"I Sit Naked in an Extremely Cold, Empty Room, Waiting for the Public to Dress Me"

"The great man is he who in the midst of the crowds keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Last night, on something like a whim, we went with some friends to an opening at Modern Art Oxford. I like art, but I have to be honest: the real art, at events like this, is the crowd (the free wine doesn't hurt either). And Oxford's artsy hordes didn't disappoint. Girls in striped dresses and red heels, or outlandish outfits straight from a very colourful fever dream, men in suits and bad floral ties snapping photos, an appearance by the Lord Mayoress of Oxford (wearing of course the strange medal around her neck which only a society whose lawyers still wear white wigs could condone).

I thought of this rumination on the flâneur, by Baudelaire: "The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the middle of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite." I thought that the real joy of a museum is not necessarily what it holds but who it draws.

Put another way, in Graeme Gilloch's Myth and Metropolis: Walter Benjamin and the City: “The flâneur is that character who retains his individuality while all around are losing theirs. The flâneur derives pleasure from his location within the crowd, but simultaneously regards the crowd with contempt, as nothing other than a brutal, ignoble mass.”

Eventually, when I was done regarding the crowd with writerly contempt whilst simultaneously basking in the glow of it, I wandered around the actual exhibits: Raphael Zarka's "Encounters" and Regina José Galindo's "The Body of Others". Zarka's highly geometric series of photographs and sculpture (see the photograph above, courtesy of The Man) were easy on the eyes and pleasant to behold (I only mention this because it is, as you shall presently see, so deeply in contrast to Galindo's videos). The photographs, images of huge isolated structures (mainly concrete), were not in themselves extraordinary, though they were nicely rendered; it was the knowledge that these structures, which were man-made but utilitarian in nature, had only become art through Zarka's transposition of them, which made the exhibit thrilling.

But then maybe it's hardly surprising that I liked Zarka: "True to Zarka's interest in the essay form," writes Acting Director of Modern Art Oxford and the exhibition’s curator Suzanne Cotter, "Geometry Improved consists of a literal as well as speculative narrative of formal enquiry...he describes himself as a collector, rather than a maker of objects...the artist sees his work more akin to the cabinet of curiosities, an activity of subjective classification, in which objects are freed from the weight of history and combined in such a way as to suggest new interpretations."

This is only intertextuality redrawn, where intertextuality refers to the relations-between-texts (texts in this case not necessarily referring to words on a page, of course); and a refreshing view on the act of creation. But on a personal level I like it because there's an extent to which it describes the genre of writing that I engage in (and with)--and therefore the genre of my book. Freeing objects (places, texts) from "the weight of history", combining them, suggesting new interpretations. It sounds lofty but just about doable, doesn't it? If you don't believe me, read Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel.

The second exhibit I visited was Regina José Galindo's The Body of Others. If I hadn't been on my third glass of free wine, I doubt I would have lingered for more than a few cursory seconds, but my senses had been dulled by Oddbins' Own white and I found myself as if hypnotized, drawn to the horrific images of Galindo, naked, being hosed down, forced to her knees, and Galindo, naked, pregnant, tied to a bed, and Galindo, naked (are you seeing a theme here?), being drawn on by a Venezuelan plastic surgeon, and Galindo (clothed this time!) swinging (as if hung) from a bridge, reading poetry, and Galindo, clothed, carrying a bowl of human blood, leaving red footprints. The worst of all was Galindo, clothed, with her head forced into a barrel of water, like a perverse aping of the torture scene in a spy film. We see enough of this kind of violence already, don't we?

But to give the artist her credit, there was, downstairs, a tiny video installation, a 23 minute long film entitled "Rompiendo el Hielo" (Breaking the Ice), which I found very good indeed. The subheading read: "I sit naked in an extremely cold, empty room, waiting for the public to dress me," and this struck me as almost uncomfortably poetic, as if it was a line from a text, now stripped bare of context and as naked and cold as Galindo herself. The Man and I stood for some time, watching the artist seated on a bench, watching the people watching her. What I liked about the video is twofold. She ends up clothed, first of all, which is (at least in comparison to, for instance, the video of her cowering by a wall with a heavy spray of water pushing her down) almost an admittance of hopefulness (the public will, if you give them long enough, at least metaphorically dress you).

But also (and I can only hope this was deliberate), the idea of the video mirrored the thoughts I'd had earlier about the flâneur; about our place in the crowd, about our being both within and outside of it. "The flâneur derives pleasure from his location within the crowd, but simultaneously regards the crowd with contempt, as nothing other than a brutal, ignoble mass" again. For a moment, anyway (or 23 minutes of cold) Galindo was a true flâneur, and we, by extension, got to taste the flânerie firsthand.

How to Start Your Thursday

It's another grey-skied lapsang souchong Thursday.

The Man fixed the electricity problem. I do love men, don't you?

I've got three blog posts to write today. (Yes, I really am sticking to a schedule). I've spent the morning doing anything but work. I'm organizing old photos and music. I plan on making lists at some point, lots and lots of lists, but I haven't even begun thinking about the lists. I'm watching the birds dig around in the wasteland that is our back garden in winter. They're sending dead leaves and wet twigs everywhere.

My books for next term arrived yesterday. I'm quite excited to read W.G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn, but otherwise I'm unimpressed. Beloved I read years and years ago and despised. I hope I was wrong about it, that I was just being a snotty teenager, but as I recall, my general impression was, why does Toni Morrison have to write like this?

I'm digging KCRW this morning. My tea is just the right drinking temperature and I'm bobbing my head around to the Dandy Warhols and Loudon Wainwright, and Michael Franti. Not the most promising way to start a day meant to be rife with accomplishment, but good fun anyway. I'll check back later.

In the Dark

My knowledge of electricity is so poor that I can't even tell you what's gone wrong with ours, only that something has. A lightbulb upstairs burned bright for a moment, there was a popping sound, and all the lights went out. We still have electricity--plug-in lights work, computers are charging happily--but our house is dark and here I sit, on the couch, having hunted for the fuse box and failed. It's just too dark to look for a fuse box. Kind of a catch-22, that. Are we horrible people if we leave it till morning? Don't answer that.

