Total eclipse.

I'm living in London again. It doesn't seem very real, maybe because I'm still doing mainly what I was doing in Dublin for the last two months, academic drudgery it feels like at the moment. It will eventually become better. So I tell myself. Another thing that adds to the unreality is that I spend a great deal of my time sitting uncomfortably at a desk - I think it may not be possible for me to sit comfortably, or not for long anyway, due to various bodily idiosyncrasies, which I still have trouble accepting, an unfortunate situation when this is my daily norm and has been for years - staring at a screen and moving words around on it. In various programmes, with different outcomes, but a very similar task. Strangely arriving here immediately made my time in Dublin seem like a dream, when it should all seem part of the same ongoing experience, surely. What doesn't feel dreamlike is the fact that I've been doing this for some time. It's only a matter of four or five months now, but it feels longer. Never-ending, but I try to recall that there was a time before this, and will be a different time afterwards. Anyway, what I was aiming to say here is that for me some things experienced through screens seem real and are enjoyable, but many do not, partially because of the physical pain that encountering things through screens generally causes me, due to the aforementioned physical problems, whether it's my back, shoulders, neck, arms or generalised chronic pain, exacerbated by the usual interfaces of keyboard and mouse, or using a touchscreen. Whereas I've noticed that lately the things I generally enjoy most involve nature. And sometimes a form of physical immersion or bodily experience. So I really enjoyed swimming at Seapoint when I was back in Dublin, and at the Forty Foot on one of the sunniest days of the (otherwise unsunny) summer. And the night before last I was lucky enough to still be awake, and with the Brilliantly Astonishing Boyfriend, to see a lunar eclipse of a supermoon. It was a completely clear night here in London, and it was great to get to see first the big, bright supermoon, so called because the moon is closer to the earth than normal and appears about 14% larger in the sky. Then to see the moon gradually get bitten by darkness, as the eclipse began.

And then, as the eclipse neared totality, the moon went red.

Until it was a total eclipse, the moon a large red disc in the clear night sky, surrounded by stars.

Very amazing. It looks better in closeup.

And better still viewed in nature, and not through a screen. At least it helps share it. I'm glad I had that experience. Thanks, universe.