The thing about this week, I feel, was stress. Every day I think about finding a place to live, finding a job. It's been like this for weeks. And then add to that the, like I say, impending doom of university work and it all feels like too much. Managing the girlfriend too. And the commute: we've been living in South Elmsall and though I thought I'd only have to go to Leeds twice a week and could spend the rest of the time chilling here it's been nearly every day, and getting home late, and -
Sunday, like I say, I refereed that football match, and then Ali and I wandered around looking for houses, tried to go climbing at the gym - got there too late - and then rushed down an all-you-can-eat curry before I headed DIRECT for a 5-a-side football game with my old team down at Goals. The curry man said, how many you usually score? Two or three? Tonight you'll get six. I figured it's a real test of whether or not I am actually superhuman to play 5-a-side after an all-you-can-eat curry. But I scored 4, and missed a penalty, and to be honest should have easily had six but for the keeper making a lot of good saves. Nice to know I still got it, don't need to retire to the cards and the whistle just yet.
The other thing about this week that, on top of everything else, I organised WAY TOO MUCH SPORT. So, like I say, two football matches on Sunday (one reffed, one played); then 90 minutes of squash on Monday; then TWO 90-minute games of squash on Tuesday; then 9-a-side on Thursday (played first twenty minutes in goal, we were losing 2-0; I said, enough of that, went up front, banged in 4, set up another, and we won 6-5); then a game of squash on Saturday followed by reffing; then today I'm reffing and playing 5-a-side again. It was a bit ridiculous. And the squash was after classes, 8.15 till 9.45, and it was all a bit much.
Tuesdays abiding memory is turning up for the short story class not having written the story I'm supposed to have, nor having done the reading - a real paltry amount of reading - and I'm not quite sure how it's happened. Sit there feeling cross with myself and trying to put on a face that says, yes, of course I've done the reading, I just don't feel like adding anything to the discussion. Don't think it worked. Resolve to pull my finger out.
Oh, and also that was the day when my girlfriend read some of blog - including the last entry (Love?) and that obviously created some problems. Although she handled it very well - she handles everything very well (ooh: innuendo) - and we had a talk. Pretty good in the end - but must have been shit for her to read some of the things she did. Don't know what to say about that really. Poor thing. I wish she hadn't read it (don't put it out there in the public domain then).
Wednesday I got down to some essay research: it's about plagiarism and Malcolm 'fuzzy Jew' Gladwell and the playwright Bryony Lavery. My 'research' led me on to such topics as false memory, cryptomnesia and past life regression. Thought I'd write it over the weekend but, alas, that hasn't happened. So that leaves tomorrow.
And now, coming to Thursday, I realise that wasn't Wednesday all, that was Thursday. Wednesday, I meant to get down and do some research, maybe hit up a short story or two, but instead what happened was I woke up, realised I'd left my keys sticking out of a computer at uni (they're on a USB stick) and I spent a few hours feeling frantic and trying to get someone I know in Leeds to go and look for them (I don't really know anyone) before giving up and deciding, arses, I shall have to go and get 'em myself. So it's on the bike, down to the station, on the train, cycle to uni, look for the keys, they're not where I left them, let's go to security, but first this nice lady, and - there they are, right by her 'puter. So I got the keys. And, of course, it all worked out wonderfully.
On Sunday we'd been in Headingley and passed a newsagents and I'd jotted down some numbers for some flats (one of which I saw on Monday and thought we ought to take, for lack of wanting to look any more, though a 'warning' dream about it that night put me off). So I'm off to Leeds solely to reclaim some lost keys: that won't do. So I rush frantic and arrange to see some flats and, whaddya know, the first one I think is really sweet, it's dirt cheap - sort of dated and grotty, not the kind of thing you see on TV, the kind of thing everyone wants these days - but it feels good. Girlfriend sees it the next day, digs it too, and we sign up. We're moving in this afternoon. And all because I forgot my keys.
So that was Wednesday. Thursday I did my research. Friday, I tried to write stories, got flummoxed, had to make love to the girlfriend - she's been a bit deprived of late - and ended up not really doing very much at all. Seem to have lost faith in my ability to write (again). All seems sort of useless. I know I can write a half-decent short story - but what's the point when you've already got a world full of them and there are people like Carver and Roald Dahl and God only knows who else - I just read a Vonnegut book of short stories that wasn't even published and they were better than mine - and the crushing realisation that none of them are ever going to make an impression, how could they anyway? Plus the very act of writing itself, in which I've slid back to grinding to a halt after three sentences because it's not good enough, not perfect, needs editing, won't come out all in one fully-formed whole - even though I know in theory that the first draft's just the sketch, just the outline, just the 1% before the 99% of the work that makes it good. But arses if I can put that into practice. It's better when you're rubbish, you can just write any old tat - some of my classmates read out examples, samples that make me cringe, and they don't seem to mind. The curse of a little bit of knowledge. If only one could get away with puking out blogs that no one could possibly understand or enjoy - typing, not writing - and be loved for that (he jests).
