fourth floor feminism | sociable speculation

Today it rained heavily for about 20 seconds at 8.12 when I stepped, umbrella-less, out of the door to work. I went back for the umbrella. This took all of a minute. By the time I got back out it was drizzling. I barely raised an eyebrow. I remember sitting in my room in the middle of the English 'summer' just past, rearranging my photos and postcards on the wall and trying not to look outside. I tended to overuse non-descript when describing the weather this summer, but I will use it again because the only better way to describe it is as an absence of weather and that is just silly. One boring and grey day, as I sent my reluctant gaze outside like a child into the gloom of England's summer, my mind had itself an epiphany – I could write a book about eternal summer and beautiful gardens and adventures and ...! I suppose, then, that the sunny, balmy days of English children's literature were wishful and hopeful rather than factual. Given that I spent my genuinely sun...

I find England literary and historically thrilling and Saturday was one of those days when the thrill reduced me to ecstatic silence. Three months ago I decided to see the last night of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Hamlet in Stratford Upon Avon and I was determined not to do it alone. Half the shelf outside the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. So I ruthlessly organised seven other people to come with me (I say ruthlessly because no matter how many emails I sent out about the minutiae of it's organisation no-one ever replied to them bar Sue because she is organised) and all was good for my scheduled three hour perve-fest on Toby Stephens as Hamlet. It was a great pleasure to step off the train surrounded by a gaggle of friends instead of by myself, take possession of our own private inn instead of having to hang in the B&B lounge room by myself, Half the shelf outside our inn, The Queens Head. have dinner by the consensus of 'god we have 30 minutes and we c...

Woke up. Groused about how much sleep I don't get in bed and how much I was going to get in front of the computer at work doing stuff a trained monkey could do. Had lunch with Jacinta and laugh maniacally about stupid stuff. She is a treasure for what she puts up with. Told Ozy she was weird. Spent the rest of the day assuring her that was meant in an endearing fashion. Spent an hour nose-to-oil with portraits of the Tudors. Some of those 'favourites' of the first Lizzie were right lookers – especially the dandy with the long auburn hair. Watched three vaguely silly art-house animations that reduced Kate and I to uncharacteristic silence due to amazed incomprehension. Left in the middle of the question and answer session with the directors when a paragraph-length luvvie question from the critic to the artist was answered with 'well, I don't know what I really mean by using dolls, I am just making the film, I am just the puppet for larger forces ...' ...

Once upon a time there was a young woman (me) who lived with a lively couple called Matt and Monica. Sometimes this young woman had trouble sounding intelligent and this resulted in the embarrassing phenomenon of her referring to Mott and Manica so often it became the couple's nickname among the young woman's friends. To curb this habit of hers, she started referring to them as M&M. Sometimes M&M really did remind her of the famous chocolate that melted in your mouth and not in your hand. You melted them by intelligent conversation, not posing and glad-handing. Then, prompted but an email in which I made a clumsy, yet appropriate rhyme, Monica decided to channel the OTHER M&M. One of my friend's sent out an invite to a nightclub event to which she had been invited by a DJ. Another member of the list commented that the hostess was going 'street' on us. I admitted I would not be able to make it because I was going to a Terry Pratchett convention and m...

I got out of work today and the sky was clear. For me, this equates roughly to a lotto win. Very soon it will be pitch black when I get to work and pitch black when I get out of work. The pleasure of walking on sunshine is going to be curtailed cruelly very soon. So me, the Wookie (my classy but vast vintage fur coat) The Wookie, bought in Camden and named for a large imaginary animal because no-one could come up with a Russian name that I liked. and the clear sky strode off down Regent Street. I made a quick side trip to Liberty (very swanky department store) to buy pot plants for my hosts for dinner this evening. Since I got here I have started collecting bags from all the expensive shops. The trick is to buy something cheap that needs a big bag so it looks like you bought something expensive. So unfortunately the two dinky pot plants needed this vast purple Liberty bag to be transported on the tube. Shame. I walked through Carnaby Street and into the back streets of Soho,...

Welcome to my blog. *mutter* scrap that! something more exciting is needed ... It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a girl in possession of insane sociability must be in want of a blog. *grimace* something ORIGINAL please ... This is the blog that will launch a thousand thoughts. *wail* you are plagarising again! I like to write, I love to share, I adore the idea of banging on about whatever I wish on the internet. Thus my experiences will live here in this little corner of blogger.com. It is rather rudimentary at the moment - I have been lazy in filling it up. This happens, I find, when you have too much fun doing the interesting stuff and not the discipline to write it all down! Over the next two weeks I will be back dating many posts, so when you get on be sure to check the August and September archives for new tales. For all those coming from Travelling with Clairebear, everything before June is old material from that board. I must explain that the lau...

Today was the kind of day you are glad you lived through, but hope you only have once in a while. I had my first big party in London on Friday and I got immense pleasure from seeing all the many and varied friends I have acquired here chat and mix, promising that the winter will be warmed by good conversations and easy companionship. Monica, Ely, Ozy and Lizzie at my party . Last night I saw Kristen off at the airport after spending our first week together for a year. We had five days on my first ever trip to Paris and then five days in London culminating in the party so she could meet all the people I had talked to her about in her weekly phone calls. Kristen and I in Paris . I finally have a regular paycheck and was able to shop for the first time in almost six months. We had had friends to stay the whole weekend, cooked good food and had great running conversations that had filled the weekend with laughter. To remind me just how much a heart can hold in both happin...