apiphile, posts by tag: things - LiveJournal

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.

I had a four-hour depression nap this morning so I haven't been to the gym or had the time to do anything useful (... I went to the pub with Jess and sat around talking about vegetables and writing angry gay Florentines fighting about paint because dear GOD I do not want to be on the internet). I finished reading London Under (very good, strongly recommended, quite poetic, move me into the tunnels at once), started reading The Devil's Paintbrush by Jake Arnott (so far so good: Aleister Crowley is a pretentious and ridiculous shit and his friends keep making fun of him, and the other protagonist is a repressed gay Scottish general from a humble background who likes being in wars because it stops him being anxious about being gay, which means SOMEONE BASICALLY WROTE HIM FOR ME? "oh thank god a fight i can be in" = me).

Oh and we went to see Doug down in the wilds of the South of London and it was freezing fucking cold. It continues to be freezing fucking cold. I really. Don't. Want to internet at all.

(New jumper and heat pad arrived in the post. OK, ok ok ok.)

Yesterday

About the usual amounts of strife; I went to one cafe to do writing/editing work, decided to be nice and go somewhere with Jess briefly after lunch, had one fight about her insisting on having a shower and then taking forever to actually get around to doing this, then another about the fact that she doesn't listen to things like "I will not be here this evening" and "what a GRC is" and will then tell me I've said nothing about it when I've basically gone on about it repeatedly and she just doesn't care about it, etc; managed some of my editing in the Costa (further fight, followed by her being angry with some people for asking if we were leaving or arriving when we got out of our seats, then being angry with me for sympathetically asking if she was peopled-out); the rest on the train on the way to see Doug. Continued reading Secret History, which is finally proving enjoyable in a "mocking these ceaselessly pretentious and useless arseholes and Richard's intense NO HOMO about literally everything which, tragically, is in fact VERY GAY" sort of way, made some notes - more questions, really - for the novelle. This will probably need to be thrashed out with someone but a) in person isn't working because I am great at distracting myself and b) I keep trying to hide from my inbox as I let it get slightly out of control.

Anyway we walked about twenty minutes in the freezing freezing cold down to Doug's sheltered accommodation but he wasn't really able or willing to wake up after over-exerting himself the previous day; we sat for about forty minutes and read and talked to each other for a bit (Linds & I) then left; I insisted on leaving him a note to say we'd been there, because it's bad for him to have someone written down as showing up and them to apparently not show up, he needs to be able to trust his diary, etc.; so we trekked all the way back up to North London again.

I shan't get into the rest but basically going to bed is becoming a nightmare and getting to sleep is literally fucking impossible. My brain does not want to do it, and I cannot drug myself when I need to be up the next day.

TODAY

Gym induction, which was stressful and uncomfortable (I feel like other people have very quinoa-and-juice gyms and we have a prison-routine-continuation-gym which is frankly much less objectionable but initially intimidating because everyone is terrifyingly fit and enthusiastic in a way that I can't hate as thoroughly as I can the Yummies), and the actual test session with Linds which was not at all stressful and actually quite pleasant; did the Couch to 5k first-week session of 90 secs walk-run cycles for 20 minutes, then a twenty minute bike ride through pretend American national parks, which was again fairly pleasant, then promptly died of hunger and had to go and eat half a chicken. Still. Some form of baby step, there.

Following this I went up to quinoa-juice-yummy-hell to format/edit Sussicran, carry on writing a birthday gift for a friend (nothing like lovingly describing the ritualistic murder of a teenager while surrounded by people whose wombs are just BURSTING with maternal productivity; I AM COME TO BRING BALANCE TO THE HILLSIDE FUCKERS), and edit Heavy.

Remaining tasks: deal with the nightmare that has become of my inbox, look up submission guidelines for this anthology, read Liza's application for the awful scholar thing. HAVE BATH.

I deliberately wore flipflops because the weather forecast was "sky murder" and I thought it would prevent me from excessive walking (original plan was "walk to Camden again" but this was toned down because I didn't manage to exit my filth prison until gone noon).

