The first time I came to London by myself it was one week after my 19th birthday. I’d made the trip see Otway and Barrett live. It was the 19th of March. The opportunity arose for me to meet up with a girl whose diet consisted, seemingly in its entirety, of Wotsits and milk. I was charmed by this. We’d been speaking on-line, on MSN messenger. We’d met on MySpace when I’d made the effort to send her a very long message explaining that I liked her straw hat and we’d hit it off. We met up at Victoria train station and she sprayed my greasy hair with coconut Batiste on a concrete staircase. We never made it to the show, never made it out of hotel. She was kind to me. I met her parents. I met her dog, who was dying of cancer. That’s when i learned dogs could get cancer. I met her friends, I was awkward around her friends. We saw each other a few more times. In train stations, bus stations, hotel rooms, and bread and breakfasts, toilet cubicles, a field of daffodils beside Three Bridges I’ve never seen again, and Croydon and Carlisle and Regent’s Park where I lay my head on her lap and she squeezed blackheads on my forehead til they popped. Later on we broke each other’s hearts.

Wow. I completely forgot to write a post yesterday. That’s wild.

What happened last week? I started making a corned beef brisket. It will be ready to start cooking tomorrow. It’s been brining in the refrigerator since Thursday. I’ve been having a bad skin day for about a month now. My testosterone appears to be high. I don’t know why, my medication hasn’t changed. I see some studies that say keto boosts testosterone. Maybe I need to up my anti-androgens or eat a pizza. There’s not much else to report really. I’ve been shopping for vintage pyrex. I got a bowl in the pattern my grandmother had when I was growing up. A pattern from which I ate my weight in Irish stew many times over. I’ve also sourced a couple of casseroles and lasagne dishes in the milk-on-rose gooseberry and daisies patterns. They haven’t arrived yet but they’re on their way. My outfit today is a pink shirt dress dress that looks like an old floral hand-me-down quilt sewn patch-by-patch over generations by midwestern mothers and grandmothers. I’m also wearing pink velour sweatpants and a pink sweatshirt with cherries on it. This will go together with my pyrex when it arrives. Then I will never go outside again except to the market to pick up ingredients to bring home to my pyrex to put in the oven. There were some things that were meant to happen last week but they all fell through. Spring is becoming more assertive in its threats to break through the dark and the cold. There’s a beautiful cherry blossom tree visible from my window and I find myself staring at it longingly while japanese orchestral music plays in my mind and everything else fades to black and white like schindler’s list. Stress is unusual. It can present in such unexpected ways. Mine is currently presenting as a fantasy that i’m a red head goy girl who grew up in 60s Manhattan and married a jewish jazz musician called Leonard Katz and my name is Kathleen, named after my grandmother, and everybody calls me Kitty Katz and i’d better go because Leo will be expecting something on the table when he gets back from the schvitz. I need to take a break. Maybe in April I will take a break. A taco bell has opened nearby, maybe the solution to my high testosterone is to eat taco bell three times a day. My yearly tarot told me April would be a particularly hard month when i’d have to resist falling back into my bad old ways. I didn’t believe it at the time but that was back during the optimistic high living days of Avatar 2. Now my skin is disgusting, my hair is ugly and there’s a taco bell next door and I’m stressed and John Wick 4 is out. It’s okay, though. Everything is actually very chill. I’m very chill and well-adjusted.

Hello :)

On Thursday evening I went outside for perhaps the first time in March. As the oxygen started to re-enter my bloodstream I recalled I was in a very similar state of mind before flying to Mexico last year. Perhaps this is just what March is like for me.

On Friday I went into the office eventually. It was nice. Afterwards I attended the birthday bash of my at-work idol. It was a lot of fun. I saw some people I haven’t seen in quite a while, and met some new people who were very lovely and funny. It was a splendid occasion and I’m quite touched that I was even invited and I will cherish the pencil.

My upstairs neighbour appears to have purchased at least part of a trumpet. Their practice lacks ambition. They seem to be struggling with embouchure, but I can hear them distracted by the valves– clattering on them needlessly. I’d recommend practicing with the mouthpiece alone and forget about the fingering for a while, so futile without the lip. You’re doing fine, I believe in you, keep at it.

I’ll get off the computer again now to do some cleaning and prepare something tasty for dinner.

If you have a free moment, and/or enjoy sending things in the mail, look at this cute project and send it a postcard: https://utopia.sadgirl.net/

An international postcard is £1.85. I usually just stick two first class stamps on when I’m sending a postcard to the United States, and then drop it in a normal postbox. That’s 2x£1.10 stamps. I hope the postal service puts the extra 35p to good use.

Anyway, it’s cute and you love sending letters so you should do it!

~ chee

I’m going to take my horse to the old town road and ride until I can’t.

I think I’ll have to stop eating vegetarian as it has presented as me just not eating anything at all. It all went well except that one evening last week when I literally forgot tuna is not a vegetable. I do enjoy a dietary restriction, though. It’s a fine hobby. Perhaps i’ll start eating kosher.

Spent most of the week drinking way too much coffee because of the new espresso machine and grinder. I keep wiring myself up to the highest degree and then freaking out. Feeling super anxious and wondering why as I top up my v60 with espresso. I should probably start drinking alcohol again, to bring this coffee consumption back under control. Also I must think of my readers. The engagement’s just not the same as back when I took meth. Those were the days, JetPack stats off the chart.

Another blessed week of doing very little. I’m writing a parser for KDL right now. Getting into Common Lisp like this has made me understand why people might enjoy missionary work. When you are possession of such light, such joy it feels wrong not to share it. Especially when all somebody would have to do to reach this same heightened state is to let it into their life, accept it, let it save them. I’ve got a print copy of the specification sitting on my kitchen table. I read it in the mornings over coffee.

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Figure 1: current status

Is Funky Cold Medina based on a true story?

Anyway, have a good week.