Socrates - always good with legs

Bad news first. Last week I went to see the GP again (who incidentally is the mother of Jake, a boy in my year, and has lots of pictures of Jake on her desk which is really weird when I'm trying to tell her something serious). She swivelled my knee this way, that way, this way, that way, and then said, "It's growing pains."

"Sorry?"

"Yes, growing pains. There's nothing really you can do. Cartilage, you see, it should harden and resolve itself by the time you're about nineteen or so."

"Nineteen."

"Yes."

"Sorry, just...sorry. NINETEEN???"

So that's that. Apparently I'm supposed to just adopt a policy of Ignoring It, while at the same time avoiding things which "aggravate" the poor ickle pathetic knee. What a conundrum. Meanwhile, a few muscles in my back have been talking amongst themselves and decided that, "Hey, you know what Annie could really do with now? You know what's missing in her life? A nice bit of back pain!" Only it's not just a bit. It's the worst back pain I've ever had. It makes the Great Back Pain of Summer 2006 seem like a little bruise, and to be honest I'm really scared about this, it's never been like this before. I spent most of Wednesday pacing up and down the living room, rubbing my spine and sobbing. Not good.

I then went for a furious swim that was actually powered by sheer rage ("You want pain, you stupid, useless, good-for-nothing muscles? HERE! HERE'S - SOME - MORE - BLOODY - PAIN!" Just to clarify, I wasn't actually saying this aloud. For one thing it would be quite hard to do while swimming.) Anyway, the parents have decided that when I'm in Moscow the week after next I should go and see their old friend from uni, who is now a doctor specialising in this kind of crap. It's quite weird because his nickname at uni was apparently Socrates (I don't know why), and so my parents keep saying things like, "Yes, make sure you tell Socrates about the orthotics" and "Socrates will know what this is about, he was always good with legs" and I get really confused for a second.

Anyway. Let's not dwell on this or I'll start panicking again and panicking will lead to more pacing and tears. On Tuesday I took Dom to Open Mic - he used to write poetry, ages ago, but then stopped due to writer's block/lack of confidence/whatever and I kept trying to make him start writing again and he kept refusing. Anyway, so we went to Open Mic, and it was really good - I didn't read anything because I have nothing to read, but there were quite a lot of regulars and familiar faces, including a South African woman who we saw last time, who read these amazing poems that were like half-song half-spoken word. And one guy read a poem that contained the immortal line, "My arse wept for the Lord God Almighty." (It was about porn.) The only bad bit was when some guy was reading this weird poem and occasionally stopping to say stuff like, "Are there any IMMIGRANTS in the audience?" and "Any BLACKS or SLAVS?" Then when he sat down someone at the back called out, "Are there any vaguely provocative fascists in the audience?" and the room went kind of quiet. Fortunately Niall said something like, "God, can you feel the LOVE in this room??" and made a joke and the subject was swiftly changed. Apart from that, it was a great night.

And afterwards when we were walking down Betterton Street, Dom said he really really liked it, and he EVEN said that he might start writing poems again, and at that point I was so happy all I wanted to do was kiss him only he suddenly went, "OH MY GOD THERE'S A POWER RANGER IN THE WINDOW!" And sure enough there was a life-size model of a red Power Ranger in one of the windows above us. It was terrifying.

And later we saw Orlando Bloom coming out of the theatre where he's performing at the moment, and all these teenage girls shrieking and running down the road to see him.

Yesterday I went to the Poetry Library for the first time. Well, actually, I went there once years ago, but that didn't really count - this time I got a membership card and spent about three hours in there, perusing all the books and magazines. And drooling. I got out two books from Christopher Logue's War Music series (Kings and The Husbands) and The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck and Errata by Michael Donaghy. The trip was only spoilt a bit because at one point I was standing there reading Vicki Feaver and had so much pain in the back area I actually felt faint, and had to go and sit down for a bit.

This means I have eight books to read before going to Moscow next week, although I think it can now be safely said that I'm not going to read Caesar by the end of this summer. I tried to find some more interesting bits I could just skim through - like the death of Pompey in The Civil War - and even that was boring. It's just not going to happen. Sigh. I'm a bad classicist.

I did, however, read Harry Potter earlier this week - Harriet leant it to me after I went round to her house on Monday to see her new kittens. I only have this to say:

a) Not exactly bed-time story material for small children, is it?
b) That was quite a finale.
c) 9-year-old Snape, bless his little cotton socks.
d) I LIKED the big twist. Oh yes.
e) But the epilogue was lame.