I took my notes, my tablet, and a bottle of water I picked up in M&S and I went down towards the centre of town with the full intention of annotating my outline a bit further on the bus, and what actually happened was:

The bus was like a sauna
The bus then got stuck in traffic for eight million years because there was a car crash
I got let off the bus and walked down the road and got on another bus which then terminated so I walked down the road some more and my foot had developed a blister on top from the flipflops and then I got on the same bus I'd got off in the first place and the driver said you didn't get very far then and I just smiled weakly because I had SWEATED OUT ABOUT THREE LITRES OF WATER.

Then I went to a cafe and the cafe was not 33C and they gave me tea and water and I actually managed to do some of the things I'd intended to. Like, for example, figure out a couple more characters and outline things. And also watch one of the staff repeatedly drop and smash bottles. For some reason.

Caught sight of myself in a bathroom mirror and decided I was terribly attractive and that today was going to be a narcissism day and that "I'm very nice to look at" will make up for "why is your writing so awful and why is your personality a void".

I went to Muji in this mood and purchased a shirt. "It's lovely and soft," said the cashier (it's wool blend and looks like it was issued to field officers in ww1 what do you mean I'm predictable).
"Yes," said I, "now watch as it's 30+ degrees forever and I never get to wear it."

I walked/limped to Lush to look for a specific perfume for Jess but I'd missed the five minute window where the small size was available. "We're getting the Halloween/Christmas stuff in on Friday before everyone else though," said the cashier who'd looked for it for me, "if you want." Maybe? I mean. Amy's WHAT TO SMELL OF TO ATTRACT HUMAN BEINGS research indicated that the MAN TYPE OF HUMAN BEINGS allegedly like pumpkin pie and lavender.

So I bought plasters in Sainsburys. And vegetables. And more water. And CIDER. This proved problematic as the 17 YEAR OLD FUCKING CASHIER wouldn't believe I was BASICALLY TWICE HIS AGE because he HAS MORE OF A BEARD THAN I DO then he called over his colleague and they both vaguely interrogated me and eventually accepted that my ONE BOTTLE OF CIDER was a legitimate purchase possibly because I looked so endlessly exasperated whyyyyy does this keep HAPPENING, I'm not carrying my passport everywhere on the offchance I might feel like a drink fFS.

Then I managed to rub the plasters off my feet six fucking times along one short stretch of road ANYWAY.

... I bought a steamed bun from HMart and it was the best steamed bun I've ever had. As in the pork had actual texture and wasn't just grey mince in the bottom of the bun. Four for you, HMart.

And theeeeeeeen a bloody woman sat next to me on the bus and pinned me into the corner and didn't move when new seats became available (JSYK this is like, NUCLEAR WAR LEVEL of etiquette breach on buses) so I sat there on my phone and THOUGHT ABOUT MURDERING HER FOR AN HOUR, then limped down the cocking hill and came home --

-- (I had octopus stir fry the size of a small town for dinner)

-- to find my boyfriend's girlfriend made the most nauseatingly sappy and revolting post on FB, which she tagged him in, so it showed up in my feed. Even if she WASN'T a person who has a) caused drama and b) repeatedly stalked my instagram in weird ways, it was the level of mawk where I would accuse someone of owning a Forever Friends Nightie on purpose. WHY DO I HAVE TO SEE SHIT LIKE THIS?

Also Bake Off is dead to me as of next year so I will have to renew my hunt for valium.

What else.

Hrm.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to be going to the Science Museum to look at SAD WAR MEDICINE (what a treat!) and I am going to try to manoeuvre my comrades into adjacent poké and matcha. Currently I am going to put cider in my FACE until I can't remember that godawful post any more. [Also until I stop being inappropriately convinced that I have Nobby Nobbs Syndrome and the only reason The Sexy Mans are not fawning over me is because they're intimidated and not, say, because they're not wholly convinced I'm a legal fucking adult, apparently.]

1. I bought the bike. His Stable name is Potis Ton Orcheon and his family name is Monty because he is a Montague Crosstown 2017. Which, as the collection of confused men in the shop (it took three of them to figure out how to fold it) kept informing me, is the commuter version of a bike one kept calling The Tank, designed for the US Army. And here I just bought it because it was lightweight and had normal-sized wheels.

2. I had Whey mocha for breakfast. What you do is you take 1 scoop of chocolate orange whey powder and add it to an espresso and mix it in and then add skimmed milk and then you FIGHT A WALL.

