Slightly Embellished In The Process Of Adaptation

Catching up on National Poetry Month

2017-04-03T16:07:39Z

Yesterday among other things I managed to drop extremely thick hot chocolate on the floor of a charity shop while juggling a book of poetry and reading from it. Said hot chocolate went everywhere, so I (having cleaned it up because I Ain't No Fuckin' Animal and those people are volunteers yo) bought the book by way of an apology; it is 1 poem a day, and Poetry Month started on Saturday, and I don't Feel It about writing my own so much at the moment [I owe the world post, or possibly poem, about looking for Hidden Things in other people as an experience that is specific to LGBT people, particularly when looking into the past, and the need to try to find some validation that you are real by finding others like you, and how much harder that is when "like you" isn't a heritable quality or a visible or even a cultural one, and is instead one which is often erased by people contemporaneously and in hindsight. Ref. stuff about Dr Barry].

POEMS.

April 1st:

A Song of a Young Lady to Her Ancient Lover

Ancient person, for whom I
All the flattering youth defy,
Long be it ere thou grow old,
Aching, shaking, crazy, cold;
But still continue as thou art,
Ancient person of my heart.

On thy withered lips and dry,
Which like barren furrows lie,
Brooding kisses I will pour
Shall thy youthful [heat] restore
(Such kind showers in autumn fall,
And a second spring recall);
Nor from thee will ever part,
Ancient person of my heart.

Thy nobler part, which but to name
In our sex would be counted shame,
By age’s frozen grasp possessed,
From [his] ice shall be released,
And soothed by my reviving hand,
In former warmth and vigor stand.
All a lover’s wish can reach
For thy joy my love shall teach,
And for they pleasure shall improve
All that art can add to love.
Yet still I love thee without art,
Ancient person of my heart.

by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (yes, THAT one).

April 2nd.

Joining the Colours
(West Kents, Dublin, 1914)

There they go marching all in step so gay!
Smooth-cheeked and golden, food for shells and guns.
Blithely they go as to a wedding day,
The mothers' sons.

The drab street stares to see them row on row
On the high tram-tops, singing like the lark.
Too careless-gay for courage, singing they go
Into the dark.

With tin whistles, mouth-organs, any noise,
They pipe the way to glory and the grave;
Foolish and young, the gay and golden boys
Love cannot save.

High heart! High courage! The poor girls they kissed
Run with them: they shall kiss no more, alas!
Out of the mist they stepped - into the mist
Singing they pass.

by Katherine Tynan

April 3rd

Virtue

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky;
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye;
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie;
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season'd timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

by George Herbert.

My brain has let me sleep very little at times when it would be useful

2017-04-03T15:49:24Z

BUT in between torturing me with a lot of nonsensical shit I won't go into and some tedious hypnogogic stuff which revealed how dull my priorities are at the moment (OMG WHAT IF THE REFURB AT THE GYM REMOVES EQUIPMENT I WANT TO USE? WHAT IF I'M ACTUALLY BEING VERY LAZY AFTER ALL MY FRIENDS ARE DOING TRX CLASSES WITH WEIGHTS WHY CAN I NOT STOMACH DOING CLASSES IS IT BECAUSE I AM LAZY), it also produced a thing which, untangled slowly by my waking mind and rationalised into something useful, works as the set-up for a story.

HERE IT IS

My brain couldn't work out who was the main character here. The person it followed longest looked like a young Ian Hislop & was a civil servant trying to sort out why some money had disappeared and then why someone had been murdered and then became alarmed because it looked like the Queen was at risk, then it turned out to be some giant capitalist conspiracy thing and one of the Royal Household (in this case a shady fucking mechanic, what the hell, who was also a HUGE LACONIC RUSSIAN okay subconscious) explained calmly to him that "parties" were dealing with the over-greedy company (although some higher-ups had fled on a plane in a dramatic stormy escape also thank you subconscious) and when the civil servant asked about the missing money (£60m, but that's... not actually very much in real terms) the mechanic said, "do you think her charities run themselves? do you think this country runs itself? do you think 'tourist money' is so huge?" and there was some fairly dark and in NO WAY BREXIT-DERIVED SHIT about how broke this country is. It was nice though because it at least implied she was very committed to her own peeps.

Secondarily it became apparent that someone was passing a lot of information in every direction, who turned out to be My Personal Favourite, the very damaged, very gay, and very promiscuous illegitimate son of the civil servant and one of the princesses (who had since died, potentially at her own hand, due to Very Poor Mental Health) from when he was a lot younger. Having grown up with whoever happened to be around - as an Embarrassment he was foisted out of the Royal Household and dumped on his natural father as soon as someone could find him, and told in no uncertain terms that his career would SUFFER MASSIVELY if he didn't keep this Out Of the Way, said son was broadly considered unwanted baggage by absolutely everyone, dumped at schools/moved around during holidays, occasionally roaming the corridors of power, and as unattended children so often are, Frequently The Target Of Sexual Predators. Becoming a manipulative, rumour-mongering, tale-bearing, shit-stirring, drug-using occasional spy and occasional prostitute depending on circumstances was almost, as far as he sees it, inevitable. Now Getting On A Bit (by his own standards at least) he deals more in information than sexual favours as he refuses to be a procurer. His relationship with his (unmarried/married to his job) father is Difficult & I think his own investigation into whatever death it is frequently deliberately obstructs his father's.

Thirdly, but non-protagonistly, there is illegitmate son's younger, legitimate half-brother, who has sOMEHOW (and this necessitates this very much not being set where/when/reality that it appeared in my dream because WTF) unexpectedly become the likely heir following the death of The Old Lady (who was somewhat younger in my dream than in real life, more like 60 than 80-something) and become embroiled in the edges of the entire affair. As someone not pegged for inheriting much more than his mother's mental illness and a perpetually absent father he'd also led an early life colliding with some of the same people who screwed up his older half brother, although with the stability of one place to go back to he didn't become as vicious; my dream ended with the elder of the two and the younger of the two engaged in a distinctly unhealthy flirtation while the older also imparted a series of warnings to the younger about the remaining dangerous parties in the civil service/world in general of the "don't end up like me" variety; the younger replied with inside knowledge of the royal household which, the elder being himself, he promptly sold on.

I have a feeling the mechanic had a bigger role in this. He had that air about him.

Anyway, that was the dream.

