Week 18, 2023

If you’re looking to look cuter than you are but without looking too much like you’re wearing makeup I’d recommend getting some translucent powder and caking yourself in it. Even cis girls don’t notice it’s makeup they’re like “oh you have such lo aaaa vely skin” even if your skin has potholes in it like mine we

If you want that real “I put this on so carefully on Thursday and I haven’t slept since then” look I’d recommend getting some black eye shadow and scratching your kohl eyeliner pencil in it a few times before applying it. It gives you this gorgeous 1990s “I woke up like this” but you woke up in a den kind of look, and it can really lift people’s eyes off the rest of your weird face

Also recommend putting a little tap of eyeshadow that’s the same colour as your iris just above and below the middle of your eye so that when you’re staring right at them telling them you’re thinking of drowning yourself in the canal later your eyes look just as big as the moon. It’s good to put a little reflector patch of white eyeliner in the inner-eye for this too.

I’ve been in leeds this week trying to understand it. I think I do now. It’s a place that feels like it’s all locals, but they come from anywhere and you’ll never meet the same local twice. Except behind the bar. Like that 90ft tall red head in the oldest pub in leeds who you want to spend the rest of your life climbing like she’s Everest.

I forgot to pack hormones so my days have been getting more and more pain-filled as it continues. I kinda like being in excruciating pain, though it makes me smile and laugh a lot, I feel quite relaxed. Very focused. Probably something worth analyzing. There's no room in your life for the psychological torture when your skin seems to be eating itself.

The area by the canal in Leeds is very, very gay at night. Lots of gays, lots of trans people, also lots of crossdressers. For a while I was lying in the main road listening to Torn by Natalie Imbruglia on the OB-4 at full volume. I believe I made a few instagram stories. My speaker ran out of batteries, but the song didn’t stop because every voice in leeds city center kept singing. It was like being at a football match, i assume. Lots of women wearing no shoes, which appears to be a kind of girl you can be in Leeds.

We had lunch with Rick Stein on Friday morning which was nice. A lovely standard old man. He might not have known he was having lunch with us, he stayed inside while we stayed out. I drank a coriander lager which was quite delicious. I went back on Sunday and had another which I described as “quite delicious” which made the girl laugh at me the same way I got laughed at once for saying “quite pleasing” at work. Maybe Northerners just find the word quite quite pleasing.

If there was a pill I could take that would put me in intense physical pain I would probably eat it any time before going out. It really focuses the mind to be in intense physical pain. Especially pain in the skin or under the skin or the bones around the head. It distracts so much from the processing of the events around you, no need to overthink or every think about every little thing around you like the movement of a glass or the crossing of a leg, you just live like none of that is happening because it’s all you can do to just drink and make conversation.

I think I’ll try going to Liverpool tomorrow morning. There are a few places there I’d love to see again. And right now I feel like I spent a whole day in bed. In a good way. Though at the time it was a miserable way. Though i enjoyed Ted Lasso. Cried a lot.

Took a photo of a topless man in the street who told me to delete it. His body was incredible. He was wearing a puffy jacket and jeans and nothing else. I will delete it for him by which I mean keep it in my house in a frame for nobody else to ever see.

So on Sunday I went to a bunch of different places and I met some really really fun and cute people. C and S and T and J and omg they were so sweet. One hour of my life was spent in Delta Bar where a man was playing the most incredible dance music with African percussion to absolutely nobody. Even the guy behind the bar didn’t work there.

I’m at at Clueless now at the Everyman. It’s ads right now. I'm drinking an aperol spritz, eating popcorn. I kinda love leeds. Everyone here feels like a small towner, but it’s a city… it’s a city with a different life every night. At one point my headphones accidentally and unexpectedly started playing Torn by Natalie Imbruglia.

Sometimes I wonder if there are so many movies based in the past because they don’t know how to talk about modern teenagers. It’s obvious that a huge part of it they don’t know how to write shows that aren’t about explicit and excruciating homophobia, mysogyny, and racism. But also I don’t think they know how to write about the subtlety and the extreme.

I didn’t mention C yet. She came into the gay bar and walked right up to me at the bar and said “oh my god GLASSES!” and then demanded “let’s swap!”. Two seconds later she said “except those are prescription so please don’t keep them” and i haven’t been able to stop thinking about her. It’s the reason I’m still in leeds, i think.

Clueless is starting now.

Ok so halfway through clueless I got so mad that somebody could pretend they weren’t in love with Brittany Murphy that I stormed out and had a cigarette and met the cutest ladies two of which have the same dead mum and they promised to take me on a real Leeds night out. One was a manager of Everyman but she’s on maternity and was only there for the 50% drinks

They are so cute and they brought me to Brooklyn and are going to take me gay later and we will see.

I might lose my phone tonight.