spoons and other metaphorical objects

[raven]

I have discovered why I run out of spoons every day at lunchtime! It's 'cause someone's selling them behind my back!

My mother did, in fact, buy some Iona spoons over the weekend, on the grounds that she'd been wanting to buy spoons for a while (clearly, a long-cherished dream, and who am I to judge) and it seemed a good omen. It's a funny name for product ranges, mine - there used to be an Ikea range of furniture, and also a type of crystal miniature. I don't know what connotations my name is supposed to have - probably, elegant and minimalist, and not, five-foot-three Asian geek-girl, but reality is frequently inaccurate.

Anyway, I am still here. Still quite a lot spoonless, and would really like pills to start working soon, plz. My GP was extraordinarily plummy and somewhat stand-offish, but basically helpful; he said, profoundly, why don't you take two pills every day instead of one. Hurrah for the scientific method. I am duly taking two pills every day instead of one, and so far all that has happened is that I've been very sleepy and headachey, and still feeling grim. Being around other people is draining, but, couner-intuitively, also does me good; they stop me thinking in circles by, I don't know, being themselves and interesting.

One of the things that is quite difficult about all this is that I have to cope with all sorts of stuff just when I'm least able to deal with it. Considering that I am all faily-faily paralysed-with-fear girl, I did think I ought to inform someone of an academic persuasion that, oh hi, there is a distinct chance I may be failing in the general direction of academia fairly soon. I went to see my personal tutor, therefore; he said, that's nice, it's not my bailiwick, go and speak to the department. I emailed the department. They didn't reply for a week, and finally did this afternoon to say, that's nice, it's not our problem, go and see student services. I went to student services. I sat outside for a bit, then went to the door marked "Disability Office" and asked the person inside, "Are you the disability office?"

"No," she said cheerfully, "This is international student services. Disability is in the advisory services."

I went to the advisory services. They were closed. It was 1.26pm. I sat on the floor and read about contract for half an hour. Then I went in and said, somewhat harrassedly, "I would like to talk to someone, please."

The person behind the desk twisted a lock of hair around a very sharp fingernail and looked at me. I looked back. Around us, the clock ticked, the other people in the last stages of bureaucracy-induced breakdown shifted in their chairs. I said, "I'm going away now," and did.

And so, when people ask me where I've been and if I've been ill, I smile and nod. It seems sensible. Today I made it to a nine o'clock lecture, managed to write things down, even, and came home feeling a bit icky and decided I wanted a shower. I got in and found the plumber had turned off the hot water.

Okay, I thought, I'll have lunch, is what I'll do. Not eating makes me feel worse. I went into the kitchen and discovered the plumber had filled the kitchen with a gas hob, a stepladder, two toolboxes, two chairs, two squished-up tarpaulins and several clouds of rising dust and a radio playing angry early nineties pop music.

I'll do some work, then, thinketh I - so I went up to my desk, got out a book on contract, opened it to the chaper on promissory estoppel and reached for a pen. And then next door started playing Bob Dylan at top volume next to the wall, the cat started wailing in concert and from downstairs, I heard the sound of a blowtorch being switched on.

I went back to bed.

Anyway! Things that are cheering, because there still are many:

-sebastienne deciding that the very best thing to cheer me up would be a rousing rendition of Dragostea Din Tei. Moldovan pop music ftw. It was indeed very cheering.

-The Vagina Monologues! It's on next week in Oxford, and it's the first time I've seen a professional production and I am very excited. Also, jacinthsong is coming, yaaaay.

-Last week at the pharmacy, I'd queued up and handed over my £7.10 and was waiting to get my lovely pills, when they called the guy in front of me, a perfectly normal-looking chap in jeans and boots. The man's name was Fertility Crombie. That was his name. I have told this to everyone. It does not stop being amazing.

-A very nice person who elects to remain nameless has translated one of my stories into Russian. I have been able to read Cyrillic since, well, never, but it's nonetheless very pleasing to see it up there. The story in question is "Love in Fire and in Blood", which is one of my favourites of my own stories, being nothing more than an affable comedy about drunken people being drunk. (And is, I think, the last piece of Sirius/Remus I wrote - which is notable, because the only reason I stoppped writing it was that I had, actually, written absolutely everything I had it in me to write about them.) Anyway! Story, in Russian! I should at some point compile a list of which of my stories have been translated - there are a handful in French and in Russian, but perhaps on a day when I have more spoons.

(Actually, I am sitting here being ill, someone rec me Sirius/Remus that I haven't read.)

-I have a cat. She still caterwauls impressively and thinks chewing my ankles is an entirely acceptable way to express love. Have an entirely gratuitious cat picture:



That's it. Still here, still going to be here.

Comments

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you, dear. I shall email them directly, and if that fails, well... I'm not sure. For one thing, I'm not entirely sure what I can make them do, or what I need - basically, all I want is for someone to know in case I don't turn up one morning. But this is proving difficult. I may make Katie or Emma phone them for me, if email fails!