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Pixie
from Tuesdays in Autumn
I finished reading Pixie by Jill Dawson on Sunday. The book’s eye-catching cover first snagged my attention from a bookshop shelf back in May. It’s an historical novel based on the life of the artist, illustrator & writer Pamela Colman Smith, best remembered for designing the famous Rider-Waite tarot card deck. It follows Smith from Jamaica (which she leaves following the death of her mother), via Brooklyn, to London, where, at length, she finds a precarious foothold in the city’s theatrical and bohemian circles. According to the novel, it was one of Smith’s first and most notable theatrical friends — the actress Dame Ellen Terry — who bestowed the nickname Pixie on her.
For me this was a book that had something of the ‘biopic’ about it: a series of vignettes from the subject’s rise to modest fame, with cameo appearances from all the notable names she encountered along the way. While not terribly deep or daring, it’s an enjoyable story of an unconventional character in an interesting milieu. While Smith was undoubtedly ahead of her time in some respects, I did I wonder now & then if Dawson might have been projecting a little too much of the present into her Edwardian setting. And the Rider-Waite tarot commission is presented as a culmination of Smith’s work, when it could just as easily have been just another job for her (albeit a substantial one). It would have been interesting, moreover, to read something about the artist’s subsequent conversion to Catholicism & her later support for women’s suffrage. Then again, further extending the story may have bent the narrative too awkwardly out of shape. Dawson did succeed, I think, in making something coherent and engaging out of the patchily documented facts of Smith’s biography.
A recent stationery acquisition: a quantity of old sealing wax (Fig. 33), namely John Heath’s Bank of England sealing wax (Fig. 34). I own a couple of seals but would like to find some better ones before I use this stuff in earnest. And I’ll need to practice melting and dripping the wax, after making a some ham-fisted initial attempts.
My collection of vocal jazz/pop recordings of the ‘50s and ‘60s has been augmented with the recent purchase of Ernestine Anderson’s 1960 album My Kinda Swing. My copy is a budget re-issue from ‘64 on the Wing record label – a subsidiary of Mercury Records – which omits two of the twelve tracks included on the original U.S. release. On the rear of its sleeve are a variety of other re-issue releases on Wing including the likes of Muggsy Spanier and his Dixie Land Band; Dick Contino’s An Accordion in Paris; and Music for Polka Lovers by Lawrence Welk.
My Kinda Swing the fourth of five albums Anderson made in rapid succession for Mercury. Later in the ‘60s her recording career stalled as fashions changed, only to blossom anew from the late ‘70s onwards. I’d hitherto only heard Anderson via YouTube, so it’s a delight to finally listen to her on well-recorded, well-pressed vinyl, accompanied by such expert musicians as Clark Terry, Hank Jones, Yusef Lateef, and Kenny Burrell. Among the tracks I particularly enjoyed at first hearing was her brief but beautifully languid take on ‘Moonlight in Vermont’.
We now show alt text in the fediverse! Now alt text from photos in your blog posts gets sent out over ActivityPub, so your images are more accessible to your readers and followers there.
Alt text (meaning alternative text) lets you add a description of any images you include in your posts. This is especially helpful to readers who are blind or have low vision, and use screen readers to consume your posts — instead of an empty space where your image is, the screen reader can read aloud the description you provide, giving them the full context of everything you’re sharing.
In our Plain Text editor, you can use standard Markdown to add alt text in the brackets before your image URL:
In our Rich Text editor, you can use the top menu option: Insert → Image to find a Description (alt text) field, where you can describe the image:
Alt text on Write.as has been here since day one. But especially with it carrying over to the fediverse now, we’d highly encourage writers to make an effort to include it more often in their posts!
#updates #fediverse #altText #accessibility
Only God Forgives (2013)
The Third Alternative
The tension in this movie is what really stays with you even after it ends.
Only God Forgives (2013) will remind many viewers of Drive (2011), and some of Valhalla Rising (2009). All three are directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and you can definitely see his signature style in all these films. I personally really like his work, but reviews are mixed for this particular film. This is no surprise because the film is not the typical Hollywood blockbuster, so many people are likely to watch it with different expectations.