3. Was in a horrifically ratty mood due to a) nerves about cycling b) LITERALLY NO SLEEP AT ALL and c) limited time.

4. I'm the most dangerous thing on the road: a man with a good beard was on the pavement and I was so distracted I nearly rode into the side of a car. Hormonal gays shouldn't be allowed near bikes.

5. I saved myself a big carb deficit (unnecessarily big) for a Starbucks Pink Drink because I have my first free drink? And the fucking Starbucks was out of that. So I am sitting here with 400g of strawberries and 200g of raspberries and S U L K I N G. Still behind on carbs.

6. The PRESS'D squeezy bottle of coffee I bought on a whim from Whole Foods (STOP FUCKING JUDGING ME) is amazing. Like, the coffee tastes NICE. As opposed to the garbage from bucks. I will get more of this.

7. Sometimes I deliberately don't pee for hours and hours so that I'm in pain and therefore concentrate on something other than being hungry.

EDIT: Bike things (I cannot spend more money but I need them).

Phone bag for handlebars I can remember maps pretty well but sometimes it's useful to be able to refer back.
BIKE LIGHTS</s> for not dying of cars.
HIGH VIZ HARNESS ditto
Running belt for stashing shit in. Less bike-related and more "I would like not to always have to pockets."
Unrelated to bike but: I need this or I can't use the WACOM.

Stuff that's not Brexit:

1. Going to visit Doug on Monday after therapy. Things have come to a pretty pass when the heartache and grief involved in being reminded that one of your best friends is irrecoverably brain-damaged is a light relief from the week.
2. I have been making some irrational purchases but hopefully not to the extent that I will regret later: ASOS were having a sale, so I'm waiting on some new green jeans, red trainers, a hat, and a large light scarf (the latter of which is beyond unnecessary, I have so many scarves, many of them large enough to be used as auxiliary blankets) from them, and I got fed up with being unable to add music to my main iPod so I've bought a cheap MP3 player with removable memory and a booster SD card so I can listen to the massive autchre download my boss pointed me at. Written down this doesn't seem as bad.
3. Have been converted to coconut oil, in part because I am an inhuman failure who cannot balance his macros and consistently undereats in one area or another. While I have tuna for protein catch-up (contains basically fuck all else), and rice cakes for carb catch-up (usually unnecessary), I was lacking in plain fat and eating raw garlic butter is a bit heave-inducing, whereas just squirting coconut oil into my mouth out of a tube is surprisingly pleasant.
4. LOOSE NUTS. The plates on my barbells keep rotating and sliding while I'm lifting and this is nerve-wracking and unhelpful. Not sure what to do about it, though. I'm hoping the issue is with the lock nuts rather than the thread on the barbell itself.
5. Still heavily into cyerpunk/urban sci fi art. Not making much progress with Days by James Lovegrove despite the frankly surprisingly great prose and solid world-building and believable characters (Derek what MORE do you want?) just because it's very dense and slow-building, and my brain needs something lighter and faster right now. This does however also rule out the massive pile of neurology/linguistics/deception books on my nightstand, although I have no excuse for not continuing with the Greg Egan stories on my phone.
6. It's Eid al-Fitr on Wednesday and I appear to be accidentally celebrating this by a) going to a city farm to pet pigs and b) meeting a friend for drinking. I. Had not intended it to be a festival of blasphemy. The day after is Tanabata, star festival, which in this instance is being celebrated by going to IKEA, although I think I should also participate in the wish-making side of things.
7. I am still very angry with the world and disappointed in/afraid of a lot of people, but I am not angry with MYSELF and don't feel alone in this fury with the way things are going globally and domestically, and that is novel and almost hopeful. Shit may be immensely shitty, but it is categorically not something I can be blamed for, and if Rod Liddle mysteriously shits himself to death I can't be blamed for that either. ;)

Also please buy my book.

