talking [formal] (of a person) no longer alive type late
if you didn’t get me a gift, that means you are my gift
hey babe
i got an apartment
i’m getting the keys tomorrow
i think my life is about to change completely
uber eats game crazy
1 tube from everywhere
30 minute walk from prufrock
yeah
let’s get matching tattoos that say “it’s sad but it’s true” and under that
“⬛︎⬛︎⬛︎” and a canada goose in a paddling pool
i mean
wait, wait. i was gonna say something nope, it’s gone. it’s gone.
oh yeah. so i took a few days off to pack, put my life into boxes (this is my
last resort). stayed up late and “helped” beano with her homework. she is a
lightsource and the owner of many good brush pens and very funny and good.
afterwards i sat down between two towers of boxes and thought about how i’ve
not had a vacation since 2024, and now the year ends in the number six. i dyed
the front leaves of my hair orange. that brought back a rush of memories; i
cried for a while which is good. i’ve been holding onto some stuff for a
manufacturer of quality soups that’s gonna land me in a pickle, which i do not
relish. it’s been a long year since christmas three christmases ago, and i’ve
got to take some time to wring it out of myself and into the radio. feel like
i’ve been having, in a personal capacity, a week where decades happen twice a
week for half a year.
sometimes you’re just waiting around for someone to have a dream they can’t
explain.
wait, wait. i was gonna say something — nope, it’s gone. it’s gone.
oh yeah, .
foc was really special. again. i fucking love this event. all the people are so
great, and i love stomping around and having silly little chitter-chatters with
everyone. and telling everybody how amazing their demos were (they were) and
thanking them. and telling everybody how i’m so happy they came and thank you
and listening to their ideas about the computer and saying “pleeeeease submit a
demo for next time!!!!!!” because they are all so cute and excited and
interesting. and i love running it with lu and with mimi and i just can’t
imagine a better setup. like 3⁄4 of the people were first time this time and it
still felt like FoC, it was charged up and the air was vibrating and there was
too much pizza.
and now i’m moving apartments to just a few minutes run from there. i know it’s
just a few minutes run because i got to the event just as the drinks were
arriving, and then i ran to the viewing, took the place, and ran back for setup
and pizza. might be the first time i’ve run in a decade. oh! i almost forgot.
another of my dreams came true. i stepped out in front of somebody’s car and
they shouted “fucking bitch!” out the window. isn’t that wonderful? they wanted
to hurt my feelings, but they did it on my terms. you feel me? i’m so cute and
popular.
you think i’m never lonely because i’m so cute and popular?
okay so today we transition from the Wheel of Fortune to the Page of Swords and
do you know what queen? maybe!
i’d had this rule with heroin ever since i was a teenager. i’d try it, but only
ever in one v. specific scenario: somehow i’d come into posession of it, but had
no idea how to acquire any more.
later on i’m twenty something. the summerhouse with nothing but a piano and a
bed. but then fiancee, inevitable, and the leaving suddenly in the dark of night
with grandfather’s whiskey. but there’s a party in the big house with the girls
from the charity. i’m working my way through a line of coke and that extremely
tall loud software engineer that josie likes comes in the room and tells me amy
winehouse died.
at the end post wind down, there’s josie out on the steps leading up to the
door. we sit beside each other for a while and look up at the stars. we kiss a
little and say “this feels terrible” and “can we not do this again?”. i tell her
i have nowhere to live and she invites me to stay in the room above her mother’s
kitchen with nothing but a cello and a bed.
and i walk through the city as the sun starts to rise. “can i borrow your phone
mate?” a guy on the corner of the street. he tells me im tryna call a guy to see
if his wife’s gone so i can drop by. so i asked what he was buying? heroin. how
much does that cost? he makes the call. took my cash, up the street and back
with a bag and some advice: don’t take it.
and back to josie’s house and it’s a small room but warm and sometimes her
mother comes in and teaches me a little cello. here’s how to hold a bow, how to
turn it when you pull. i like the cello. i spent a few days snorting h, making
websites for my first real web dev job, reading books and playing cello. i
gathered my things and got on a plane to chicago where i would embark
involuntarily upon the dark quinquennium. but yes, i can see the appeal. no
pain, no anxiety, no world around at all, no fear, in heaven phasing through
memories and imaginary worlds and always where you are, but chitter chatter with
little sepia ghostlies as you maybe-here-maybe-don’t and all the while it’s like
she’s holding you. at some point i threw up in a pizza box. papa john’s.
