Puffing away through a long, hot summer night, hidden from the city by a luscious green park, my skin still warm from the afternoon sun.

I dream of cigarettes and the smoke filling in my lungs, pausing briefly, before blowing it all out slowly.

The air is thick and warm, friends are laughing and cuddling into each other as we share another cig.

I dream that I stop breathing.

I dream that I can’t catch my breath.

I can’t catch my friends’ attention.

I panic.

I jolt awake and and realise it has happened again.

.

.

Our beautiful, handsome black cat, Sergio, got very, very sick 1 whole week after we got married back in May this year.

At first we were told it might be that he was struggling with the changes of us being home planning, making finalising things for the big day, our heightened emotions (albeit lovely ones) had made him panic and stressed. He couldn’t walk and hadn’t passed urine, possibly his bladder was blocked.

His bladder has been drained, he was poked at for blood tests, he’s been on the anti-anxiety meds and now on medicated food for kidney disease.

He has spent the summer waking me up at 4am (not my partner, never him). Luckily he’ll go through and sleep on the sofa whilst I close our bedroom door after he’s had some attention and followed me to the loo.

Sometimes I’ve fallen asleep, sometimes I've doom-scrolled silently on my phone. I thought he had been the reason for feeling so fatigued during the day.

But I think I have sleep apnea.

I’ll start the process to find out if I do next week.

.

.

When we turn 75 we’ll take up smoking and doing drugs again.

Fuck it, who knows what kind of world we’ll have left for ourselves by then.

Or maybe we’ll treat ourselves to a luxuriously, long Vogue cigarette, it’s spiralling smoke winding up into a Parisian night sky.

I guess we’ll find out what will come first after we jump off a Eurostar later in the year.

.

.

In an effort to ‘do’ something of an evening, to enjoy more time together with friends, as a couple, not just with the tv or dishwasher, to move our bodies more and to spend more cash, I’ve taken up bouldering at a local climbing centre.

I have amazing grip strength apparently, I might as well put it do good use (for something other than scaring cis men during a hand job).

.

.

At the moment I feel like I’m trying to move through doors in a building that keeps disappearing around me.

I feel close to wanting the things that are not good for me but have worked hard on stopping my bad choices.

Joking about smoking feels different than joking about getting drunk again.

I am worried about a lot of people all at once.

I think climbing a wall to clear my mind and move my body through my thoughts is the way to keep going.

.

.

I dream of cigarettes and share messages with a friend when we find a new thing with them on it. Did you know there are incense sticks that look like cigs? I didn’t until he sent the link.

I now own a hair clip that grips on my monstera plant in the shape of a hand holding a cigarette.

And a ceramic mini pot with a silly little illustration of people smoking from Becca Brown.

And now some new incense sticks to burn.

I dream of cigarettes.

I’m heading to Burning House Books in Glasgow this week for an event to listen to Eli Davis talk about the release of The Spinster Cookbook: Culture, Politics and Pleasure in the Single Woman's Kitchen.

I don’t love to cook. For myself or others. I can host, but I’d prefer to dine out. I own maybe three cook books, two were gifted to me. But I lived alone for 5 years, and lived alone during the Covid lockdowns. My meals were not adventurous but the trip to the closest supermarket felt like a chance to explore.

I keep all of the notes I keep on this phone. Most of them are shopping lists, as I’m sure they are for most people.

Below is my 2020 in shopping lists. There’s not much variance but I can see the slight changes to the lockdown opening and closings, where I prepped for a date in a brief opening of restrictions, where my collage habit grew, and when I needed to remind myself I was allowed a treat. I had been pescatarian for a long time before lockdown but at one point craved a cheese burger, which became a weekly occurrence once they were available for delivery. I’m back to being vegetarian now, but during Covid I was sure I might die at some point, and so it made the sense and willpower disappear quite quickly.

I must have shopped more than below, and maybe just riffed the supermarket trips now and then. I remember some trolleys overflowing, which doesn’t look it from the lists. And to celebrate the end of 2020, to see in 2021 on my own in the flat, I used my nectar points to buy a bottle of Champagne, which I probably couldn’t manage only buying bread and butter and the occasional pack of biscuits.

I’m looking forward to hearing more about the book and the discussion from others on the night.

