I don’t doubt that you—you babe in the woods, you—think it would be a splendid thing indeed to be so engaging as to acquire yourself a twitter of eager admirers. I’m loath to callously swat away such quaintly misguided notions but I believe it will be kinder in the long run.
The Suburban Safari Glee Club* rebuked me yesterday—rebuked, if you please!—for my inattention to the betterment of their lives of late. And so it is my obligation to put the world right. (See what a vexed blessing this renown is?)
As attentive readers will have deduced, my absence from your screens has been a result of my having commenced study. It’s been quite taxing, far more so than I’d anticipated. Annoyingly, I seem to be something of a delicate flower, and come over with an attack of the vapours whenever I’m called upon to leave the house more than a couple of times a week. My corporeal self appears programmed for regular nana naps and general leisure. Not that university has interrupted this habit entirely; I indulged in a little horizontality by the lake on campus yesterday. Sadly, I had inadvertently stretched out in the path of spray from the fountain in the middle—I could just feel the cryptosporidium burrowing into my skin—and so didn’t actually manage any quality zeds. Some of the vile lake water landed on my lips, for heaven’s sake!
Yesterday marked the beginning of the writing subject. It was a welcome relief because, just between you and I, I’ve been finding the French a little tiresome, so have been concerned that the whole “Hey! Let’s go get a degree!” trip was ill considered. I knew I was on solid ground when the lecturer quoted Don Watson, Stephen Fry and William Lutz. I sat even higher in my nylon-covered chair as she served a rich smorgasbord of the style of bureaucratese I have rammed down my throat every day at work, and labelled them “Wank Words”. Alright! As the minutes skipped on she sliced and diced word crime upon word crime, many of which have had my fingers itching for the red pen over the years; I wriggled in my seat, silently gasping yes! Yes! YES!! There may well be a place for me in the world after all.
Following the lecture I laid eyes on my tutorial group for the first time. This brought an unwelcome fact to my attention once again: when forced to view people at close range I feel a strong surge of misanthropy. I don’t much like them. Camels are lovely at a distance: graceful, noble, endearing. Altogether very nice. Up close they’re ugly, bristly, threatening, have big yellow teeth and give off a foul stench. So too, humanity from afar wells my heart with fellow feeling and compassion, but once within earshot the majority of people give me the screeching irrits within around half an hour. It shames me to admit it, but it is so. (Says a lot about my suitability for working in human services, eh?) People, like communism, are a superb concept, one I support whole-heartedly… just so long as they stay Over There.
As I say, I take no joy in seeing this in myself, but as our tutorial wore on I felt my heart grow leaden at the thought of having to interact with these people for an entire semester. My chest tightened. My jaw clenched. My eyes flicked involuntarily towards the door.
Some salvation came in the form of the tutor. I’d heard tell of the unrestrained dottiness of academics, and I’m delighted to find some truth in it. What an interesting man! 5 words, stand up, try to open window, sit down. Stand up. Sit down. Shift plastic bag one inch to the left. 12 words. Stand up. Sit down. Shift bag. 6 words. Stand up, go to door, discuss whether or not to shut it, sit down, leaving door open. Stand up, attempt to open window, shut door, attempt to open window, sit down. Shift bag. Explain that language can never be reality because, by its nature, it can only ever convey via metaphor. A tree is not a tree, that is to say, “tree” is not “a tree” because “tree” is a word and not a tree. Does everyone understand? Blank looks all round. Shifts bag. Opens door.
I suppose I’m not painting a very flattering picture, but in fact I liked him very much. I did understand that “tree” is not a tree; I‘ve got a print of Magritte’s pipe, y'know. I was just too tired and too full of disdain for the class to be arsed saying so. I was hot. I wanted my lunch. I wanted the window open. I shouldn’t have worn jeans on a 32-degree day. Maybe if I wear a cool, breezy skirt next week my heart will open, I’ll embrace the other hungry minds in the group and together we can gorge ourselves on knowledge along this next exciting leg of our life journeys, growing as writers, flourishing as people and forging unbreakable bonds of friendship along the way. But I fucking doubt it.
