tad strange. Actually, quite a lot strange. It's a feeling of not wanting, not being able to, or just not doing anything. It's been building a bit, then seeping away again, then coming back, and whilst some things, like my friends and my books and just walking around Oxford will lift me out of it, I keep falling back. I'm finding it hard to describe, but mostly it's a kind of bleakness. I call it a grey mood, mostly, because that's what it's like, being trapped beneath an endlessly grey sky. I am not in it at the moment, actually; I'm feeling a little better, which is why I'm able to write this. It's such a strange sort of ennui because I find I'm not worrying about anything but the practicalities of it. It's persisting as I try and write essays and produce assignments and it hits me where my productivity lives; I just sit staring at empty pages and empty screens and wait for it to go away so I can write something down. And it's been hanging round a few weeks now, so I don't really know what to do. When I'm feeling it, I start thinking about the lines of the buildings against the sky, and other minor, stark details that somehow seem very important, very hurtful, then I don't really think about anything, and I can't sit down or stand up or wake up.

I think, perhaps, I need a holiday. I'm only here another week and a half, and although I could stay into ninth week if I wanted, I don't want. I want to go home on Saturday of eighth week like I did last term, and sleep a lot, but I've got a lot of work to do. I actually submitted my Prelims entry forms today. Not that there was any chance of my not taking them, but still, the forms make them real rather than an abstract concept. They're at the end of next term, and this term is nearly over, and I can't believe how fast this year is whizzing by.

There's really no reason for me to feel grey. I just am feeling it. It's just... grey. I am not articulate at all. Um. I'm wondering if I ought to talk to someone about it, because it's getting in the way of my work. I've still got two essays and two problem sheets to do before the end of eighth week, and my schedule is just too tight for this kind of weirdness. I can't have crying jags and late-night wandering round Cornmarket and all the other things I'm doing to cope. I don't know. I guess it'll go away, if I wait. I'm waiting. In the meantime I guess I'll do what I always do in times of grey, and write about things that I like, that make me happy:

Okay, um, to begin with, I left this entry in the middle because it was midnight, and February 28th is Claire's birthday. At five to eleven I had a bright idea and sprinted to Sainsbury's for mini fairy cakes and Borders for candles, and at midnight, we put the candles in, got chocolate and Sky's wineglasses and Pat's Spanish wine and marched into Claire's room, with lit candles and a lot of noise. Pat jumped at the window so the sounds of the chapel bells striking twelve flooded in. Claire was touched, and delighted, and put on music and poured wine and I felt quite a lot better, seeing how happy she was suddenly and what a nice mini-party we were having.

Last night there was another mini party (because Sky has learned to cook pasta and wants to share the skill with everyone), but I missed it because I was at Wadham visiting jacinthsong with the rest of ou3fs. We were watching Blackadder and Fry and Laurie and later, Serenity, with plenty of gin as an accompaniment. Everyone was getting delightfully tipsy and I had a lovely time before drifting off home at two am only to find Claire still awake and spending another two hours giggling madly at her current favourite website. You see, I shouldn't be feeling as awful as I do when my life is its usual beautiful, wonderful self. (Also, I finally informed foulds that it was me who sent him the Valentine's rose with the quote from Juvenal on it. I was amused to note that he named it Samantha and was very sad when it died.)

Beyond this... um. I went to see The Vagina Monologues a couple of days ago and loved every second of it. It was beautifully directed and performed, and I particularly liked the UK- and Oxford-specific additions to the script. The Woman Who Loved To Make Vaginas happy was especially fantastic, as the girl who had the part was jawdroppingly wonderful with an amazing repertoire of orgasmic moans. My favourite was the muted "WASP moan" and the not-so-muted "uninhibited militant bisexual moan", followed by the "Oxford college moan" ("I-shouldn't-I-shouldn't-I-have-a-tute-oh-my-GOD"). I was also pleased that they added a few Brit-specific vagina euphemisms to the list, including "fanny" (oh, the embarrassment inherent in that false friend) and, finally, "In Oxford we call it..." - long, long, pause - "a PIDGE."

This coming only a few hours after I had wondered aloud if the verb "to pidge" is in fact an Oxford-specific construction was somewhat amusing.

Let's see... in other news, Macro continues to be horrible. Pat and I had another laughably awful tute with Forder, at the top of the tallest tower once again, and once again we howled with laughter at the end at our own sheer awfulness. Although, there remains the fact that Claire has a theory that Forder likes me. The reason for this being, he doesn't like arrogance and he doesn't like timidity, and I'm the only person who displays neither because of my tendency to say un-self-consciously idiotic things. (One of this week's gems was his asking me to define expenditure.

"Comsumption plus investment plus government spending," I said.

"Laissez-faire," he said.

"Consumption plus investment," I tried.

Why, he wanted to know.

"Because," I said intelligently, "you spend money on stuff when you invest and you spend money on stuff when you consume!")

He returned my essays this week, stared at me down a very long nose, and said, "Your attempts at these questions are... interesting."

"Oh good," I said. "Interesting. Wonderful."

There was another insufferably long pause, and then he said, almost absent-mindedly, "Your style is terse. Concise. You are able to communicate. Photocopy these and pass them out."

I skipped down those stairs, I tell you. This week I have no tute with him, but in an attempt by the universe to balance the books, I have a Maths tute early because my tutor, Sam, is moving to Venezuela on Wednesday (could I make these things up?). He has set work. I had a look at it tonight in sleepy, grey despair and half-heartedly did the first question, then thought, I can't be bothered to do this. And then thought: that's new. I can't be bothered to do this. Not, I can't do this. There is such a fundamental difference between the two. I may pass my Prelims.

So, really, that's everything and that's why I've not been updating much. I've wanted to, but I haven't been able to sit still long enough to write through the weird restlessness. I wanted, earlier in the week, to write about the wonderful experience I had with tombakersays.co.uk - I told Claire about it, and she sent a text home along the lines of hi, how are you, my sources tell me someone interesting should be reading this, and then her phone rang; I answered it, and it was her mum wanting to know why do we have a message on the answering machine from Tom Baker? - because it was wonderful, and it dissipated the grey. I don't want to be defined by grey any more.

I can live through a bit of grey, I think. I'm just willing it go away, when it's ruining all that's nice and making what's not nice even worse. I can live through this.