Blogs

I want to fail in a grander case, on quotation serendipity and the horrifying possibility that writing in the first person makes you immortal.

unsurprisingly i already had the "humanity can fucking die" tag

2017-04-01T23:53:24Z

So last night I didn't sleep until I knocked myself with a sleeping pill and even then it took an abhorrently long time, when GUESS WHAT, I couldn't get out of bed again in the morning early enough to go to the gym (this is probably just as well as I am INCREDIBLY FUCKING SORE), and took myself off to, as mentioned on Tumblr, pay a man £200 (plus the deposit which was that again) to put me in a series of stress positions, inflict quite significant pain on the back of my knee and front of my shin in particular, and make me listen to the fucking Hodge twins and a video about a guy getting shot in the chest. And my internal organs tried to destroy me from within for no apparent reason and the only thing that would stop the pain was... alcohol! (A very small quantity, don't worry)

On the plus:
+ free chicken dinner
+ he's actually decent company
+ introduced him (and myself) to A Tribe Called Red (even if YouTube then decided that we also wanted to listen to other and ... not as electronica/sample-based ... First-Nations-hip-hop)
+ discovered that being shot in the chest with a shotgun and surviving leaves a man with a scar very similar to a mastectomy scar, in case i need other stories besides "shark bite", "heart surgery", and my favourite method of dealing with all intrusive inquiries, the "long hard stare and mind your own fucking business".
+ making Biko listen to "it came from the 80s: Dark Synthwave Mix" (which I have discovered is good to do art to and which he agrees) reminded him of the existence of Kung Fury, which is terrible but also hilarious
+ I finished reading Downriver and, having been Stockholmed into coping with Sinclair's prose style (it is... idiosyncratic), started Lights Out For The Territory, which is both easier to read (and less savage), and has also provided me with an absolute wealth of information about areas my bus route passes through and road names with which I am already very familiar (on Amhurst Road, people suspected of being members of the Angry Brigade holed up in the 80s. True story. The man who started what later became Cope Goliard press also lived there. True story). And Sinclair had the exact thought about Stoke Newington Police Station's architectural intent as I did, probably because it's ballachingly fucking obvious and obnoxiously simple.
+ I mean. A lot of tattoo also got done.

Then, after 9+ hours of blissful ignorance of the news, I came home and was greeted by "multiple people set on young man in Croydon [South London] after learning he is an asylum seeker", so thanks once again to the red tops for nurturing and validating these particular fucking demons in human form who've made my city one where it's TOTES OKAY to attack people for... not wanting to die. Maybe they could attack me. I definitely want to die.

[Semantically, the Cronx - as it insists on calling itself - isn't quite part of London, except parts of it claim to be. Anyway, it's a national joke, but it still has no business beating up asylum-seekers desperate enough to be in Croydon, and I hope their insides fucking rot]

And so far, I still not only cannot sleep but am not even PHYSICALLY tired, which at least kept me pinned to the bed while my brain just endlessly screeched on the last two nights. Sometimes bleating about The Bad Things and the total absence of future and hey did you know all your plans are bullshit and you should DIE DIE DIE NOW WHILE YOU CAN STILL DO IT WITH ANY KIND OF DIGNITY, sometimes literally just farting endless word noise at me like some kind of radio terrified of the off-switch. The relaxing music JUST ABOUT drowns out Jess's relentless snoring and can do NOTHING about my brain.

I mean, it slows down my heart-rate and helps my breathing but nothing short of a chemical sledgehammer will make my actual brain SHUT THE FUCK UP AND SLEEP.

I'm not blaming Brexit for this apart from the fact that this pretty much started When The Bad Thing.

apiphile @ 2017-03-31T19:43:00

2017-03-31T18:49:18Z

I don't know if this works as an entire outline (I mean, I've left off the context etc, this is very much the bullet points) for Act One of Tourist's Guide but it's a better bare bones than I had:

Opportunity, distracted while waiting for Charity, sees Edmund walk through a wall having made off with a crate of beer he "won" at a pub quiz and basically stiffing the rest of the team, dismissed it as seeing things until she saw what happened with Charity – from a distance.
Opportunity literally sees Ezekiel lead her sister into a painting.
O pursues Ed, having realised he is probably able if not willing to help.
Ed accidentally Moves Alec while trying to both pursue B and escape O (Alec’s presence is not coincidental but he doesn’t know that yet).
How does Opportunity persuade him to help her? I’m betting money is involved.
B becomes object of pursuit from Ed with O in tow
B is found and intractable/difficult, they are dragged into King Jack's London
B sets Ed to find King Jack, Ed refuses, Bodge is revelatory about him until he co-operates
King Jack is found, by Opportunity rather than Ed. The Stage, the explanation of the Mask
Use of the Mask (Alec's idea) to make Bodge stop being slippery about what she's done and what's happening
Movement into a different (London At War With Country) to try to work out what the fuck has caused what Ed and Bodge have notice of the Collapse, or rather Who, by talking to other Born Movers. Conflict. Potential actual fighting, etc.
Opportunity reminds them that her sister has been pulled into this reality and doesn't know the rules, by someone else. She describes Ezekiel
Manon & Mr. Sands are Not Speaking over whose fault it was that Ezekiel was able to access (Masonic?) texts – and that non-Movers/loci had that information, but are both pissed at Bodge (as are all the Born Movers) for appointing Ed - this information is extracted from some nominated underling of Mr. Sands using an improvised Mask - Ed's idea, Opportunity is very uneasy with Masking.
Which is how they find out about Katherine; Katherine, Ed says, is the kind of person (he's seen her at work?!) who never leaves her phone off even when she's been told to ten times.
The Collapse becomes noticeable…

Unfortunately I think it also takes up a lot of the ground I was planning on using for Act Two, and has conflated them. Once again, lack of material is a serious problem. I know what Act Three ENDS with. I have a vague idea of how to get there. I GUESS Act ONE can end with a death, which immediately instills a sense of urgency, and I have a reasonable idea of whose.

I'm struggling with PoV stuff a bit. My instinct is always multiPoV but I think that kind of didn't work in Soft Inheritance?

TDoV and other things

2017-03-31T12:11:33Z

GYM: Started and closed with military presses, which seems to be a functional way to approach things. This worked DESPITE me having to take not only two Night Nurse but also two (TWO) nuclear strength sleeping pills (The ones that are running out, you know) AND spend the occasional hour or two trying to persuade Jess to stop hitting me in the head and snoring at a volume that drowned out both my headphones and the PASSING TRAINS - thus being somewhat groggy and stupid when I got up. Still not feeling particularly like I'm getting anywhere with The Fitness. Maybe I should book one of the free PT sessions I have left. Get someone who knows what they're doing to bully me properly.

