2004-11-29..5:11 p.m.

IT ARRIVED TODAY!!! My Christmas parcel from the fam(ily) back in Can(ada) came today and as you can well imagine their eldest daughter in nearly crosseyed with excitement by this point and the fact I�ve got a WHOLE MONTH to wait is KILLING me! M asked if I�d opened it yet (silly boy) and was forced to rather meekly retract his suggestion of cheating after the launch of my fullscale (if whispered because at work and on the phone) attack on his sanity.

The weekend was fab: full of getting wriggly with M, heaps of lounging and eating and sleeping. Friday night I fell asleep at half9 (the last thing I remember was being draped over M�s lap while he stroked my hair and promised me Patricia wouldn�t mind if I didn�t go to her house warming party and me insisting that �I�m fine, just let me know when you�re ready to go�), and awoke around half7 Saturday morning fully refreshed to an empty bed. I later found M wandering the kitchen quite bewildered trying to work the tap; charred sausages and singed pipes of chipped potato glowing dangerously on the stove top. I sort of took over at this point: hand-feeding him some toast and pouring a couple of pints of water through him before carefully leading up the stairs and stripping him ready for bed. I awoke again around half12 to him gazing, a bit less bloodshot, at me and trying to work up the energy to reach across to the water sitting on the floor all the way on the other side of me. The rest of the day was spent trying to find the pluck to embark on a breakfast mission (completed at a place south of where we live nearing Catford, Coffee Bay, way too fucking expensive, not great. Avoid it.), going to Sainsbury�s*, lounging with The Counterfeiters despite the fact I ought to be reading Judith Butler or at least some Kafka while M played Grand Theft Auto**.

*In Sainsbury�s on Saturday we decided to get crafty and take advantage of their 3-for-2 sale on cranberry juice and buy a whole crate of it (So crafty indeed, the whopping savings came to �1.60). So we�re standing in the check out waiting for all our things to go through and the (male) Indian teller winks as he scans it in and says, �Very good for women, not so good for men�.
**I was completely opposed to this game before I saw it � my arguments ranging from the gratuitous and unnecessary violence to the totally misogyny to the rampant stereotyping of the characters at large � and to a degree I still am opposed to it on all those levels because if you are a moron. (Must. Resist. Urge.) you won�t be able to separate the fact that it is a GAME. And not real life. Too bad most people who play this are morons. (I failed.)

In any case all this really means is that a. unlike anyone in my class I�ll have none of the readings done for next week and b. unlike my parents, I�ve not managed to do any shopping for Christmas at all yet, though I�ve decided that this Friday evening will be the big night. A blow out bonanza of bauble buying. (Go Team Alliteration!!) I�m pretty much set for Dad (either Beth Orton or a Velvet Underground CD)(he, unlike my old professor as moaned about in the entry-previous-to-this, is still really fucking hip to the scene), but as per usual I�ve no clue for my sister. I�d like to get her a top or something, but due to her evershinking waistline I don�t know her size any more. I�d like to get her a book, but I�m not sure I�d be able to get anything she�d be interested in. I�d like to get her something unusual, but anything funky costs way more than I can reasonably afford. It�s driving me nuts. Any suggestions? (haha! I actually remember one idea, a Phil Collins CD! Because she�d actually like something like that. Ha ha. It is to laugh. Ha ha. It is OVER MY DEAD BODY)

I think my eczema is coming back and my face is all itchy and I�m feeling super chunky for the lack of proper exercise (and the MONSTER AMOUNTS OF PIZZA I had yesterday. MONSTER! RAHR PIZZA!) and I�m hoping Matthew bought me a second hand bike for Christmas, but I doubt it (we have a limit of �25, for which I know you CAN get one at Spitalfields, but it�s kind of pushing it). If I say so myself I�ve ordered the BEST PRESENT IN THE WORLD for M: a first edition, first issue of the comic series Badger from 1983 and signed by the fucking author. I�m really excited to give it to him, though worried he might have it (rather extensive comic collection that I�ve no chance of sneaking a glimpse through).

