just to say...

More writing, and less random phone photographs will come soon. From where I (metaphorically) stand just now, I can see the next two months; they are full of essays, studying and exams. So I suspect updates on here will become more sporadic. Maybe not though. We’ll wait and see. I like to surprise myself.

For now though, here are five recent noticings:

 

♥ Running in public is kind of a faux pas. Being a blend of commuter and last-minute-er, I tend to do a lot of it. Coat buttons popping open, eyes spilling, hair unravelling, legs aching. (I missed my bus today, even though I ran. So I then had to run for the train, which I caught. Phew.)

♥ Laughing --- so --- hard --- you can’t --- quite --- breathe --- is better than ice-cream: soul-cleansing, less milky. (I ended up laghing like this today with my friend, for the first time in ages.)

♥ I think it is funny how all the statues in George Square that were built to honour ‘great men’ (and woman) end up acting as rest-stops for seagulls. They leave the Great Men with heads stained white with --- well, you know. (Not very dignified. Maybe that’s why all of them look so stern.)

♥ When waiting for public transport, women – even the skinny ones – tend to cover up their stomachs (with bags, with books, with coats, with their hands). Men on the other hand - even the fatter ones - let their stomachs hang out (they leave their coats unzipped, they rest their arms on their knees, they rub their stomachs absentmindedly). Interesting!

♥ (So far,) John Keats’ letters are very beautiful. I found them today in the library, when I should have been writing about Alexander Pope.

(Anyway! After seeing the time, I absolutely must go to bed now. I’ve got a busy writing day tomorrow. Did not want to stay up this late!)

Pictures: Claire Owen.

tea and cakes and things.

I found this teacup necklace at the Granny Would be Proud vintage fair in Hillhead Bookclub on Sunday. (We were in having brunch for my Dad's birthday.)

After brunch, it was so sunny so we went for a wee wander around the West End of Glasgow - my favourite part of the city.

We went for (earl grey) tea and (cinnamon crumble, strawberry pavlova, and coconut) cakes at a very cute, retro place on Ashton Lane (Aunty M's Cake Lounge). They were delicious. 'The best cake I've ever had in my life' according to my Mum.  

This bizarre (or creepy) plate was hanging up in the wall in there. Quite strange.

The Oxfam Bookshop in the West End is magnificent. (Compact? Really?)

 

♥  

so long, so long.

On Saturday my sister and I were at a friend's 21st birthday party (a ceilidh, which was such good fun. I was in the middle of reading 'Sense and Sensibility' as well, so it felt very Jane Austen-y to be at a dance).

After the party we took home three blue balloons. (They were offered, I hastily add; we didn't steal them.) 

The funnest part of having a balloon is watching it float away. Strange, yes, but also true. So I thought I'd take some pictures with it before I let go ...and then everyone that was home decided they wanted a picture with the balloon too.

♥

functioning.

On the bus home the other day, I looked out the window and saw that we were driving parallel to another bus on the motorway.

Suffering as I do from chronic nosiness, I looked at the people in the window seats and noticed one boy listening to his iPod, staring at his phone. The lady in front of him had fallen asleep, and the man in front of her was eating a sandwich and reading a magazine (quite a skill. I can’t read and eat at once. Things tend to fall out of the sandwich onto the page, or I can’t keep the book open, or something like that).

 

Another lady was daydreaming out of the window, and then the man in front of her was listening to his iPod and staring at his phone, and the boy in front of him was listening to his iPod and staring at his phone, and the girl in front of him was listening to her iPod and staring at her phone, and the man in front of her, and in front of him, and him, and her, and him.

Something about it made me shudder.

While technology can be wonderful in many ways it is also quite isolating, and doesn’t do much for individuality. All of those people probably were listening to different music, and texting different friends, but they just looked exactly the same. Robotic.

I got a fright when I looked down and realised I was sitting in exactly the same position: phone in hand, music in my ears, vacant expression. I bundled it all away and pulled out a book instead!

♥

As an aside: The book I was reading was on satire - I’m looking at it for an essay - and this paragraph from it make me laugh a bit:

[A writer] tells of a guest at a large party who said to the host, 'Who is that ugly woman sitting by herself?' 'That,' said the host, 'happens to be my sister.' 'Of course,' said the embarrassed guest, 'I didn’t notice the resemblance.'

~ From An Introduction to Satire by Leonard Feinberg (1967).

Ho ho.

(pictures from: here.)