Fans of movies made by Gaspar Noé will appreciate this movie. in fact, Noé visited the film set and he's being thanked in the credits. Nicolas Winding Refn was clearly inspired by Noé's work. In addition, he dedicated the film to Alejandro Jodorowsky, whose work has always beeb ahead of his time and deeper in meaning than many his fellow directors, writers and producers. The point of this whole movie trivia bit is to show the kind of movie this is, to give it a bit of lineage if I can call it that. It's not your typical date night movie by a long shot.
Out of the three, Only God Forgives seems to get the worst reputation. However, I really liked this movie and I believe it has a meditative quality, not in the sense that it relaxes you, but in the sense that you can watch it more than once and each time you can try to see deeper into the details. There are a few elements that stand out when I watch this movie: the unknown history of the characters, the silence, and the tension.
Who are These People?
The movie begins with a murder and we realize quickly that Ryan Gosling's character, Julian, and his brother Billy are criminals, using a Thai boxing club as a front while their real business is illegal. We never get too much detail of the real business other than it has to do with drug smuggling. We get the sense that Julian is an unwilling criminal, that he does not really love the life of crime. There's a sense of reluctance to what he does.
On the other side of the rink we have the local police force and Chang. I don't want to call Chang the “hero” of the film because his methods are questionable, but he's the closest thing we have to one. His aim is to restore order, and he's successful. All this sounds very generic, and as you can see there is not too much detail given. The viewer has to use the power of imagination to fill in the gaps or infer meaning. For example, Chang does not wear a uniform, and yet the other officers respect him implicitly. Is he retired? Is he not really a police officer? How come he carries a sword? He's a frightening figure to all that cross him and the sense of unknown and mystery surrounding Chang makes him even more impressive. Consequently, we get this tremendous contrast between the imposing figure of Chang who calmly restores order without mercy, and Julian, who is not a very good criminal and who can only evoke pity in the viewer.
Silent but Deadly
There isn't much dialogue in Only God Forgives. That's why we learn little about the back story or the characters aside from what we witness on screen through their actions. The silence is especially effective juxtaposed with the musical sequences. While Chang does not speak much, he does sing! There are two scenes where he is singing in a restaurant to an enthralled audience. This gives Chang a very human trait and it contrasts greatly with his violent methods. It's so interesting seeing this mysterious agent dish out justice with his sword one moment, and singing a ballad the next.
Julian is pretty quiet too, but in his case I took the silence to signify more of an inability to assert himself or to make a stand. He seems to patiently accept what others tell him and when he does reach his limit, he takes it out on the wrong people. And yet, I can't help but feel a little bad for him. When it's time for specific decisions, he shows mercy, twice, in spite of his criminal duties.
Overall, the silence allows the viewers to take in the beautiful visual style of the movie. Neon lights and the backdrop of Bangkok, interesting angles and scenes, intense close ups that let you sense what the characters are thinking and feeling. You just have to experience the movie rather than simply watch it to see what happens at the end.
I Can Feel it Coming in the Air Tonight
The tension in this movie is what really stays with you even after it ends. The tension is tangible, partly due to the minimal dialogue, and partly due to the foreshadowing that keeps popping up in various scenes. The combination creates a sense of foreboding. You just feel something bad is about to happen. Everyone on the screen is on the edge, especially the criminals, but less so Chang. In fact, Chang's calm sense of control is like an anchor amidst all the tension. You just know that nothing can stop Chang: he is a force of nature; not a wild tornado, but more of a slow steady snowfall that will eventually bury everyone. All they can do is pray for mercy, but as the movie title tells us, only God forgives.
Thank you for reading! #review
Bookmoms
from The Lantern Room
Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.
She reminds me of someone else. Excellent posture, moving with the grace of a dancer and clearly very at home among the stacks of books. A fiction-reader based on her current orbit.