this week, though… i worked a lot. talked to some people. wrote little bits
of songs i can never commit to record at least until they aren’t true anymore.
i’m taking the next few days off to get every little thing in boxes. the
kitchen’s pretty much done now. just need to trash one cupboard of trash. i am
gonna have a lot of boxes. most of the apartments i’ve found so far may be too
small to fit the boxes. i said, she said. eyes wet, cheeks red. goosebumps,
deep breath. scruffy angel on, yes, the chopping block. bless her cotton socks.
get the coffee pot, set your pocket watch, let a bottle rocket off. unless you
lost a lot, i guess you walk it off. skyyyyrockets in flight, afternoon
delight. of course that’s your contention you’re a first year hospitality
student just got through eating some gastronomical schnitzel, cordon bleu
probably. thrift store hunting, little driver seat, cooper, self preservation
society, like homecoming, eurostar “get it?” like quantum physics (in your
window). like quiet party, jerry springer messy— black and white, under water,
up in the sky. jack up, rose up, car crash, hook line and sink and a day later,
weak forty eight, two hours and forty drenched, but we’ll be okay, we can wait,
eighty-eight and twenty-three (and three), ADH and LSD and R-QP. an hour a day five
days a week keeps the doctor at bay, silent, asleep. quiet and sweet. try it
and see. i’d like to be under the sea in an octopus’s garden in the summerhouse
with nothing but a piano and a bed.
the rest of sunday, after publish, i stayed up late talking to the girlies.
someone said “it’s so obvious” and i thought about that. i’m still thinking
‘bout that. we hugged goodbye. too much, not enough. bade farewell at the locked
chang-chang metal in the doorway. thanks for welcoming me in.
early monday marcel and me and
mimi jump into a taxi. hello madrid and we put marcel
on a train. hello madrid and we have our breakfast. mimi says “Oh. My. God.”
when i take the first bite of the whole mozarella ball at the exit of the lidl.
a few minutes later she inquires, with a certain amount of trepidation, where is
the cheese? eyes darting at my pockets in desperation. with a still face and a
minute shake of the head i express the cheese is gone, it has been eaten, please
don’t ask any further questions about the cheese. she says “Wow.” with a tone
that does not entirely convey approval.
a coffee shop fix up. information hierarchy. tostada, salad. nice place. good
beans. and gently so gently, and back to the station and we put mimi on a train.
and i against the wall, on the floor, write down on the computer about this and
about that. and off to the upstairs platform, and i put chee on a train.
marcel missed his connection by a minute.
his new train is tomorrow. same train as me and mimi. he gets a room at the
hotel on top of the station. i’m nearby, the two of us meet up and eat tacos.
a man in the street tells me that i am looking beautiful, and tells me to lick
my lips. i say no thank you. he calls me a bitch, and tells me i’m a man, and
calls me a bitch, and tells me i’m a man.
back at my hotel (the moxy where the pillow casings say “i woke up like this”),
i make arrangements with cherene to have breakfast in the morning.
sunset.
daybreak.
i wake up in my boots.
i don’t remember ever falling asleep in my boots before 2025, but since
september i’ve woken up in a bed in my boots three times or more.
yes, it’s the morning. birds are chirping, i presume. i find cherene and we
wander around talking until the coffee shops open. he’s going to be a father.
after an iced latte, he takes me to his favourite pastry shop where i acquire a
pair of xuxos (also spelt chuchos), a sort of cannoncini or corone made of
croissant. they look delicious, greasy, i’d like one but it would kill me. one
for each of my trainmates is almost just as satisfying. xuxo means mutt. a
sparkly eyed dog of mixed ancestry. we have a wonderful chat about arts and
theatre and libraries and research, weirdos, alchemy, identity, and promise.
and, of course, the computer.
goodbye cherene, and through security. send platform and gate info to my
colleagues to lower the background radiation of stress. + marcel arrives, + is
issued a pastry and receives it quite gladly. mimi arrives, and is issued
pastry, and receives it with a certain amount of trepidation due to the fact she
is currently constructed almost entirely from a chocolate cake with no raising
agent that lives in the belly like a foot tall brownie.