What I can't decide is if I should, in present circumstances, escape by having a run. Because here's the problem: it's also dark outside the house. Not much of an escape; but at least I could feel the night city air on my face and pretend I had a glowing house to come home to. Here the light from candles flickers and the orange glow of streetlamps patterns the curtains, forms blocks on the walls. It's a strange in-between feeling. I'm almost too restless to sit still; almost to restless to move.

Rusty Bicycle Update

Looks like they share our opinion...can't wait to see what it's like inside. They're open as of tomorrow apparently, and as I also get paid tomorrow, I think we might be able to afford the luxury of a pint or two...

A Short Personal History of Running

My parents were never happy unless they had spent part of the day exercising vigorously. We took camping holidays so that they could ride their bikes up mountains. I thought this was normal, so as soon as I was old enough to walk, I started walking with great zeal. There's a story about how when I was five or six I led a hike and actually wore out an adult family friend. Again, I thought this was normal.

How I started running, though, is different. I actually used to loathe it. When I was about 12, the high school track coach recruited a friend and I from middle school, so a few days a week we would train with the cross country team. I know why he chose my friend--long legged, fast--but as for me, shorter, slower, my only guess is that he foresaw a dogged endurance in me that I didn't actually yet possess.

My first year in high school I joined the track team, of course. I used to listen to Belle and Sebastian's "Stars of Track and Field" to make myself feel better (or at least a little more indie). It was the most exhausting and miserable thing I had ever done. I'd never been fitter, but I was 14, and this didn't strike me as much of an accomplishment, really. I was more interested in my first boyfriend, and getting good grades so that I could go to a college far, far away, and in reading as much as possible in as short a span of time as I could. There was a glamour about running track, and every once in awhile I thought I could feel the lure of it ("You only did it so that you could wear your terry underwear and feel the city air run past your body...") but mostly I spent every day dreading the long afternoon hours spent running in circles and through the tiny towns around the school.

I was never made to be a sprinter, and I would never have wanted to (I don't know what pleasure can be got in only a few seconds of exertion) but I equally hated the competition of long runs. As soon as I knew I had to run faster than somebody else, I stopped wanting to run at all. This is, if you couldn't guess, not the best attitude for a competative runner to have. We'll say this: I was never very good at track.

Halfway through the season, my long-legged friend developed knee problems and had to drop out. Then I developed a swollen foot that I milked for as long as I could, and when it had healed, I went and told my coach that I thought it would be best if I left the team. "Is that what you want?" he said (he was slightly scary and I had spent all day in anxious anticipation of this moment). I told him it was. "Okay," he said, and that was it, I was free. I joined the lacrosse team. I wasn't any good at the game itself, but the months of running had done my body good, and I could run far more effortlessly than anyone else on the team. This didn't matter to me, much. I just wished I looked as cute as the other girls in their little shorts at practice.

The first thing I experienced that nebulous thing they called "runner's high" was on the beach at home in my second year of high school. I was running over spring break to stay fit for lacrosse, and I was so surprised, and enthralled, by the feeling that running was good, that I actually threw my watch (which I had to hold in my hand anyway because the strap had broken) into the ocean. This is why I remember the day, and though it seemed like a good idea at the time, I now can't begin to understand what was going through my mind when I did it. In retrospect, it seems symbolic--I didn't want to run because someone else wanted me to, I didn't want to compete with a clock--but we're rarely so self-aware in the moment.

In Boston, running is a serious sport, and I liked going out into the city and feeling a part of something. Even on the muggiest summer day or the iciest in winter you could count on having at least a few other silent, dogged companions.

I've not been the most impressive runner, but I've been doing it fairly consistantly for years now. The only person I've ever found that I can run with is the Man, because I don't feel the pressure to be competative (he's faster than me--a lot faster--and there's absolutely nothing I can do about that), but nowadays I mostly use running as a chance to be introspective and physical at the same time. I like being both a part of the place I'm in and an observer watching it happen. Nobody bothers you if you're going faster than them.

In Oxford, I think I've started to use running as a sort of meditation. One of my regular routes takes me around Christ Church meadow, and though I love the place anyway, it takes on a different tone when you're breathing hard and your legs are moving fast. Suddenly the beauty--which varies in colour by season, but never in quality--is something that invigorates you, moves you, not just something that you move through. I actually run better on days when the light is doing spectacular things to the trees and the spires. Luckily that is most days, here. And on the way home, going down the Iffley Road, I pass the track where Roger Bannister ran the first four-minute mile and I think that though I will never run a four-minute mile, here I am running anyway.

What to Expect from an English Winter

More mince pies than you can shake a stick at. If you liked them before Christmas, you sure as hell won't want to see another one after, and if you didn't like them before Christmas, well...I don't envy you. A bout of "unseasonably cold" weather (you didn't see this coming? after how many centuries? really?). Lots (and lots and lots) of subsequent talk about how cold it is. Very beautiful snowflakes. Weekend girls with bare legs, pretending that it isn't unseasonably cold out. Lots of sniffles and coughs. Frost making art deco patterns on the cars at night. Stoic cyclists. Bare branches. A flurry over hot alcoholic drinks before Christmas (mulled cider, mulled wine...) followed by a general laziness about them after (who can be bothered?). Potatoes for dinner, every night. Root vegetable feasts and homemade soups. Log fires. Coal fires. The smell of log fires and coal fires on the streets. Scarves. Girls in very cool boots. Pubs, but not pub gardens. A brief glorification of the English summer ("oh, I can't wait for June...") followed by a berating of the English summer ("ugh, it'll just rain the whole time anyway). A general sense of polite but vaguely uncomfortable waiting.

