Mr. Clean

I confess to you, my friends, that I’ve ever looked towards the next entry of the glog with a kind of horror. Being inclined by nature and, often enough, impelled by circumstance towards an anchoritic existence, my daily adventures are more than likely no more exciting that your own – and that does rather put me on the spot when the time comes for me to attempt to entertain you with the stories of my intrepid undertakings.  You all know me well enough – even before I moved to the mountain I was in the habit of spending my sober time reading in my room, and the rest of my time drinking in Rob’s.  The food that they serve up here is just fine, and it’s a long old walk down to town, so even before I returned for this semester I tended to spend more of my time on my own than I ever did back in England.

Well, the way it is here most people only exchange for a single semester instead of for the entire year. Upshot of that is that all my newly forged friendships are now suffering the strain of a few thousand miles – and whilst that hasn’t detracted overly from the standing alliances that I hold with any of you, I have less faith in the long-term integrity of these relationships.  That fact alone wouldn’t normally bother me too much, the loss of new friends never having had much sting in my certain knowledge that the most of my old friends remain alive, but in this instance the context of the thing has given it extra weight. As ever, I’m poor – poorer than usual, perhaps, saving up for travelling in August – and that means that I can’t be lubricating my way into companionship in the time honoured manner. So, here I am, faced with having to put real and actual effort into the construction of friendships that I know full well - thanks to my experiences of the last six months - will be scattered to the wind before I have to shave more than three times (though my own consideration of when a shave is required seems to be somewhat divergent from the standard).

I just can’t do it.

I can’t be bothered. I stay in my room and I read, and the sun, which is now angry and hot and an awful lot closer than when I first arrived, does its best to give me a tan through my window, my metal mosquito grille, my shirt and my battered black jeans (I did sew them up, but the first time I washed them a brand new hole appeared exactly below the endless stitching I did, and I’m not going to be arguing with fate). I drink tea. I drink so much tea that I sometimes have to excuse myself from a lesson two or three times. I save money. I try to eat less, and healthily. I write squint-eyed poetry and post it to Katie. Last week I was feeling so fucking clean and healthy that I decided to strap my feet to the bedpost and do Leon-style situps over the void. The pain, five days later, has only just receded.

But through the pain I have kept my eyes fixed firmly upon my goal. Through my rice-eating, tea-drinking, stomach-splitting hours reading books that I should I read ages ago I have been planning interesting things to do for your reading pleasure!

But first, due to my long absence  (for which I would apologise if I hadn’t enjoyed it so much) an update  is required. You’re dying to know, of course, what it was that dragged me away, and where I have been? I’ll tell you! But tomorrow, or the next day. It’s 9:21. Bedtime.

~ by gl0g on April 19, 2007.