2004-10-07..4:32 p.m.

Flatmate Adam asked me last night if my room was all sad and empty and I didn't really know how to answer. It was empty(ing) certainly. But there's nothing sad about it. Outside leaving my aunt's place (lived there for four months NEVER AGAIN!), I�ve never been more ready to move. I was completely packed by about half7, all went fine with the filling of boxes and suitcases, the last minute bed stripping this morning and blackbagging of linen�s and duvet and miscellaneous pieces of me being removed from my soon-to-be-someone-else's room. Went quite according to plan actually, though I�m quite worried I�ll have left something terribly important and mortifying behind.* I spent the rest of the night doing very little. Tidying a bit. Trying to fumigate the room a little for that lingering aroma of roasting nicotine weed. Debating when I should move things down. Reading. It was a nice little tribute to my final hours as official tenant of number 17.

*Like an empty sweet-bag of carefully still-wrapped emergency condoms. In the fire grate. Thank fuck for M being sound of mind enough to do an idiot check before he left this morning.

I just ate some apple and cheese slices a little too fast. (Actually I should be eating the cheese at all. I think I might be PMSing because last night I decided that a whole litre of chocolate milk was exactly what I needed. Today my stomach has been stoutly refuting that claim.)

I�ve decided The Way By Swann�s is one of the most beautifully prosaic novels I�ve ever had the pleasure of reading. It�s like the Dead Sea, allowing your mind to float and buoy aimlessly on the smallest of threads and veins of plot that lie stretch endlessly in front of you. A hazy sunrise of clarity. I don�t suppose that makes sense, nor much like a recommendation, but it is. Proust manages to capture things so succinctly that he achieves an almost effortless invasion of a willing conscious.

Busy but slow today. I feel like a slug. A brainheavy slug. Bellyheavy too, massive lunch. All my missives here are about food or books, aren't they. Hmmm..

Well this is something new. I�ve decided to have a pokey poke stab at HTML. Technology, bewildering chimera that it is, will have to bow to the pressure of my steadfast determination and nerves of the strongest unbendable steel. Steadfast. It is. Mostly.

****meep