The Why

I woke up this morning and thought, I'd really like to go for a run today, only it was pissing with rain, the streets slick and the eaves dripping. So I hunkered down in the study with several cups of lapsang souchong tea (there's nothing like drinking tea that smells of woodfire smoke in winter to make you feel the season in your bones) and got to work. Several hours later I was so absorbed in my work I was surprised to notice that the day has cleared entirely, the sky blue through the empty branches of the plum tree outside my window. No, I still haven't gone for my run.

I'm doing research, and in order to continue this post I'm going to have to admit once and for all something that I have a hard time saying aloud. Every time the words escape my lips I give a little schoolgirl giggle, blush furiously, and backtrack out of embarrasment. But, I'm writing a book (yes, a book, b-o-o-k and no, you do not need to tell me how unlikely literary success is in this age), and today I've been searching for information on the best way to pitch said book to literary agents.

The problem, of course, is that said book belongs to a genre that is nebulous at best. It's certainly not fiction, but it's also not a biography, an analysis of current events, a how-to book. Okay, so it must be something else? How about memoir, or narrative nonfiction. According to one site memoir is "the only nonfiction subject that must be treated as fiction," while "narrative nonfiction...is still nonfiction and you would submit a proposal." Which is fine, except that my book is not memoir, strictly speaking, and neither is it narrative nonfiction, strictly speaking, if I'm to believe what I read (narrative nonfiction: The Perfect Storm, Seabiscuit, et cetera). The only way I've ever been able to pinpoint what I'm writing is by comparing it to other things, kind of like a movie pitch. It's The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton meets Sun After Dark by Pico Iyer meets The Flaneur by Edmund White meets All Souls by Javiar Marias (which is a novel, confusingly) meets Isolarian by James Atlee--you get the point. And obviously, the more I think about it, the deeper I fall into the abyss of finding the genre.

So I'm stepping away from that for awhile. Something I read this morning advised the author to "look at the value your book offers to the reader," and that's something I can do much more easily. It makes me think of Roger Mudd asking Ted Kennedy in 1979: "Why do you want to be president?" and Ted Kennedy botching the answer, not knowing, not being able to compensate for never having thought about a question that sounds too basic to be problematic. It was one of the greatest lessons of my undergraduate degree: if you're going to run for president (or write a book, for that matter), you should sure as hell be able to answer the question "why."

Why? Because I'm too young to write a book; because there's no reason I can think of for someone to remain silent because of age or experience. Because while we may be entering an era of austerity, the election of Barack Obama indicates that we're finally, eight years late, exiting an era of intellectual shrinkage. We're becoming curious again*, and suddenly, the way in which we view the world--as individuals, as a generation, as the human race--is becomming important. Because sometimes a city is not just a dot on the map but a state of mind, and this affects us, whether we think about it or not. Because the art of experiencing place is a universal art; there is a backdrop to everything. Because the more we think about where we are--physically, geographically, generationally, emotionally, intellectually--the better we're able to understand where we're going. And because there's always something to be said for a few pretty words on a page. It's finer entertainment than anything else I can think of.



*Obama: "But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old."

Subway Stories

On the T, late at night in a crowded car, I used to like to stand at the front, practically brushing up against the driver. It was the only way to lose my sense of claustrophobia, to quiet my distress as the crush of bodies closed around me and the smell of sweat (even in coldest winter), the stifled coughs, crept closer. It only worked on the green line, two linked trolleycars ambling through America's oldest subway system, but from the front car you could see the tracks and feel your own speed, and that was something special.

When I first moved to Boston I rode the subway often, and for no reason at all. I liked how novel it was, how the shape of the city changed beneath ground. I liked being moved by something huger, faster, older than myself; I liked being moved with other people. My knowledge of the city was twinned with my knowledge of its transport. Falling asleep I would name the stops the way they appeared on the map, emanating outward from Park Street--Boylston Arlington Copley Hynes Convention Center, Kenmore.

Once a boy and I took the blue line all the way to the end, to Wonderland. It was Halloween night and I had a paper to write but we walked through the October fringes of the city ignoring the time, ignoring the darkness. I put my feet in the Atlantic ocean, but even so it was an ugly part of the city. The houses looked like they might crumble and fall under a harsh gaze and you could see the pristine skyline faraway, and it looked impossibly distant. There's no way there's a relationship between here and there, I thought, but of course there was, the painted blue trains, they were the relationship.

Another time the same boy and I were on the red line. We'd taken it very far and very late at night and suddenly our car was empty. Have you ever been on a completely empty subway car? It's like the city dissolved. There was only trash on the floor and our jouvenile nervousness. I thought this was romantic, but now it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Already I was isolating us, cutting us off (cutting me off) from everything--the city, the people, and hopes and dreams and happiness.

I used to take the train to Harvard Square for the bookshops. My favourite was a ten minute walk from the station and it was such a cold and empty walk through Cambridge. Sometimes on the way back, if it was late and dark enough, I would steal through the Harvard campus. It seemed a dead campus. You got one or two people cutting through quads and a few lights glowing in stony buildings but compared to the bustle of the city or the intimacy of the train it was nothing, nothing.

When the Red Sox won the world series for the first time in 80 years we took the green line to Kenmore, to Fenway Park. There were people shouting on the train and our entire car broke out into a chorus of, "Yankees suck! Yankees suck!" even though it wasn't the Yankees we'd beat that night.

Once, in my second-t0-last semester, I was on the train going to class when I saw a boy I fancied. I'd never seen him before and I would never see him after but I thought he was good looking and I must have stared all the way from Kenmore to Copley because at Arlington he looked me square in the eye and said his name. We reached across the aisle and shook hands. He told me he was a musician, a guitarist. He was playing a gig that night. I could come if I wanted. I smiled and said maybe I would and got off the train, but of course I didn't, and I was horrified at myself for being so transparent.

It was always too hot in winter and too cold in summer, and in between, you could feel the relief.

That claustrophobia. Once a pair of men fighting jostled their way into my train at Government Center. They were yelling and shouting and the crowd inside tried to make room, and then one of them said, "I'll fucking stab you you asshole" and pulled out a knife and no one screamed but you could hear the breath suddenly hang in everyone's throats, and then someone took charge and dragged them both back onto the platform and the doors shut and people went back to reading the Metro.