Fuck fucking soichaiushciuahca

Failing at eating properly, succeeded at:

1. Theeb with Ruthi
2. Dinner with Emma (forgot to take her the plants that were the entire reason for going to see her oidhaohdiauha twat)
3. Deadpool with Linds, Jess, and Ruthi.
4. Brunch (FINALLY) at Owen's, with fucking poached eggs that looked like testicles.
5. Consequently, some more rifling through what I need to work out for this book.
6. Also went to the local book shop and asked about them taking my books on sale or return (tentative yes).
7. Found an agent, asked the agent's assistant how to get the manuscript submitted in a way that wouldn't annoy anyone, submitted manuscript.
8. Also learnt how to make a cat "hi have sex with me" yell and got bitten for my trouble
9. Made tofu muffins (vedict: more baking powder, longer in the oven) and turnip crisps. Tried moinmoin.
10. Sorted through my SHIT the other day and now have a LOT of LadyCrapTM to redistribute.

Fucking fucks fuuuuuuucccckkk TWO pairs of my boots are broken so that bullshit porn I finished the other day had better sell well.

Therapy continues to be hard and I frequently feel like crying at the moment. I do not, because that thing doesn't happen so much now. I wrote out a thing about it in a cafe while throwing matcha latte into my face and now don't want to share it with anyone because. I don't know, because I don't need to. The thing has been said.

This week so far:

Monday: Therapy (fffffffffffff), plotting stuff.
Tuesday: Crime Museum (exhibits from the Black Museum of the Metropolitan Police, shown for the first time) at the Museum of London. Accompanying bathroom anxiety so bad that it actually reached suicidal levels. Went for a walk along fleet street and the strand afterward, finally got to have a drink in the Seven Stars (pub built in 1601, the stairs really show it) but no sign of the cat. Dined in an Itsu, tea and coffee in the Fleet Street Press. Also found a shy pig.
Wednesday: Finished plotting/research stuff. Walked up to Highgate, checked out Corocoro, bought stuff, went into town, picked up Pocky for Emily, visited Minimoto (SO GOOD), got a bus to Hammersmith, discovered you can make people make you a coffee-less latte, including the pumpkin spice ones, by asking them to... dined from Wasabi and in haste [note: went to use public toilets with turnstiles where turnstiles were broken and a woman was taking money. Went to the ladies' turnstile as that's where she was and that's where I'd ended up in Foyles earlier; was led around to the gents, some very pointed Correct Gendering very good thanks]; saw the stage version of Tipping The Velvet - very funny. Pointedly socialist/feminist. Lots of silly devices and very music hall feel. Aerialist lesbianism, modern songs in music hall style, singing rubber pigs and a line-up of musical cocks playing God Save The Queen in blowjobs and handjobs? Hard to explain but worth it.
Thursday: I'm glad the schedule became a little less hectic because I am knackered. Went to Emily's and watched the video of the performance she was in and had also edited, learned a bit about ballet, was happily informed that I seem much more "together" and "one person" now I'm transitioning; walked from Wapping to Liverpool Street and came home.

Tomorrow: haircut, then either: drinks postponed from today, or dinner with Lin and Nine depending on who is doing what and when.

I didn't get up until midday today and I'm starting to understand why. I mean, I went to sleep around 1am so that's rather a lot of sleep but considering the pace of my days at the moment I possibly need it.

THINGS

theatre x 2
francis
pride (photos forthcoming, please nag me)
1 whole week off dietary restrictions in order to appease a) my angry body and b) my angry friends
book launch
sun burn
dysphoria OH THE DYSPHORIA IT IS LIKE A SOLID OBJECT
adventures
i will elaborate shortly but i am a) very tired b) editing c) making dinner and e) finishing a blog post i've been trying to make for a fortnight

also i don't want to explain overdose to therapist on monday but the way to avoid having to do that is to not overdose alas

Achievements:

* I didn't have a good dream but I had a dream with a good bit in it. A David Bowie sex bit with accompanying Responsible Polyamory.
* Made the lining for the Epic Coat, which means I now need to actually find out what I'm going to make the outer of it with. It looks very swish, very warm, and very comfortable. I think it will be best as a wrap-around so I can adjust it to fit whatever weight.
* Went for a walk:









* Successfully got my old job to give me my P45 and passed it on to my new job so hopefully I won't get taxed up the wazoo this time.
* Considered beating myself up for not making sufficient progress (i.e., any) in the vicinity of the book, but have decided against it on the grounds that it is not November yet.
* Not an achievement: SOOOOOOOOON YOU WILL BE MINE. SOOOOOOOON.