Four years of this blog – and you'll pardon me for writing so few entries over the past four months; I promise I haven't stopped writing completely.
In fact, next week I'm in Milan and Parma for a trip to our exchange partners; I was naturally a bit intimidated by going to northern Italy wearing my usual scruffy clothes (especially those awful shoes, which should have been replaced at least eight months ago), so Merrie helped me shop yesterday so that I would look decent enough to pass muster. The shoes we bought weren't quite her choice, but she thought they were, um... acceptable. And hey they were cheap.
And the linen sports coat – can I go for a bit of a silver-fox look?... All I really want in life is to live with George Clooney, or at least look faintly like him. (Feeza won points by saying she thought I looked more like Robert Downey Jr., which after the Sherlock Holmes film is a pleasant compliment. If, of course, exaggerated. Anyway, I'm at least an inch taller than he is....)
Most annoying part of the shopping trip: why is Lady Gaga's 'Telephone' playing so often in every single damned store? It was actually rattling through my head at 4 am, and although the video is interestingly decadent there's very little to the song itself. Most fun part: trading quips with Merrie for about five hours – we decided we were doing Nick and Nora Charles, without the dog....
Then in mid-June I'm back to Zürich, this time for three weeks, to study at the Jung-Institut. A bit unfortunate that I'll still be in a small hotel rather than a rented room with access to a kitchen, and of course it will cost more than I like – but still pleased to be going. It's actually hard to imagine quite what I will know, or think, at the end of the three weeks: of course that's the point of it all.
What else? Many dreams, some startlingly resonant, others repetitive. Students anxious as exams approach, but they are generating somewhat fewer silly problems than usual. More focus and confidence on writing, which I suppose is real news, although only when it actually results in things getting finished. And I'm a British citizen now, though it's disappointing to get notice of that on the day after such a scruffy, miserable, threatening result to a contested election.
Money, plans, future: a large tidal wash of planning aspects of the future, of trying to construct an old age that won't be too uncertain or miserable.
And, surprisingly often, temporal glimpses that run far forward or far back: a sense of the complexity of time, and how important it is – or would be – for us to be constantly aware of the complex changes, possibilities, limitations of our time on earth, and how they should affect all of our decisions....
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