Greetings, loved ones / Let's take a journey

> read my private diary

> meet people I know and don't know

> explore my garden

> learn about sinks!

> about me

> eworm home

Dear Diary:

11.02.2024 pocket kitkat

Last night I went to the Keble Halloween formal. There are all these proper nouns I now have access to — Keble, Trinity, Balliol, Lincoln, Jesus, Christ Church, St. John's, Oriel. There are all these places I now have access to, but I haven't yet taken advantage of this access, not in a full and rich way. I suppose I've had access to the proper noun “Jesus" for a while, I just haven’t (some would argue) made proper use of it.

Keble is all Victorian brickwork — stained glass — painted intricacy — glittering mosaic. The ceilings arch high above, buttressed with the soaring promise of Industry. Brick, in England, seems to go largely unappreciated. Maybe because the 1870s are so recent here you can still stick out your tongue and taste them, hot steel and acrid coal. New brick is new money. Brick is for factories and train stations. Brick is for row houses built by laborers for laborers. Brick is a ruddy-cheeked industrialist, counting coins and recording profits. Stone, on the other hand, is the collegiate material. Stone is the worthy foundation on which educated men are built. Kiln-fired men can climb out of their natal fire hard and immaculate, but they always retain something of the common clay.

C— commented on how beautiful it was. The brick. I agreed, because it was. The face-shaped jellied-tomato starter, I also agreed, was visually delightful but inedible. So many things are, though: chandeliers, Queen Anne furniture, pebbles, pre-Raphaelite paintings carefully lit by low-wattage bulbs. The boy dressed as post-rebrand JoJo Siwa ate most of his. I admired his tenacity.

C— and her friends are all studying creative writing. I felt jealous hovering on the margins of their externally endorsed creative industry, their companionable routine of workshopping, the fact that they’ve all submitted work and people with Taste have read it and considered it and found something in it worth nurturing.

"That man is here!" She pointed him out. "The one you sat next to at the Trinity formal, the one you flirted with."

I cannot remember having flirted with anyone. I remember giving my name, receiving his, asking if he'd pass the wine.

"There was definitely flirting happening. Your voice changed when you spoke to him."

Voices are always changing, aren’t they. The past is thick with vocal cues I might have employed — words I might have used — hands I might have placed — rooms I might have gone back to — papers I might have improved — proposals I might have submitted in a timely manner — eyes I might have looked into directly — used saucepans I might have washed immediately.

I do not know what material I belong to. Not brick. Definitely not stone. Maybe chocolate, highly processed, carried around in the trouser pocket of a man in formal attire who might or might not be flirting (who, as the night goes on, touches my arm when he talks to me), suspended at groin-height, melted by body heat until I take on the shape of my container.