I don’t intend to luridly stare, but her ensemble is hard to ignore: teal toenails (matching fingers) and white flip-flops, royal blue yoga pants (painted on), and a draping T-shirt that hangs gently from her chest—just short enough to act like a curtain over her torso without revealing skin. Modestly immodest.
From a distance, I thought her much older. Up close, she looks barely 30, if that. She speaks gently to a 12-year-old girl curled up in the easy chair next to me, bottled up with a book. I want to glance at the title, but feel like I’ve already used up my karmic grace on recording mom.
Young mothers still have the energy to be moms and retain a semblance of their own identity. She’s trying—perhaps too hard—to stay beautiful, put-together. Many simply throw in the towel. (I think of the full-bodied women staffing the shelves, the checkout, the coffee counter—tired faces, hair tied back with function, not flair.)
The young mother continues to drift through the aisles, flipping through displays and kiosk stands. Her hair is pulled into a bun, held loosely with just the right number of deliberate stray strands. No doubt carefully assembled.
I wonder what instilled a love of books in her little girl. Maybe it was Dad. Or a great teacher. Or maybe Mom curled up beside her when she was small, and now she still seeks that same comfort and escape between the book boards.
No child has ever gone wrong seeking safety in stories. And God bless the mothers who made their love felt through books.
#reflection #essay #memoir #journal #osxs #100daystooffset #writing #books
2025-07-29 11:45:00
——————————————————
It's been a while
from Chris King
It really has been. A very long while in fact, since I last sat down and wrote.
Not writing in general – I'm doing more of that than ever, though increasingly for non-human recipients – but writing an article, under my own name, sharing some personal thoughts on things I find interesting.
There's a reason for the absence: for the past eight years I've been busy building GRID, the data platform used by game developers and tournament organisers across the industry to power the official data layer for their esports. Back in 2018 esports data was a fragmented, fledgling space and GRID was just a handful of passionate people huddled in a Berlin coworking space, hellbent on changing that.
Today, GRID is over 100 people strong, and partners with names such as Riot Games, ESL FACEIT Group and Ubisoft, providing platform technology to enable a data layer used by competitors, fans, analysts and businesses across the globe. It's been an incredible journey.
So, a (re)introduction. Hi – I'm Chris, co-founder of GRID Esports, where I've spent the past eight years building and leading our product and engineering efforts as CTO.
These days, much of my energy goes into where the technology takes us next.
I think of myself as a product-focussed technologist. I love truly useful tech – not just the kind that does wildly complex things in elegant ways (though that too), but technology with a real purpose. The kind that becomes part of the foundations – that others build on, that outlasts its makers' attention, and that leaves its corner of the world working better than before.
It's this tenet – the thing that gets me up in the morning – that has me wanting to make time to write down a few thoughts more regularly.
You can probably guess what comes next. Yes: the world is in the early stages of a technology shift bigger than any that came before it. Those of us in software are seeing it first-hand, and earliest. AI systems this capable and with such general application won't leave any part of society untouched.
But for all the road that lies behind us, most of it is still ahead. And I believe the discipline of building things that are truly useful and built to enable sustainability, will decide whether AI gets woven into society well, or badly.
So that's what I'll be writing about: engineering useful, sustainable products in the age of AI, and what it takes to lead an organisation through changes this impactful. With a strong likelihood of some esports and data content mixed in, but surely that comes as a surprise to no-one?
Until next time,
Chris
hello, log
from 
blog//x2600.cc
10:28, cereal with coffee creamer. Coffee
I am helping with bukmark.club by answering the call from it's maintainer to find dead links in the directory. I got through A-J, will do more soon. I emailed the maintainer with said links. Good service.
Whole
from The Lantern Room
We become what we love.
I love sunshine. I wake up every morning and the first thing I do is acknowledge how much light is in the room. It will be funny when I move and can no longer tell the time, because here, I can tell within 15 minute intervals what time of day it is.
A room filled with morning light is among the greatest of my pleasures. If it were up to me, every room in the house would have big windows into which light would spill all day long. Great rectangles serving as sundials.
I was reading this morning about loving Jesus, thinking like him.
