Entre les blogues

(That title reminds me that I wanted to hunt down the book that Vertigo was based on - it's in French, and called D'Entre Les Morts (Among the Dead). Must note that down somewhere. Ooh, maybe here.)

[A reply to a letter]

Dear Cathy,

Aha, the long-promised letter! Damn. Does this mean I have to write things and blog things now?

I said I'd write this a long time ago, and I suppose that nowish is vaguely apropriate considering the extent to which we've both been bemoaning our lack of blog productivity lately. Well, you've been bemoaning, I've been... um, I'm fairly sure I have also been bemoaning, I've just been doing it a little more offline than you. To be honest, I have so many other slightly more serious things that are completely falling apart in my life that the blog really is rather far down on the list of things to bemoan.

Lack of blogging... indeed. I am hoping that this last year of working and little blogging doesn't mean that I'll have lost the knack completely when I try and get up to full speed again once I have sufficient free time.

It's strange how much the audience of your writing alters the writing itself (or at least, the frame of mind you're in when sentences and ideas float into your head). I remember my blog writing changing as I gradually sussed out who was reading my blog, how they wrote, and I then had a definite audience in mind. Mind you, it's not just the audience that's critical - writing this also feels a lot different than writing blogs because I usually compose my blog posts in an HTML editor, rather than the text editor I'm using now. (By the way, HTML-Kit's a really nice editor, should you be in need of one - it's the first editor I've ever used where I felt right at home straight away.) Of course, I'm still marking things up and typing in HTML entities without even realising, which is slightly disturbing. It's akin to the fact that the large amount of IRCing I do means that I'm having to desperately refrain from littering my posts these days with smilies. And that I have inadvertantly thought (though not said, yet) "lol" before now. Anyway, be prepared for rambling that even I wouldn't normally let loose on my blog.

It's annoying, I do want to mark things up even in this text editor - such as your paragraphs in blockquotes to reply to, although I'm still debating whether to do the paragraph-reply thing as I would in email, or write a proper lettery letter. A lettery letter would, um, feel more like a letter (okay, I'm sure I had an intelligent thing to say there when I began that sentence), but after years of electronic communication, I'm not sure that I'm up to replying to a whole letter without being able to reference things in the preceding paragraphs.

But what to write and say? I'm currently sitting in my most favourite of social hotspots, the 24 hour computer room. I got back to Cardiff yesterday and moved into my new house. It's a nice place, a bit further from the centre of town and not nearly as big as the last, but at least this one has a living room. No curtains as of yet, but I've hitched up a combination of blanket and cushions to the window which keeps the room at the level of gloom to which I am accustomed. I managed to break the bed in the process of unpacking, completely buckled the frame. This is the first bed I've ever broken and I didn't even get to have hot sex in the process. Very disappointing.

Oh my :-) Thumbs up for a living room, anyway. Work's plodding along, and I'm currently marvelling at the incredibly wet, windy, cold (and did I mention WET?), beautiful Britain-in-June weather we're having right now. Okay, okay, I'm being unfair. We did have some nice weather about ten days ago, didn't we?

Remember how I said I'd learn PHP this year? Well, um, yeah. I did read through the manual a few months ago (since I couldn't find a decent tutorial), but due to my lack of a local PHP environment, the only thing I ever actually did was my Hello World. I've done slightly better with Python, which I started looking at out of boredom a couple of weeks ago. Although, never having programmed before, I'm in chapter 8 of 18 of Dive Into Python and having to start slowing down and reading things twice. I don't think I'll be able to get to the end and understand everything in there, but it's passing the time for now. (The things I do for fun, huh?)

I have seven weeks left of work before I'm let free again. Actually, you could make that six weeks since Kevin and I are going on holiday all next week. We're staying in a self-catering apartment in the Lake District, and appear to be above a Peter Rabbit Shop. We turned down the chance to be above a bakery - while there might be nice smells, and the chance of freshly-baked rolls each morning the lazy person's way, it's also quite possible we'd have been woken up around 4am each day when baking began...

