How can I turn boredom into an artform?

Another hot day spent lounging about, watching the election news in the morning and kicking a ball about in the afternoon.

I got a letter from Andrew asking me what I’m doing over the summer. It all depends on whether or not I get a job. I intended making a start on my essays, but I frittered the afternoon away in the sun and listening to the Velvet Underground and Joy Division.

In the evening, Barry’s friend Mike from Manchester arrived in his car. Of all of Barry’s friends he's probably the easiest to get on with and the least ideological. We went up to the Town and Gown with Shelley, Pete and Lindsey. Lindsey and Shelley sat quietly talking while Barry and Mike laughed and talked Marxism, the RCP, and shared tales of Patrick and Carl Cotton.

Lindsey seemed quite cheerful. Earlier, she and Susie bought me a badge (“How Can I Turn Boredom Into an Artform”). They said they thought it quite appropriate. For some reason I felt very down, as though suddenly the semi-contentment of the last month had been stripped away and I'm filled with the Void. I felt dead and helpless and I didn’t know why. Even talking seemed too much effort, and I could only parry Pete’s attempts to cheer me up. How do I explain what I felt? It’s such an effort and virtually impossible probably to capture the precise essence of my mood at that time. But all I could see around me was total meaninglessness.

Everyone left, Barry and co. to go into Watermouth in Mike’s car, and Lindsey and Shelley back to Wollstonecraft. I sat on my own for a moment, my inner state dominating every thought, denying me any peace. There was nothing I could do, so I too walked back to Wollstonecraft, where I lay on my bed in a state just like the old times. In a way it had something to do with Lindsey, but not entirely. . . . For an instant I felt myself begin to crumple. Quite out of the blue I felt as if something had dropped into me from a great height.

The corridor was empty, so I went to bed. It was only 11 p.m. and as I lay there uncomfortable and wide awake in the dark I heard people returning, mumbled voices from someone's room.

I look back on what I’ve written and I wonder why I’ve gone into such painstaking detail. I didn’t intend to. In years to come I’ll appreciate all this for what it is—mindless, utterly mundane trivia. I’ll laugh at my typically adolescent obsessions.

Laugh, or probably throw up.

Never mind the bollocks

 I stayed up all night reading and taking notes on The Awakening. I finished it at 3.30 a.m.: I enjoyed it and I can see why it was considered shocking and outrageous when it was first published. Barry and Russ stayed up all night doing work as well. By 5.20 a.m. it was broad-daylight out, and we pottered about enjoying the coolness of the morning before setting off to vote.

This was a ‘cut and run’ election sprung by Thatcher with only a few weeks notice, and for days now the result has been a certainty, the Tory press proudly gloating over the latest poll figures, a landslide predicted for the Conservatives and utter defeat for Foot and co. It’s been a bitter election campaign and I think it could be an important one in the future.

Election fever hasn’t really percolated through to campus and although the usual forest of leaflets and notices adorns the walls and trees, a general lack of contact with TV has ensured our immunity. As the minutes ticked away until seven, Russ and Barry and I hung about the deserted polling station in Watermouth Hall until finally we were let in, the first, perhaps the very first voters in the country.

I scrawled “Bollocks” on my ballot paper and popped it in the box. Russ did the same and Barry spoiled his paper too. The first three votes cast, the first three votes ruined. We came away satisfied.

At nine I went to my American Lit. tutorial which was a quiet, weary and subdued affair. Miriam had a dig at me for not reading Freud’s Essays on Sexuality. I almost fell asleep I was so dead-beat. I have four essays to write for Tuesday, and one Black Americans essay to complete for Monday. Impossible.

Gareth and Stu left early in the morning for Paris and the Bowie concert; they’ll be sleeping in cemeteries and no doubt at this very minute will be knocking back the booze in some café.

I went to bed at mid-day and got up about half-eight. Just a few people about. The radio said that the turnout had been high. I stayed up into the early hours to watch the results come in and it was quite obvious early on that the Tories were going to be re-elected with a big majority. Tony Benn lost his seat, as did Bill Rodgers of the SDP. Some conservative oaf behind me cheered when it flashed on the screen that Watermouth/New Lycroft was a Tory seat for another four years. Labour lost Easterby West—Dad’ll be pleased.

It’s a black day for the Labour Party. The Liberal/SDP Alliance held a handful of seats, but it’s another Thatcher government for four years. One step nearer the one-party state, and there’s more unrest to come for sure. Perhaps this will encourage dissenters to look outside the narrow, archaic world of parliament to the streets and cities where the real action will begin.

Tonight I feel thoroughly pissed off, I don’t know why. My world feels narrow and stifling and I feel trapped. Just lately I hate this narrative. It’s so useless trying to record the things I do, for my writing is so constrained and limited and I scarcely explore the possibilities a journal offers.

I have nothing to look forward to over the next few days except a hard slog to try and get some of these essays out of the way. Tomorrow too I have to find £50 to pay the deposit on the flat. I’m getting the money transferred from my NatWest deposit account at home.