#BUT NO STOP POOR LG:(((( HER INNER THOUGHTS

[lucygraysboy]

“guilty as charged.” loving the sound of her laugh, billy doesn’t even try to deny the obvious — he does spend a little too much time scrolling through tiktok. he can’t help it. it’s addictive. “mhm, you kind of did just that. you played it off as a joke, but i’ve known you for… what? thirteen years? fourteen? i can tell when you’re genuinely uncomfortable or annoyed with me.” she can be a mystery, but there are also times when her feelings seem to radiate off her in waves. and although he might not understand why she’d be bothered by his backhanded compliment directed at the waitress, he’s certain there is a reason. has he ever done anything to make her think he’s capable of betraying her? “maybe i’m doin’ both. a virgin boy has to entertain himself somehow,” he plays along, but for once doesn’t feel like laughing. he’s too irritated and frustrated.

“first of all, you’re not a man or so i hope ‘cause that would be an awkward surprise… and second of all, what’s so insulting about being called a woman?” he’s genuinely oblivious to how rude it can sound, thinking he was just being playful and joking around. “don’t you think there’s a difference between wanting to know who slept in your girl’s bed while you were gone and getting jealous just because your boyfriend breathes the same oxygen as other women?” he rolls his eyes, suddenly no longer hungry. he’s torn between being concerned for her and so incredibly annoyed that he’d like to stand up and walk out. “lord, are you pmsing? is that what this is about?” maybe he shouldn’t be asking such questions, but they’ve crossed quite a few boundaries tonight so what’s one more? “well, it’s hard to forget when your girlfriend gets all tense and annoyed with you for simply sitting next to someone in class.” what’s happened to her? brows furrowing, deep lines appearing on his otherwise smooth forehead. something clearly isn’t right. this isn’t like her, he thinks. “nothing,” the cowboy admits truthfully, although a hint of embarrassment can be heard in his voice when he understands his mistake. a quick explanation follows, “it’s not like i even had the chance to follow up. i was tryin’ to protect you from that, but you just… you always need to get your way. you talk about trust, but you trust no one.”

"okay, you've been on tiktok way too much." the brunette can't help but laugh, hating the way she finds it adorable. "i don't get annoyed when your nice." well... she doesn't mean to. she just doesn't want to admit it was giving her ptsd to billy taupe, which wasn't fair to accuse him of. because him and billy taupe were two completely different people, she knew that. but something in her mind didn't want to let her know that. "hm, i don't know about that. i think you might be watchin' those movies or readin' those books." she accuses, thinking that's hilarious. if she wasn't feeling so rocky with her mood.

watching him sit that sandwich down, leaning back like she was daring him to say something to annoy her even more as she watched the sincerity storm over his features. then he certainly didn't disappoint. "says you? you're the one bein' ridiculous all because i said 'BELIEVE me' earlier. you'd gotten a real bad of an attitude all cause i said that. so you ain't the one to talk about behavior. oh and callin' me woman," maybe she was about to start her period and things like that were annoying her or maybe she was being paranoid he was copying off his dumb misogynistic friends.

or maybe it was to do with billy taupe, again. who could fit right in with billy's stupid guy group. all of the above? "maybe you're weird for still thinkin' about that and rememberin' that." the thing about blair. before billy taupe, she would've agreed with him that waitress had a sweet smile, but now she's thinking every male was after something else. that they were never satisfied. that it wasn't just one male, it was ALL of them. and yes, billy taupe was notorious for taking any woman to his bedroom. the word fucking spilling from his lips is so lewd and burns her even more with anger knowing how it'd been attached to her and billy in the same sentence. oh, so THAT'S what olinger was saying? the one even worse than jesse. and what... his entire group is just making fun of her? "what did you say back to it?" that would decide if she's satisfied or not. really, lucy gray did wonder how billy responded to these things when she wasn't around.

