fighting through writers' block

portia freaks out, pt 1

I am obsessed with Ryan Adams and strangely flavored cupcakes (lemon-rosemary, banana-ginger). I am totally and completely incapable of coherent thought.
I am also falling more in love with my stranger every day.

stars go blue

When I got on the bus Thursday morning, from Oxford to Heathrow, I thought this was going to be a bad idea, that I was going to get all mired down in memories and writing this paper and wish I was back in Oxford. It's easy to be in Oxford--it's safe. But I'm so glad to have come back.


I'm staying with my academic mother Fran, whose flat is like a home away from home. The door is never locked; people are always coming in and out. May Dip was amazing (what I remember). Fran has this group of friends--it's hard to describe, but it's like this Portia-sized space simply opens up every time I come visit.

My love for Scotland is unabated. It's like the mountains, like this part of me that never relaxes simply eases here. Scotland is wild and raw, cold and wet and dramatic. I spent today in the cafe where I used to study, finishing a paper on Anglo-Saxon kings. I wish I could stay. I wish I had an apartment in St Andrews, spent the weekends seeing plays in Edinburgh and reading in Princes Gardens. More and more, I think I want to live here for a few years, put off teaching, and figure out a way to stay.


I've started making my stranger a mix. I'm not sure though, how to go about it. The last mix, the one I made for Darren right before I left, that was a good-bye mix. My stranger and I have a little over a month left, and I don't know if I should wait, to make a mix for what was, or make one now, for what might be.

I really really like this guy. It's kind of freaking me out. Somehow being sad seems easier, simpler. There's nowhere to fall.

the end of scotland

I'm on a bus up to St Andrews. I wandered around Edinburgh for the last few hours, not really doing anything, just looking at the city. It's still striking; it still takes my breath away and makes me feel like anything is possible. And I still look for Darren on every corner. I'm excited to get up to St As, to see Fran and Morven, to run into the sea at dawn tomorrow. (Google "May Dip".)

I have a paper to finish, even though I've been working all week. Anglo-Saxon kingship. I met my fiction tutor for the first time yesterday: he's amazing. I am going to write a story a week for the next 8 weeks.
Here's the first one: The Ossuary in Paris

I'm having all these feelings, and I'm not quite sure what to do with all of them. I'm in love, and happy--how ridiculous is that?

nos. 5-7

5-7. The last few weeks have been this strange blur of starting school but not starting classes yet, new kids moving into the house, group trips, and spending nearly every night with my stranger. My classes are going to be amazing: 'Anglo-Saxon Archaeology in Early Christian Britain' and 'Short Story Writing,' both one-on-one with Oxford professors. I already have so much to do, but I'm loving every moment of it.
The new kids are SO different from last term's group. I feel very disconnected from them.
I wrote to my friend Isaac:
so i'm on this trip to cornwall with all the stanford kids
and i thought last quarter--damn, i actually like these folks (they're not like normal stanford kids)
but these kids this quarter are like normal stanford kids
and you know that feeling you get, when someone is just SO happy that you have to be melancholy, just so things balance out?
everyone on this trip makes me feel like that.
know you'll understand. feel like coffee and cigarettes and lots of rain.

And he wrote back:
you n me pea
we're p's in a pod.
er...
but know what i learned this quarter? it's fully my problem and not theirs that their existence bothers me.
or....looking at it more optimistically, they are simply not worth it.
:) feel better.
-ip

And my stranger--he said, "I love you," a few weeks ago. He says it in the mornings, when I'm all wrapped up in his arms and not quite awake yet. We have this amazing, bedrock-shaking, intimate sex that leaves me feeling whole, not empty. He gets my dark and twisty, likes my hair back brown, and watches me sleep.
Today, I went to meet his family and, standing in his childhood room, I told him, "I love you," because I suddenly realized that I do.

nos. 1-4 red wine and the blues in bed

1. I went to Scotland with the wonderful Stephanie M. We were both nursing broken hearts, and we bled out all sorts of memories during picnics and drunken adventures. Darren didn't take Edinburgh from me. St Andrews was brilliant, and I'm actually going back next weekend. Darren found out I'd been in the city, and texted me just as I was getting on a plane back to Oxford. 'Heard you were in the Burgh. Sad you didn't tell me, but I understand. X' REALLY?

2. My parents came to visit, and we walked around Oxford having pints and burgers for a week.

3. Spain. Spain was complicated in a way I can't write about here, but in the end was really good. I spent a week reading, eating picnics on clifftops and walking around the hills. I sent Darren a letter, basically telling him that, while it sucks that we can't be friends, that he couldn't love me still hurts more than it sucks. (if that makes any sense.)

4. Remember that boy I kissed all night, who made my knees weak? Well, we kept seeing each other after that first night. He is my new stranger. And all of that pain and unhappiness I was going through with Darren, I was up-front with him about it.
"My heart's not ready," I said.
"We're involved," I said when we had sex for the first time, "We're not together."
He just said, "Ok," and looked at me like I was the prettiest girl in the world.
So I went to Spain and figured out my heart and came running right into my stranger's arms.

fyi

Much to be updated.
But for now:
Spain is wonderful. Irish ex-pat pubs, stunning cliff views, sleeping late, reading in the sun.