Schizophrenia explains it all...

Thank you BBC for providing me with a fantastic excuse for being a bit of a tart at times. (Was going to use the word 'awesome' in there but feel have massively over-used it of late, is due to being surrounded by Americans influencing my vocabulary with their appalling lower-middle class attempts at adjectives). Apparently, according to some research by the OU and Newcastle Uni, people who are 'artistic' generally have 'schizotypal traits' and this somehow leads them onto having more 'sexual partners' (aka, thump monkeys, in non technical terms). See? I have academics backing up my actions. In addition to this, people who have accused me of being mild-Aspergers (something low down on the autism scale) have further added to my strong arguments that I simply Can't Help It.
Do you think this defence would stand up in court? No, I didn't either.
I was going to lead this into a whole expose (e with an accent there) on the merits of sleeping with people, but am pulled up short - you'll be glad to hear - because I had an email the other day that reminded me of two people who read this blog and maybe, well, maybe I should stick with a more moral approach to life. (Hello J & G, I hope you don't take everything I say on here entirely literally and I haven't lowered myself in your minds).
Right - today is my day for Sorting Out India since I have done very little in that direction, down to I don't have anywhere to stay yet, no travel insurance, the batteries in my camera have died, and oh bugger, I haven't started taking anti-malarials and think I should today. Or is it tomorrow. Doh. I did arm myself with vast quantities of sun lotion of various factors in Sainsbury's yesterday (really feel that when you spend over £20 on such a substance it should come complete with Free Man to rub it into your back), and for safety's sake endless packets of diareeze for the inevitable Delhi Belly. (I say 'inevitable', since I don't eat curry and am ludicrously careful when I travel I think, fingers crossed, I should be okay). Despite increased lardiness, the bikini does still fit, and I managed to squeeze into my shorts the other day for when I'm in the tourist areas. Which I get the feeling could be a large portion of the trip as I really do need a beach, palm, monkey and book and not much else.
Somehow made it to nearly midday and I've achieved nothing. Right - off out to be Efficient and Organised. Despite my schizophrenic, Aspergers, personality. Ha.

Getting fed up with being cold...

As most of you are fully aware, I just don't 'do' cold. Terrible things happen to my body. At the moment, for example, I have the Annual Zit Convention taking place on my chin, and the blighters clearly have a lot to discuss this year as they're settling in for the long run by the looks of things. Additionally - and totally illogically - when it is cold my body gets mighty confused by everything and takes it upon itself to sweat gallons. Put me in a hot climate and I'm fine, into a cold room and suddenly GUSH, leaking all over the place. As with many others, I am forced on a daily basis to wear a hat, something I put off until the last possible moment because my already ghastly hair becomes somehow ghastlier when it has been concealed by a warm fleecy number for anything over thirty seconds. My face becomes white and pinched, my nose alternates between streaming or Rudolf-impersonating, and as a final defence invites a load of spots to come visit in an effort to, I don't know, provide padding and get warm or something.
In addition this year, I have the joy of having to deal with a bike. Gloved hands are not nimble enough to get the numbers of my bike lock code into the correct order, and therefore I start my day off (frequently at 6:30am) with a nice bout of frostbite-inducing metal-touching. This whole process is repeated every time I leave my bike somewhere, and thus I am caught between walking to avoid the bike-related nastiness, or cycling to avoid the walking-related nastiness. Neither exactly gets the whole body warm. Could really do with being able to row to lectures - now that gets every muscle group going.
I hate being cold (especially in this country, there is remarkably little point when snow is a freak occurence and generally it is cold for no reason at all), I look terrible when it is cold, and I hate having to make the decision between being warm and wearing ten jumpers in true Michelin Man style, or being cold but remotely fashion-conscious. As fashion-conscious as I get. I am a person designed for warmer climes, ideally a place that magically turns cold on the rare occasions when I want it to - you know, snuggling up by the fire with somebody (in actual fact have never DONE this, just always rather fancied the idea), playing a nicely flirtatious game of snow balling (have done that and honestly can't recommend as ended up in casualty with the other party, him having slipped and almost broken his wrist), y'know, couply wintery stuff.
No, warm places are the way forwards. That way as well you get to avoid any nasty surprises when you leap eagerly into bed with someone - I mean, a pair of speedoes doesn't exactly leave much to the imagination and you have advance warning of what are actually very narrow shoulders cunningly disguised by clothing, or such nasties as the Hairy Back.
Right - I'm off to hand wash all my jumpers. Since the only warm jumpers are woollen ones, which obviously can't go in the washing machine. Another stupid thing about this blasted time of year. GRRR.
Oh - quickly though. My brief bonus of recent days. I drove an E-Type Jag. V12 engine. Yuh huh, I did too. Think I have possibly found an activity that supercedes sex - or at least bad sex. Driving an absolute BEAST of a car. (Yes Andy, maybe you're right, sex in the back of an E-type could in fact be the ultimate experience. If somewhat uncomfortable).

