24.6% More Mysteriousness, 65% Less Sleep

I was all prepared to blame NaNoWriMo for my disappearance from the blogosphere this month. And instead, I'm blaming varsity and general real life busyness for my disappearance from NaNoWriMo.

I actually am up to date with my word count (12k), but my heart's just not in it this year. I'm going to carry on anyway (because finishing is how you win, and I really really like winning), but I feel like I'm aiming to reach word count, not write a novel. I feel like writing a novel would require a little more in the way of plot and a little less in the way of lengthy discussions between my characters about how I have no plot.

And then real life got so busy that I didn't even have time to blog about it. So here is a post with more photos than words, because I have real work to do (and it's definitely not just that I'm too tired to remember how words work).

Sometimes I bake brownies and ask my friends to help me eat them so that I don't eat them all by myself.* I absolutely do not use said brownies as a bribe to get people to play Bananagrams with me. And sometimes my veg box contains purple cauliflower. It's like cauliflower... BUT IT'S PURPLE. Purple. I spent two days just staring at it in awe before I could bring myself to eat it.

Chocolate brownies and Bananagrams, now with 24.6% more mysteriousness.

Cauliflower, now with 100% more purple.

 And now you should brace yourself for Caps Lock. And punctuation abuse.


Are you ready?

Good.


BECAUSE THEN I WENT AND SAW RISE AGAINST!** I was feeling a bit ambivalent about the concert because I couldn't find anyone in the same country as me who wanted to undertake the adventure to Leeds with me, but it turned out to be indescribably awesome. CAPS LOCK AWESOME!*** There was one moment where the whole stalls turned into a mosh sea and I thought I was going to get crushed and die, but once I escaped from the centre of the crowd and found somewhere less terrifying to stand, it was amazing. Easily the best concert I've ever been to. Just... wow. I fell in love with my favourite band all over again. I'm still on a bit of a high three days later.

Leeds made me realise how much my relatively brief time in York has affected me. I found myself walking through the city thinking "Why are the cars going so fast? The lights are so bright! There are so many people!" To think that only two months ago I was speeding around Jo'burg, yelling obscenities at other drivers. And now I'm a yokel. Is this what it feels like to be from Durban?

And then, to make things even cooler, Cath came to visit me from Edinburgh, and we spent the weekend staying up unwisely late, having awesome conversations, touristing in York (which made me love it even more than I already did), going to a last-minute mostly-vegan potluck at Jelle's house, and ending up in a bar which played music we all hated, because the pubs were closed.****

Clifford's Tower.

Frolicking, not goose stepping.

The Minster from the city walls.

Like you do.

And now I have work to catch up. And I should maybe try to think about getting back to that novel I'm supposed to be writing.

If I start remembering how words octopus.


*Not that I would do this. And I also didn't just eat a whole slab of chocolate. You just ate a whole slab of chocolate. Shut up.
**!!!!!!!!!!!
***!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
****I may at some point have ended up on a rant about queering the matrix of intelligibility in relation to desire and identity. I'm really good at this people thing!