This year has been a good one for music. I have seen Imogen Heap, Hole, Emma Pollock, Patti Smith, Peter Gabriel, Sia and Tori Amos. I’m not sure if that’s all so far. I have the Manic Street Preachers, Tori again, Imogen again, Laura Marling for the first time and Melissa Auf der Maur still to go. I have travelled to Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Ireland, France, Holland, Finland and Russia for Tori, stopping off in Germany along the way to walk through a park and play by the windmill, then catch a flight to the smallest airport I‘ve ever been to, Tampere. I’ve never had such a prolific music year, because up until I got together with my girlfriend a year ago, I had pretty much given up on seeing other artists apart from Tori Amos. I used to go to gigs all the time when I was younger, but then I started being more selective and narrow. During university, the good part of it, the number of poetry readings I went to far outweighed the gigs I saw, but then everything changed and wonderful writers like Alice Oswald were replaced with fuck knows who, and it wasn’t worth going anymore. Anyway, I’m not writing this to show off or anything, I’m writing it so that I can look back and remember exactly how good 2010 was. I’m talking like the year is over. I think it’s the cold weather and all the talk about Christmas.

Victoria Pier

I got back to my flat at midnight after being in Leeds with Chris. Now I'm propped up on top of my bed, warmish, leaning on a soft headboard that stops me from concussing myself. The curtains are slightly open and I'm listening to one of my favourite songs in the world, I Speak Because I Can, on my headphones. It's on repeat. I'm researching portable heaters and working on a poem I started last week. I'm thinking about how I want to visit my parents next week and brush my teeth for a long time. There's something very therapeutic about tooth brushing. That and automatic writing calm me when I'm not calm. I'm calm tonight. I have that eye-sting that used to only happen after a nightshift, but it's only 1am and it's happening. I've been sleeping a lot lately. Ready to hibernate, probably. I hated last winter. Most of my MA seminars were from 4-6 when it was dark. I used to find the darkness really comfortable and welcoming, but I just couldn't feel like that last year.

I'm not dreading the winter so much this year because I'm looking forward to seeing the river Humber in all different seasons. On Saturday I stood at the end of the pier and just watched the sky. To the left it was pale blue mixed with grey and some clouds which were just hovering and whisping- not really sure why they were there, I suppose. Straight ahead of me was a different blue mixed with a different grey, and a different set of clouds which were drifting there for a different reason. Then it became more and more windy. To the right was my favourite. Dark dark grey clouds which just looked on the verge of bursting. They were magnificent. I was saying to my dad that they looked so real that they looked like they were fake and made on a computer. Too polished, perfect and cloud-like. Then the wind carried on and the dark clouds to my right were suddenly almost in front of me.

Night.

Sometimes I like finishing work at midnight. I used to like it when I finished at five, but now I don’t think I could do that to myself again. But really, it’s always been the same things that I like. I like the quiet roads, the stars and the dark and the cold. I like coming home, making something to eat and not remembering that it’s the middle of the night. It’s very quiet, I know I’m near the water, there is nobody outside and it’s a very clear and still night. I want it to rain and pour and soak the ground. I like the sleepy kind of awake I feel at this time- like I don’t know what time it is, so I don’t know what I should be doing. But I do what I feel like. I forget about the time. It’s dark. It’s 00:34. But maybe it’s just a dark day.


...


I need to read more. Books. But I feel a bit lost when it comes to books. I think the main thing that stops me from reading as much as I used to is that awful feeling of guilt. I should be writing and if I don't feel like writing I should be reading but not this book, I should be reading something to do with my work. I should be researching and reading around and reading theory and making notes. There's no point reading this. I have actually thought that before: that there is no point reading a book because I'm not going to use it. What a horrible way to think, but I don't think there's any clearer way to prove how university sucks the enjoyment and the point out of the subject. No reading is wasted or pointless. So after posting this blog I'm going to find a book on my shelf that I haven't read before, or I'll go to bed and read another ghost story by Charles Dickens. Or I'll read one of my favourite books, which is a collection, or a selection, of Anne Sexton's letters. I will find something. I never finished Jacob's Room.