Since Christ suffered in the flesh, you too arm yourselves with the same mental disposition. — 1 Pet. 4:1
“You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole strength and with your whole mind.” — Luke 10:27
Jesus acknowledged this as the most important command in the Mosaic Law. Notice that our love for Jehovah involves our heart, which includes our desires, feelings, and emotions. It also involves our whole-souled devotion and our strength—including our energy.
However, loving Jehovah also involves our mind, which includes the way we think about matters. Of course, we can never fully understand all of Jehovah’s thinking. But we can better understand God’s thinking by studying “the mind of Christ” because Jesus perfectly reflects the thinking of his Father. — 1 Cor. 2:16
I like the commentary because it defines our whole being: desires, feelings, emotions, our energy, mind, thought.
These are reasonably put into two categories:
HEART 💙: desire emotion feeling
MIND 🧠: logic thought energy (this one arguably could go either, but we need symmetry, reader!
I was always of the mind that the second category was fully controllable. That we just switch on thought-control and we can Vulcan our way out of anything.
But I discovered last year that our biology can override our ability to think. I was waking up every night at 3 am in tears. I would curl up on the floor and wedge myself under the bed because it was the only place I felt safe. For three hours I would pray, and cry and listen to music or meditative spoken word recordings to try to engage my mind. it was STUCK on feedback loops of everything wrong in my life. Bad decisions, family strife, childhood trauma, work, death, overload, loss—you name it, i was anxiety-maxing about it.
This went on starting in April through August when I finally saw a doctor. And with the right drugs, the chemistry that was starting the cascade was stalled.
The heart, however. Even the Bible says it's treacherous. It's this wild thing that can burn worlds or save a soul with nothing more than words.
and sometimes, it's the heart that reigns in our brains.
This is why I love Nick Seluk's' The Awkward Yeti
https://www.theawkwardyeti.com/
Few thinkers capture the dynamic quite as well as his heart/mind characters. Funny, I rarely see the actual yeti in this strip.
We are most powerful when our minds and hearts are unified in pursuit of goodness. How goodness is defined changes based on whom you ask.
And a wise person will always ask the Maker what is good. And sometimes we'll get a definite answer, others we'll get a 'well, it depends'.
It's in the 'it depends' zone where we get to be whatever we want. Giving a gift? What should you give? Well, it depends. Don't give a diabetic a basket of sugar, but beyond that... could be something you like, something they like. Could be just note or letter.
Whatever good your hand finds to do, do.
Sometimes the best 'good' we can do, is nothing at all.
If we truly love God and try to follow the example of his son, we'll be just fine. We won't get it right all the time. IN fact we'll get it wrong a lot. Sometimes, most of the time. From time to time, all of the time.
The important part of the equation is that we never give up, ever stop trying. That's what 1 Peter 4:1 is really saying. 'Arm yourselves'. Master that tool and it's a force multiplier. But it isn't a magic talisman. No soldier is infallible nor is he un-injure-able.
But, to be armed is to be prepared for the war of life. And it means that even though we lose a battle here and there, we can be victorious in the war of our lives.
OH! The sun has climbed beyond shadow-making on this box-shaped hole to the world, that means it's time to ambulate. I think I smell breakfast!
And then—your Keeper has to get to the salt-mines!
Last Thoughts:
I saw this and realize the writer intended this to be 'Lover' in a romantic sense. But framed through the lens of the discussion above, what greater lover can we have than God? Only through the Creator are we truly appreciated and not only matched but exceeded.
Perfect Match, indeed!
💙💜💙💜💙💜💙💜💙💜💙💜
Isa 42:17 “I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know And cause them to tread on unfamiliar paths. I will turn the darkness before them into light And turn the rugged terrain into level land. This is what I will do for them, and I will not abandon them.”
