Odo et Amo

2005-07-27T14:36:00.000-07:00

London doesn't really work as petty at the moment. However, I'm on the outskirts of Wandsworth with nothing to occupy me until 10 October, so I'll do my best.

I went paintballing at the weekend. Then I did an assault course in 12 mins as part of a team of seven. Then I went for a roll down a hill through a load of nettles in the wee hours. I am now a little bit of a mess. My bruises and cuts are fascinating in their variety (to me, anyway). My left arm is virtually unmarked, except for the almost constant pins and needles and the swollen knuckle. My right has a small, dark brown bruise on the wrist, a larger plummy grey one on the inside near my elbow, three matching spots where I scratched the nettle rash too hard and a grey-yellow bruise on the upper outer arm.

My left hip has a purple and yellow bruise that is growing by the day while the one on my stomach has faded almost to nothing, a patch of slightly darker pigmentation. My left leg has an ivy green bruise on the calf, a thin cut bisecting my shin and four brown bruises like a pawprint on my knee. Jut above the knee is a yellow bruise with three dark purple patches and, two inches higher to the left and an inch higher on the inside of my thigh are two twin yellow and purple bruises. On the left, two nearly black bruises mark the top of my thigh and the bottom of my back, while three inches above my knee is a purple and orange beauty about two inches long. The left hand side of my knee is covered with so many bruises you can't tell where one starts and ends. To the right, below the kneecap, a purple, brown and yellow make covers about three sq in. Smaller faint bruises scatter the rest of my leg, and a vivid blue, yellow and red patch surrounds a three-quarter inch gash, neat and healed over but of source unknown. My ankle is covered with nettle rash, four days later. Both heels have the cigarette burns of ill-fitting shoes.

Not sure why I needed to chronicle that - maybe to remind me to pack trainers next time I go to Yorkshire and to hide behind trees better!

2005-05-24T02:03:00.000-07:00

How can something so small and insignificant as someone else's kiss hurt so much that your heart flips and your face collapses? Part of me thinks I should have stuck with Catullus as a user name-I only wish I were capable of feeling so much venom rather than constantly forgiving only to get hurt again and again and again.

Snow tastes different in London.

2005-02-28T23:43:00.000-08:00

It really does. It has a metallic tang, an sour edge. Snow in the north tastes clean and refreshing and nothing is nicer than walking to work or to the shops and opening your mouth to catch the flakes on your tongue, or even eating a snowball provided there are not too many sheep in the same field. Tonight, I got some snow in my mouth on the way home from work and it was purely nasty. Spit spit spit, just thinking of it.

2005-02-14T00:23:00.000-08:00

I have new, clean sheets on my bed. I only bought them this lunchtime and have just taken them from the tumbledryer. They were warm enough when I put them on that they are now as neat and straight as though I had freshly ironed them. I can smell the heat and the powder and find it comforting, like bread baking. They are blue and floral, and by my toes as I type is a purple flower, like a daisy, about the size of my thumb. Tomorrow, they will have been used and I will soon want to start things over again. Now, however, their novelty is a part of their attraction and I look forward to cuddling up in them, and now I feel like I am sitting on a clear, white field of warm snow, where the flowers peek through miraculously and there is no grass or muck to ruin things.

Oh, and another thing.

2005-02-09T05:29:00.000-08:00

I've been seeing this a lot recently - "I was pouring over my favourite book". Um, no, you were not. You were poring over it. You can never pour over books, they will get wet and then they will be ruined. Like if you drop them in the bath. It is easy to remember.

2005-02-09T04:13:00.000-08:00

I noticed yesterday that the cleaner in my office had stuffed the toilet roll holder so full that you had to rip the paper out in centimetre squares. I'm sorry to start my blog on such a gutterish note, but the other week I heard her complaining about the mess we all leave in our toilets. We wouldn't do so if the dispenser was not so full.