Developing morals...

Right - I am frustrating even myself here. This is a combined rant of 'morals' and 'singledom', and distressingly the two are finally coming together for me. If you scroll back a few months, I remember writing a post with the pros of singledom, and this definitely included the option to randomly sleep with guys on odd occasions. Which is satisfying on a number of levels, including the fact that I could easily go beyond my standard 'physical level' as it were and ended up with some particularly delectable individuals.
Okay, just had a ten minute break to amble down memory lane. Where was my point going... Oh yes, I used to have it made. I lived on my own in the middle of nowhere, thus it was very easy to have 'gentleman callers' and nobody had to be any the wiser on university campus the next day, plus I was used to living by myself, being by myself, and was absolutely fine with that. I am now living in a shared house which means that nobody can call (let alone anything else) without somebody noticing, and also I've gotten used to having people around. I now generally loathe weekends as half the people I know in Oxford go careering off in the direction of their respective partners and leave me to twiddle my thumbs or spend time with one of the very few single people I know here. And their numbers are dwindling rapidly as more and more are finding 'other halves'...
This has a point. It definitely had a point. Oh yes. I was quite willing to settle back into a lifestyle of debauchery (housemates and their comments aside) when I came to Oxford but have found from somewhere, God knows where, morals. They are messing with my life. This weekend I was forced to tell someone not to visit on the basis that they like me too much for 'casual sex'. Do you have any idea how frustrating this is?? It ultimately means I'm on the lookout for something more than that - and yet, simultaneously, I don't think I'm ready for 'more than that'. I am actually destined to be single and henceforth celibate. (Oy - some of you, stop laughing). In two weeks time I have the ultimate test of how strong my new found morals really are: I'll be hitting the tourist trail in India and everyone knows what some of the huge perks are of international travel...
So all of you get your fingers crossed that soon I either find a guy to genuinely sweep me off my feet (much as I disapprove of such dramatic gestures) , or I get over my moral-goodness. I'm starting to annoy myself with half the prudish comments I come out with these days. Sigh.

Neruda

Indeed - Neruda. I thought I'd educate some of you out there. Pablo Neruda, amongst multiple other things a fairly awesome poet from Chile. Have spent the evening cheerfully immersing myself in a deepening depression by reading through some of poems of the most undiluted misery that I know. Anyway, I thought I'd put one on here - which is ultimately, well okay you decide what it is. But whichever way you view it, unless you are a peculiarly soul-less individual, you must surely view it as a beautiful work of art. I apologise for those of you who read Spanish and are offended by the poor English translation...

Tonight I Can Write by Pablo Neruda, translated by W.S. Merwin

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, 'The night is starryand the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her.
To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.This is all.
In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another's. She will be another's.
As she was before my kisses. Her voice, her bright body.
Her infinite eyes. I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Why I curse the radical feminists...

