🐰 chee cherries quiet party

entries from july 2023

British Summer Time GMT+1

week 28 of '23

I’m struggling to recall how this week began, and I’m currently off-line on my flight to Portugal using my MacBook Air with no writing archive.

I dyed my hair various UV colors. Dark hot pink, orange (electric lizard) and lemon (electric banana) and lime. I went to the cinema with the taco girl. We saw the Wes Anderson. Good movie. I liked the line β€œI’ve learned to take people as I find them, not as others find them” a lot. It’s good and important.

On Tuesday I got a letter from Orla Foster. A true joy. She is a wonderful writer. She was angrier than normal, as funny as usual. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say she is one of my favorite writers. It’s very funny to say β€œwhat an inspiring young woman!” as an insult.

Who can be sure what happened on Wednesday? I remember I went out… I talked to some people at The Railway… I bought some drinks and I sat in the graveyard listening to The Velvet Underground for a while. I remember that I stayed up until 4am tracking my summer against Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey. It works pretty well. It means that Portugal, Boom festival, is the abyss. It’s death and rebirth. It’s the belly of the beast. It means that it’s there I must change from what I have been to what I will be. It’s there, narratively speaking, that I should find what I’m looking for. And pay the price.

On Thursday I went into the office. I went out afterwards. I kissed somebody. I woke up in a doorway of a hotel on Bread Street without a phone. I managed to get my phone back thanks to the help of a colleague and the gentle restauranteur who’d found it and brought it with him to Row Lane.

Friday night I packed my bags for Portugal. I went to bed kind of early. I considered the idea of smuggling ketamine in a an old Maybelline Translucent Powder container. It has a bottom shelf, and a built in mirror, and it’s normal for it to be filled with white powder. It is an exceptional place to keep powdered drugs. Plus you can say β€œMaybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s ketamine.”

On Saturday I continued packing. Talked with Georgia on the phone for a couple of hours. Veeted my entire body. Redid my hair dye. Had a good bath. All smooth like a dolphin. On Saturday night I went to the warehouse to collect Ruxi’s Crocs. Crocsandra. Crocsandra Crocsun. While I’m there collecting the crocs, having a beer at the kitchen table, a party breaks out around me. I text ivi. Ivi’s playing a live set at The Jago. I love The Jago. I go to the local bar to get a quick pair of tequilas while I await my taxi to The Jago. A fist fight breaks out beside me between two men because one asked if I was trans and the other decided to defend my honour. The question asker was pushed out the door, onto the floor. Thrown out of the pub almost literally like jazzy jeff.

Ivi was great. A really good set. I loved every moment of it. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say they are my favourite dj. Also one of my favourite people. I met some people in the smoking area who were very nice too. One of them invited me to their housewarming in August, so there’s that to look forward to. August is seeming like a busy month. Ivi took me to a party afterwards. First we stopped by a Clapton warehouse where I met some new queers. They were very lovely. I like them a lot. It’s nice to meet people who you feel immediately comfortable with, and who seem like old friends. The party was in a house but there were wristbands like it was an event. I danced a lot. I agreed to marry several people. Most of the people there were from Brazil. I did not agree to marry any Brazilians.

When the party was complete, we returned to the warehouse and I sat on the floor and worried that I had overstayed my welcome. In fact at one point I was so certain that I had, I packed my bag and got up and started towards the door before asking for confirmation and being told to sit back down. It’s something I’m very nervous about, I guess. I don’t know when I’m part of the group that stays and hangs out and part of the group that is meant to leave. The highlight of the evening, and perhaps my entire life, was when ivi and ana (a mexican(?) creature with severe black and red bangs who projects an aura of incredible cool that would be exceptionally intimidating if they weren’t so kind) danced to the β€œpsyggaetΓ³n” track I made after Existance. Ana kept saying β€œThis is a bridge” and β€œCan we have this” and the faces they made while getting into the groove of it left me speechless and proud and weak. I literally had to leave after this because I could no longer communicate. I am not used to seeing somebody whose opinion is important to me enjoying something I’ve created so fervently. Maybe I should make more of that. Maybe it is not a joke.

I’d stayed up all night again, hadn’t I? I got a taxi home. I drank a few beers and a few shots of tequila and finished off my packing. I watched a few episodes of Justified and then went to the airport. I tried out the Business Class lounge. The vibe was all off for me, but I did enjoy making myself an incredibly spicy rhesus negative Bloody Mary at the unmanned self-service Bloody Mary counter. I don’t understand why priority boarding is seen as a benefit? It meant I had to move from walking around comfortably in the airport to being trapped in an uncomfortable airplane seat much earlier, and spend an hour there that could have been spent on tequila. I’m writing this now from the plane where I’ve been surprised to learn that British Airways knows I’m diabetic and so prepared me a special off-menu fish dish.