We did not get any snow today.
from 
Its_still_today
This might seem largely inconsequential, but today is yet another day that I have not seen snow. Granted, snow is not one of those universal experiences and I live in a place where snow is a statistical improbability. But between the forecast of snowfall over the past week and promising early reports from yesterday gave me hope that today would be the day. It was only bolstered by being woken by reports and video of snowfall not even an hour away from me, and there was even a minute where the rain looked unlike anything I had seen before. But alas, the skies are clearing, the mercury is rising, and once again, I have been denied that simple pleasure of experiencing snow.
It started back in university a short lifetime ago. There are photos of the campus grounds being completely white for the period of a winter afternoon. It’s also an afternoon where I sat for a four-hour exam. I don’t even remember the content of said exam, only that I had missed snow because of it. And it was a basement venue so I didn’t even see it.
I’d arrived at places a day after all the snow thawed out. I’ve flown out of New York hours before a blizzard. I had a flight delayed because of unexpected snowfall at the destination, and it was all gone by the time I’d arrived hours later. I’m pretty sure that if I were to schedule a trip to Antarctica, the CO2 of the flight there would be the straw to trigger a global warming failure cascade, and we would land on the lost continent under the ice.
Knowing my luck, it may never happen. Life moves on. (Or it drives me into a conspiracy tailspin where I start trying to prove that snow isn’t real and it turns out to be the most financially lucrative thing I’ve ever done.)
There’s nothing to this at all. It is largely unremarkable in the grand scheme of things. Life doesn’t owe me snow. No grand injustice will be resolved, nor will the presence of snow improve my situation in any material way. But the way snowfall eludes me is really starting to piss me off. Today, a lot more than any other time.
It’s a matter of agency. There are times where I missed out on snow because life happened. There are times I’d made conscious decisions, partly because it would put me in a place and time where I would likely see snow.
I want to ask the universe, what do I have to do to get this one thing I want? And a little voice in my head says that there’s nothing I can do. It’s simply impossible. And it’s not just talking about the snow.
I’m not in a good place mentally. I don’t think a lot of people are. In the grand scheme of things, I’m probably luckier than most other people and have nothing to complain about. Doesn’t change the fact that it feels like there are no real options. No meaningful direction to take for… anything really. Maybe I could grasp at the last straws all around me and arrange them into the general shape of an actionable plan. Stop feeling sorry for myself, put my head down, power through, and make something that works.
But I don’t feel like it anymore.
People look at me like I’m insane when I say that.
When I say I don’t really want to do anything.
That I don’t want to work for the opportunity to do harder work that might just get me to the point of earning a respectable living again.
From where I stand, it didn’t really matter the last time I did the same. Got good grades, got into college, got the degree, the big tech corporate job, been there for the family, been the team player, been generous, been smart, been ethical, been ambitious, been honest, paid dues, showed loyalty… Everyone else I know who went that route are in the same boat.
Because it turned out that the recipe for success is the opposite. Needed to be ruthless. And avoid accountability at all costs. And exploit every relationship and gaslight people that relied on me by undermining their efforts. Live off debt, put everything on some meme stock or crypto to 1000x it overnight. And break as many things as you can so you can sell the same thing back as innovation. And talk out your ass. Say what people want to hear, because who actually cares about the facts?
So what was all that other stuff for? The people I worked for made a ton of money. I’m literally poorer today than any other point of my life. After 15 years of practically killing myself. And for the last few months, all I can think about is how it was impossible to give me anything more than I “earned.” About how I should be ashamed for even asking. About how everyone has it just as bad and I don’t have real problems.
I know that life is unfair. I know the world doesn’t owe me anything.
But is it wrong to ask for at least one thing I want to just fall out from the sky? Even if it’s just a bit of snow.
from librasun.scorpiomoon
Writing Raw
Writing raw is where the truth lives before my brain gets the chance to second-guess it.
It’s my space.
It’s the one place where my mind gets to dump all my feelings without having to be palatable, polished, or okay; I just get to be completely real. I can put it all down, and when I leave it on the page, I don't have to carry it all by myself. Anymore.
Later, I can go back, reread it, and ask myself if I still feel the same way. It’s not even about “growing”; it’s about looking back without judgment and figuring out if those thoughts came from a place of anxiety or from my secure center. I don't have to apologize for being who I was in that moment, but I do get to see if I view things differently now.
