Trivial things

The other day Raksha and I went to Wivenhoe, and we were walking along the road when this ambulance started to back up, and it beeped to signal its intent, so we got out of the way, and as we were getting the way a pleasant voice came out of the ambulance and said, "This vehicle is backing up. Please stand well clear. This vehicle is backing up. Please stand well clear." Because I guess it would look bad if the ambulance backed into you and killed you dead.

And another day that wasn't that one, we went to Colchester and we explored the town, but I completely failed to find all the thrift shops (seriously! where did they go? why can't I find them from the Odeon?) and Raksha's shoestring broke and we got really hungry and around 3:00 decided it was time to eat, and we went to La Tasca to get food but we tugged on the door and it wouldn't open so we figured we'd go sit across the street in the shade until it did open, but no one came and no one came and we got impatient around 3:30 and went and tugged on the other door, and that one did open. Er. I'm a big dummy, because actually I've been to La Tasca before and probably I have tried to open the right-hand door and found it unwilling.

I tried to find a hat as well. My godmother gave me money for my birthday, and I decided that it was money to buy myself a vast and beautiful hat like I've always wanted, so I shopped at a bunch of different stores looking for a hat. Unfortunately Raksha is not a big fan of large extravagant hats, so I was never sure what hats were suitable, and the one hat I found that was the right color and the right style was £150, which is in any situation an unjustifiable expense. At Marks and Spencer's I found a really excellent hat that suited me and was beautiful, but it was the wrong color, so I could not get it. But it suited me so much that when Raksha and I went to the toilet, the cleaner guy asked me "Where is the hat?" and I said it wasn't mine, it was the shop's, and I wasn't getting that one, and he said, "Is good. You buy that one, eh? Looksa good." (Though I already knew that it did.)

So our town trip was mainly unproductive. Raksha got a new book to read, and I got Saffy's Angel to read to her, because it is so excellent and charming, and Raksha also got a new shoelace for her boot because the old one broke (hurrah!), but still no hats for me. (Yet.)

And I have two exams yet to do, but thank GOD, I am done with Wretched Wallace Stevens. I had to write about him in two essay questions, and I did not appreciate it. I hope I never encounter that wretched, wretched man again. I hope this is the last time I will ever use my I Hate Wallace Stevens label.

Furthermore, I burned myself the other day when I picked up a tray that had just come out of the oven but because it was not in the oven when I picked it up I assumed that it was cold. I cleverly dropped it quickly and ran cold water over my fingers for a while, and then my flatmate Elliot explained to me how to proceed (not to put ice on it because it would cause trauma to my skin, and to wrap the burned places up in cling wrap in order to keep the moisture in), so I mainly escaped serious scarring.

For the past few days, however, I've had a blister on my middle finger that was white and puffy and looked sort of the way I imagine bubonic plague. And I can't even remember the last time I had a blister, so I didn't know how to proceed. Today I bit it delicately with my teeth (yes, that was unhygienic, but I washed it afterwards and it wasn't as unhygienic as poking it with a dirty needle would have been), and a tiny, tiny bit of water dripped out (which is bizarre!), and now there is pink skin underneath where the blister was, and a circle of white skin around it that has jagged edges because I bit the middle part, and it looks sort of like I have an eye with teeth living in my middle finger.

(Like the Corinthian.)

(So that's cool.)

Am I killing time so that I don't have to prepare to write an essay tomorrow on whether The Tempest is a capitalist and colonialist parable? Yes. Yes, I am.