2004-08-06..4:03 p.m.

[PREFACE: If you have no use for my inane listy ramblings, I don�t blame you. In fact, I suggest you scroll yourself downwards because I don�t get to any point anytime before list 4]

THINGS THAT SEDUCE(alphabetised to avoid favouritism):

Baking before anyone else gets home

Beautiful girls who don�t know it

Being read to

Blizzards and thunderstorms

Dictionaries

Eye contact

Kaleidoscopes

Knowing things about things

Libraries

Lofts and rafters

Minute details of everyday life

Newspapers and coffee brought to bed

Playgrounds

Pushing your glasses up your nose absentmindedly

Sailing crumbs from the crust of French bread

Sneaking your arms around me at a concert

The numbers 6 and 8

Trying to be quiet

Vacuuming

(What about Zantac? Zeugma? Zooming? Zygomorphic? Zounds! That's HOT STUFF, BABY!!)

THINGS THAT FAINTLY WORRY (as they came):

Skittering leaves in a gutter later at night

Toads in the middle of the city

Empty fishtanks

Mushy pears

Closed windows on hot days

Watermelon without seeds

Blank looks

Disembodied heads in cartoons

The mole on the bottom of my foot

Spiders in corners

The upholstery on trains

Icebergs

Birds in cages

Children on leads

The letters F and H

The number 5

A book left half finished

THINGS THAT DEEPLY SATISFY:

Folding paper almost 8 times

Untying ribbons

Grabbing hold tightly

Standing in front of a fan

Abusing company internet time

Setting small fires

Watching wreckingballs

Ink on skin

Juggling badly

Counting how many steps you�ve taken

Eating according to colour rather than taste

Reading by twilight

The sound of the sidewalk clunking back into place

Finding my name in the credits of films I really enjoy

Vanquishing raspberry seeds from back molars

Getting people�s names right

Using words in ways they weren�t originally intended, and coming up with something momentously entertaining (or, adding to common vernacular)

THINGS THAT MAY CAUSE GREAT EMOTION, or perhaps none at all:

*I found a run-down-flat hedgehog on the side of the road this morning as I was walking to work. Its little head had been torn from its body, and all its spines were askew. It was quite the most pitiful things I�ve seen in a long time.

*I didn�t shower this morning and have not been able to shake that tacky feeling. Like my skin is newly laid tar in the summer.

*I keep forgetting that I�m wearing red pants, deep like an early autumn wine, deliciously androgynous with all the lace and the boy-cut. Everytime I�ve had to nip down to the toilets (back to the 2litres a day, folks!) I get this o so decadent surprise and can feel myself flush with pleasure at the sight of them. Because it�s summer I�ve been trying to only where full-bum undies, which seems to go against every other girl I know. But the thought of a thong in the depth of this heat is too much. (We just skidded right past the crossroads of Too Much and Information and embedded the dash in a streetlight, didn�t we.)

*I had a Magnum at lunch. It was a chocolate-shelled steaming brick of vanilla heaven.

*I got my reading list for the first term e-sent to me. I was very nearly reduced to tears by it, so ecstatic it made me. The thought of a whole year of this is beguiling, that it is only a year shattering.

*the Boy and I made our first near-public gesture. The closet is open, but we�ve yet to step out. I�ve never been much of a PDA-expecting kinda gal, but this felt very natural and very much about time. Everyday I�m with him, the pain in my chest of crashing emotion and ringing in my ears from the waves of joy grow stronger and louder. I�ll be publishing my first book of poignant verse shortly before Christmas, get your orders in today.

Good weekend to you my sweets!

****meep