Writing raw is just so relieving. It’s like setting down a heavy backpack I didn't even realize I was carrying. It gives me the breath and the distance to think, figure things out, or just sit back and say, “Okay. I hear you. Now where do we go from here?”
from 
Roscoe's Quick Notes
Tuesday night's MLB Game in the Roscoe-verse has the Detroit Tigers playing the Cleveland Guardians with a scheduled start time of 5:40 PM CDT. As I usually do, I'll follow the game's scores and stats in real time via MLB's Gameday Service where we can also find links to the radio-call of the game provided by announcers of either team we choose.
And the adventure continues.
Eclipse
I am the sun I gaze below, looking The green sky, changing colours Eclipse today
You are the moon Hiding my face Eclipse today
Our shadow, dancing For the people below
Now you are here Now you are gone
We touch in the sky of our memories
#poems
morning coffee,.morning writing
from blog//x2600.cc
7 AM, the coffee is sipped, breakfast eaten, looking at SDF, domain propogation. The site looks good, is live, but also hits me with a MetaArray page on occasion. I'll get it sorted.
A bit of resignation
from An Open Letter
I loosened my filters on Hinge, And I started talking to a few people, nothing too serious yet. But I guess I am going to listen to the advice of a lot of people and have a “roster”. Basically, just talk to several people on dates one at a time and not getting anything else until that person resolves. I feel a little bit like a fuck boy, but I guess it is naïve to think that come across might be the one. I feel like ultimately it is putting too much pressure on it and that is ultimately detrimental. I’m at least happy I am not lying to anyone or anything like that, but I think after this month of Hinge premium ends I am going to take a break from it for a little bit.
Dadoh – Durban 2024
from bios
I Hardly Remember Their Names
From her kitchen in a container near the rank she arrives at night, scolding and so on, in a huff of takeaway styrofoam containers and things exchanged for left over food. Dadoh settles in to the office chair Jimmy spends his days in.
“No ma, she’s working next door right now.”
Unless Nontle is there, then civility abounds.
I enter into these conversations of concern knowing sometimes Jimmy needs a backup to some story, in the hope that Dadoh has food spare or something sell-able or will leave Jimmy money and he will buy me a cap.
Dadoh is not just a person but an accumulation of deals, acquisitions, prospects, potential. There have been times when she has given me money for no reason, there have been times she has lent me money because she sees me going into withdrawal.
Dadoh arrives to find Jimmy gone looking for Nontle and we get into a long conversation, she worries for her son. I defend Nontle because Jimmy would defend Nontle. I try to both defend Nontle and Dadoh’s view of Nontle. Because I am out of caps. Dadoh has no money to lend or give that night. But she lets me use her phone to try reach someone that I can ask for help. The call fails. Dadoh, in an act that makes no sense, walks the twenty meters to the caps dealers and takes credit of two caps for me.
“Yes,” Jimmy says later, “My mother is too good for her own health.”
I am surrounded by water. On the bed in the back room, during the rain, it comes from somewhere, and fills up the room slowly, floating old condoms from under the bed. Hiding from Sam, from who I have been getting crack on credit. I am shit scared and in withdrawal when Dadoh arrives, it is raining, raining and I need caps and there is nowhere in the rain to spin for caps and I tell Dadoh and Dadoh knows Sam and this is serious. I ask to use her phone. She goes to fetch it from the other room, and returns speaking to my benefactor. Yes, he is smoking again, yes. Yes, I will get him food, and get him to a doctor. And my benefactor sends money and Dadoh buys me caps and sets out to buy food for the house. And comes back with very little food that cost very much.
Dadoh will not let me phone my benefactor. Jimmy’s debt to Sam is paid, mine is not. When the withdrawals come crawling at dawn I set out to get my phone back from Sam to call the benefactor. Sam’s people only lets me take my phone for ten minutes and the benefactor is not answering.