Blogs
TDoV, etc

Now to try to do the editing I didn't do yesterday, because my access to things was limited by bad sleep and phenomenally bad-tempered gf (I don't really blame her, she's in the middle of PERIOD HELL and worked a late shift back-to-back with an early shift, but on the other hand: I don't schedule her period cramps or her work shifts and I was listening to BIRDSONG, it's not exactly the most obnoxious music to play out loud).

Do not feel like talking.

2017-03-30T20:19:14Z

Do not feel like sleeping or eating either apparently, thanks body.

[Last night went to see The Cat and the Owners of The Cat and drank wine and ate cake]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSOmRdQhbIl/?taken-by=derekdesanges the cat
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSOxrFdhzIk/?taken-by=derekdesanges one cat owner and cat visitor

my brain decided that i wanted to be awake until dawn; my girlfriend decided that i wanted to hear her snoring over the relaxing music i'd valiantly stuffed into my ears; my body decided that i would be too tired to get up and walk to the gym; i then woke up at noon. thanks. waste. of. everything. so no gym.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSQ2ESEhMNh/?taken-by=derekdesanges at least i got to wear a vest. and shorts.

Went to the wellcome institute with ruthi, having arranged last night while drunk that we were going to do this

Making Nature featured taxidermy and parrots trying to tell humanity about their culture. A video that ended in a quote from Alex the African Grey. Apparently a piece of internet/animal behaviour ephemera only I remember.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSQ4xIJBUV8/?taken-by=derekdesanges hiding fox
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSQ493QBGgy/?taken-by=derekdesanges wig encyclopedia (i used to love this categorisation shit)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSQ5JMphZzl/?taken-by=derekdesanges aphophrycal
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSQ587rBS2w/?taken-by=derekdesanges badger
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSQ81snhL-C/?taken-by=derekdesanges owl
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSQ9Km2hS7P/?taken-by=derekdesanges post-natural
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSQ96rEBPNR/?taken-by=derekdesanges alcoholic rat
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSQ-PYIh59k/?taken-by=derekdesanges paper teeth
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSQ-_FihFqo/?taken-by=derekdesanges birdsong
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSRF95NBV9x/?taken-by=derekdesanges they had a dress-up-and-selfie section and i will never turn down the opportunity to get other people's lice on me
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSRMslvhwai/?taken-by=derekdesanges gift shoppe getting weird

tomorrow is tdov. i've blogged and am waiting on photos from jess, who is furious with me for... being in my own house i guess? but not being home yesterday, when it would have been convenient to her. anyway. once i have the photos i can queue that shit up, get sleeping pills in me, and have another crack at sleeping.

Weekend whatever

2017-03-28T11:56:00Z

Did some stuff and went to some places. You know. I think I dined.

Monday I literally did nothing. Went up a hill with Jess. Was meant to go dancing but couldn't motivate myself. Woke up today in a disassociative state which hasn't gone at the time of writing. Mostly I just want to go back to sleep. Went to the gym for a disastrous workout (ref. disassociation makes it difficult to actually... do... things). Have a haircut late tonight. Somewhere in between now and then it might be useful to do something but tbh I'm paralysed with fear about tomorrow. It would be preferable to like, not be online and not talk or think about it. But I don't really know what else there is to do barring, IDK, noisily committing protest suicide.

(there's food photos on instagram. who cares. why do i bother posting. what the actual fuck is the point of chronicling this life.)

apiphile @ 2017-03-25T22:04:00

2017-03-25T23:19:47Z

"Did you go to the gym today Derek?"
"No, I woke up at 4pm and literally couldn't walk; foam rollering and Deep Heat have stopped me looking like a velociraptor marionette and my dinner was a fucking milkshake, leave me alone."

Health status
bags under eyes: binliners
skin: developing Patches
muscles: extremely sore
bones: heavy
appetite: non-existent still
focus: what is this thing
coughing: unexpected and highly expectorant
conclusion: idk derek maybe you have exhausted your body's reserves
non-logical conclusion: oh yeah then why am i still FAT

(accidental vegetarianism today, which i only just realised; also, if you mix instant pad thai powder into your omelette with a little mirin it tastes fucking good, and I arrived too late at New Moon Loon to buy ajishima miso cups and I cannot think of anywhere else that sells them. I've looked in the JPC, See Woo, Oriental Delight, and Loon Feng so far. Maybe Sika Express?).

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSEk1DKBirx/ milkshake called a JESSICA. badly mixed and had a LUMP of frozen kale at the botton which i ate anyway
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSEmTIShVSK/ actual jessica hugging a lifesized bear in wilko
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSE5IorBsTs/ hungerford footbridge

Pray for me, my friends, because tonight is Sunday Papers, and that means the Rentafash are going to be giving their absolute worst about Wednesday's knobhead, complete with vague assertions that the actions of a man born in Kent five decades ago could have been averted by not letting people in from Romania (like the lady who got flung in the Thames).

apiphile @ 2017-03-24T23:16:00

2017-03-24T23:16:48Z

Well I sure just got made to stand in the cold and walk around the entire Isle of Dogs because someone had glycerine on their fucking car.

apiphile @ 2017-03-24T21:17:00

2017-03-24T21:38:04Z

STILL SICK, it's been nearly two weeks now, FUCK OFF.

(Worse today. I mean, my chest is not so bad but I am weak as a fucking kitten and horrible persistent calf cramps led to No Gym, which is frustrating, especially as I had Plans for reading the trans Peter Pan eBook on me bike time. Edited instead. Cannot concentrate on anything, however, or at least anything generative involving words. Not ideal).

[Trying to figure out, slowly, how Act 1 ends. I'm trying to work on the endings first, which has been successful with Act Three (because I know how the story ends) and Act Two (there's so much conflict in this book that there's stuff which needs resolving then, in order to allow the rest to happen), but I can't work out what to do about the end of Act 1, and spacing stuff out through a book is a problem I have. So. I could use some help with this but.]