For those of you lucky enough not to be in the know, the radical feminists were those bra-burning enthusiasts of the 1960s/70s who 'liberated' women from the role of house-wife and home-maker. I say, blast them. I could be living it up at the moment, married to some fool of a guy who charges out of the house at the crack of dawn and doesn't return until late in the evening, working his socks off so that I and our inevitable sprog have somewhere to inhabit. What were those feminists thinking - we women had it sorted. Okay, so every now and then there was the odd plate to wash, but we now have the wonderful invention of the dishwasher. And the huge bonus feature is that you don't even have to see the guy most of the time - he's too busy out and feeling important and 'manly' earning a decent wage. The joy of the fling with the milkman is lost forever as single women frankly don't have time for such delightful indecencies. They are too busy balancing work and social life and child care and household chores.
Whereas loads of women were suddenly up in arms, declaring that we wanted the same rights, I say they were the fools. 'Patriarchal society' indeed. Women had it MADE, and the guys didn't even seem to question it. We could sit around all day reading and 'bettering ourselves' by learning to play the piano, perhaps doing a spot of needlework, taking a gentle stroll about the garden and upon returning to our easy chair by the hearth arrange the flowers we found there. Constructing a cake - although not exactly my forte - is hardly classifiable as a tough day's work.
No, now I'm expected to work. To have a career. To be terrifyingly independent to the point where I either terrify all guys who daren't speak to me lest they anger me, or to the point where I refuse to speak to them for fear of giving up some of my hard-earned independence that I should really appreciate because so many women fought for it.
Damn them.
Damn 'liberation'.
I am CLEARLY designed for a life of idleness, perhaps pushing a pen about a page once in a while at a pretence of earning some money. Looking after kids? Fine by me - since my future sprog will not be attending school and I do actually want to see my children occasionally. Ghastly places, schools, full of other peoples' ghastly children. Not having my kids bullied and teased and 'stressed out, man' for the sake of their experiencing the 'real world'. They'll have to live in it some day - stave it off as long as possible. Everyone so intent on achieving and 'fitting in' (thanks, UK government, for the latest idea on guidelines for three month olds and what they should be able to do) they forget that hang on, we've only got one life, might as well at least have an attempt at enjoying some of it.
Yeah - its a grand, idealised theory I know. Will go back to university work with a view to joining the rat race before much longer...

Only a month and I get to don bikini and shorts as standard clothing once again. India, here I come. Absolutely can't wait for sun, real sun! (For all of you who are concerned reading that - don't worry, I will cover up away from tourist areas. I do have respect for other cultures...). Tanning. Wow. Heaven.  

Gossip

I remember a friend once telling me a story about some mutual friends of ours who had recently broken up. According to the story, the guy turned up on the girl's doorstep one evening with a list that included what annoyed him about her, what she could do better (strong indications that the bedroom department was involved here), and why they should break up. She promptly slams door in his face and well, yes, it was kind of over after that.
Come on - that just wouldn't happen. It was entertaining. I made the mistake in a moment of pre-lecture-boredom of telling yet another mutual friend of this episode, and within a few hours had received a complete rant of an email from the girl in the tale informing me that I was a malicious canniving bitch who shouldn't spread such rumours. I might have felt guilty except that this particular wench was instrumental in making my life hell for more than a year with regard to my personal life - and she really did get personal. No comedy stories of something that blatantly couldn't have happened. (Er - well, I'm really hoping not...).
So as a rule, I'm against gossip. I like gossip - I mean, I'm interested in people. I love knowing the ins and outs of this and that but if somebody tells me to shut up, go away, leave it, then generally I do. Because I know what it is like to be perpetually discussed and have a private life analysed that frankly has nothing to do with anybody else.
I've gotten to the point where I'm so against gossip that I deliberately go out of my way to ensure the opposite of whatever is implied actually happens - in other words, I let annoying mindless moronic idiots dictate half of my personal life. As a general rule, I don't care what other people think. And as a general rule, people don't say what they do really think about you - except somehow as regards your 'chosen partner'. Which should be the most sodding personal aspect of your world and yet it is seen as open territory to be discussed at large.
I could rant forever about this, my past experiences have made me so mad. But I'll shut up now and just leave you readers with the thought that if I choose to mention something to you, if I talk to you about something, then okay. Discuss it. Otherwise, go jump. None of your goddam business. GRRR.
NB. This is not directed at anyone specifically. Maybe warning a few of you for future reference.