The long waits. The later at night the longer, and then, like a beacon of hope, the squeal of rails, the headlights, the rush of wind. The rush of hot wind--I always liked that. It smelled of city. If you were in a great hurry to get somewhere of course you would have to wait. Maybe the T had a sense of humour, I don't know; maybe it was just trying to say look at you, taking yourself so seriously, but does it really matter, is it really going to make you happier, getting to your job or the gym or the bar on time? And the funny thing is, it never really was.

An Illicit Post

I had a rejection from The Guardian yesterday. Why advertise my failures? Because (perhaps misguidedly), I genuinely think this is an improvement. It's the first time they've actually responded to one of my queries. So first they ignored me, then they rejected me--surely the fact that they're paying me any attention at all is a good sign. Eventually, if things continue on this trajectory, they'll have to accept something for publication.

Please don't burst my bubble here. I'm being charmingly optimistic--let's leave it at that.

I'm writing this at work (I know, shame on me), and just had one of those incredibly awkward interactions with a pair of students that make me think, wow, I should just quit my job right now. I was utterly, utterly unhelpful to them. At one point, I simply sat staring at them, my mouth hanging open, making confused little "um" noises.

It occurs to me that I get like this when someone asks me, say, where the Philosophy class is meeting today or where students can go if they want to play hockey, because I am in no way an authority on these things. More crucially, I don't actually give a damn about them. This isn't an especially grand statement--I'm not an authority on most things, frankly, and lots of people don't give a damn about their job--but it is an important one. If they were to ask me to discuss last night's speech, or ask for an obsessively anotated bibliography of Oxford literature, I'd be happy--thrilled, in fact--to oblige. But I ought, for today at least, to resign myself to the fact that they're highly unlikely to ask me any of these things, and focus instead on class timetables and hockey pitches.

Morning Post(al)

I'm up much earlier than usual today. I've had my breakfast and now I'm sipping tea. I'd like to say I'm enjoying the view (it's a beautiful blue-sky morning and I can even hear a few brave birds chirping) but there's an enormous black and orange truck parked outside the lounge window, so, you know.

These days I'm...

Listening to...Ray LaMontagne.

Watching...30 Rock. Recently we've particularly enjoyed their rendering of Gladys Knight's "Midnight Train to Georgia," and also James Carville's guest appearance (I couldn't find a YouTube clip of that), though as he's aged he has started to look increasingly like a character from Lord of the Rings and it's hard to believe that when I first saw The War Room I actually found him weirdly sexy. That was definitely a triumph of brains over brawn.

Reading...Going Postal by Terry Pratchett. Let me explain: ever since I met him, the Man's been going on about how funny Terry Pratchett is, and reading me excerpts from the only two Pratchett books in the house (I'd like to draw your attention to that number--two--so you don't get the idea that the Man is a Terry Pratchett fanatic of some sort), and I've been duly ignoring his suggestions that I have a go at reading one, paying more attention to my eBay adiction or whatever book I did happen to be reading at the time. The Man likes to read Pratchett before bedtime--make that re-read, for the five-hundredth time, probably--and I've gotten used to seeing his book covers as they slump down onto my pillow and the Man slips into sleep. I even bought him two new Pratchett books this Christmas, partly because I knew he'd enjoy them but also partly because I'd gotten really tired of looking at the same two book covers all the time.

I didn't actually consider reading one until I got sick last week and couldn't be bothered to get out of bed to find a suitable book. So I reached over and grabbed Going Postal, and you know what? It's really, really, quite good. I keep reading the funniest bits out loud to the Man, who tries to hide the look on his face that says, yes, that's great, I've actually read you that passage before and you ignored me. Last night I told him I was thinking of putting this into a blog post and he said, "so it's basically a blog post about me being right?" and I said, "yes, yes it is." So there you go.

Ugly truck update: two men got in and drove it away a few minutes ago. The birds are chirping with increasing authority and bravado, but the blue sky appears to be diminishing. But none of that matters, especially, because by this evening, we're going to have a new POTUS, and man, that makes me happy.

Now I have to get off the couch and go to work.

What We're Like

We've become these people that, like, act almost kind of cool, and adult, and stuff. We lounge around with our Macs, in our slightly hip outfits (him: Croc sneakers--though please don't picture these, because his are actually really, surprisingly groovy plus he bought them from a man on the street for the price of two pints--khakis, and a Banana Republic jumper; me: black skinny jeans (yes, I finally caved), slightly ethnic scarf, long cardigan (according to the Observer magazine, cardigans are "in")--actually, the image almost disgusts me. We cook breakfast, have friends over for casual lunches. I sit under a duvet drinking lots of tea and eating clementines (and I'm not the only one) while he catches the second half of the Spurs v Portsmouth game. When he comes home we watch a few episodes of 30 Rock and order a curry.

"You're not eating the nob of your sausage?" he says when I remove the end of my lamb and place it back in the container.
"No," I say. "I got bored with it."
He picks it up, eats it. I'm chewing and gesturing wildly, like I have something really important to say.
"You're going to make a joke about the nob of my sausage," he says. I swallow.
"Yes," I say. "Yes, I am."

(Maybe not so adult.)

Abandon

There's this song by The Be Good Tanyas called "Light Enough to Travel" that I've always liked. It's a good song anyhow but I find these lyrics especially pertinent to today's post:

"Promise me we won't go into the nightclub
I really think that it's obscene
What kind of people go to meet people
Someplace they can't be heard or seen?"

It's how I feel. Not by nature inclined to meet people someplace I can't be heard or seen, I've squandered my prime clubbing years by spending my time perched on park benches reading, and participating in other similarly docile activities, like evenings at the pub or long Sunday lunches. We tend to like to talk to our friends. We're funny like that.

