I'm in my room, in my bed, under the duvet with my back against the radiator. It's lovely.

I had lectures in the morning, then a gap until the seminar so I did my reading and drank a cup of coffee. Bloody R, one half of the power-mad, power-couple who run feminist society like a hairy cabal (I don't go anymore, also I'm being unfair- but since I'm writing this and you're reading it, you don't have any one else to believe except me). She's still in the heart of the Union Bullshit Maelstrom. While she talked to me- looking like the maddest of mad horses- I thought, 'thank, fuck I'm no longer involved'. That's the danger of internal logic- it all seems sane at the time and it is; but only in a mad situation. Like tea time in the court of an ailing monarchy somewhere the world's forgotten, where everything hinges on an arcane ettiquette because that's all they have left. And it was like listening to the wind. And I thought, I'm talking to her and she can't hear me at all. She's hearing someone who doesn't even exist. I might say anything at all. Silly girl. Which would be ok, if it actually made her happy.

Anyway, it started snowing. As I walked between the common room and the seminar big sloppy flakes of snow fell on my cheek like the wet kiss of a happy toddler.
And how can people be sick of the snow- when it's not even settling, just falling in big generous flakes, that make you glad?

After my seminar, I went to the Chris Ofili exhibition at the Tate, with Danny.
Through the train windows the sky was white, full up with snow and Canary Wharf looked like fairytale unreachable. Because it's made of glass the towers in the distance are full up of sky, whatever the sky is the towers become. Metal cranes also looked like lace-work, their thick metals cables- strong enough to lift steel and blocks of concrete and staircases right into the sky- looked like cobweb.

As I walked over Vauxhall bridge the wind whipped snow around me. I walked with my coat open. I ran neatly across the road, the driver of the taxi waiting at the lights stared at my little jette to the pavement. It was cold as fuck, you know. And I just had a on my coat (open), and a cotton pinstriped man's shirt, and grey trousers and those little brogues. The river, the clouds, the buildings milky and white, like pearls, like ibuprofen. The muddy river banks full of Roman gold, somewhere there under the silt.

And Danny was waiting on the steps of the gallery. I ran up them two by two, little hug, kiss the air 'hello, darling- you must be freezing; you should have waited inside'. My voice, these days is sotto and posh- it's not my natural voice, but I don't know what is. I think my natural voice is deeper, a bit more estuary, louder. But how would I know? I have no reason to believe that's my real voice, more than the one I'm currently using. Both my parents have lost their accents. My native accent is a lost accent. How should I speak?

'Hello, darling'. Anyway, we go inside- inisde my cheeks go red from the warmth- and have a cup of tea (in the members' room, the woman at the counter regards me suspiciously and looks closely at my card- but I don't care, it's a lovely birthday present).

Then we go to the exhibition. In the first rooms the paintings are brash and glittery, incorporating lumps of elephant shit and snippets of pornography. Each dot is like a concentrated jolt of a movement- or the point of something bigger, together they look like beadwork. And it's about race and it's about gender and it's about god and it's about making up stories and the stories other people make up (like god, like race, like gender).

As you move along the recent paintings become more subtle (the artist says in the video at the end; says someone holding a guide; says the guide to the exhibition), and rather the tone of his voice has changed which changes the language and the story comes out differently. The room with some of his 'Blue Rider' paintings is as still as a church, and each painting is so beautiful in the gloom. The canvas looks like a birds' feather or a petrol spill, the images come out of that. In the last room, his most recent work saturates you with shape and colour and I thought my heart would burst.

And anyway, I'm going back to see it again.

I don't really know anything about art- how to talk about it. So for dear life I cling to the guide, by my heart fills up anyway like a engine tank filling up with petrol.

I got the bus home. Ate tea and toast and an apple (didn't have lunch), am waiting for the swimming pool to open for lane swimming. I'm so hungry, but I can't eat until I get back,

I have no money, oh well. The flowers from my birthday are still on my desk. I've writen all this and now it's time I can go swimming. The thing is the body that moves so certainly in the water, is the body I'm ashamed of the in the changing rooms. I do like to empty myself with hunger, but then sometimes I like my body undressed in the mirror like a splash of spilt milk. And I know it wouldn't be so bad, if only I had a second opinion. But I won't, haven't for a while, won't for a while. How even can I stand it?

But I might as well.