Week 20, '23

data is fake

Twenty-twenty-three is kinda slow for a modern year, isn’t it? That’s nice. We should do something. We could have another Meeting. Or a picnic. I’d like to have a picnic. I’d like to get one of those cute picnic baskets they sell at Selfridge’s.

On Thursday night I went out for dinner with becky avery at Naïfs in Peckham. It’s a lovely little restaurant with great food, Ocho tequila and cute, fun staff on an otherwise residential road remarkably close to that alley I spent an evening in smoking crack with two homeless ladies in the inconstant summer of ‘21. We went to Fox & Firkin afterward to watch some synthpop which started very well but each act was less convincing than the last and it was no more than 10pm when it was already bedtime. My every day thereafter has been better because I had such a nice time eating ruffage and talking silly with becky avery.

Other than that this week I’ve played the Zelda and watched TV constantly to mollify the relentless chatter of regret and worthlessness. I slept all day Sunday. I had good dreams.

Week 19, '23

went out on tueday night to my favourite bar in lewisham the fox & firkin. i realized i was comfortable there so i went home and changed into a dress which was my first time wearing a dress with no leggings or sweatpants underneath in london. then i made friends with the staff there and after it closed we went to do karaoke at the new cross inn until 3am. it was a good time.

i find myself suddenly saying aloud “i hate myself” or “i wish i was dead” quite a lot at the moment. i’ve spent much of the week trying to come up with reasons to continue living and failing. i literally have googled “reasons to live” and read some lists, none of them are particularly compelling i think the thing that keeps me going is the the fear of an afterlife.

i got sick on friday and watched all the karate kid movies and played zelda. what happened to the fish girl from breath of the wild? did she survive? i can’t remember. i hope she did, i miss the fish girl.

maybe i’ll think about going to italy. the land of espresso, spaghetti, SEBs and cured meat. maybe that is something to focus on. maybe that is a reason. oh that reminds me i made a little café con leche and have lost it somewhere in my apartment.

i can’t believe i’m still sick. i noticed something respiratory going on with it late last evening. might be worse than i thought when i thought it might be hayfever.

#NATSTATWEEK It’s national stationery week next week. should we go and buy some pencils? perhaps some pens? some midori paper? some binders? some rulers? some cases? some scissors?

Rolling back into London now on the LNER. I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed with my own teddy bears. I hope i can sleep for a hundred weeks.

I dont dance.

I dont dance. You might know that I’d you’ve ever gone out with me. I don’t dance.

You know the trope of the girl in the red dress? She’s always called Daisy or Emily or something.

Tonight I met the cutest couple. James and Hannah. They’ve been together for a decade. Ten years. “That’s a prison sentence.” that’s what James said. He said it with love.

Earlier in the night I’d listened to a lady tell me about how she’d won a competition, the second (but most important) leg. I kept calling her “Winner” for the rest of the night. God she was gorgeous, like the bbc2 idea of a gorgeous woman. Her neck a mile long.

The New Penny sells these horrible little coloured vodka shots in bottles, the girl behind the bar kept promising the strawberry one was special. They were all disgusting. Strawberry was disgusting. Green, yellow, pink, other pink, blue. All absolutely disgusting.

There was this incredibly gorgeous 90ft tall trans girl at the New Penny. I’d made part-time friends with her best friends (for the night), A and J. J was a very funny lesbian girl who didn’t seem to give any amount of a fuck about anything, and A was just gorgeous. They invited me to dance with them. I couldn’t. I sat in the corners trying to rev myself up, trying to learn to be someone who dances. I couldn’t get off my seat. I wanted to dance with the tall girl so much I could taste iron in my spit.

H came right up to the bar and took my hand the moment she walked in. I offered her the worst drink she’d ever drink in her life. I got her a green one, a yellow one for me, a blue one for her boyfriend JJ.

She took my hand. We started dancing. We danced, i sweated. I danced.

I couldn’t stop, this woman was a force of nature. We danced to song after song.

There was a moment that I am not a good enough writer to put into words. She’d was dancing with another person. A nice person. It was shortly after James had called me her muse, called us each others dancing muses. And told me about how she’d just turned thirty and was worried about the “3”, and we’d all sat down together in the blue felt chairs in the back.

I was trying to dance near A and the tall girl while H danced with a man she had some moves with we had never met, i fell. On my butt. I played it off as best I could like i’d just decided to suddenly sit down and take a sip of my drink. But it was loud, and everyone turned to look at me on the floor including the 900ft tall girl. H walked across the dance floor in this silent moment, held her hand out, picked me up, and then the two of us awkwardly twirled each other for a while. The magic of it is we couldn’t quite make it come together even though she’d made the big gesture. A few songs later we figured it out, tried again, danced again.