I removed the typewriter from my backpack just before leaving. I allowed doubt to creep in. I really regret it now, I know that I should have brought it. Perhaps I can pick up a new one at some Portuguese antiques store.

I don’t have any hotels booked. I don’t have any idea what I’m doing when I land or the days until I take the bus into the festival. Or the days after the festival. The next time I write, I will be at Boom in the silly heat. It’ll be the halfway point, which might mean we know the left half of the story circle.Β I've bought aeroplane internet now so I can post this from my seat and then hopefully have another little nap.

British Summer Time GMT+1
it gets late so early in london

when i first moved here, i hated that it gets late so early in london. i'd be
out, wild, flapping around on the floor, throw my phone out of my pocket and
down beside me, scrape it closer to me with my little penny-pin eyes peering to
see the time feels like 5, like 4:00 like 3:41a.m. but i'd tap tap and it's
21:09.

now i love it, though. you can have an entire NIGHT, and then another little
mini extra night, and then you can get home at 1am and get up for work.

but i still don't _understand_ it. like, how does it work? it isn't that far
from places that aren't like this. in Belfast nights starts at 10pm. they don't
end. in Liverpool nights start late morning and last until late morning
too. Dublin nights start at 6 and finish at 2. But in London nights start at
8pm, go on for nine hours and then stop at eleven. 
British Summer Time GMT+1

week 27; 2023

i don't know if there is a way to write this without sounding arrogant, but i think there's just too much of me. i get so excited when i get to spend the whole of one part of me with someone, i lose myself in it. then i remember about all the other parts of me, the "let's watch every nicholas cage movie without stopping for a break" or the "let's spend 4 days in the woods with no plans" or the "let's eat only yoghurt for an entire day" or the "i don't want to go outside anymore" or the "i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself" or the "let's go to venezuela tomorrow" or the "how tall can a stack of pennies be without falling over don't google it" or the "i want to make a song entirely from your vowel sounds" or "let's go to the theatre" or the ones that aren't available right now because any moment in life is a veil around all the parts of yourself who aren't present. i remember those and then somebody's heart gets broken. usually mine, which i'm fine with. but sometimes it's another heart and that i just cannot abide.

this week was kind of a light week. it was lovely, though. on monday i went to work. on the way home i met a colleague of mine i'd never met before. really a very fantastic and interesting individual who is unexpectedly up for living, and who i hope i will spend many more hours with before we both die. after that i stopped by this particular bar near cannon street that i enjoy ordering the worst drinks in the world from. this time i ordered a pretty good drink. a big tom, two shots of tequila, and as many chopped limes as they were willing to fork over. they forked over 5 wedges, i mixed the drinks and added the juice of a whole lime and a furniture wedge and took to drinking. needs salt. checked a table. no salt. asked two ladies as the next table if their table had salt. not only did ellis provide me with salt, she also provided me with the skills to get salt from what i'd previously understood to be a pepper shaker.

ellis and caroline were exceedingly lovely. only in London for the week. their phones had died, both, at the previous bar. they had 1 iPhone and 1 android. i had a battery and a usb-c cable and a lightning cable. i stayed with them while they charged their phones. we chatted and got on very well. caroline's hands were cold. my hands were warm. they're from that town that has that oldest sausage kitchen. we all left together and walked over towards borough market. they wanted something cheap but good to eat. i brought them to a kebab place that i favour before they took the jubilee line back home. caroline and i held hands. it was, ,, very nice. we agreed to hang out again. we never did.

a big project at work started to wrap up. on Thursday evening i headed out to the warehouse to see dear Val. it was so nice to see her and remember who i am. and then to forget who and where i was. it was nice to spend an evening with adele, too, who will be leaving soon. she is very kind and i wish i could travel to her memory of her home, which seems like a place i could have a good time. it was good to meet Val's beau and to see Damian (as always). it's a good place there and one of which i will always be a part, and that will always be a part of me, no matter what. i believe in it, in what is happening there. i was asked two questions last week that i was in no position to answer due to the negative manner in which ketamine affects my comprehension and vocabulary and to which i have much clearer answers now.

i tidied my apartment. it's still a mess. but it's so much better than it's been in a long time and i feel like a whole different capybara. i learned that in venezuela they call a capybara "chigΓΌile" which has my name in it. chee is short for chigΓΌile now. chigΓΌile achiote valentina conejita is my full name. please update your records.

on friday night i went to windsor to see the babe Duckie Hughes in a 60s musical. it was really, really good. i loved it. 60s music, 60s make-up, duckie hughes. so many of my favourite things in one place. i wept repeatedly and openly right there in the front row. small theatre is so kinetic. they open an umbrella and you feel it clack against your bones. afterwards i got stuck in windsor. another one of those dazes where i went to do a thing and then afterwards suddenly "fuck, i'm here". forgot they don't have public transport at night. took me until 7am to get home. slept all day. woke up and stuck on an ivicore set. good day. lots of tequila. lots of sleeping. lots of television. redyed my hair. used uv dye. excited about portugal. can't believe i'm flying in a week. i think i'm the only person out of the people i'm going with who have a ticket yet. jaja. hope that's normal.

anyway, i love you, you, you, you and you. you, i like.

also, πŸ₯¨.

also, goodbye.

