Claire's birthday

Well. I cried the whole goddamn day, but I went to Maths class - last one before Sam moves to Venezuela - and I did my Keynes. It doesn't matter exactly how many tissues I got through. So I'm feeling a bit better, a little sniffly still, and again no properly recognisable reason other than greyness, but I did do some work at least. So I'm not feeling as crappy as I could be.

In other news, Claire's birthday was lovely. I got back from the Social Science Library in time for presents and cake and wine, which was much fun. Her main present has not come yet - damn you, play.com - but we gave her the little afterthoughts we'd come up with. First of all, a large map of the world with all the countries and their flags, and pins. The idea is for each of us to have a colour, and stick in the places we've been. Between the five of us, we've visited six continents (I've done five on my own!), lived in so many different countries, seen so many places, done so many things, and it was one of the projects you come up with at three am after a long day, because there's so much to do, so many places to go, so much left to see. Something about this college with its huge amount of international students and the real feeling that we represent not just ourselves but a world of people, that gets me.

In additon to the map, we got her a DVD - Dogma - as well as Neil Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors. Sky bought her a massive red object that resolved as a Soviet flag. (This is an in-joke, as the first time he met her he described her as "the girl with the Soviet hair".) I managed to perk up enough this afternoon to render a decent card for Claire; instead of five things that never happened, I wrote five arguments in favour of the canonisation of Claire (two words - communion gin), and there was wine before we went trekking out along the Cowley Road to a tapas place, Kasbah. It was just lovely. It reminded me of Mocha, a coffee place in Ahmedabad, because there were so many cushions that you actually could recline, if you wanted. Claire the classical archaeologist approved of this. We had lots of tapas and wine and a mini heart attack at the bill - extortionate, I tell you - but I had a lovely time, and didn't feel at all like crying any more.

When we came back there was more wine - it is becoming a theme - and now the others have gone to Vertigo at the Cellar to dance, where two Balliolite friends, Sam and Joe are DJ-ing tonight. I didn't go, because I'm wary of drinking when I'm in a fairly fragile mood, and I rather thing I should go to bed early and have a night's sleep and maybe things will be good in the morning.

I want to stay up tonight and write some of my remix - I have a bit of it written but far too little - and a tiny bit of prydonianfic, as I have a snippet in mind, but my head's far too fuzzy for that. I also want to finally finish that girl!Doctor fic that's simmering, but the writers' block has been getting worse with the current weirdness. We shall see. Maybe I'll go home and I'll immediately be able to write something sensible again. It's been three months since I wrote anything at all. It's ridiculous, as I think I read somewhere that you should write something every day if you want to consier yourself a writer. Well, I don't know about that.

Bed. No more crying tomorrow, I hope. And lots of water to clear my head of rosé.

The Cold War Strikes Back.

I didn't get up nearly as early as I'd planned. Instead, I spent hours and hours doing economics this morning, then went out with Claire and Pat to the Covered Market, to buy sandwiches. It was very cold, but bright and sunny and I wished very much I wasn't planning to spend the afernoon in the Bod where all the sunshine would be wasted. So about four-ish, I grabbed my textbooks and bits of paper and trekked downstairs, all ready to go to the Bod. I got outside, and well, ( this happened. )

And then I had to get my books for real and tramp out across the now mostly-deserted quad, really on the way to the library this time. I walked out onto Broad Street, which was sunny and a little wet, and I looked across the gates to see Trinity's grounds untouched. I guess they don't play there because they're not allowed to walk on the grass. It all seemed a bit like a fading dream as I wandered away from college. But I walked into the Bodleian dripping wet, with snowmelt and bits of grass and caked mud falling out of my hair, and I was so happy, because it was wonderful.