But last night, to celebrate the fact that I was feeling like a human being again, and not a weary monster made of snot and soreness, we went into town to meet up with a good friend who has recently relocated to London (which makes it feel like he's on another planet, because, well, we're basically old people in young people's bodies). He was in town for the night and I thought a glass of red wine would aid the healing process (they say there's good stuff in red wine, you know, and anyway, I couldn't stay in the house any longer), so under cover of January darkness, buffeted by a city wind bordering on a gale, we left the house and headed for one of our regular pubs to share a bottle.

The problem with a Saturday night, however, which we so often forget, is that things get crowded, and there's a sort of madness in the city right now, related I think to it being a New Year, a cold month, the heart of winter. After a charmingly frigid December, after all the Christmas trees have been taken down, Oxford in winter becomes a strange place, fitful, full of waiting. Bled of students, she waits for term-time to begin; bled of warmth, of light, she awaits a new season. You can feel on the wind that there's an edginess, a nervous and mysterious force, but you can't pinpoint where it comes from and you can't escape it just by knowing that it's there.

So the crowd in our pub was not an ordinary Saturday night crowd. It was someone's 26th birthday (I know this because he wore a flashing badge that said so) and he had apparently invited all of his hairdresser friends: girls with black-and-white hair swept into contorted shapes, boys with slicked, spiked 'dos and very tight trousers. The girls were barely dressed--that's another thing about Saturday nights in the dead of winter here. Hotpants, backless dresses, no tights, high, high, high black heels.

Then another friend called and said she was at the nightclub across the street and wouldn't we join her? And we said no, because we're not like that, we object to nightclubs, they're horrid places, they're rank and foul and there's no fun to be had unless you actually want to be dry-humped by a slimy stranger and then possibly go to bed with him (or her) later, which we definitely DON'T.

So it came as quite a surprise to me that, ten minutes later, we were maneuvering our way past about seventeen large bouncers in black jackets and neon armbands, climbing the stairs, ordering a drink. It came as an even greater surprise that we actually enjoyed ourselves.

Don't get me wrong: it was loud, and dark, and I was beyond overdressed, but the music wasn't the ordinary drab string of thump-thump-thumpy songs (they played the Proclaimers, and any establishment in which I can belt out, "and I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more..." without being asked to leave gets at least a small nod of approval), and we had a place to sit, and the best bit of it all was the people.

Next to us, a cowgirl-themed hen party (short denim skirts, plaid shirts, and fuzzy pink cowboy hats) was winding down; the women all looked nonplussed, almost businesslike in their consumption of alcohol, their trips to the toilets, their brief interludes of hip gyration. Most of the girls wore bare shoulders, or bare legs, or both, and heels so high you could practically call them stilts, and still, very few of them looked genuinely sexy. But over the course of a night you're bound to find one or two who exude sex, who actually convince you (if only for an instant) by their walk, the sway of their hips, the way their eyes pass over you, that you'd go to bed with them, if they deemed you worthy.

The manager (a friend of a friend) gave us a bottle of champagne and as I sat sipping I thought I could almost feel, here, the draw of the nightclub. It's about abandon, I thought, abandon, whether reckless or careful, abandon to the dark, to the movements of each limb, to the curve of the long night. It's not about other people at all, in its purest form; it's a kind of implosion. A long time ago someone tried to teach me how to meditate, and I'm not sure he suceeded, but I always remember the things he told me, the things about clearing your mind, about letting thoughts pass through your head, acknowledging them but not opening them--and isn't that, in a sordid sort of way, what all these people, rapt with dance, are doing?

Drowning out thoughts not by silence but by sound--well, I suffer from more anxiety than some, I know that sometimes it's not what you think but what you don't that matters, that sometimes, especially when the madness of winter has crept up on you, it's abandon and not control at all that you need. And it's a cheap way to dull the senses, I know that. They're still slimy, underneath it all--but for a moment I thought I could just about understand places like this.

I Probably Shouldn't Admit This, But I Have Some Shallow Moments Sometimes...

What is it about television shows? I'm not an addictive person by nature, but I find it impossible to simply watch TV. For starters, it mostly bores me, and I've never been very good at watching without doing something else at the same time (eating, primarily, but also, at various stages in my life, playing computer games, writing, researching, doing homework, doing sit-ups, you get the point...).

But then, every once in awhile, something jumps out at you. Someone recommends a show and you rent a DVD (this is usually a few years after the show has been popular), or you stumble across something (again, this is usually ages after everyone else has discovered it), and, suddenly, without warning, without being given a fair chance to stock up on canned foods and powdered milk because you're not leaving the house anytime soon, you're hooked, in a seriously unhealthy way. There's something that happens in the brain, and all you can think is: I. Must. Watch. Every. Episode. Of. This. Show. That. I. Can. Get. My. Grubby. Hands. On. NOW.

It's a fickle addiction, though, a fragile relationship, and before you know it you've watched every single episode ever made, and all the outtakes, and all the special deleted scenes, and all the interviews with cast members, and all the tribute videos on YouTube, and there's a brief period--a week, maybe--during which you feel bereft, as if a piece of your soul has gone missing somewhere amongst the empty Chinese takeout boxes in your lounge. And then you're so over it. Like, come on, give me something good to watch.

So you tumble into a new addiction and stay up all night watching your beloved characters negotiate their way through whatever new scenario has been created for them, and when you finally fall into fitful sleep, you dream of them, you become one of them.

I guess you could say that I'm not a casual television-show-watcher. A casual drinker I may be, but I never have just one watch. There's no such thing as just one watch. If I like a show, I have to have it all. I'm not saying it's healthy (and I'm certainly not saying it's as destructive as other addictions, so I guess I should count myself lucky), but that's the way it is.