Feeling this icon tbh

2017-03-23T22:26:59Z

Noted cognitive pollutant press bodies have been causing irritation and stress, and my workout wasn't great (apparently this is because I started off with running, which uses up all of something, but also my mp3 player had no battery left and the foot straps on the rowing machine weren't working properly and I overslept), so I have retaliated by refusing to be practical (not enough time for editing and not enough brain for book plotting, anyway); so I've just crawled up inside the book I'm reading and done something I haven't done in ages, ie, refuse to stop reading even when I'm walking. It's bad manners; I don't care. I am equal to the task, I have been since I was a child, I REFUSE TO CONNECT WITH REALITY, goodbye.

My Wednesday:

2017-03-22T21:45:11Z

Well, the internet is (touch wood) up.

Here are some other things that happened.

1. Harassed for money twice by a man with a ten thousand yard stare of intimidating intensity.
2. First actual consistent sleep in about three days.
3. Went to buy groceries but then this:

(The old lady went after the confused, bleeding woman as she staggered angrily off; I figured that she probably wouldn't want to be chased by a man she didn't know, and went looking for soap and water because RANDOM STRANGER BLOOD between my fingers from picking her up. I eventually went and scrubbed myself in Wetherspoons since the cafe toilets at Morrisons were closed; on the way home saw both an ambulance with the Patient Assessment In Progress sign up and a stationary police car not far from where I'd run into the woman, and sort of hoped it was because the old lady had been able to get emergency services to her after all. She was fairly adamant that she wanted to "go home" and not to hospital at the time but also she'd very clearly had a fucking mighty crack to the head and couldn't stand up consistently.)

4. Got home two seconds after the Virgin engineer, and The News was relayed to me. I am now three-for-three on "terrorist or potential terrorist attack happens in London and I don't realise it because I'm busy doing something else" (see also: 2005 bombings, the Leytonstone stabbing - Not Terrorism because whatshisface was having a breakdown and thought he could see demons, everyone just decided it was terrorism because he shouted ALLAH AQBAH - and now this). I have Thoughts but they're pessimistic and conspiratorial and also very worried mostly about how this is going to impact British Muslims. And how shitty and racist the commentariat are going to be tonight.

5. Fannied around editing, backing things up, filing notes on stuff, uploaded art to Redbubble. Normal human activities. Did some push-ups for literally no reason.

6. Came into work to find an email from my boss telling me off about something minor which feels major just because it's been a Cursed Wednesday, I wish I'd gone to the gym instead of anything even though I am far too tired, and I can't bother Emma with space nonsense because she's on a plane. Admittedly she's on a plane TO the UK but I don't know if she's going to be Available while she's here. Also. Ugfghhh dhfv ishdvasca everything.

7. Oh and Robot Mother decided to Shame me with a blog article asking if I was eating too little to lose weight. But one of the symptoms is constipation and another is crankiness and I don't suffer from the former or more of the latter than can be explained by nightshift (see also symptom "tiredness"). And there were only four signs. And I don't need excuses after spending nearly a week cramming myself with the excuse of "being sick".

8. Why won't this fucking book just plot ITSELF.

apiphile @ 2017-03-21T21:34:00

2017-03-21T21:43:42Z

So far Virgin have sent three (3) engineers. The first one (Friday) broke the internet. The second one (Monday) fixed it for an hour or two. The third one (today) didn't actually materialise; we were assured, when Lindsay went to the phone, that they were "outside" doing "external" work, and the customer service person had tried to reach them but their phone was busy. We didn't care because the internet finally started working!

For two hours.

It is now broken again. A fourth (4th) engineer is coming tomorrow, allegedly, to make this problem go away. Lindsay, every time, buys this nonsense. I am almost certain we're going to get a full week of this, minimum.

However, during the brief moments of internet function I managed to upload the art I did over the weekend and a recording for World Poetry Day:

bitcherel by eleanor brown, which I will one day commit to memory so I can fucking recite it on command
art

I tried to upload this to redbubble but of course the internet shat itself and died.

Vector WIP

apiphile @ 2017-03-20T22:04:00

2017-03-20T22:29:35Z

I have passed through "being frustrated" re the internet shenanigans (tl;dr THIS FUCKING INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER ISN'T PROVIDING A SERVICE) and am now into acceptance, where I just deal with the fact that I will never, ever, ever catch up with my online admin or editing and that I am going to use my entire data allowance in ten seconds and Virgin Media can absolutely 100% choke on my tiny little dick.

I have continued to have the plague, and I have continued to refuse to actually recooperate because I'm too delirious to feel tired consistently (just having "OH GOD I'm GOING TO FAINT no wait I'm fine" moments and eating the ENTIRE EARTH).

(We tried to escape the No Internet on Friday and I had a disappointing dinner: https://www.instagram.com/p/BRwDGokBC3b/?taken-by=derekdesanges)

Saturday

Too ill/tired for gym, went to Holland Park/the Kyoto Garden for a walk & to abuse the cafe internet & to force myself to work on my outline for Tourist's Guide:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRx12QmBV9s/?taken-by=derekdesanges
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRx2BXMhvSN/?taken-by=derekdesanges
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRx2I9CB0wS/?taken-by=derekdesanges
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRx2SKMBXjd/?taken-by=derekdesanges
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRx2bXABLbE/?taken-by=derekdesanges
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRx2vqgB7ps/?taken-by=derekdesanges (video)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRx5itMhavq/?taken-by=derekdesanges <-- I shaved. I look twelve. When am I going to stop looking twelve every time I shave?

Then I went to Muji and WRESTLED a 5-shelf bookshelf home, assembled in 30 minutes (15 of which were faffing), shelved and organised books, and FINALLY HAVE SOME EMPTY SHELVES this is not a request to have them filled, they will fill up fast enough.