[nezumasa]

Catholic school was literally one of the worst experiences of my life. I went for 14-15 years of my life and that went as well as you'd expect tbh. Middle school, I got yelled at for almost every day for like what 2nd grade to 6th? by the after school care watcher for dumb shit like not understanding a problem (which she was supposed to help with as part of her job) or not filling her water cup exactly as she wanted before she arrived at ~3:20pm and she'd yell more if I cried to the point where I learned to bite my tongue and inner cheek to avoid even showing tears (didn't always work tbh). I wasn't the only one either. She yelled at other kids (including a 4-5 year old who also cried. Even said she could "have become an actor." with how often the tears seemed to come. She thought it was crocodile tears.) Gave me a stutter from fear which didn't go away for years after she was fired as well as a fear of speaking and sharing my thoughts. Made passive aggressive comments about my intelligence (wow I didn't look up one fucking word from the HP series. It's a fern species btw. I didn't even ask her. Some other kid did and she called me up to ask as if she couldn't have looked it up herself. Btw, how fun is it to have someone say "wow this girl from 2 grades down is just smart as you!" (Ad-libbed from memory since its been years) and played you against her in passive aggressive ways. Make an 89 on one assignment? Not good enough. 95? Why isn't it a 100? (She yelled at me for getting one problem wrong bc my 5th grade teacher wanted a different answer instead of the one the 6th-8th science teacher helped the class with. ~3/4s of my then class got it wrong as well) She wanted her ice exactly at where the line was in the inside of her cup and packed down and the water to be at a certain point. Also you know how cringy middle school art is (esp. considering this time was the flux of the mid to late 2000s)? She held up my sketchbook and made fun of it. Called it "a hot mess" word for word. Liked to say shit like "wring your neck" or "hit you with my cane" (never did the action though). Made fun of me for asking for a coloring book (w/e subject i didnt care at the time) for that one year when she asked everyone what they wanted for their bday. Like im not gonna ask for smtg super expensive. She asked me once what I thought of her haircut and when i said i preferred her old one, she fucking kept passive aggressively referring to that incident for weeks. Same when i said i preferred more subdued looks and less "bling bling" (which actually went for years). Said Asia/ns usually liked shiny jewelr/y. Made some kids (poor school so the aftercare room often served as a changing room for the girls' sports teams) write her apology for taking lollipops which she didnt even buy usually (usually it was the kids in aftercare which is a different matter). When she got an aide (who became someone v close to me but she sadly died of lung cancer 2-3 years ago on 12-25), she yelled at the woman for every mistake and had irrational expectations. There's so much more but im tired of her memory. When it came to hs, the whole pervasive "anti-lg/bt+" stereotype came in (not always super obvious but it was there) combined with raci/st (maybe rich depending on who it was) whit/e kid thing youd think of from a private school. Like gdi, remember my name (its not even a vietname/se name. It was a common name, easily pronounced and no weird spellings) and stop asking if I came over/is english my first language (latter more prevalent) . This was with teachers for the first and only some on the latter. Stop mixing my name up with the other asi/an kids (there were only like 10 of them in my grade anyway its not hard.) How would you enjoy Junior Retreat if they read from a pamphlet of "sins" and it included shit like "being not straight", "thinking other religio/ns are equal", etc. and then being told to poke holes in the pamphlet for all the sins that matched and then burning the pamphlet (i didnt do it)? The s/ex ed was a joke (as a side note, "Put a picture of the pop/e in your shower to avoid masterbat/ion!" was a legitimate thing i heard; its funny now but like wtf) and was more abstinen/ce and anti-ab/ortion videos than anything useful. "I hate the sin not the sinner!" Was common (religio/. Teacher said it in reference to her cousin). Hearing your friend say "I let go/d judge. I don't judge." "It's a lifestyle choice!" Etc. Having people justify the really oppressive (for me anyway) atmosphere with "well it's a catholic school". I wanted to die (had a date. 5 days after graduation to let everyone celebrate a little first). Shitty counselor. Horrible required se/nior year project for rel/igion class. Required (catho/lic) religi/ion class (where the textbook lists "being ga/y" next to in/cest and ra/pe in a passage). No decent men/tal hea/lth resources. Some bitch kid going "squinty eyes!" about asi/ans in class loudly among other things. Also charging shit tons more of money bc i wasnt catholi/c (thats a fee btw. You pay less if your reli/gion matched), leaving me out of certain acknowledgements at graduation, etc. Transph/obic teachers who may or may not double on homophobi/a . Enjoy having a class join in with transpho/bic "jo/kes" with the teacher who does nothing and gives her opinion on it as well. Teachers who thought your sui/cidal depress/ion filled exhaustion and sleeping in class was "video gam/e fueled" instead of maybe thinking "hey maybe smtg's not right with all this sleeping" ( I ranked 13/14 in class with no cheating as well. I say that bc only top 10 counted and a number of my top 10 were cheaters). Being told that this is "the best school and be glad your parents sent you here." I hate it.