So that was Friday. And then Saturday, which was yesterday, I felt the whole mad weight of the whole thing. Moving house. Organising a van. Organising a van to go today to collect stuff from South Elmsall, and a bed in Wakefield, and a futon in Huddersfield, and delivering it all to Leeds. Meeting the landlord and signing the contract and getting the keys. Rendezvousing with my brother, with the friend whose house we're currently renting, and sorting out all the money. Managing the girlfriend (a phrase I've already used once; interesting) and the timing of it all. All this I did yesterday. Plus, I'd promised the girlfriend a session on the climbing wall in Leeds, which we squeezed in before my squash game at 11.45 - then rushed to meet the landlord - then rushed up to far Headingley to referee that game, with just enough time for a sandwich, and it was all too much. I was shit, and my boot fell apart, and I finished the first-half with one foot merely sockéd (please pronounce that right) and I hope it'll be better today 'cos I do enjoy the prospect of this refereeing lark. And then we went home, and I was drained, and my stresses had leaked onto my girlfriend - obviously all through this was the pressures of essays and stories and reading still undone - and she was getting stressed too. I said, no no, we can't both be stressed, one of us has got to be calm, and so I decided to be calm, and happy too. She said, I'm okay, I'll be calm, you've got a lot on, I should be calm for you. I said, no no, we can't both be calm, there's no point in that: if you're calm I might as well be stressed. And a little joke does you good - this was all on the massively crowded train back to Elmsall, all those Elmsall shoppers at the end of their day to the big city - and it was all good after that. Plus, I'd decided to eat fish and chips - what I really needed was fish and chips - and once that was decided there was only one way it was gonna go: fish and chips.
Fish and chips, and a bath, and a bit of Match of The Day, and then bed and a blow job and a shag and the essay'll have to wait till Monday. Obviously Monday's the handing in day - but then, isn't that what I always used to do at undergraduate? I mean, ninety percent of the time I didn't even start the reading until the final day (admittedly, sometimes it would be 4am, a nice early rise). Seems like nearly every time I tried to start something ahead of time all I did was sit there doing nothing and feeling crappy - feeling the stress, feeling the disappointment - and it wasn't until the last minute that the juice would kick in and the words would begin to flow. Sometimes the last minute didn't arrive until 4 hours before handing in time - but always the essay would get done, and would come out good, handed in on time and stupidly good grades. I have to remember this: I have to trust. Have I not the ability to fly myself into the future and merely copy from the essay that I've already written? I have. So what's all the worry and what's all the thinking, ooh, only five days to go, I'd better get cracking? It don't take but five hours to copy down three thousand words...
Today is Sunday and today we're moving. Ali's gone right now to collect the van and I suppose I should be hoovering. I will hoover because I can feel the end of this blog entry approaching. All being well, she'll be back inside the hour and we'll pack and leave, go pick up my bed from my brother's in Wakefield, and then I'll go ref while she goes to collect her futon and other stuff, and in about six hours we shall begin the process of settling into our lovely little eighties-style crofters' cottage slash basement flat stroke lovenest. And then I'll go play 5-a-side and maybe we'll celebrate afterwards with an all-you-can-eat curry. Life will begin then: no more flat-hunting, no more trains back and forth to Leeds. I'm going to give up looking for a job - the place is wicked cheap and I've enough savings for several months and I just can't be arsed anymore. I want to be a student: I want to spend my days reading, thinking, writing, playing squash and having saunas while others are in the middle of their nine-to-fives. And who knows? I might even get into debt, plunder the loan and the overdraft - there's a first time for everything - and dig this life of luxury. I feel burnt out, like I just want to stop, can't handle all these things at once, and my uni work is definitely suffering. Obviously things'll slow down once we get settled in - no more flat-hunting! woohoo! - and, obviously also, I managed perfectly well at undergraduate while working three days a week but - I guess I'm just a little out of practice. Things haven't flowed so easily up till now but I guess they'll start. And cut down on the sport! Seems like I made a real rod for my back with all the goddamned sport this week - went from having nowhere near enough - who does have enough sport in their life when they just move to a place and don't know anyone? - to having a surfeit. Anyways, I think that's about the end.
To hoover! And to put on some goddamned clothes... ;-)
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