Winner was standing by the bar crying, girl in the red dress. It’s kind of impossible to overstate how bbc2 beautiful the girl in the red dress is. A couple of guys at the bar were gently creeping, telling her not to cry etc. I went over and stood beside her and ordered a blue and a pink terrible little vodka drink. I interrupted, telling her “you and I are about to drink one of the worst drinks you have ever had the displeasure to put in your mouth” and handed her a little blue vodka shot. We cheersed, i drank mine, and she said “oh i thought we were going to kiss first”. So then we kissed for twenty or thirty seconds, i bit her lip which she didn’t seem to enjoy. she drank her drink. She grabbed me, she shouted in my ear “you are the only person in this world ever to have seen me”. We were still holding each other when JJ came over, “we have a taxi coming. H is outside and she is not having a good time”

Nothing existed suddenly, not the girl in the red dress or the bar or the dance floor or the world outside. The only thing that existed was “H is outside and she is not having a good time”. I ran out the door. I shouted “H”, i found her sitting on the curb. I jumped on her like a dog being reunited with a soldier. We held onto each other. We rolled around on the floor. The bouncer came over and said “you can’t do that”, she screamed at him “we are HAVING A MOMENT”. JJ arrived and told the bouncer “They are Having a Moment.”

When I got back in the girl in the red dress wasn’t crying anymore, she had recovered. I apologized for abandoning her. She was not overly interested in the apology. Either was I. I stuck around a little longer talking to a pretty film student by the bar. She wants to be an editor. Afterwards i went to the only 24 hour McDonald’s in town and ordered every chicken nugget they have.

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.

Week 17, '23

I went to the cinema on Tuesday evening to watch How To Blow Up A Pipeline (2022). Good movie with a solid argument for how and why you should blow up an oil pipeline as a matter of self-defence on behalf of the human race against oil companies. Rating: 🐰🐰🐰🐰 4 rabbits.

On Wednesday I went back to the cinema to watch Aliens (1986). Was fun to see in the cinema. I wish there was not a character called J. VAZQUEZ whose name is printed in friendly white letters on bottom right hand corner of many shots. One of James Cameron’s top twenty movies about motherhood. Fun to see it on The Big Screen. Rating: 🐰🐰🛸 2 rabbits and a UFO.

Next weekend I will finally be in Leeds. I’m going up for a conference but staying for the weekend. That’s next weekend. This weekend I am playing Final Fantasy 6, watching movies, and making snacks. And tidying my apartment and getting all my clothes washed before my great peregrination by railroad beyond civilization far north above the Thames. I’m meant to be coming back on Sunday but the Leeds Everyman is screening Clueless on Sunday night so I might have to wait until Monday. Are there trains from Leeds to London during a coronation?

Silence, knave! You stand in the presence of octopus royalty!

I took 34 black and white photos on a cheap point-and-shoot film camera but the film snapped while I was rewinding it so they are forever gone. It’s a shame. We will try again.

Nothing else to report. It’s time to put on a little moka pot of mocha-java and see where the day takes me.

Happy International Workers’ Day.

Week 16, '23

LAST TIME ON CHEE RABBITS

This was around the time the high blood sugar started to become a problem

THIS TIME ON CHEE RABBITS

Shortly after that update things got worse, all my muscles tightened up and I could barely move! But it turned out my blood sugar wasn’t even very high. It seems I was afflicted with food poisoning or some kind of terrible virus. I have never pooped so much in my life. I went through 4 rolls of toilet paper. Nearly one a day. Have you ever pooped until your ears started ringing? I have! This was a disgusting, exhausting week. Couldn’t hold any food down, drank a hundred thousand litres of water.

Figure 1: my new hobby is replacing Graham Coxon with Henry Kissinger in old band photos of Blur

I feel great today, though. Really good. Full of water and life and Springtime energy. On Saturday morning at 6am i was preheating my oven to cook some early morning buffalo wings. After about 20 minutes I started to notice a strange smell. When I opened the oven to check, a big plume of hot plastic-y smoke came billowing out of it. My whole kitchen was filled with a terrible poisonous fog and I was choking. If I opened the oven slightly another huge fog came flying out. It made me feel very alone. I thought about how girls in TV shows would call their mother or their best friend for adive and they’d freak out together over the telephone. I don’t have anyone to call when I have an emergency, or need to talk about something. This isn’t a self-pity party, I’m okay with it. It’s sad, but I’m okay with it. I chose this life. I had other options, I liked them less. It turned out to be your basic grease fire, and I did a deep clean of the oven. I started with some homemade cleaning concoctions but they only succeeded in turning black tar into brown tar, so i think i was just agitating air into the tar rather than cleaning it. I got some kind of Chemical that came with gloves and a bag and a lot of warnings. It came with an instruction leaflet whose first instruction was “read the instruction leaflet”.

That Severe Alert on the telephone was unpleasant, wasn’t it? Very large noise. Very unpleasant. I still feel shaken. I very nearly cried. My hormones are all over the place atm and I have been crying quite easily. I love being in the easy-to-tears state. I love being in that place where i could be looking at a statue and imagine that it is proud and start crying. Feels great.

I’m glad the Spring has finally come. Winter was hard.