[meditationsinausterity]

Imagine I'd managed to upload this yesterday

When I had a blog in previous incarnations i'd always include a feature where I'd do a weekly roundup of things i was grateful for in my life. I believe it was due to a brief fixation with Gala Darling before she went full lifecoach and I mentally called closing time on it (I have so much to say on the cult of lifestyle and its wilful economic blindness and self-servitude, but that's for another day), but I have found that consciously thinking about what things in my life I am grateful for does allow me to carry on, even when things are bleak, so I've been doing it in my diary ever since. It's since been bought to my attention in my support sessions that actually, cultivating the practice of actively looking for the good things does build that mental muscle significantly, and makes it much easier to channel it in the dark times. I'd go so far as to say that was true - i'm not exactly super-ripped positivity wise, but I definitely have a strong enough bright-side seeking instinct to keep it up in the face of the dark longer than most. And the more I do it, and the more often I do it, the stronger that will be.

Even focusing on tiny things can help; it reminds me of Pollyanna, that classic children's novel (and amazing film to watch at christmas when you're comatose on stuffing and ill-advised liqueurs). She gets crutches instead of a doll for christmas from the mission, and her response is to thank God that she doesn't need them. Even when that bitch does need them she keeps her head up and looks on the bright side. True optimism in the face of life kicking you in the dick. as a paid up atheist I personally would thank Fuck, because I can see, believe, and feel a fuck; so in that spirit, I present to you 'Thank Fuck It's Monday', my way of starting each week on a note of positive review of the previous one.

Enough preamble; this is what I have loved this week:

+Getting back into my city

I may have previously mentioned that my life was torn between being overworked through choice, and comatosely drinking wine on the sofa i slept on? Not so much right now. I've had a lot of appointments for this week, none of them particularly exciting or appealing, since they were all job centre and finance related, but I have walked a great deal, and seen a great deal. It reminds me very much of when I first moved to London and i started to get to grips with the geography of the city, but I lived in Portsmouth ten years ago, so a lot of my wanders have the superimposition of nostalgia stamped on them. There is also something about being poor enough to not be an active consumer, and therefore participant, in a city, that makes you stop to take notice of all the things that are visually beautiful, or even just distinctive, about a place as you walk through it. It's all a bit Baudelaire, the whole man of, but apart from, the crowd vibe.  I had a moment while I was waiting for everything to open on Friday morning, where I sat reading my book in a sun-soaked Guildhall square, and I remembered, simultaneously: graduating on the steps and having a picture with my best friend Dan; but also, wandering through it looking for my first linguistic techniques lecture; and also, having my first argument with my then-boyfriend by the modernist steps up to the council office. All this early twenties nostalgia was all superimposed with how lovely the sun looked hitting the square, and how quiet and beautiful it all was at half past eight in the morning. It's not quite the same as the beauty of initial discovery (which is always tinged with anxiety, if my memory serves me correctly), but I am learning to appreciate the beauty of rediscovery for what it is, and realize I've lived a rich and characterful life that i should appreciate against the backdrop of my rich and characterful city.

+Early mornings

I am not a devotee of the early morning rise. I used to say so very plainly at work when I was running pubs in London, and yet I was always the favourite of cleaners and delivery drivers because I'd be bright and enthusiastic when they came in to see me on an opening shift. I had a florist when I worked in Highgate who would give me the clippings from what he'd done in the bar because I was alert enough to chat to him and ask questions about the beautiful blooms every morning, and I never really thought much of it. When I quit that job he had to be reassured there was no funny business before he'd continue to florally arrange.