Over the years, I've had these obsessions often, and over the silliest things, sometimes. It pains me, as someone who considers herself well-read and literary, who doesn't own a television, who believes that you can never have too many University degrees, to admit that at various points in my life I've loved and watched with religious but transient intensity South Park, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars, the X-Files, Law and Order: SVU, NewsRradio, The Office, The Sopranos, Sex and the City, and dozens more, some of them even more embarrasing to name (I refer, as I sometimes do, to the quote in my "About Me" section). With the Man and I, it's been House, Gilmore Girls, Spooks, CSI, Mad Men, Teachers, and, most recently, 30 Rock, which we've been watching with great zeal ever since we reluctantly agreed that, since everyone else though it was like, the best thing ever, we should, for the purposes of remaining culturally aware, probably take a look at it. And sure enough, within viewing the first few episodes, a hundred previously-puzzling references suddenly became clear in my mind.

Of course there are always those classics--for me, The West Wing comes to mind--that stay with us longer than a week. But for the rest of it, well--it's all in the name of cultural education, really it is.

(and yes, you get two posts today, because I broke my [already rather tenuous] resolution to write one a day yesterday!)

Of Eagles and Bicycles

The pub down the road, the Eagle Tavern,has been a curiosity for some time. It's at the end of our street, a matter of yards from our house, but I can count the number of times I've been inside on one hand.

There has never been anything overtly wrong with it; just another pub in a sea of pubs. The Vicar who lives next door (I don't think he actually is a Vicar, that's just what he's called), in the house called Seaview cottage (we couldn't be any further from the sea), who dresses impeccably, talks impeccably (like an overwrought English gentleman), and is certifiably loony, has been drinking there more or less every night since I moved in. Once a bridal party had their after-wedding drinks there, and a brawl broke out. The police moved in and carted off every single bloody-fisted male in a matter of minutes.

Inside, the Eagle was sad, as if all of the pub-ness had been drawn out with a siphon. No merrymaking here; just hard drinking, lone men drowning in bibulous despair. It had thick patterned carpet and stale air, and you got the feeling you could get lost inside, though it wasn't very large. Once we played pool and once we watched the football but even the drecepit facade seemed to warn us off having fun.

I mention this because the pub has changed ownership. A new sign has gone up; no longer the Eagle Tavern but the Rusty Bicycle. Though we think maybe it would have been cleverer just to hang an actual rusty bicycle outside, we're heartened by this move, and by the fact that, peering inside, it's evident that they've ripped up the carpet and revealed the wood floor. It won't be open for a while yet, but I am harbouring secret hopes that we may end up with a cosy little pub literally on our doorstep.

How to Read Fashion

I think I've finally figured it out. High-fashion (as in, runway models, couture, fickle designers) is like really, über-esoteric art (or, indeed, writing)--you know, like those three-minute videos in galleries set on loop, with a close-up of a woman's belly-button and a fly buzzing around it. Bear with me--I think this one is good.

The way I see it, each is as obscure as the other. Pretty to look at, maybe, sometimes, and kind of interesting, if you're stoned, or feel like entering an upside-down world where nothing makes any sense, but otherwise empty.

Enter the fashion magazine: our guide to the fashion world, a dictionary, if you will, an art-history major for the catwalk. Today, you see, I walked to Tesco (the longest walk, in my current state) to buy soup, drugs, and a Vogue.

My Vogue, as it turned out, came with bonus material: The (Topshop-sponsored) Ultimate Catwalk Report. I was so excited! I eat this stuff up! Pages and pages of high-resolution photographs of Popsicle-sticks-with-lips strutting (or whatever it is they do) down the runway in....you name it. Jumpsuits? Check. Toutous? Check. A snakeskin-print bag "that's part luxe backpack, part roomy tote"? Check. Pyjamas? Check! See-through dresses? Check! (Who says men aren't interested in Vogue?) A swimsuit with belt, heels, and leather trenchcoat? Che-eck. (Yep, you heard it here first: Spring is all about pairing your old bikini with a designer coat to give it new life--that's some sharp credit crunch thinking!)

It's like a freakish combination of pornography, people-watching, and well-timed comedy rolled into one glossy, and very colourful, package: amazing.

In the midst of my elation, I started thinking: how do they do it? How do they look at all these clothes (clothes? can you call them that?), at all these images of models dressed up like the emaciated dolls of our nightmares, and determine that there's a pattern for the upcoming fashion season? Like, wow, this poor model was made to wear a plastic yellow bubble over her head (check it--page 34--if you don't believe me), so that means that flamboyant hats are the thing for Spring!

No: honestly, I think they're making it up. I think if you put a group of editors in one room and another group of editors in another, and didn't let them talk to each other, they'd come up with completely different visions for Spring/Summer '09 (as it's called, apparently). I think they see what they want to see in the designer collections, and interpret it for us. To be honest, it's good of them: that stuff needs translation. They give us the trends with such authority, but frankly, I think they're probably sitting in their offices right with a glass of champagne thinking, whew, fooled 'em again!

And then, there are the pet-trends. The ones that they mention every year, the one they throw repeatedly against the wall of consumerism and pray sticks. Like the Midi-length skirt, which crops up every few seasons and looks like a good idea (but then again, what doesn't on a life-size pencil): it's a long skirt, no, it's a short skirt, no, it's--in between! But then you try one on and you realize that unless your legs are six feet long on their own it's never going to look anything but frumpy, and besides, you can't walk properly.

Or the jumpsuit. "Vogue still loves...jumpsuits," says this month's issue. "Get to grips with the all-in-one. It's here to stay." I'm sure it is: in the pages of magazines. Have you actually ever seen an ordinary woman walking down the street on her way to work, or to the pub, or to go shopping, in a jumpsuit?

Neither have I.

So I salute you, high fashion: for your ingenuity, your artistic endeavors, and, mostly, your balls. And I eagerly await the day when someone realizes that anyone can interpret what's happening on the kalediscope we call runway. In the meantime, I'm off to consult the encyclopedia Vogue in the bath.

Dreamworld

There's a man outside shouting down the street at another man, "Are we gonna watch a film tonight?"
"Wha'?"
"Are we gonna watch a FILM tonight?!"