Got changed, discovered that the outfit you plan is LITERALLY NEVER the outfit you wear:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRykq3VhxI5/?taken-by=derekdesanges

And with Fred and Maud and two Polish couch-surfers they were hosting for the weekend, blagged ourselves into the Caravan Club, a NATIONAL TRUST fucking recreation of a 1930s underground queer club, perfect in every detail:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRy_PxnBfb-/?taken-by=derekdesanges
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRy_xdbBht3/?taken-by=derekdesanges (video)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRy__kcBQcz/?taken-by=derekdesanges my ugly-ass face
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRzAEcihlXC/?taken-by=derekdesanges this man behind me later seranaded me:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154129733351707&set=a.10151958016146707.1073741830.515906706&type=3
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRzAKnuBukf/?taken-by=derekdesanges
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRzAR26h941/?taken-by=derekdesanges the woman on the left here, who danced in her spangly flapper underwear, was the same woman who taught me and ruthi to charleston. she's lovely & i'm going to sign up to more of her classes now.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRzAxyBBEia/?taken-by=derekdesanges (video)

Other people met: a couple who run an actual glitter-themed nightclub featuring unicorns and a glitter station; a man who earnestly told me "I'm a born-and-bred Londoner myself but what I love about this city is you could have been here a week and if you say it's your home you're a Londoner, no questions asked"; a person of no nominated gender who comes from Bournemouth and did a Salomé Dance of the Seven Veils (in the video) https://www.instagram.com/p/BR1E0Xyh1zQ/?taken-by=derekdesanges also; and a Macedonian PhD candidate whose thesis is on female dandies of the 20s and 30s. Furthermore, 3/4 of my drinks didn't get charged to my tab and it was too warm. Oh, and I accidentally volunteered myself (literally didn't listen and just yelled ME when asked for volunteers) to interpretative dance the role of Rico in Tricity Vogue's ukulele cover of the Cocobana.

Then we took the Polish girls to Wetherspoons because why the fuck not.

Sunday

Jess & I met up with Fiona at the Barbican Centre for a sojourn on the rooftop:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BR0fYnLBQmf/?taken-by=derekdesanges
https://www.instagram.com/p/BR0pc41hDd1/?taken-by=derekdesanges
https://www.instagram.com/p/BR0phSIhnZu/?taken-by=derekdesanges
https://www.instagram.com/p/BR0plqyBAZr/?taken-by=derekdesanges
https://www.instagram.com/p/BR0ppLNhghl/?taken-by=derekdesanges
https://www.instagram.com/p/BR0p0tThqv8/?taken-by=derekdesanges
https://www.instagram.com/p/BR0p4xohCRb/?taken-by=derekdesanges
https://www.instagram.com/p/BR0p7_Yh5i_/?taken-by=derekdesanges
https://www.instagram.com/p/BR0qJKSh-UD/?taken-by=derekdesanges (OUR ALBUM GENRE IS "ARID HOUSE" GUYS)

Then went to Crossrail place for more roof gardens (no time to get to Kensington Roof Gardens)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BR00Vw0BLs4/?taken-by=derekdesanges

On to find St Dunstan-in-the-East, which I've been meaning to do for ages:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BR1A_n2h15b/?taken-by=derekdesanges
https://www.instagram.com/p/BR1BOo7h9vH/?taken-by=derekdesanges
https://www.instagram.com/p/BR1BqAzB5Mt/?taken-by=derekdesanges (video)

Then home via dinner and this charming view of Bow Church:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BR1HXk7hQUy/?taken-by=derekdesanges

Monday

Today I went to the gym and was cross a lot. I have drawn many things, and I had a brainwave about how to fix the aliens-and-gangland-murders-in-prohibition-NY book (make protagonist trans, which is now my solution to everything). I have progress snapshops and finished pics to upload. One day.

also i published a book

FGS FRIDAY WHY

2017-03-17T13:41:23Z

UGH UGH UGH (I know I'm ill and stuff but I am really fucking tempted just to get drunk)

Gym: I am never getting near the Smith machine ever again no matter how early I drag myself out of bed (sleep patterns still wanked, brain still thinks 1am-4am is for BEING AWAKE FOR NO REASON), crunch coughing fits, totally owned by bicep fucking curls but otoh tried a new thing (hip adduction) and it's a piece of of piss. Maybe I'll just do that until my crotch has muscles.

Editing: my fucking Surface Pro is being a pissbaby about ever charging. Solutions to the problem just drained more battery power. After emailing whatever edits I could to myself, I found the following on my other computer -
+ microsoft office not validated
+ microsoft office won't let me sign in with my microsoft id online because "gmail.com doesn't real"
+ finally open document for editing: it has saved LITERALLY NONE OF MY EDITS from today! NONE! 100% NOT SAVED ANY OF THEM despite regularly fucking saving! Thanks.
+ plans for going and enjoying the sunshine in Holland Park while working on book outline a bit therefore stymied by not being able to fucking do the fucking editing (and also by the sunshine disappearing).

despite breaking rank on calories yesterday due to illness (which is hilarious because i have no fucking appetite) i am once again IDIOTICALLY HUNGRY.

and it's st fucking padraig's fucking day and i live upstairs from an irish pub which is boisterous on the best of fridays...

blogs

therefore buy my book

Rest day: I walked a mile in a tunnel full of exhaust and ran down a hill

2017-03-16T13:55:56Z

(and then I went dancing).

Despite my best efforts to be on time I arrived at Rotherhithe half an hour early, and sat in the sun reading Downriver with some gross protein milkshake and meditating on the difference not only in racial demographics from area to area in London (Rotherhithe, from what little I saw, seemed to be predominantly white and working class, very different from where I live) but also body type (short, uneven men proliferate in South East London, becoming lumpy and asymmetrical in face & body, what I'd refer to as "quintessentially English" if I wanted to be mean).

This gave me time to work out which direction the entrance to the mouth of the tunnel was, so not an entire waste of time.

rotherhithe station is tiny and has railway pillars.

The tunnel itself was built in 1908 and the chief engineer revelled in the improbable name of "Maurice Fitzmaurice". It is a single bore tunnel extending just under a mile (0.9196 of a mile, in fact, or 1.48km) although if you include the terrifying traffic funnel at each end in which high tiled walls increase the sense of a descent into Hades rather effectively then it's pretty much bang on a mile.

The ominous tunnel mouth swallowed us, hankerchiefed and pollution-masked, and we wandered down along the narrow - though not as narrow as Sinclair made it sound - strip of pavement.

composite image.

Sinclair didn't make it all the way through, travelling alone, and was overcome by a case of existential claustrophobia; he bolted up one of the exit shafts and got horribly lost in Rotherhithe. In our day, some 30 years later, the exit shafts are all closed. The knobbly vestibules where the staircases (Edwardian, probably Listed) reside are now adorned with plaques telling you not to "linger" because of "exhaust fumes". We found a Wimpy box. Who the fuck was eating in a tunnel like this? Where is there still a Wimpy? Had we travelled back in time?

possibly we had.

