Day 11

Not so much to report (alas, I fear this is all going to get more and more mundane as I settle into a routine). My advisor will be in town briefly next week, which has produced in me not just the vague awareness of the fact that I should be doing work, but an actual desire to get something accomplished. I'm reading Jennifer Summit's new book, which is awful good, and thinking about the difference between collections of books and collections of texts within a single volume. Summit talks about Sir Thomas Elyot's confusion when, upon gaining access to Henry VIII's library to work on his Dictionary (printed, of course, by my bff Thomas Berthelet, who is also the only early printer to print editions of texts by Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate, i.e., I think he had a specialty, i.e., I should probably write an article), he finds to his dismay that the books are arranged alphabetically, making it impossible for him to determine which sources are orthodox and which could be dangerous to cite in the rather chilly political climate of the late 1530s. Which I think is quite telling. It's difficult for me to wrap my mind around, but alphabetical organization of libraries and collected works of recent writers (vernacular writers, even) are just not givens in the sixteenth century the way they are today. There are certain advantages, of course (Elyot's Dictionary is in fact arranged alphabetically, just like the library he worked from), but to early modersn these were not naturalized organizational schemes but specific choices to be made, with certain tradeoffs.

But enough about that. The most exciting thing I have to report is that the battery charger I ordered last week has arrived, in good working order, and I can take pictures now (it's also proof-of-concept that I can, in fact, get mail here. See?





The first is the view from my windows, the second two cover pretty much my entire living space. It's tiny but not too bad, unless I start to think about how much it costs. I figured it out and the useable space is only about forty square feet less than my freshman year dorm room, which was of course shared.

Yesterday, in proof that in times of social isolation we all revert to type and mine is geek, I also visited several nearby comic book stores, including Forbidden Planet, looking for the trade paperback of Rex Libris. Everyone knows the title, remembers having it in a month or so ago, but hasn't got it now. They can order it, though! I don't know where the stereotype of comics store employees being aloof and unhelpful comes from, they've never been anything but solicitous and helpful to me. I bought the Great Outdoor Fight book instead. Based on this admittedly cursory expedition, Anglo comic book culture seems quite similar to its American equivalent, just with the books of creepy pictures of Japanese girls more prominently displayed. Same dress code: jeans, black sweatshirt. Facial hair encouraged.

I took a more structured detour through Covent Garden on my way back, and looked at a lot of very nice things that I certainly can't afford to buy, including a beautiful dark grey down-filled silk coat in the low four figures (and that's pounds) that I feel certain would have magically transformed me into the sort of sleek, stylish, slightly patrician and deeply cool woman who seems to fill the streets here. I really do need to go buy a winter coat, though. It's chilly here, and very frequently wet, and for packing reasons I left my own coat, a 3/4 length downfilled thing that doesn't fit anymore anyway, back at home. My original plan was to find something cheap in a charity shop, and then just donate it back at the end of the season, to rent it, as it were, but all the stores I've been to contain just two sorts of coats: those that don't fit me, and those that are shapeless, in bad condition, and generally make me look like a homeless person. Plan B is Topshop. A peek online at their current offerings is promising, style-wise, but I thought Topshop was supposed to be cheap! (I like this one best. I'm a UK size 10. Just FYI.) Maybe Primark will have something.

Later in the evening I made a second venture to the bar in the basement, which was remarkably less crowded and noisy than on my earlier visit. There, I enjoyed a pint of Grolsch for two pounds (hard to argue with that) and lively conversation with several first year undergraduates who fancied themselves intellectual gentlement of the world (no doubt just the sort that would to a woman such as myself!) and told me about the tiny towns that they'd managed to escape from by dint of their wits just a few weeks before. They were awesome. If it's my fate in life to spend a lot of time in bars talking to nerdy boys in bars-- and the last decade or so of my life suggests that it is-- well, I could do a lot worse.

I've taken some non-drowsy decongestant and now I feel all wonky. Kind of great, and no more stuffy nose, but definitely wonky.