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.

is it really possible for a rabbit to be so happy? or tired? i have my filthy little fingers in so many puddings right now.

the party never stops, party til you puke, party mindset all year long

a ver… what happened? Tuesday was normal, sleepy. Wednesday was normal, sleepy. i can’t actually recall the evenings of either of those days but i think they were normal and sleepy too.

Thursday i went out with some work people. I had some longer chats with some people i love and respect than i’ve had in a long time. that was nice. i went dancing with some gays and an italian later. We went to dirty martini, a bar for people with too much self respect to go to Popworld, but not enough self respect to just go home. it was nice enough. I didn’t like watching a girl say “don’t leave without me!” and her friend say “of COURSE NOT babe” and then when the girl went to the bathroom the friend immediately jumped into a taxi and zoomed off. Me and the girl shared a taxi home because we were going the same way. We held hands and chatted and it was girly and friendly and nice. We had to stop the cab a few times so she could throw up, which i found quite charming.

on Friday i had the day off for a picnic that was canceled because my picnic partner being couldn’t get a vacation day on account of being sick earlier in the month. initially i thought this would be a day of rest, but then i received a text from someone i haven’t heard from in a very long time, and i went to meet them for cold fluid in a café in Fitzrovia. it was a good and funny chat and it was good to see Christabel and i’m glad that i went.

on Friday night i, for some reason, went to the house of a stranger with a bunch of people i don’t know and took the worst drug in the world: cocaine. it makes everything worse, it makes everyone worse, it feels like shit and it is the only drug that still gives me an awful comedown. it’s expensive, it’s terrible. It makes no night better and makes every morning worse. In the UK it’s mostly poison, baby powder and speed. the strangers kept telling me about all the good things they’ve done for the gays and how gender doesn’t matter to them. and then telling me what a “good man” i am. it was horrible. i don’t know why i went other than as self-sabotage because i knew i was going to Barnet tomorrow to see the taco girl.

On Saturday i went to Barnet to see the taco girl. she got me a staff wristband for a soul and funk festival. It took an hour and a half on the train and the underground, and 40 minutes on foot. I drank some tequila, got some tacos. I told some customers in the line “they’re the second best tacos in london, after mine” to tease the taco man. Later on I heard the taco man tell some customers they are the second best tacos in London, to tickle me. I asked the taco girl if she’d like to go to the movies some time, and she said that she would love to. So we’re going to go to the movies some time. That’s good, she makes me laugh and I make her laugh, that’s good. I’m curious if we will still enjoy eachother’s company in a scenario where I am not giving her money and she is not giving me tacos. I have no objectivity when tacos are involved.

“What am I doing in Barnet?”

Once the daze faded away and i became aware of a shocking and uncomfortable truth: “I’m in Barnet.” The festival had a strange energy, the clientele. It was like being at a festival with every manager I’ve ever had. The vibes all wrong. Smile-to-frown ratio deep on the narrow end. There were 3 stages and it was a very small field and there were very few places you could be where you couldn’t hear all 3 stages at the same time. I was so sleepy because of staying up all night taking stupid cocaine with people who made me feel unsafe. So regrettable. I started planning my trip to Hampstead Heath for Moja’s party.

“Rabbit!”

Somebody shouting “Rabbit!” at me. Nobody calls me “Rabbit” except for Ruxi and Christian. This was somebody I’d met at a party one and a half years ago and had not seen since. Isaac, from Ekaterina’s house on NYE 21/22. It seems like winter 21/22 is adjacent to this summer in some way, lots of little threads. After we chatted for a while he started to invite me to a party in Hampstead Heath. Moja’s party, which i was already on my way to. He doesn’t even know Moja. So that was funny and fun and unexpected.

We travelled together to the Heath, walked through the woods, through the nettles, through the bushes, got to the party just as it got dark. I was very happy to see everybody. I had a nap under a tree. I was more wasted than I’d been in a long time, very unstable on my feet and didn’t really know what was going on. In the morning as the dnb and psy died down, there was guitar and drumming and singing. The girl singing I’d been to see play a gig in January 2022 and haven’t seen since. That was the same day me and Eva curled up under a blanket on the bus at night and said “rrrrrr” with the rolling `r’ to rest her Greek tongue.

Saturday was Snow Tha Product’s birthday. feliz cumpleaños, Snow.

So I woke up in the woods, surrounded by friends, covered in dirt. filthy rabbits. Sorry if this post is a poorer read than normal, I’m very tired and haven’t revised it or edited it. I miss the catsnake.