Inexplicable

I was in bed until four p.m. today, and got dressed just in time to see the footie results. Easterby beat Whitstall Park 3-1 away and had to come from behind to do it too.

I’ve been feeling misanthropic of late. I prefer not to go out to the pubs and clubs with the others. I can’t see the point anymore, and the increase in consumption of money, alcohol and drugs wouldn’t see a proportionate increase in my peace of mind. I’m perfectly happy to stay in at night, or if I do venture out, to avoid the public watering holes as much as possible.

Barry has finally found the elusive fuck which he’s been striving for since September, with one of the first year girls he hangs around with. Lee heard him telling Del how “ace” it was, but he’s refused to let us in on the details. Ade congratulated him in typically tedious fashion: “you finally got nobbed. Well done!” blah blah. Off he’s been going nearly every night, stinking of aftershave and destined for the same endless round of pub, club and party, pursuing girls and whatever else it is he’s after. He does even less with his time here than I do and has yet to write an essay in his second year at University.

I never did make that new beginning that I felt was so imperative. I suppose it will take a fairly important event or set of circumstances to dislocate my life’s continuity, because I lack the necessary will power to change independent of external causal events. I must withdraw. I must DO something.

I think Lindsey is a little contemptuous of us here at Jervis Terrace, as though already her increasing involvement with the RCP is giving her that brittle veneer of superiority which all members of that organisation seem to possess. It isn’t very noticeable but I detect it already. All people are judged by virtue of their political commitments, and thus we who mess about and scream and do rash, inexplicable things, are looked at with the merest hint of sneering disregard. Perhaps this mantle of superiority is a necessary part of the RCP psychology?

Pete has received some preliminary forms about his trip to Amerika next year, and he has to write a short essay explaining why he wants to go and why he feels it will be worthwhile.

Today Lee mentioned the long-neglected Grey Triangle film project for the first time in months. He’s abandoned the projected video we were going to make here at 44A. He’s been searching for some message to invest in the scenes and action, instead of vice versa, and so its symbolism lacked an underlying ordering scheme. So he’s now concentrating on the more technical and serious photographic experiments that have preoccupied him since his Foundation course in Easterby. He’s planning a full-sized version of the miniature room he built that had walls of photosensitive paper and cut out windows that allowed the shadows of interior objects to register in negative. He wants to build it with brick walls and have the light come in through a partly ajar door instead of windows.

I can’t make my mind up about my work. Should I stay up all night and work on another essay or should I go to bed and get up early? If I stayed up until seven a.m. I would only have been awake for a normal span of time but (conditioning!), I feel tired already.