It

Bitterly cold but sunny. Frost on the roof. I woke up late and went into Easterby with £2.50 from Claire for a copy of Modern European History Made Simple.

I looked in Smith’s and found nothing and ended up at Praxis in the hope of finding a second-hand copy. I love that bookshop, it’s great, and I spent an hour or so wallowing in the atmosphere, looking around slowly, listening to the comings, goings, conversations, wishing I was ‘in.’ I bought The Anarchist Reader by George Woodcock and saw dozens of other books I want to get but never have the money. I also got Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums; he's becoming one of my favourite authors. I left reluctantly and had another look for Claire's book before going home.

I got into school at two o’clock and was feeling rebellious and in a good mood, but Jeremy, Andrew Boyd and Laura McCully soon plunged me into blackness and there was Duncan criticising me and calling me that infuriating, childish name “Marty." I got really intense over it all but could only sit silently fuming and curling up inside. This is all a symptom of something I’ve often thought about. All my ‘anarchist’ and libertarian ideas are just pie-in-the-sky because I have to back them up on a personal level and in dealings with other people.

As a result of all this I didn’t really enjoy Art. It was really cold on the way back and when I got home all I could do was flick through my books and wish myself someone different. I’m just dying to get involved in ‘it’ all now, and my immature but deliberate attempts to get pissed, American Studies at Uni., last year’s round-the-world motorbike expedition fantasies, my fixation with revolutionaries, TM, all point to the same thing, all ties in somehow, as if I’m striving to get to the root of life, ‘it,’ whatever you want to call it.