we board. seated dispersed assorted amongst the two carriages either side of the
cafe car. i meet some dogs for a while; they poke their little noses round the
corner in front and i boop. the first class cars have little telephone calls
booths. i go there and sit and i make a little music for a while. a little later
i visit mimi in the coffee queue in the cafe car and we have a little coffee and
then we spend thirty or forty. mimi’s pointing out the window and telling me
about the birds. i love to hear about all the different birds and how to
recognize the different birds by stance and colour. there are a lot of flamingos
who don’t migrate anymore because france is warm enough these days all year.
instead they stand around getting pale near rice.
marcel comes up to the cafe from the lower 13 and we all have an early lunch.
mine is a salad of two eggs on the gratings of a single carrot, soaked in what
appears to be the juice of 9 whole lemons. we split up back to our seats, but
the aisle seat beside my seat contains a sleeping passenger that i feel no
desire to disturb. it’s clear to see, to me, that she needs the sleep more than
i need my seat. i return to the first class telephone calls booth and make a
little music for a while and write down on the computer about this and about
that.
and we arrive in Paris. or, as the French call it, “Lille”. and we find the
moisturizer. and we find a late lunch. and we find our tickets and they are
miraculously next to one other. you know, we were meant to be in different
carriages. and the journey is easy. and quiet. and i make a little music for a while.
and chunnel. and goodbye. and home. and meet harry in the hallway. and “the longest
week of my life” and “yes in a good way”. and unlock the door and see boxes and
boxes and boxes. and fall asleep in my boots.
wakeup.followtherabbit.knockknock.
on wednesday i work, unexpectedly. tighten it up, throw things together. hop on
a call.
on thursday i work, unexpectedly. loosen up. throw some things together. hop on
a call. at night i go out to newspeak house to see agnes
cameron and join a
group converting psychic damage about the arms
industry into wikipedia edits. afterwards i see
orion and gamithra and i
talk too much about nothing and drain me too. i find myself in that hallway so
many now.
on friday i work, and show some of the things off that i’ve been making and it
goes quite well. i’m excited about the conversations in the sidebar. the chat
had many messages of people saying things that i’ve been trying to say, but they
said them much better than i could. several other people demo’d and each one of
them was really fucking good. and i hop on a call. and a story i’ve been since
25/46 shows finale, renewed for two more seasons.
the apartment i wanted went to somebody else. i don’t have anywhere lined up
yet. might end up putting everything in storage and living as a vagabond. i’m
packing it (my life) in boxes. open a cupboard, touch something, flood of
memories of who touched it once before—what kind of love led it here to my
hand. and all that love is dead now. and all so far away. i don’t remember even
being the kind of person who would feel it. thank god i’ll never have to go
through all that again. learning someone. being learned.
but for now i’ll be touching a box of pegs in the kitchen and crying. because of
the meaning of the pegs. or the chopping board, cassette tape, spiralizer,
envelope, little flag, deck of cards, water bottle matching water bottle isn’t
here, power cable, saddam hussein tshirt, knock-off danish jenga set, empty
camera case, cardboard box with label maker label, vape juice (mango), eye
shadow, broken glasses, vases, talavera pussy cat, baseball cap, single sock,
tampons, pads, painkillers, gaming mouse, washi tape, masking tape, instant pot
(does anyone want a free instant pot? for free, instant pot, barely used?),
little wooden animals, whistle, train ticket receipt, magnetic e-ink screen,
ladybird egg shaker, thin blue raincoat, cherries sticker, high heel shoe strap.
you know, rich and relentless. need rest and recuperation. sentimental
convalescence.
a good thing to learn is how to be uncomfortable. to maintain your connection to
yourself when the vibes are all the way off. i don’t know any way other than
practice. and it’s gonna suck for a while. and you’ll spend some time like the
wax a lot. but there are few things that can make you more secure than knowing
you’ll be okay when nothing is. and relax, don’t pull, like a finger trap.
accept the worst and plan for it and then go for the gold.
cupknight,
wheel of fortune,
page of swords,
ace of wands,
judgement,
ace of pentacles.
almost too vibrant.
i’m living canadian hours this week, packing boxes after nightfall. happy
international ladybird day week to those who celebrate.