**

Fever dreams these past few nights: deep and vivid. I keep returning to the Bodleian in them. It always looks different, but the grandeur and the books give it away. I get lost, every time, happily lost. Sometimes it takes me awhile to find the entrance. Sometimes I breeze past the porters and they seem to accept me as an insider. In one of these dreams I discover there is a mountain inside, a garden out back. I follow a line of tourists through the snow; we sit and have tea on a patio looking into one of the reading rooms. Mostly, I sit inside and do work. It's very strange to have a dream where you sit and work, and run your hands over books.

Other things in my dreams are less mundane, less easy to pinpoint. Lions and giraffes and monkeys running up a hill. Time-travel: I am disguised as a boy in Oxford, being shown his rooms by a plump woman in an apron. Russian girls wearing wisps of red fabric doing ballet. Me doing ballet; and a handstand, my toes pointed in the air. An upside-down world. More time-travel, as if time is a malleable substance, something made and unmade in my own hands. In the future, my debit card does not work at most cashpoints. Walking a dog. Running up the hill to my parents' house. A dress shop. A series of hairdressers'. A camera, running out of batteries. If only my debit card worked here, I could buy new ones.

An underground palace, populated by animals (lions, giraffes, monkeys), whose doors open only in response to a human touch. Re-sculpting the shape and size of the Earth itself. None of this seems impossible, or even unlikely.

In The Throes Of A Bitter Cold

I wish I could write, properly, but I have ANOTHER cold. I think this makes one a month since at least October. The Man suggested that maybe it's because I'm living in a new country. I said, "Pooh. I've been living here for a year." He said, "That's not so long." I guess it's not. After all, he's been living here his whole life.

Other excuses we've come up with: it's winter. I work at a school. An international school, where we don't just get the ordinary floating-around-Oxford bugs, but exciting colds from anywhere from California to Kazakhstan (really).

**

In my long, slow reading of Javier Marias' All Souls (neither long nor slow by neccesity but by choice, a savouring rather than a devouring), I came across this passage:

"For the inhabitants of Oxford are not in the world and when they do sally forth into the world (to London, for example) that in itself is enough to have them gasping for air; their ears buzz, they lose their sense of balance, they stumble and have to come scurrying back to the town that makes their existence possible, that contains them, where they do not even exist in time."

I find Marias' book to be one of the most astute that I have found about Oxford. On reflection of course I'm forced to wonder if this is not because it is, by nature, so astute about the city--cities themselves are as subjective and mutable as the books written about them, after all--but because it is so astute about my city. That is, Marias and I are both outsiders here (he Spanish, I American) residing in a place that did not birth us, a place where, significantly, "there's no one here who knew me as a...child." So what he sees in Oxford, and writes up in his work of fiction, and which I years later find to be nougats of genius observation, might well be passed over by someone else--I don't know.

This passage on London, though; on not existing in time: well, how often have I written about the London feeling, the dis-ease, the midnight anxiety and the trembling relief at coming home? I think of the walk from St. Clements to home, always taken in deepest night, in emptiness, as being cold, uncomfortable, but free: when we venture to London we are at the mercy of something else (real time, Marias might say, the world) and when we come back home to Oxford we feel liberated from these bounds.

I'm not saying we take the same view of the city, exactly--his is far more bitter, underscored by repeated assertions of the transience of his time in Oxford, how temporary his existance there. I'm only saying that there's a necessary overlap.

**

I'm flicking through my music. I can't find anything to fit my mood. I'm not sure there is anything, in all this world, to fit my mood. But the song that's on now, it goes, "Oh September, where did you go?" and I find it possible to feel that now, in midwinter, when September, not so far gone, really, seems a million miles away. There was still foliage on the trees then, and a mild eruption of autumnal colouring in the parks.

It's still beautiful here (I think--I've not been outdoors since Sunday). The reflections in the river are of such disconcerting clarity that the world looks upside-down sometimes. But I'm in such a state of self-pity at the moment that I refuse to notice this.

Some Amusing Sunday Things

We got our Official Warning from the TV Licensing division the other day. We've been getting similar warnings for almost a year now, most of which say variations on the theme, "you don't have a TV license, and since we assume you must own a television, that means you're breaking the law, and we're coming to get you." But this one, apparently, is the mother of all warnings, the Real Thing. "This is an official warning that the TV Licensing Enforcement Division will be proceeding with a full investigation of the above address," it starts.

Surely, I think, surely, the government has better things to do. The simple fact is that we have been ignoring these warnings because we are not, in fact, breaking the law. We do not own a television, nor do we "watch or record TV programmes as they are shown on TV" on any kind of device. But we've been amused by the TV Licensing divison's insistance that we're harboring secret television devices. The Man finally called them up to tell them to please stop sending their letters; someone is going to come to our house to make sure we're not lying, apparently. This makes us giggle.

In other news, this, though written back in September, is particularly relevent today. Firstly because it made us laugh, but secondly because I have discovered an alarming derth of socks in my wardrobe. Those that I am still in possession of--mostly holey or unravelling--are never in pairs, EVER. I don't know where they go, but I do know that underneath my boots I'm wearing two completely different kinds of thick wool hiking socks.

And finally, this from Tim Dowling in the Guardian's Saturday magazine: "I file through a mental list of things I have forgotten to worry about." I find Dowling especially likeable, but never more than today, when The Man, discovering this quote, tapped me on the shoulder and simply pointed. Point, as they say, taken.

The Shadow of Things*

Instead of going home after work, like I say I will, I park my bicycle on The Plain and cross over Magdalen bridge under a dusting of the tiniest snowflakes I have every seen. I detour through the Botanical Gardens, hushed now, and still, a flowerless expanse full of only of sleeping things, frost-bitten leaves and naked trees.

At Christ Church Meadow the Man calls, and we meet by the walls of Merton college, perambulate around the perimeter of the Christ Church playing fields while schoolboys in red rugby sweaters have a football game on the dark green grass.

