{I'll keep running from the storm}

[kaberett]

{and you have done your best to medicate and regulate/the dark clouds forming in my brain...}

1. Brunch: sourdough and halloumi and scrambled eggs and kimchi and butter and jam and tea. Yes.

2. Tea: hot chocolate and spiced apple cake in my favourite ridiculous cafe in London, in the arches of Richmond Bridge; following which my useless ex and sebastienne and I bimbled along the Thames to Kew, through an inordinate amount of mud and a SURPRISE HAILSTORM.

3. Kew! At which: orchid festival, an astonishingly personable six-year-old kid who pointed out to me the ENORMOUS CATFISH and smaller clownfish in a pond I'd never noticed before; and some beautiful beautiful decorative plantings as part of the orchid wossname. I intend to go back and take pictures and then possibly write you all an allcaps post about how clever the plantings are.

4. sebastienne found a beautiful big flouncy shawl, grey-on-white, in the Kew shop, with silhouetted gingko leaves... and decided I needed it in my life, and it is great and I cannot even.

5. Knittinggggg. Having got guilt!knitting finished (photos maybe) means that I am moving on to knitting-for-pleasure for the first time in nearly two years, which is great. Progress apace on a ridiculous shawl for D, which is currently at stage "very relaxing to knit" and will shortly get a bit more complicated.

6. GIG. AUGH GIG. SUCH FEELINGS. There were in fact four bands playing; Joyless Fucking did not do much for me and I think I am not exactly Spoonboy's target audience, but I got to see both Jesus & His Judgemental Father and Onsind live for the first time in a tiny overheated intimate venue, and ♥_______♥ J&JF opened with What Now (if we'd waited just a minute then we could have worked it out/what now? I get over you, I get over you - somehow...) and closed with Kings and Queens (title track of their first album, massive trigger warnings for transmisogyny and murder), and -- being in a tiny basement room, all of us shouting ourselves hoarse in the land outside this social scene/the streets are filled with the gender police/I guess these streets are no place for kings and queens/no these streets are not safe for kings and queens was... pretty much rivalled only by subsequently being in the same room while Onsind did Pokémon City Limits and we all shouted never trust a Tory/they'll betray you when it matters/they will scramble to the top/and then they'll kick away the ladders/never trust a Tory/or a Tory in disguise/yeah you can see them when you look them in the eyes/so just make sure you look the bastards in the eye, or Mildred (from which the opening quotation), or Dissatisfactions, or Sweet and tender Julian, or or or or or or. These bands. I love them, they mean so much to me, and earlier in the week I got to see the Indelicates play a bunch of stuff off their upcoming album about cynicism and space science, and -- I just -- feelings.

7. My useless ex & I swung by my favourite bagel shop for dinner, and consequently we have a dozen bagels and three uncroissant in for breakfast.

8. Living right next to a tube station means that once I am on the tube I get to just... stop thinking, because I am Basically Home, and it's lovely.

9. To my utter bafflement I have found a free period-tracking app that doesn't make me angry??? It is called Clue, it's available for iPhone and Android, it is actually way the hell more gender-neutral than the landing page makes it look (I have not spotted a single instance of gendering in the app itself in a way that made me bristle though this might just be that I have developed some immunities to same), and it is actually set up to encourage competent fertility-tracking and ovulation-prediction in a way that makes 0 judgement as to whether this is because you're trying to avoid pregnancy or court it. I am proper pleased. (Apps in use on the third-hand cast-off of my useless ex: the meds timer he wrote, a pedometer that doesn't actually scowl at me if I walk too much but is a useful indicator that I'm walking too much, a sleep tracker, at this stage the period app, and Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection used for self-soothing in small bursts. It... is glorified auxiliary internet + health diary. I am a little embarrassed, but not very.)

10. Tomorrow afternoon I am assembling a posse to go see Jupiter Ascending, and I expect to roll around in it in delight. :-)

Bonus: A Situation that's been messing with me for quite a while now appears to be resolved, bar the shouting. It is not my preferred resolution but it's still a hell of a lot better than the deeply unpleasant limbo we've been stuck in, and thus is a relief.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

Aw, Clue is not on Kindle Fire? Sad.

Found Pokemon City Limits on Bandcamp and it is not what I expected from your description but it is intriguing nonetheless.

[silveradept]

Kindle Fire has Android running under the hood, so it should be possible to download or sideload it. But Amazon doesn't make that particularly easy.

[alexseanchai]

Nod--I'm just nervous about breaking something if I try.

[silveradept]

The good thing is that if you generally stick to the instructions, it works well. Beyond that, it's your call about comfort levels.

[onyxlynx]

Totally OT and out-of context:
Joyless Fucking did not do much for me

<arch voice>Well, it doesn't do much for anyone.</voice>

Yay knitting for pleasure!

[quartzpebble]

OMG Clue is amazing. I haven't found obviously gendered bits yet. And NOT PINK.

[ceb]

And it has REFERENCES. <3

[white_hart]

Thanks for the app rec - since coming off hormonal contraception I have been looking for something sensible and not girly to track my somewhat erratic cycles!