"a leftover baked potato can be damp, slippery, and simultaneously gummy and crumbly"

The sun comes out, everyone runs to Primark to buy brightly-coloured vests and sunglasses and stupid hats, businessmen drip ice-cream down their suits, toddlers turn strange shades of sunblock green, teenage girls get arrested for shoplifting. This is what I saw in town this lunchtime. (And it's the second time in a month I've seen a teenage girl get arrested for shoplifting in Primark - dear oh dear, what is happening to humanity etc. etc.)

Meanwhile I'm consuming tea and satsumas and crumbly baked potatoes (not with Patrick Kavanagh, as the Galway Kinnell poem goes), reading Heart of Darkness in a bad Italian accent and not really having much contact with the outside world. Facebook doesn't count. I had a conversation in normalspeak with Harriet yesterday, but it was pretty short and went something along the lines of

"I'VE FORGOTTEN ALL MY GERMAN!"
"Do you have an exam tomorrow?"
"YES!!!!"
"Well, good luck."
"I'M GONNA DIE!!!!"
"Stop it."
"I'M GONNA DIE!!!!"
"STOP-"
"EXAMS!!!!!"
"EXAMS!!!!!!!!!"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"

Not exactly in-depth. I keep meaning to ask her if I can go to her house on Friday before the ball to get ready, because going straight there from home and having to get squashed by buggies and wheelchairs on the bus while wearing a dress is probably not wise, but I feel a bit funny about doing it because I know she's bringing Hugh and if he's at her house too there'll be a bit of a gooseberry situation. Not that that would bother ME that much - I could keep out of the way, talk to her parents or something (not her crazy dad though, last time I saw him was when he said to Alex B, "My God, you must have a MASSIVE cock!" - I can't remember in what context this comment was made though). All I really need is a place to get my hair in order and plaster myself inexpertly with make-up and try to make sure I look nice and not just like some weird velvet aubergine.

And maybe with some company around beforehand I might actually feel a bit more excited about the whole thing than I am now. I don't know why I'm so unbothered by it - everyone keeps talking about it, and there have been a few good rumours spread about people in advance so there will probably be some kind of drama that'll keep us all entertained for the next month and a half. And it looks good on the leaflet. It's in a BOAT. There's a dining room that looks weirdly like the one in Titanic (hopefully not an omen). The tables have all the napkins folded into that funny fan-shape. There are cocktails. There's a live band. Tower Bridge will open for us. And the name of the boat is the Dixie Queen. I mean, that is a BRILLIANT name. Why am I not thrilled to bits by this?

Maybe because I sort of know how the night will turn out - not badly, in fact probably quite well, but at the end of the day I just KNOW there will be a feeling of anticlimax. Harriet will spend the night getting off with Hugh and then running to the toilet to tell me she wants to break up with him. Sophie is going to try and pull Mr Amy because she thinks he fancies her because one time he said she looked like Mischa Barton (this whole episode is going to be weird and wrong...but maybe funny). (For the record, she doesn't look anything like Mischa Barton.) Then Immy&Alex will be intertwined with each other all night, Sam will be sexist, Dom will make awful puns on EVERYTHING in sight, everyone will be manically happy and everyone who is 18 will be drunk. I will eat/drink/dance/laugh too much, while wishing that Raaheel or Boris were here because they probably wouldn't be taking it as seriously as everyone else. (They're both shunning the event on the grounds that they have better things to do, and good on them.) If the headmistress comes and if she makes a speech like she did at the modern languages dinner I will kill myself. And then it'll be over and everyone else will go to the afterparty (in Catford! Rock on!) but I'll go home via the insane night bus because the next day I'm expected at KING'S CROSS, PLATFORM NINE AND THREE QUARTERS, for a way more enjoyable day and evening.

What is wrong with me? I'm not usually so pessimistic.

Well, anyway. In other news, I've written half a poem. There's no last line and the first verse is a pile of ew, so I'm trying to change it and then I'll show it. Once again, it's a poem that isn't about me. At all. Maybe the ball will inspire a few poems, who knows...