A cyclist passed on the opposite side of the road, maskless, with a basket on his bike. Madness. Somewhere around the centre of the tunnel the ceiling and walls began to close in on me and I began to feel as if I had always been in the tunnel. I'd been born there, I'd die there, the tunnel was enternal and all-encompassing and frankly hellish. I made a joke of it to Charlie and the dizziness started to pass; this is why you take people down into places with you. Less in case you fall and break your neck and more so that there's someone to share the dread.

video of the Important Moment when we found the Light At The End Of The Tunnel.

We cheated the last leg, turning up the steps into a small park rather than funnelling back out with the aromatic traffic. I hacked up a lung onto the spring grass: we found an anenome, and later a whole bank covered in them.

Limehouse station was practically on top of us. We took to the tracks towards Greenwich, a cup of tea, and the strange seaside-town feel of somewhere that is still very much technically part of London. I can still taste cars in my sinuses.

The bus to Eltham from Greenwich takes ten million billion years, by the by. Eltham isn't really in London. Worth it for this spectacular display:

spring came on sudden.

At the top of what I think is Shooters Hill is Severndroog Castle, which is technically a watchtower and not a castle and also wasn't built in the medieval period so why the fuck would it be a castle (much like "Castle" Drogo in this respect); a castle, as any fule kno, is a combination of a smallholding and a military fort and an administrative centre. This place, otoh, had a tiny tiny cafe whose afternoon teas were on a Londonist List, Charlie and I shared some breand-and-butter-pudding (food of the GODS) and were accosted by an ownerless Puggle trailing its lead and eager to make our acquaintance and eat ALL the cake.

Also the castle door made the floor go gay

After a short break to a) pee and b) be mental about having touched two or three dogs already [Derek: happily eats shit off the mouse-infested kitchen floor but needs to alcohol sanitise his hands after touching living mammals, EXCEPT for cats and people he knows? Strangers & dogs = germs. Don't ask.], we went for a proper explore of Oxleas Woods, which are far larger than I was expecting, well-stocked with more dogs (Charlie made the acquaintance of a couple of girls with Yorkies and promptly lost their shit on being invited to hold one of said dogs).

composite including a second cafe we couldn't eat in because no cash. Not even for the £1 cups of tea. Includes at least one instance of two idiots (us) running down the side of Shooters Hill while yelling joyously because Sun! Running! No one allowed to tell you off for doing that when you're a grown-ass adult! Whee! And also one instance of gazing out over the panoramic view of South East London stretching on for absolutely fucking miles, and commenting, "This makes me feel very arrogant. Yes, I have conquered it."

(Plans hatched to attack the Green Chain walk in future, emphasis on Crystal Palace, Eltham Palace & Tudor Barn, Charlton House, and the Thames Barrier; some of these because I read about them in Brewers, some because I already knew about them and meant to visit, and the Barrier because of Sinclair but also because Josie Long used to do a bit about being sexually attracted to/romantically involved with the Thames Barrier [she's from Kent].)

bus to north greenwich took me both along a fucking motorway and also through what felt like an entirely different country. Still London, but looks like the suburbs of Paris mated with an American city and produced a terrifying architectural nightmare. No doubt it's filling up fast, people can't buy property in London quickly enough atm, but it's an eerie, fake-looking place.

Safely back in the welcoming embrace of normality/Shoreditch: tea in one place, matcha latte in another (but i really must remember that Shoreditch Grind's matcha lattes are gross), Downriver in both. Thought: remember seeing a Tumblr post about how the delineation of "species" is a human concept (meaning: the real world is more wishy-washy than that, categories are invented so that humans can make sense of stuff); it was on a specific blog and therefore the conclusion was "angry shouting about the oppressiveness of science in imposing order upon the chaotic systems of the world, something something white people", rather than on a different specific blog where I suspect the conclusion would have been "and that's why it's okay for me to fuck dogs". Although I'm sure the same argument could and probably has been made.

Then I went to a basement and injured myself repeatedly at the behest of a small Italian man who was trying very hard to look like the late George Michael, and on several occasions just flatly refused to do certain things because a) my back won't do that b) my knees won't do that and c) the person I have ended up partnered with for this bit physically cannot hold me up, she is half my size and I am heavy. It was not anything like as awkward as it could have been and I was not as embarrassed by it as me of ten years or even five years ago would have been, but parts of my body don't work, my reflexes are slow, and I am really ill. So it could have gone better.

Things I am looking for in a dance class:
+ beginners
+ instructor I can understand
+ not to have to touch people
+ not to have to bend over backwards since my back has some "fused vertebrae" flexibility issues
+ not banging my knees on the floor repeatedly, given that I still only have 3/4 of a kneecap between both knees as no amount of weight loss and working out will make my knee grow back
Things that have led to me making this list:
+ the absolute beginners introduction to contemporary dance class which very much did not fulfill any of those criteria, although it DOES get a weird cookie for being the only dance class I have ever been to where the men outnumbered the women.

NB majority of those men appeared to be straight and were universally very awkward. two had come with female friends, two had come in work clothes (jeans and shirts), three (including those two) volunteered the information that they worked in IT, one was clearly on-spectrum, and one more was very very muscular and very very awkward (he also had total alopecia, and braces, and was clearly very young). Also there was me, largely failing to remember to put anything together in a coherent manner and stridently not wanting to do things like "just let them take your weight! Lean back!"]

Conclusion after discussion on FB: Bhangra or Belly dancing might be good for me. Crawled along late to meet Jess, who was disappointed to discover that, despite having said the day before that I'd already made dinner for the day and thus entered it into the Robot Punishment Machine, I actually MEANT it and was therefore planning on going home (er, via the purchase of a large frozen fish) rather than going out for dinner with her. More or less collapsed on getting in and have now waved two fingers at my alarm around 7.30am and declared today to be a rest day as getting out of bed is making me make NOISES:

crunchy, wet, chest noises

and my entire self hurts.

my protein box arrived and tomorrow the announcement of THE NEXT NOVEL ON SALE shall go out like a shot around the world, or more probably sink without a trace into people's Friday lunches, but I suppose I can keep up a steady stream of nagging if I can stay awake.

DOES ANYONE ELSE SEE THIS WAS IT JUST US?

2017-03-13T23:09:50Z

I really should know better than to trust nerd men on whether or not a film is good, rather than "mediocre with some good lines but overall self-indulgent and over-simplistic, relying on its unmentioned but immediately obvious and jarring Christian propaganda byline and entrenched masculinity/daddy issues to get an emotional rise from the audience, and willing to sacrifice pacing and/or making sense in order to achieve them."

