Anyway, look, I'm doing that thing, I'm falling... in... something? In many ways things feel a little too sweet to be true (and I spend a lot of time worrying about how it all might fall apart) — I am living in the city I always dreamed off, I am (mostly) working hard enough to afford it, and I get to take Sundays off and lie on my bed while my dog softly snoozes against me, staring at this beautiful human who I get to hang out with and even [whispers] KISS a lot of the time. It's real nice you guys. Sorry for being a bit saccharine.
And there's wonderful friends in this city too, old and new. Nat came over and I made enchiladas, because I am really trying to actually get back into making an effort with cooking and not just eating ready meals or bowls of rice with vegetables on top. It's easier when there's someone else to make the effort for, I find.
I say 'mostly working hard enough', because actually this month has been another not great one in the world of freelancing. Things picked up a little towards the end, but one of my main clients hasn't sent me any substantial work for nearly three months, which is starting to make me a little anxious (I haven't raised this with them yet, but gently will at some point...) Anyway, not enough work means time to wander, and I enjoyed wandering over to the Nam June Paik exhibition at Tate Modern very much. (Note to self tho, stop going to paid exhibitions when you're not making any money...)
And sometimes the worries tend to overwhelm. I have both more and less to worry about these days. More practical worries but less emotional worries, perhaps. Work being one of the main ones.
Oh and it's fun to throw in some low-level hypochondria too (though actually that's probably a bit of an exaggeration. This year I have actually coped surprisingly well with my usual winter 'noro-noia', as I call it — the constant, pervasive fear of getting the norovirus that usually has me obsessively handwashing, anxiously avoiding touching surfaces/avoiding eating anything without handwashing etc has been a little less pronounced this year, and I'm not really sure why. Maybe just years of trying to be better. Funny really, as given the current climate I'd probably be wise to sustain a few of these obsessive germ-avoidant behaviours...)
S invited me to the charity they volunteer for's Ceilidh fundraiser. We both hate ceilidh dancing. It was fun to not have to dance at a ceilidh and just watch everyone else (why I have been to so many ceilidhs when I dislike them so much is somewhat inexplicable). It was fun to meet some of their friends/colleagues, and being introduced as a partner made things feel a lot more official somehow. Like, I guess we're doing this thing?
We're doing this thing and I'm being DISGUSTING, SORRY
In another 'I don't have enough work today' outing, I got the bus to Japan House (free!) to see their exhibitions and use their fancy Japanese toilets, and then I went to the big Wholefoods, ate their free samples, bought myself a VERY LIMITED quantity of treats and then got the bus home, and it was a fun time.
It is EXTREMELY COLD and I have been feeling the winter blues quite a bit this month (though hopefully things will pick up a bit weather wise next month, and not getting the winter blues until February is pretty good going really). Anyway, I bought myself a down jacket for Boston (and ironically, didn't need it there). It's really puffy and unflattering but super cosy, I like to wear it under this amazing red vintage swing coat, but when I do I look GIANT, like my head is way too tiny for my body.
I got a haircut and it's kind of... bad? I probably need another one to fix it but haven't quite been able to steel myself to do it yet because haircuts in London are really expensive (if you know a place that is good and will cut my hair for £50 or less, please let me know)...
I had a fun Saturday evening. My friend Hannah was hosting a rowdy valentines themed house party where everyone was supposed to wear pink or red, there were red lightbulbs in every room, and drinks mixing galore. I felt extremely old (though even in my youth I never enjoyed these kinds of parties), but I like Hannah, and I wanted to go say hi, so I went REALLY EARLY (well, like 9) to hang out with her and her friend before everyone else arrived while they were getting dressed and putting their makeup on, and it was really nice. She lives up in Turnpike Lane, so I went through Finsbury Park to get there. On the Piccadilly line platform at Finsbury Park there are beautiful mosaiced hot air balloons. The last time I saw them was probably over a decade ago, when I was seeing Martin. His gran lived in Wood Green and we would often visit her via this route. I remember how intoxicated I felt by life back then, just BEING IN LONDON! BEING IN LOVE! It's fun to feel that way again, and I love how places and spaces can have such evocative memory-feelings tied to them.
Anyway, I left the party at like 10.30, right when it was all getting going, got on a nice short bus to Muswell Hill, bought some chips and took them to S’s where we happily ate them and fell asleep curled up together.