We got the information for it last week, including directions. The directions, rather disturbingly, include eight left turns in a row once you reach the town - about half of those being "first left"s. I'll be driving, because of numerous benefits of taking my car the car I'm allowed to drive at home, if I ask nicely, rather than Kevin's. It's a bit more comfortable; it has aircon (and I hope we'll have the chance to be glad of it, rather than having to use the heater all week); it's quieter; and a few other things besides. Still, it does mean that I'll be driving about twice as far as I've ever driven in one stretch before - about five hours according to the AA, and that's not including breaks. And hopefully the one-way system at the other end won't flummox me too much.

In any case, I don't have internet set up yet. It's on my top priority to-do list, along with, ahem, getting the bed fixed and finding some therapy. Literally. My mum made me promise to get myself some help, so it's off to the couch and guided meditation with me again. If entries suddenly re-grind to a halt maybe it'll be because they've finally come to their senses and locked me up somewhere with bright lights and helpful restraining bands. Maybe they'll stick me on some heavy medication instead and I can keep blogging, long artistic entries full of star-spangled butterflies.

Duly noted, and I hope you feel it's worthwhile. Shout if you want me to send out a rescue mission, though, if you're gone too long.

The bells chime midnight, and I wanted to get this done before then. I miss you, it surprises me over and over how I can still miss so many people I haven't seen for so long. You need to start blogging regularly again. I remember when you first set me up blogging and I first started reading blogs regularly. It was new, then, hardly seeing you, but the feeling that you hadn't gone very far at all completely bowled me over. I heard as much from you by way of your blog and email as I always had seeing you every day, especially as writing lends itself to larger chunks of speech. I know you always had to listen to me babble on for God knows how long, but it was strange and refreshing to hear you talk at length on something. Between me and G. I'm surprised anybody ever got a word in edgeways, let alone found a chance for a class to stay on topic.

Are you saying I'm quiet in person? :-) Well I've always been a little shy and awkward with people - communicating with people via the internet, and the written word (which has, in the past, been one of my strengths and joys) just made it all so much easier for me, and lets me declare my thoughts and arguments much more effectively than in person. I like being me online, and I like being me-online when I meet online people in real life (did that make sense?) because I have a rough idea of how they see me. At the two blogmeets I've attended - and if there's another one in the next three months, I'll surely drag you along - I've felt more comfortable with people whom I'd met for between zero and four hours previously, than with many people with whom I'd spent two whole years in the sixth form.

This is one of the things I think is so wonderful about the internet - that and the fact that I've received a fair number of items from my wishlist sent by people who've never even met me. That's nice too :-)

Thank you for introducing me to this world, you've got a lot to answer for, as you well know. So. Get your arse back here, there's no way I'm letting you strand me all alone in this fearsome blogos... I did not just use that word. You hate that word. I hate that word. I did not just use that word. It's all your fault I know the word and have even heard of blogging in any case. The Blame. Is. All. Yours.

Yeah, well. You got me into Buffy and Angel, so nyah. And to date that's cost me lots and lots of money buying a total of five seasons of Buffy and Angel on second-hand DVDs. So don't you go complaining at me, 'k?

Wrapping this up before it becomes too rambling, I hope you enjoy Sandman, I've just got back from crying my eyes out at Japanese Story, have fun with the differential equations (they're all yours now) and I have so much orange juice in my fridge I'm sure I could drown in its happiness.

Sandman is being very cool right now - I'm currently reading the second book at night, and its 'chapters' are of a good enough length that I can read one per night. I bought the third book at the weekend too, when Kevin and I went to Staines to see The Day After Tomorrow (yay for Books Etc. only closing at 7pm! :-) ) I think this could lead me down a very expensive path...

My God. I feel like I can write again. Huzzah! And thank you, for this.

Lots of love and speak to you soon, Missiedith.

(Because I can't remember the last time I signed my real name outside of a shop.)

It's okay, I'm quite adept at mentally flipping between people's real names and screen names. How could I not be, by now? :-)

Cathy