Si tu n'étais pas là...

These past fews days have offered transient glimpses of blue skies, a novelty here in Manchester. Alas, I've been ill, body and mind, and thus unable to enjoy my old friend sunshine. As some consolation, my bedroom window filters in the rays, adding some brightness to this domestic cube. There is something to be said for natural light over the artificial variety. I will never live in such a grey place again.

I've been knee deep in academia these last few weeks (along with a shameless obsession with BBC miniseries...). I find it difficult to believe that we are already at the halfway mark in the semester-- this acknowledgment really ought to jumpstart my ambition, but it hasn't yet. My mind is preoccupied with my fast approaching visit to the homeland. T-minus 22 days until I'm reunited with my kitten, my family, my friends, and hopefully some good, old fashioned Milwaukee sunshine. Still, the moment I leave Manchester I know I'll want to come back. So goes my ill-fated fickle existence.

Brassaï, Statue au Pont du Carrousel, 1940s

"O reason, reason, abstract phantom of the waking state, I had already expelled you from my dreams, now I have reached a point where those dreams are about to become fused with apparent realities: now there is only room here for myself. In vain, reason denounces me to the dictatorship of sensuality. In vain it warns me against error crowned queen at last. Enter, Madam, this is my body, this is your throne."

--Louis Aragon, Le Paysan de Paris, 22