(That was Logan. I mean, I imagine it worked very well for some people. But I don't have the right kind of issues at ALL and father/child bonding, even when the father is largely an angry irredeemable mess - favourite type of character - and the child a rage-filled violent abuse-survivor with an institutionalised view of the world - favourite type of child - when the plot determines they have to have Emotional Times for Hollywood payoff for the sake of that section of the audience it just leaves me cold and makes me annoyed because it doesn't really work with the plot. Neither for that matter does casually throwing the entire major conspiracy of the movie into a couple of passing lines in order to concentrate on manpain, and I'm entirely guilty of that myself!)

Quick additional whinge OH A SACRIFICIAL BLACK FAMILY WHO ARE OF COURSE RURAL AND RELATABLE AND CHRISTIAN AND IMMEDIATELY EARMARKED AS ABOUT TO BE BRUTALLY-MURDERED AFTER YOU TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THEM. Nice. (The trailers also had a nicely egregious case of "let us kill/maim our sole black character in the fucking TRAILER" so I'm even more determined to ensure Unkillable Africans in the next book like. Fuck off.)

Furthermore not only was the Christian shit REALLY OBVIOUS and REALLY JARRING coming from characters who've literally never shown any sign of that whatsoever before; my "2:1 in English Lit from the top uni for that subject" boyfriend was so distracted by his fappy fappy manpain hype that HE didn't even notice? Amazing.

I *did* gym. A pathetic little gym, intentionally so, in which I barely sweated, because of time & feebleness and just not really being awake (I basically walked out of bed and into the gym). Further impeded by gym bros (not my usual collection because not my usual time of day) being all over the fucking place and taking up multiple pieces of equipment at once to the point of casually making me get off something they'd earmarked? Not in a mean way just in a "I want to use that and you're entering set numbers into your phone ergo" ffs. And my lungs have started generating enormous horrible gurgling phlegm coughs with any exertion: HAYFEVER SEASON IS HERE. TiS THE SEASON FOR SNEEZIN. Ugh.

REJAZZING

2017-03-13T03:35:46Z

I forgot if I mentioned this so I should probably make a note of it:

the new gym plan is that I limit myself to 30 minute cardio workouts on work weeks, thus meaning I am not in the gym for long (around 40 minutes max, which makes it just over an hour including the walk there and back) and don't feel the pressure of time/waking up early so badly (and find it easier to access what I need because the cardio machines are never entirely full), and on my off weeks I concentrate solely on weights, whether free weight workouts or specific muscle groups, and leg raises/planks, which will encourage me to get my cardio in from walking to and from places instead of wanking around in the gym for 2 hours and never seeing anyone.

THOUGHTS?

and a curious intersection between pro wrestling and ballet, more than once

2017-03-12T21:58:52Z

The internet lied to me. But a good lie. It said Hardies wasn't open at 6.30am on a Sunday, but it was. Which meant I ate two (2) chicken burgers at 6.30am. Because.

(And then I had no sleep because of acute fucking intercostal pains and coughing so I learnt my fucking lesson there, didn't I)

Today I went to watch wrestling in a dank bunker in East London: a lucha libre tag team; an Iranian heel faced with "I RESPECT UR CULTURE" as a chant because half the audience refused to boo him; "clusterfuck" 6-man match degenerated into dance-off to the YMCA (video clip) & repeat nudity; two women repeatedly put each other through tables & slammed heads in doors & it wasn't even in wetherspoons (also chairs, hurling themselves out of the ring, thumbtacks, and dragging someone else in to punch someone in the face); camden fought japan, ending with ibushi driving a car into someone and literally firing a firework at himself before jumping on some audience members; will osprey ass.. oh i forgot some of the other chants: "nothing happened" and "put some pants on", and heckling a wrestler whose stage thing is "the lion kid" by singing literally the whole of The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

and then linds and i went to a "fairly upmarket" restaurant to have very very nice food and dissect meme culture using humour theory. (Sager + Wilde, and I used the word "juxtaposition" because you really have to).

In the book I'm reading, a woman has fucked a dog. I mention this because it didn't feel unexpected in the slightest. It's very much that specific kind of provocatively gritty-for-attention. Still enjoyable, but very much a grotesquerie more than it is a novel.

for some reason the tags did not crosspost

2017-03-10T22:12:07Z

1. Mare Internum is great, so that's the second time someone's recced me a webcomic and I've enjoyed it, which I assume means people who pay attention. ;) It's good.
2. Here's an idea for me: maybe if I stopped assuming a workout needs to be at minimum 90 minutes long I might stop having to abandon days due to "not enough time" and then get in a foul mood about it. (Ya boy ain't made it to the gym today because he was fucking unable to get up until 4pm. Just. Paralysed with tiredness. Tomorrow I'm going to experiment with a short work-out, because otherwise I basically won't get to go to the gym more than twice this week, and that won't do).
3. GOING TO WATCH SHITTY WRESTLING TOMORROW BEFORE WORK. wOOOOOOO
4. App concept: something where you scan or enter food amounts, like you do on MFP, and you have it set up with your desired calories and macros, like you do on MFP, but it tells you what meals you can make with what you have entered that will still fit your macros so you don't DIE OF BOREDOM. Should mostly require: maths, end-user database entry (MFP macro database uses nutritional information built up by users entering stuff), access to recipes but also end-user database entry again.
5. Email from Holly: "I dreamt that you published a Max Stroke story called In The Hole Of The Mountain King."
6. Brainspam for Tourist's guide which hopefully makes up for the fact that I have totally forgotten what it was I wanted to say about Gogmagog because FUCKING ONENOTE:

It is not the article that matters, but the faith. There are 5 million pieces of the true cross, but a relic is still a relic. A. M. Bartholomew was born the son of a Christian man and woman, subtype: tabernaclist, but he converted; he is a child of Israel back to the birth of the sands the second is foreskin is gone. The Roman Wall is built of plaster and a tonne of tourist sweat baptises it into battlements, making mythology anew, waking Mithras in the nearby brickwork. It doesn't matter who killed five working girls in Whitechapel: it was all of those men and none of them. The girls still died, and die again and again, while Jack lives, and thrives, and lurks with his Lister knife in the imagination. True histories are built on lies. Money is traded on it, whims and hunches, lives lost to it. With each new retrospective the past is rewritten: Rhynwick the Monster, Rhynwick the fit-up, unlucky in Newgate. The dinosaurs ceaselessly mutate in our understanding: we are who we pretend to be.

