I will never love London

I went to a fireworks party on Thursday in Finsbury. That was the good part, the wine and the sparklers and the fifteen girls screaming in unison as the boys lit roman candles under a big tree.
Then I stood at a bus stop for forty minutes, watching four buses sail past, the smell of dope from the man smoking a spliff ten feet from me turning my stomach, a memory of a bad night two years ago.

I made a telephone call and bitched about it.
"If bloody Boris had a daughter [just wikipedia'd that and, er, he has two] do you think he'd be okay with her standing on her own in North London for nearly an hour?"
Hadn't heard about him chasing off the Oiks in Camden at that point.

Eventually a friend turned up and we got lost together while he berated me about wandering around on my own at night.

I am rubbish at living in London. There is so much to do but I have no money to do it. When I do have money to do it, I will no longer have any time, apparently.

I have a horrible cold and this is a horrible city.

stuff on my desk

photo of my sister aged 15
blank valentine's card
fitness first timetable
Guardian article about boyfriend
incomprehensible science paper written by above
an "Alternative Personal Statement" composed by friends when aged 17
birthday card from Economics teacher
diary that looks scarily like Gideon Bible
two lamps that don't work
photo of EA on D of E giving the camera the finger
photo of AL in graduation gown
list of "Things What Are Large" produced at 21st birthday party
postcard with bird labelled "Mystic Tit"
calendar with mock exams in orange highlighter
pile of Civil Litigation work I am going to do now

freedom

As my friend PC puts his feelings about the BNP's appearance on Question Time last night: 'They're wankers. We knew that.' He thinks we should all go and do something other than twitter about it.

He's right, but a little late. Why did anyone even watch Nick Griffin last night? If you know he's a fascist, and you don't agree with it, why even give his opinions the time of day? I'm all for free speech but you're just as free to choose what you listen to.

The best thing anyone can possibly do now is use their vote against the BNP. Vote Lib Dem, if you must (sorry, boyfriend). Watching Nick Griffin defend racism is hardly anything to feel smug and informed about.

nobody at the gym is cool

Oh my God, man on the cross trainer flapping his arms. Are you trying to fly? It can't be that awful.

Irrational creeping hatred for Paolo from yoga class as he gets on the treadmill in his stupid too-short tracksuit bottoms.

I look like a total dick when I run.

Thankfully, so does everybody else

under the

I've bought the new Basement Jaxx album. It's on, now. I can't think of another band whose new releases I've always rushed to buy.

Miss McG influenced my musical expansion, third year university finally tumbling into albums I must have loved subconsciously before. I saw her on Sunday, hesistant and pretty (vintage says MM) in the Cambridge sunshine.

Today I sat in a conveyancing seminar and put together fragments of what she'd said, stitching her words with thoughts of my own and missing that year with an empty stomach ache.

Remembering PC saying you just don't care what people think. Until he said it I had no idea it was true. Now, it doesn't seem so accurate. I'm not sure what changed.

I miss parts of myself.

oh

My. Even THM has started posting again.

I have written nothing this summer. I left my notebook at home when we went to Spain. Granada and the Alhambra are lost to memory.

Yesterday; Hyde Park, 99 Flake, the Memorial Fountain. The water was clear cold. Later we cook a meal we ate on holiday, and then you watch the terrible programme I love and spin me around the half landing in happy mockery of my delight.

I can't get enough of you, my chin on your sharp collarbone.

I have written nothing because all I want to write is you. And who wants to read that but me?

grr

So, for reasons unknown, I've been behaving like a total bitch recently. I thought it was exam stress, but, no, exams are done now. Overtired? Certainly, but that doesn't account for being a twat last night. Or on Friday, over a sodding dress. What the hell.

Just resolving to get on with it and stop being ridiculous. I think it's the change thing, sad all over again at a departure that isn't my own. (But it is, in a way, losing all connection to the city I love better than any other).

...

Working a law firm in Bristol for the week. Loved the first day, and I hadn't expected to. I was awake until gone five am worrying about it. See, ridiculous.