Underneath the place where Sam’s people operate from, are a series of old storerooms, where girls work and paras smoke, these are separate from the upstairs room for the well paying clients. I am here trying to keep my phone on, borrowing a charger when Bongi tells me that Dadoh stole the equipment that runs her kitchen from a man she was once living with.
Someone calls gate and the gate opens and I am down the alley with my phone as quick as I can, with a few percent battery. It’s cold in the petrol station forecourt and the convenience store worker only arrives at seven. I huddle across from the exit in the warmth of other withdrawing paras. The convenience store worker is not coming in today. Sam’s people are everywhere and so I walk far, not sure where. Far.
The gift shop at the botanic gardens is opening up. The botanic gardens seemed like the place where they would be least likely to look for me. They agree to charge my phone and I go and sleep on the grass while I am waiting. And it’s noon before I wake sweating in the sun, with a boot gently in my side. “You can’t sleep here.”
My phone is only on 25%, the tin foil holding the charging pin in place has slipped. I cannot reach anyone, I leave a desperate message saying all I want is an empty room and some medication, and some food. I put the phone back on charge and find a bush to hide in. At around four pm they find me in the bush and I am asked to leave the botanic gardens.
Sitting on a hot pavement, the phone comes on at 30%. I manage to have a conversation with the benefactor. She has sent money to Dadoh, who will feed me, and I can stay at Dadoh’s place. And Dadoh will take me to get medication. I beg for money to get transport to go to Dadoh’s and I use that money to go and smoke out the withdrawal.
At the end of the long walk, the dull glow of Dadoh’s container kitchen in the waning of traffic, industrial roads, the edge of the city at 9pm. She greets me with a grunt, “Sam has been calling me all day, wanting his money.” Gives me a styrofoam of meat and pap. I sit outside and eat on the still warm pavement. Foremost on my mind is what will I smoke tonight.
She burdens me with bags and plastics and so on. We climb into a waiting minibus, that has been waiting for her. She seems to know everyone on board and introduces me as the para she is being paid to make clean.
In the warmth of bodies in the chuckling of the end of the day they question me. They give me advice. It is good natured and oppressive. The minibus stops frequently. Dadoh is telling them that the white lady has sent money for medication but she has a better remedy and is taking me to someone tomorrow. The minibus drives past the abandoned methadone clinic where the dealers live in rusting taxis. An organism in the night we hurtle towards twenty six. The relief of the momentum placates me.
Until we pass twenty six. No, you are not going to smoke tonight. The well meaning voices become threats and I fling myself out of the taxi as soon as it hits a light. Jimmy does not welcome me. I cannot go to Sam, I find myself in another smoking room and sell my fucked phone for a few caps. Walking to the park, the heat of the day breaks and the warm soaking long night rain of the fucking tropics sets in.
There is only one place to go, I walk towards Dadoh’s place. For three long hours I try to find Dadoh’s place, with only the scant direction of Jimmy, follow this road, it’s something gardens, past the traffic school, just before the road ends. There is no traffic school on this road. This road does not end. The opiates take me and I sleep in the crook of tar, a pavement upended by a giant root.
In the first light of drizzle, Jimmy says, “No, not this road, the one below.” Dadoh’s buzzer doesn’t work and after some time, how much time, some time, a security guard or is he a gardener or a tenant, goes to fetch Dadoh. I am now exhaustion. Dadoh’s apartment is a stack of boxes, of plastics, of bags, of containers, of black plastics full of clothes, of furniture piled on top of furniture, the bath is an overflow of various boxes of fong kong toiletries and loofahs and cartons of latex gloves and giant bottles of mercurochrome and gentian violet and milk of magnesia and friars balsam and the kitchen is expired two minute noodles and instant coffee gone black hard in tins and dishes and dishes, never been washed dishes and roaches, and the lounge is a pile up of faux leather and broken flatscreens and the fridge is in the lounge and the windows are blocked by stacked foam mattresses and there is a small balcony with a single bed hidden among boxes and this is my room, she says. But first I must shower. I do not want to shower, I want to smoke. She will not give me money to smoke, I must shower and we must get me right.
