Today my hands were blue with cold and I wore a heavy winter scarf for the journey to work. Seasons are not real.
I’ve always been pretty good at fading into the background – I have a face that manages to be both politely vaguely familiar and completely unmemorable. It suits my wallflower tendencies. It’s also something that comes in handy on trains where, I’ve discovered, if I don’t move to get my ticket when the ticket inspector comes by, they assume they’ve ticketed me before and don’t bother me. (I am not avoiding buying train tickets – I have a month pass that doesn’t need stamping.) Now, though, I wonder if they’ve seen me often enough that they do recognise me, and know that I’ll have a pass and it’s not worth asking me. A train regular. Can’t decide if I like the idea of being invisible or often visible better.
Today at work we briefly talked about the opening of a water cocktail bar in London. Oxygen bars are also a thing. In a world where we’ve created cities with unbreathable air and undrinkable tap water, now we’re making good water and good air a luxury. It’s dystopian, said somebody. Oh god, we’re living that future.
I babbled at Neil Gaiman last week. I got a book signed for me (rare). I didn’t cry. I also didn’t manage to make conversation. I did get a photo.
Anti-immigrant sentiment is still rising and this is where I’m at on the ground: a young Indian man asked me directions outside the train station last week. Sweet and polite and utterly lost. I directed him and then went on my way. Spent the rest of the evening worrying about him, wondering if I should have walked with him, scared he’d get started on for being brown and alone in the UK. We’re an embarrassment, a pure embarrassment in media and government and attitude.
I finished my big work project. Just need to survive the post-press gubbins. And I’m so tired that I’m sat across the room from my new teeny amp and my lovely guitar and don’t have the strength to pick it up. I feel as though I’ve been smacked across the head. I feel as though I’m walking round with concussion, on four pints of beer and a handful of painkillers.
I have a new story up on the fabulous Loss Lit website – Issue 3 is a bumper one, loads of really good stuff to read. I’m quite chuffed to be there alongside some writers I much admire. Other writing, I can do now. I’ve got my life back a bit. I entered for a writing award grant thing earlier this year, and sometime over the next week-ish is when they’re contacting the successful few. Am on those miserable hooks of trying not to be hopeful every time I see a new email in my inbox. I’ve also paid my sacrificial tenner to the gods of Bridport.
Music love at the open mic this week: Eve Conway; a duo called Crossover; Steve McCormick; Hayley McKay and a squillion more. Talent. Also Brian, who I missed because buses/home/sleep, but wish I hadn’t because he’s an 80-year-old rockstar.
I think this is one of those entries I won’t bother shouting about. Just thoughts. A shambles. A shambles of thoughticles.
I think I might have a nap.
I think I might play the violin.
Bookworms and Coffee Monsters 