Later, when he has gone for a coffee, I make my way around the whole of Christ Church meadow. I see three, maybe four other people on my travels, all of them solitary too, all of them shrouded also in a fog. I put my hood up to stay warm and watch the reflections in the green river, and the ice on a barbed-wire fence, and that soft white dust on the pathway.

The snow is kinder here. In Boston, I remember winters where it seemed fierce as a criminal, and just as evil. Even on a good day, it would coat the streets in heavy layers, become one with the ice and mud; and when it fell, it fell. Here it settles; it's gentle on the wind, unobtrusive, and sometimes you think maybe you're imagining it, that your mind has conjured it out of the cold. It's quiet and pretty; as if, so English has it become, it's afraid to offend.

The city looks more fragile these days. You can see the breath escaping the cold lips of every human here. We live this season in a city made of breath, and of frost, which fades under rare sunlight and cracks in the cold. The cyclists keep their eyes down, their scarves close to their mouths, but in spite of this there is a strange invigoration to be had in coasting down the High with a wind on your tail and your cheeks burning. Maybe it's the only way to feel really alive, when everything else has gone so frozen: to move, to work up a sweat, to remind yourself that in spite of the ice, you haven't frozen. There's warmth somewhere here.

From the upper reading room of the Bodleian yesterday I watched the sun set over the Radcliffe Camera. It was the first time I had ever set foot in the Bodleian. All I did was read and write, but I think it changed me; I think I'm a different person, in relation to Oxford, than I was before I entered. The feeling I got inside is the feeling I think I'm supposed to get in churches, but rarely do: reverence, a resonance deep down in the heart. A sense of surrender and of abandon, but happy abandon.

But still, the last few days have been seen through a haze of alienation. I think it's the fog, and the cold; but I blame the weather when conveniant, I know, and maybe partly it's my own introversion, rearing its ugly head, trying to suck me back into myself, trying to turn my thoughts sour. Bits of things seem wrong, somehow, backwards or upside-down, like maybe the painting I'm in is askew. All the right bits are there, but they're slanted, at wrong angles, and I haven't shifted with them. We have hot chocolate at a café on St. Aldates and I feel that I'm in the wrong part of town, somehow, that I've left a bit of myself somewhere else; we have a drink in the pub, at a table close by the door that we've never sat at before, and I'm restless. There's just a bit of me on edge, all the time. Even when I come back from the first truly satisfying run I've had in months (the kind that makes you literally grin while you're still on the street, the kind that's almost like sex, or drink, in the way it exhilerates you), there's something in the greyness of the day and the midday emptiness of the house that makes my own thoughts seem foreign.

I see people I know everywhere now--in the library, in the street, in the pub--and I think this is good, it means that this place is starting to belong to me in the same way that I, for better or worse, belong to it.

I see people I know everywhere now and, in this cold time, this austere time, I feel we don't quite connect, that we can't until the Spring, the thaw; but we watch each other's breath come in a cloud and are bound anyway by the beauty around us, enfolded in the city and her clever fog.

*Oscar Wilde: “I envy you going to Oxford: it is the most flower-like time of one’s life. One sees the shadow of things in silver mirrors.”

In Praise of Holey Jumpers (Or, The Other Holy War*)

Oh, apparently, there are rules about what I’m allowed to be wearing in my own house—unwritten, unenforceable rules. So secret I didn’t know about them until I opened up the Times today at work to discover that, despite the Middle East going to hell in a handbasket and the upcoming inauguration of a certain American president-elect, both of which had made it to the front page of the paper, the centerfold featured a dozen full-colour photographs of a pouty blonde wearing various configurations of jumper-tights-wool socks. The headline was something quasi-clever, like, “The (Staying) In Thing” and the first line of the (article? blurb?) read: (and I paraphrase) “Hibernating is understandable. Doing it old holey jumpers is NOT.”

I’m a big fan of the old holey jumper. I have an entire collection of them, mostly inherited from The Man, who rips tears in the armpits of his jumpers at a rate of about two per week, it seems: oversize, thick, unraveling-at-the-hems. Basically old duvets with armholes. And as they are a staple of my household wardrobe, I was shocked to discover that it’s not understandable that I might wear them whilst, say, washing the dishes, or watching a film on the couch, or writing in the study (which tends to be very, very cold).

I’ve come to the conclusion, after a fairly in-depth study of fashion magazines (well, after reading a lot of them in the bath, anyway) that fashion is utterly arbitrary. Forget what Meryl Streep says in The Devil Wears Prada: cerulean blue was only ever in vogue because, well, it just was—and only fell out of vogue because it did. If I had the right job, I could make fashion decisions for the world, too: give me a column in the front of any glossy Saturday magazine and see if I don’t get everyone to start dressing like me.

But despite all that, there’s a certain fashion magazine tone of voice: if you’re a girl, you probably know the one I mean. It’s authoritative. It’s almost propagandistic, it’s so convincing. It doesn’t once occur to you to question the assertion that peep-toe ankle-boots are in (PEEP-toe ankle-BOOTS, the rational side of your mind screams, but you shut it up at the first glimpse of Kate Moss modeling the trend). What do we humble readers know anyway?

So not only was I surprised to find that I was breaking standard lounging-around-the-house fashion etiquette, but I also quickly came to the conclusion that, in fact, I’ve become unduly sloppy in my hibernation-dressing lately, and, really, there isn’t an excuse for wearing hand-me-down-jumpers with gaping holes in exciting places. It’s probably not what Kate Moss would do, and it’s certainly not what the pouty blonde in The Times does.

But here I am at home, and the only thing I want to be wearing is—what else—a holey jumper. Preferably with holey tights (yes, I do own several pairs) and mismatched socks. And that authoritative fashion voice cannot permeate this inclination! She’s not allowed in my house; at least, she’s not allowed near my old jumpers.

But the best response, the most astute, I think, comes from The Man, who, upon hearing the headline, had only one thing to say:

“Oh, fuck off!”

And then he turned on his heel in a jumper which is beginning to show a little wear in the armpits.

*despite my penchant for bad puns, The Man actually came up with this one...