British Summer Time GMT+1
does anyone wanna go to that tequila bar that's hidden as a speakeasy through
the kitchen of the breakfast club outside borough market? 
British Summer Time GMT+1
currently dying of a brand of anxiety which can only be treated by taking cute
selfies with props and facepaint 
British Summer Time GMT+1
oh u thought this was a rabbit?
they thought this was a rabbit
that’s fucking funny bitch
it’s fucking winnie the fucking pooh
yeah
yeah
fuck fourth of july 
British Summer Time GMT+1

Week 26; 2023

I'm sitting on the red sofa at the back of the warehouse writing now. The house is mostly still and mostly dark. Dark but for one warm light hanging above the kitchen. Still but for the sound of the shower, a television behind a closed door, and the occasional clack of metal against ceramic. Sergio is back with pizza and a treat for the dog.

I'm jumping in my seat. Little pinches from the inside making my unslept body flinch and jitter, jitter and flinch.

Shortly after close of business last Sunday, I received an instagram DM. "Would you be interested in coming to a Psytrance festival in Portugal for 7 days? 🀣🀣🀣". Imagine that, jaja. Going to Portugal for a week to a Psytrance festival. Jajaja.

I was at a conference for work most of the week. On Tuesday I listened to Psytrance on purpose and enjoyed it. On Tuesday night Ruxi and me stayed up til 5am talking about Boom. Maybe. Maybe we'll go. I bought a hammock. Just in case.

On Wednesday night I stopped in at The Railway on the way home to pee. On the way to the bathroom, met a very fun person at the bar by the name of Lily. We got on very easily, and were extremely annoying together. It was fun, we chatted for about 2 hours. I laughed until there were tears. We pretended, for a while, that we were trapped in an escape room together. Looking for 3 keys, typing codes we'd discovered into the credit card machine, asking customers "are you a clue?". Very annoying to be around, extremely fun to be part of.

Thursday I booked 3 weeks off, booked flights to Portugal, got a ticket to Boom. The cheapest way for me to get tickets was a Business Class flight on British Airways with all my unused airmails. 11 pounds. It'll be the first time I ever fly Business Class. Then I'll sleep in a hammock for a week.

Friday I started getting ready.

Saturday was a slow day, I tidied up a bit and made a chili. I tried getting tipsy, but it wouldn't take. Damian told me there's a party at the warehouse tonight. Opened a few coronas. Drank a little tequila. No take, no vibe. Ruxi got on a plane. I had a shower, got dressed, got packed. Ruxi landed in Luton and we raced each other to the warehouse. Got the vibe.

Thing is, I'm just a very weird person with an inability to regulate my intensity. When I can see something good on the horizon, I just want to skip to the end. It was a good night. It started around 3am. There was a lot of dancing, 4 parties. We made our own party too. Damian was on the decks and he came to me and said "I want to a party", so I went out to the street and gathered a Mexican man and a German lady and some other folks and brought them in to dance and chat. I sat and played the piano for the German lady, she plays the violin, it helped her relax enough to book an uber she never took. There was some acoustic music in the street. I played the guitar. It was a good party. I took plenty of phone numbers and Instagram handles of people I'll probably never speak to again. I was so happy sometimes. Brimming with it, overflowing.

Towards the end of the Sunday night me and Ciara and Ruxi were waiting for some food to arrive. It was going to be here in 10 minutes for four hours. Things got dark and shaky. Doubt, anxiety. Really a bad idea to stay up that long and not eat. 100 hours of waking time between the three of us. I'm too much. I feel like some of my shine has worn off. I feel like I should never have come.

At midnight the warehouse was lit like a scene from The Godfather, that one orange light above the kitchen table. Knock on the door. He came in and said "Rabbit. Help me put these things up on the table like it is a banquet." He handed me two pizzas and a Pizza Hut dessert. From his bag he passed a family-sized galaxy chocolate, a bottle of merlot, a bag of mini teasers, a kilogram of ketamine, a liter of GHB and 8 kinder buenos. Ruxi came out of the shower and sat in the middle. I sat at the head of the table. He said "This is how it will be. I will marry Ruxi and you will be our pet rabbit."

In the morning Damian and me went for a lovely walk in Finsbury Park before I headed in to work. We're going to Boom. I'm buzzing.