Slightly Embellished In The Process Of Adaptation

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.

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.

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.

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:

( Collapse )

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?

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 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/BSOmRd… the cat
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSOxrF… 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/BSQ2ES… 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/BSQ4xI… hiding fox
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSQ493… wig encyclopedia (i used to love this categorisation shit)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSQ5JM… aphophrycal
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSQ587… badger
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSQ81s… owl
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSQ9Km… post-natural
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSQ96r… alcoholic rat
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSQ-PY… paper teeth
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSQ-_F… birdsong
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSRF95… 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/BSRMsl… 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.

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.)

"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/BSEk1D… 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/BSEmTI… actual jessica hugging a lifesized bear in wilko
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSE5Io… 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).

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.

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.]