I will not shower. She phones the benefactor. The benefactor says that I must shower, and go get right. I make a bargain, I will shower, and smoke and go get right. Dadoh watches me shower. She does not let me close the curtain. She instructs me on how to shower.
Dadoh stands there while I am cleaning the withdrawal shit out of my ass, and the knots out of my hair and the crust out of my eyes and ears and she tells me that I am dirty. I ask her for privacy and she says no, she has been told to make sure I am clean.
There is a relentlessness to Dadoh. She has made a promise. For two days she tries to fulfil that promise. She takes me to a traditional healer. I am given a purging tonic. I purge in the shower surrounded by shower caps and vacuum packed soaps and stacks of toothpaste tubes. And the withdrawal continues. Dadoh insists this is the way. I find a way out of the apartment and go and smoke. I hide from Sam. I sleep in the park. I borrow a phone, I complain to the benefactor. The only way is to return to Dadoh. I return to Dadoh, shit running down my legs. Dadoh takes me to smoke.
I wake up, it must be mid morning, on the single bed, I try make noodles but there are only paper plates and a mountain of crust and roaches and the kettle does not work. Dadoh emerges from her room, her bed is a pile of lipsticks and lotions and creams and unguents, she rolls off of this, and tells me that we can eat breakfast on the way to the doctor. Finally, my doctor. No, she has a cheaper one, a closer one. Walking up the hill Dadoh asks me if I can find her a white man who will love her. She thinks with a white man she might be successful.
The doctor will not prescribe suboxone, he says addiction is all in the mind. He prescribes some minor opiate. Back at Dadoh’s the opiate will not take hold. I pack my meagre things, the few things I have, and Dadoh will not let me leave. I say I just want to sit in the sun. The benefactor is called, I am told to leave my things and come back for them. I come back two days later and Dadoh says I have betrayed her. She will not give me my things until I get the benefactor to pay her for helping me.
I crawl back to Sam. To sleep in Bongi’s room. To cadge dots of other paras. Sam comes to the house in the afternoon. I tell him I have been hiding from him and I have lost the phone and I will pay him. Sam shrugs, “I was not looking for you, you come back always.”
Three weeks later I am passing Dadoh’s kitchen, it has closed down.
· →James
from untidy creatures.
I don't really want to scream.
It's like… a silent weight in stark monochrome. A blanket thrown over everything in an old black and white movie flickering on failing film. A segue in Hitchcock's “Rope”: zoom into black then out in one continuous motion.
I'm okay. Writing is cheaper than therapy. Though I pay for that, too. Double dipping. I'm tired (copy, paste) and I need low sensory surroundings to get by but get by I will. It's a good day for a minor mental breakdown. It's sunny, the end of winter, the wind is cool and strong. I am nothing if not appreciative of the outside world.
I still need a job but, lesson learnt, interviews cause damage. Even when they're not bad, they're not good for me. I am a flare up waiting to happen. So I need to work on that, support myself, get myself through. Vitamins and sleep, tea and herbal thoughts and prayers.
And a very firm middle finger to capitalism.
from untidy creatures.
Today is one of those days that feels worse because it followed a short series of quite good days. Pain, fatigue, and wiping tears and god knows what running out of my nose. It's frustrating. I'm frustrated. I don't have the energy to scream into the pillow but it's the thought that counts. There's a lot of thoughts.
Inside me are two wolves. One wolf can't breathe properly and will obtain vastly improved lung capacity living away from a cockatoo. The other wolf has difficulty regulating aldosterone and has skewed sodium, potassium, and fluid at times. Both wolves are fatigued. Both wolves are also part of a pack that includes some mental health wolves and we're not even going to touch on those wild dogs today. But they’re vying for attention too, in the neurodiverse/mental illness shadowed part of the woods.
I don't know what I'm capable of any more. I don't know when I'll have a good day, or a bad day. I don't even know what a normal day looks like.
Just. Ah. AHHH. So tired. And there are no words for the thoughts. Just howling canines fighting.