Dust caught

I went to bed at 3 last night. People were smoking dope and drinking wine in Rowan's room but I declined, once more feeling such a knot of dissatisfaction with this life and existence that I wanted to smash things. What more is there?

Barry’s friend John Turney is due down today and already I hate the whole slimy, monotonous, vaguely sexualized reality he brings with him. Rowan spoke frankly about his “sexual tastes which are not my bag.” So far I haven’t enjoyed this term as much as I did the last. Oh to live in Watermouth! The nights are the worst.

Lee left at 8 this morning: he was hopeful he could hitch back quickly because it took him over twelve hours on the way down. He says he’s been sleeping rough in barns to “see what it feels like” and that he and his Easterby mates have been tampering with street lamps.

I should’ve got up early to do my work for tomorrow (aaargh!), but instead I ligged in bed until noon but by 1.30 was down at the library. The sun was shining in a white intense sky, the trees were stark bare silhouettes and all around me people worked. I had an essay to write and Walden to read. By 7 I'd ploughed my way through various critical books on Emerson and finally made it through the essay too, writing six sides, some of which is OK, especially towards the end.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what Lee told me yesterday about his views on painting, which he dislikes, calling it a "secondary" form of experience: he's now into assemblages and things like that. He wonders how a purely two-dimensional canvas can make us look at the world in different ways and give us a different perspective. Some of the things he’s been doing sound very interesting, hence my dissatisfaction with the study of literature. To actually participate, create, and be involved with something as exciting as that would surely be more fulfilling. At the end of a day's effort there'd actually be something concrete to show for it. Perhaps my ‘rewards’ will be invisible, mental ones.

Athletic won 5-1!