THE PART WITH THE WORRYINGLY PSYCHEDELIC DREAMSCAPES

I think it was Schmutzie who commented on the almost frightening vivacity of dreams experienced as a side-effect of going on the patch, and I�m beginning to wonder if it�s not so much the Patch as the Nicotine Withdrawal. Because ever since I�ve started cutting back on the nico-intake, I�ve been plagued with some very seriously scary dreams. I scrawled this into my Moleskine:

Dreams last night � working in caf� and being late for first day, making strawberry smoothies thick and bubbly like magnesium and thinking how pleased they�ll be to find out I can make espresso (general feeling of desperation. Will be found out as a sneak)
- second, interviewing a band in their house, large and imposing ceiling � red and gold carpet, dank � have to break half way through to spray mould remover on the walls, the wallpaper covered in a thick forest of furry white, as I look closer it�s everywhere, right around the pipes inside the walls, I spray those too. (not sure which is stronger, disgust or apology)
- third, at a �healing pond� filled with some sort of salt to keep you buoyant, I�m surprised and delighted to find I can stand, if cautiously on the surface. The pond is lined with banks of ice and snow, it�s foamy. A crowd of soft black Alsatians join me, they dive into the water to reveal human bodies underneath. Am both Edwardian lady choked by a corset and a luxuriously combed golden retriever. Eventually we all lay fully clothed, sprawled lazily, giddy and flirting. There�s a man who resents our chatter and scolds those who get too close.
- fourth, I have a dream friend � an Alsatian? � who I clamber with into a small closed room. It�s full of instruments, so full we sit on amps and the empty barrels of drum cases. We are accused of recording a metal demo onto the phone of the same guy from the dream before, he�s really pissed off but we tell him we were just having a laugh. I play an electric lyre-accordion hybrid.
- fifth, at the edge of a stream � downstream from the pond? � something to do with a duckling, trying to pick it up, urgent that I do so � got frightened by a gawping catfish just under the surface, it�s blue, it has a huge mouth � a flash under a root, a water rat. It�s too quick, it was upon the duckling breaking its neck before I could move, I couldn�t save it � they start swarming, I leap for a branch to pull myself to safety, but it�s not strong enough.

I woke up kicking, on the verge of tears. The last one especially was really vivid: greens and browns in sharp contrast, blues and silvers mingling, something orange, almost fungal, where the branch started to lose its grip. The duckling grimaced at my touch and shrank as the rat clamped down around its neck.

I know it�s just a dream, but it was horrible.

THE PART WITH THE EXCITING ANNOUNCEMENTS

1. M�s band, The Bishops, is playing on FRIDAY night! They�ll be at the Montague Arms in New Cross, entry only �3, and will be FANTASTIC. I have to admit though, I�m getting really nervous. I can do absolutely nothing to make this go smoothly for him. I refuse to write for them - press releases maybe, but no reviews. Too much of a conflict of interests. So all I can do is sit. And get drunk. And nervously twist a lock of hair between my fingers, smoke more than I ought to, try to breath quietly and listen over the cagey rattle of my ribcage.
2. Nelle might be coming over for New Year�s! I cannot wait to see her! It is simply not right that I only get to see this girl once a year. Jesus. What the fuck will I do if she does actually make it to Korea next year?
3. On Saturday I got to door with MC at the Betsey. While perusing the possibilities of 1930s Italian horror I came upon the most brilliant potential for my Intellectual Context essay: voyeurism as the endgame of Cubist literature. The unfolding of perspective leads to an unequivocable acknowledgement of the presence of absence, which has the subsequent result of demolishing narratorial reliability by exposing it as mere voyeurism. I think. Ok, so it�s not brilliant yet, but I�m definitely onto something, I can feel it!
4. M and I came up with the BEST THING to hit next year�s EuroSong Contest EVER! Some robo-rap, some two-part off-key harmonies, a little electro-warped drums. Lyrically it is a masterpiece, there will be a chorusline of Christmas-In-Heaven girls doing jazz hands in the background and smiling. It will RULE.

This week I promise to be more productive. I promise.

****meep

ps, dig how I totally did a brand-drop up there? M gave me a skinny tiny Moleskine on Saturday to jot my musings and I love it. I love the feel of the cover, I love the texture of the binding. I�m almost certain that it both means the end of seepage (ah, the thick thick pages) and the start of drainage (of my bank account, dude they are Expensive!)