S lives in a tiny bedsit, their stated goal of which is to find the cheapest possible rent in London while still having a private kitchen. Kitchen is a stretch really, this glorified cupboard at the foot of their bed with a microwave/oven and a couple of hob rings, and no real surfaces apart from the draining board. But they have made it a cosy home with lots of clever organisational tactics and lovely plants and nice bedlinen, and I feel very cosy and safe there.
A couple of friends who have now seen/met them said 'they look nothing like your drawings of them in the blog'. Ah, the challenges of getting good likenesses of new people. Trying AGAIN. (Because they're hot, and any excuse) (but this still isn't very good)
In many ways I've been struggling with motivation when it comes to work and various other tasks, but I've been trying to continue to gain small victories where I can. I've been trying to teach myself some basic musical skills/rythym with Melodics tutorials — it's funny, I'll be finding one impossibly hard one day, and then I'll come back to it fresh the next day and ace it, immediately. BRAINS! Also, at the ceilidh earlier in the month, there was a raffle, and I was lucky enough to win a signed copy of Meera Sodha's wonderful cookbook East (I really highly recommend it!). This further spurred me on in my 'do better at cooking', and I made a great curry (and just for myself, not even to share!)
Then the next night I made her incredible mushroom bao recipe for my friend Lucy, and they were GREAT! Emma can COOK! (I made the kimchi pancakes today and they were also incredible!)
Anyway look. Falling in like is weird. For a while there, I started to get kind of scared. Scared of how emotionally reliant I have become on S. Although I have lots of friends, the friends I go to most for emotional support (Justin, Dav and Davey) are at the other end of the country/world, and in London, although I have lots of friends here, they are widely distributed, and busy (we are all busy).
In a moment of anxious soul-seeking, I for some reason decided that the best possible thing to do would be to... log back into OkCupid?! I swiped through about three people and was like 'why am I doing this', but one of those people was Fran. And Fran is... lovely. Fran is funny and sweet and cute and all the things that would make me swipe right on a person. We start talking, and I felt really conflicted. I was wrong to go on a dating site when, despite being poly, I really am probably not in an emotional place to be looking for new partners right now.
But... this is a really nice person who I hit it off with in a way that, with the exception of S, I haven't done with any other online dating encounter?! It would seem foolish not to meet someone who seems so great. And we meet, and it's fun, and we eat Ethiopean food (my new fav), and stain our fingers yellow, and giggle, and gossip, and I like them a lot. I hope that we can be friends. Let's see.
I have a lovely fun train ride (I love the weird lil Waterloo and City Line) over to Spitalfields to hang out and play boardgames with my friends Ellis and Dan. I MISSED BOARDGAMES! We played Dead of Winter and this was my first boardgame since Ava moved out last April, and I am so happy to have people to play with again.
A Saturday of completing small, easy, fun tasks.
A Sunday of contentedly lying on S’s bed listening to the storm outside, watching them work, and reading a book about insect parts.
I was really excited to see that cool-lady-from-the-internet Sarah Brin was in London, so I decided to try and make her cool-friend-in-real-life by inviting her over for dinner with mutual friends Nat, Wes and Aidan. I made a medicore lasagne but Wes bought some WILD vegan cheeses from France (including an utterly ridiculous blue cheese), Nat bought cupcakes, and we all had a fun time playing 'interactive shouting game' Space Team. SPACE TEAM!
One of the bad things about seeing S is that they live so far awaaaaay. A rare passing through South London treat surprise!
Look I'm not dating, I'm done dating for now BUT?! This wasn't a date. Me and Assim started chatting on Tinder before Christmas, he's also an illustrator (and a bloody good one) and we followed each other on instagram and would chat shop occasionally. I want more friends in the creative industries in London, so I asked if he'd like to meet up and see an art, but just as friends. He agreed and we had a fun not-date looking round the Cartoon Museum (though it was a little too limited in scope to call itself that I thought, more like the 'political cartoons of the last century' museum, which is still cool but not exactly what I'd hoped for). We were meant to grab some food afterwards, but my Charlie-sitter let me down, so I had to dash home to give the boy his dinner. But that was okay. Hopefully sometime we'll hang out again, next time either of us want to have a really over excitable chat about our favourite pens...
Did I tell you about my one true love tho?
What did you do with your extra day? I spent nearly two hours on a bus in traffic because I wanted one of those new vegan burger kings but wanted to eat it in the comfort of my own home, and could have probably got there and back in under an hour if I'd got a train but I've been feeling guilty about my excessive train spends so I decided to get the bus but it was a BAD IDEA because ROADWORKS (burger was great though)
Happy leap day!
Now, let's get on with spring...
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