It's because I've been so used to being a sluggish, puffy faced witch in the morning that I'd allow myself an hour to get ready, plus another hour for travel, plus any leftover time at work to drink coffee and smoke fags, and get ahead. All to pre-empt any lateness anxieties (I get them big-time) and any curveballs that might come my way that could put a crimp in me bossing it for the day. I no longer have that structure to my day of needing to be somewhere and do something at a certain time, but I'm finding that with or without the need to, I am getting up early in the morning, making my bed, tidying shit up, and then cracking on with a self-imposed routine . I realized it, the other day when I was in bed with someone else, on their day off, and was taking one myself; I woke up alert and thoughtful and ready, and promptly moved myself to the kitchen where I mainlined coffee, wrote fuckloads in my journal and read Rosamond Lehmann until I was lethargic enough to not be an annoyance in the bed. I'm starting to ponder if actually I've only ever not been a morning person before because i am a late-shift worker with a tendency toward anxiety insomnia, since waking up and cracking on with things is making me feel far better about my day than I thought it ever would.

+The surprising efficiency and politeness of British bureaucracy

Now, I've mentioned my previous tabloid and 'glorious working class' related shame around job centre visits. Industrial revolution level refusal of charity plus a dominant nature of outrage and shame is powerful, make no mistake. Not to mention, so many people I know have told me horror stories about their personal experiences, or other applicants (I can't say I necessarily condone this technique, it smacks of trying to create shame). I was nervous, and I was led to expect the worst of my experience in the buildup. I channelled my inner Pollyanna to get there (while musing on shame and guilt as we've read) and sat in the queue scribbling on my copy of Cures For Love by Stendhal. I have to admit I was a little disheartened initially when I saw a nervously friendly German man in front of me get absolutely shut down by the greeting staff who refused to respond to his attempts to humanize his experience by saying things like 'I don't know if you remember me' into a wall of efficient silence. It made me really unhappy that he was attempting to be seen and recognized as a human and was met with a response of 'you're on the list yeah, go here'. But i ended up sat next to him on a functional yet cheerful sofa,and we had a conversation about philosophy as a whole and why I liked Stendhal as opposed to Kant (I will take what i can get, alright?). He remembered everybody's name and was as visibly nervous and uncomfortable with the whole experience as me. I'm sorry I never got his name before he chipped off to his appointment but it was a relief to feel like somebody else like there was like me; not comfortable despite years of tax and working, but also determined to be seen as a person because otherwise how do you exist? My fears were alleviated when I met my advisor, and she helped me with identification protocol, processed my claim, and spoke to me about clothes and fashion after an indepth conversation about retail. She was wearing a stunning victorian blouse and I asked her where it was from, and when she said the h&m sale I knew she was my girl. I went back the next day to see her with the supporting documents she'd asked me for and it was literally like we were mates, not like she'd bent over backwards for me to get my documents processed super quickly, which she absolutely had. I'm calling fie on stories about the job centre; you may not like to have to be there very much but there are people there who are on the level and see who you are. I have left there feeling very lifted even when I arrived home rain soaked and frozen.

Honorary mentions:

Hearing songs I forgot I loved everywhere and it making me remember all the times that were good in my life - kissing someone briefly in a lift to say bye and thinking i might have been too bold but hearing them toot me on their way to work and nearly bursting - instant coffee - oranges in all their forms - seeing a thereapeutic technique (reaching out to people when you're not down to make you more adept at it when you are) pay off to give you a richer life - dalston drinks cherryade - listening to the radio again and remembering how much I genuinely love music - being able to cut my own hair and look good - tinned fish in all its forms - honest and frank conversations that needed to be had - being somewhat horrendous at video games but overcompensating by being a prick - getting slowly back to a skincare regime - the phrase 'you ate the same amount as me' - remembering I can make gravy the way I used to - getting my birth certificate - discovering things I want to see and do in my hood - having and maintaing excellent nails - hair oil in any form - Dan who works for LG and his hilarious service style - sleeping like a dead person and waking up feeling good.