Change is our birthright.

apiphile @ 2017-03-09T21:48:00

2017-03-09T21:57:19Z

wolfy_writes is ASSAULTING ME; I am already reading one of the Ian Sinclair books I made Lindsay bring back from his library at his parents' house and now, as I struggle to get my shit together sufficiently to give away the pile of Sound Recording textbooks I have decided to remove to free up my shelves (*bitter laughter*) MORE IAN SINCLAIR arrives.

Been to give Charlie their book back this evening:

1. Stop being a ninny and write your gay porn.
2. Stop being a ninny and find out if the guy you want to fuck is still seeing someone or not.
3. Tell your GP that your shrink is a bucket of rusty nails and you want one who isn't a venereal disease in a human costume.
4. We're going to traverse the Rotherhithe Tunnel in our carefully-selected pollution masks and then we're going to CLEANSE OURSELVES in Oxleas Woods, MAKE A DATE, IT WILL HAPPEN.

Nothing else of value to report CHARLIE ARE YOU READING THIS but I have sequestered FREE falafel and am probably NOT going to the transmasc reading because no one will come with me.

also addictions are shit and i hate them

2017-03-09T03:37:08Z

"Starch is a type of complex carbohydrate that undergoes several different steps during digestion. Eventually starch is broken down into glucose, which is the main source of fuel for all cells. Since carbohydrates, like starch, play such a big role in providing energy, most of your caloric intake should come from this macronutrient."

Derek: eats no starches whatsoever because getting enough protein and vegetable matter means I CAN'T SPARE THE CALORIES FOR THIS

(I'm doing better because I've decided free food left for us at work doesn't count as "bad", since it's been fruit and salads so far - banana and pear yesterday, tuna niconase salad today - and I had to finish Jess's birthday chocolates because she didn't like them?!?!? But OOGLE BLOOGLE BLARGH BLARGH everything is DIFFICULT I swear I am just going to go back to living on Huel at this rate).

apiphile @ 2017-03-09T01:11:00

2017-03-09T01:11:25Z

poetrY

do nothing

when will i ever accept my own mediocrity with good humour

2017-03-08T21:51:12Z

Okay if I don't remember to make a post I will look back on this week with total amnesia so:

this is what Charity will look like if she decides to be a genius locii.

Been talking people through various gender crises a lot at the moment. You know, with my intense authoritative assistance which amounts to "whatever you decide is ok and also you don't actually have to DECIDE as such".

Gym update/fail. Inexplicably tired, cut triceps, leg raises, running, rowing, and planks from the usual mess due to time, knee, lack of enthusiasm, and lack of access, but tried ab crunch machine thing which probably makes up for some of it a bit. Went in at a solid 50kg on that one because apparently my abs are already monstrous. Am now of course CONSTANTLY HUNGRY which yeah that's nice but fuck off, human corpse prison. Fifty points to the guy at the gym who turned up in a Refugees Welcome hoodie. Twenty points to the gym for sudden materialisation of functioning WiFi. Ten to Amazon for delivering my external harddrive the day they said they would; I don't have time to dump everything on that today but tomorrow is rest day so I guess I can do it then.

Vague, vague possibility I might meet An Actual Stranger to go to a stupid reading of some stupid queermo stories because I might as WELL live this fucking life if no one is going to like me on the merit of my actual self; time to put on the TRANS hat and the GAY cape and go and be a SELECTION OF IDENTITIES.

Immensely grateful, without sarcasm, that Liza bullies me into writing terrible pornography for her nightly otherwise I would produce literally nothing at the moment, and hate myself for it. This stuff still feels like it's being dragged out of me by force but I don't have to query the quality.

Desktop computer is being viciously uncooperative with the keyboard; tablet may or may not actually ever charge again, having fucksakesed itself JUST as I was in the process of doing the notes for the LAST chapter of Heavy; ya boy is naturally as tired as a river-beach cadaver and it's only WEDNESDAY. Do you remember "not feeling physically sore and tired all the fucking time" but WITHOUT having to take drugs because I think it's been a while and the last times I can actually call to mind have involved either booze or morphine.

Also I REALLY want to drink right now.

NEW BOOK IS IMMINENT, link contains cover preview.

party boy

2017-03-05T18:08:52Z

"did u go to the gym on saturday morning like u were meant to" no i physically couldn't get out of bed because once again my brain decided that it didn't want to sleep until 5am. at 7am it wouldn't let me move; at 8.30am i thought i was probably okay with the gym but jess hadn't gone to work and wanted to go out for breakfast so i did that instead.

veggie fry-up

jess drew me

I spent most of the day engaged in computer set-up/file-sorting things, having picked up the new mouse and keyboard from the neighbours (I even ate dinner on the computer desk: having at least been food shopping).

Then I dressed up like this and went to GAY Late with Ruthi, which is like going to Duckie except there's sometimes airconditioning, the drinks are cheaper, the toilets are worse, there's a little more variation in clothing and lots more lesbians (and also straight women happily not having to deal with straight men); on the other hand it is exactly like Duckie in that I am largely invisible to all human beings until they are drunk enough that their standards drop and they can at least face dancing with me. The disparity between what my friends see and what strangers see when looking at my face is so huge it's impressive to think they exist in the same reality at all.

Cracked home via take-away, got to bed by four, woke up today around ten after some absolutely monster fucking nightmares, still drunk, and laid into dealing with the hangover before it could get a foothold. This has involved going to the farmers market (fresh air, exercise) for a sausage bun (sustenance, fats, salts, carbs, hot food) and a brownie (endorphins/oxytocin), and also a full litre of fortified vitamin/mineral glop mixed fruit juice with green tea thing, multiple cups of tea, and spending most of the daylight hours working on the cover for the book. Cover is largely complete, Photoshop works, tablet works, etc - no actual reason not to use it for drawing now.

Went to the pub for a late Sunday lunch & was forced to lurk angrily near the bar until some bloody weekend--tourists fucked off and let me have a table (I mean it's good for the pub but as I go there basically every damn day I feel a bit territorial about the place) for this: ze chicken.

And now I am lying down dealing with the ghost of a hangover, and trying to decide how best to waste my Sunday evening as being productive is out of the question but so unfortunately is a bath, thanks to my tattoo.