Washing tablets and softner

wipes

milk

bread

biscuits

eggs?

air freshener plug

lentils

feta

salad

toms

oil

butter

sr flour

des coconut

tartare sauce

.

milk

juice

tuna

veg

carrot

cabbage

chopsticks

eggs

kitchen roll

easter treat

fruit

.

milk

oj

oranges

noodles

crumpets or similar

mayo

diet coke

dumpling cases

coffee

frozen veggie things

washing up liquid

flour???

shampoo

ginger paste

.

eggs

crumpets

coffee

mango/pears

potatoes

flowers/plant

bananas

.

sushi rice

avocado

salmon

tin crab

spring onions

red cabbage

avocado

siracha

fish sauce

peeler

biscuits

flour???

oj

crumpets

butter

.

butter

milk

burger buns

naan

cheese

breaded fish/salmon

fruit

avocado

tomatoes

spinach

oj

flour?

tortillas

cleaning wipes

hand wash

.

salt

butter

fruit

avocado

salad

brocco

salmon

red cabbage

olive oil

spinach

pitta

humous

tea

milk

pineapple/oj

chocolate

bin bags

avocado

peppers

.

tampons

kitchen scrubber

shower

crumpets

pitta

chocolate

rice

soy sauce

juice

cheese

cour cream

coffee

toilet roll

.

rocket

pineapple

blueberries

avocado

humous type dip

oj (or other)

milk

smoked salmon

pancakes or crumpets

cotton pads/buds

plain rice or sushi rice

mayo

biscuits/chocolate/sweets

lemonade

tea (breakfast and detox peppermint)

porridge and cereal

.

flowers

potatoes

onions

chives

berries

milk

bacon

cheese

sour cream

sympathy card

ibuprofen

burger bun

scones

jammn

tea bags

diet coke

.

fruit

butter

milk

bread/bagels/waffles

washing up liquid

rice

tuna

chocolate

granola

coffee/boost tea

veggie freezer

.

diet coke/fizzy water

ok

milk

bread

cheese

tomatoes

pineapple

.

butter halloumi

coleslaw

diet coke

brown sugar

.

veg oil

potatoes

soya milk

cheese

halloumi

smoked haddock

salmon

parsley

green veg

flour

pastry

limes

oranges

lemons

berries

pineapple

black beans

crab

sweetcorn

pepper

bread

tins of sparkling water/diet coke

prosecco

red wine

.

pineapple

tomatoes

avocado

pepper

berries

milk

oj

sour dough

sunflower oil

bin bags

sink unblocker

air freshener

chocolate

sweets

crisps

sparkling water

prosecco

.

butter

bread

biscuits

.

deodorant

hairspray

make up remover

burger

buns

coleslaw

pastry

biscuit

.

paracetamol

dish scrub

fabric conditioner

glue

.

carrots

small potatoes

garlic

leek

butter

bread

cheese (brie, cheddar, goat, feta)

creme fraiche

puff pastry

milk

oj

bin bags

olive oil

soup

big couscous

rosemary

biscuits

cereal

.

bread

milk

chicken

wine

crisps

sweets

coke

.

hair removal cream

fake tan daily

make up remover

eye lash curler

.

oranges

lemon

lime

cinnamon or cloves

ribbon

.

Christmas List

Lemon

salmon

gravy

coke

prosecco

sparkling water

washing up liquid

.

turkey

potatoes

carrots

brussels

stuffing balls

pigs in blankets

gravy

cranberry sauce

.

rock shandy

.

tonic

salad

milk

baguette

soured cream

parmesan

spaghetti

.

ice cream

pizza or pie?

choc

.

oj

milk

toms

avocado

peppers

hummus

bread

pineapple

berries

treat

.

In May we got married, between two full moons.

It was intimate, it was quiet. We were eating pizza on the sofa by 7pm!

Here’s a few tiny insights into our day.

1. Our outfits for the day were mostly second hand, and items that we’d rotate into our everyday wardrobe after. We shortened my dress a little the day before, and it’ll probably get another chop for summer. Kev added two little black hearts at the hem (can read more about my love for that here).

   

2. On and in my bag I carried symbols that represented Palestine. We met at a demo in town calling for an end to the senseless killing.

   

3. The day before the ceremony we ran around local supermarkets for whatever flowers were out, these were paired with flowers from our friends allotment which included alliums, tulips, yarrow, mint, thistles, sunflowers and peonies. Initially I’d hoped to have spotted a few more bunches or stems at local florists or shops but there wasn’t much in bloom that caught my attention. We tied our clans’ tartan ribbon around our stems, tied together after the ceremony.

   

4. We created our own ‘just married’ banner. We used old clothes that we’d worn on our first couple of dates and we no longer wear, and each sewed sections of it in the week leading up to the day. It was a nice chilled source of mindfulness, creativity and teamwork. It’s now hanging above our bed.

   

5. We asked just two friends to come and witness our ceremony. The love in the room with us all was so special, I’ll remember it always. If more people had been there I would have felt too overwhelmed to have appreciated the intimacy and vulnerability we shared. The ceremony itself last about 15/20 mins!

6. A friend gifted us a gorgeous oath stone that we held whilst we repeated our legal vows, set in stone now! The mantlepiece behind us in the registry room was lined with photos of our grandparents and family no longer with us and not able to be with us. We exchanged rings we found in a Scottish design shop on Sauchiehall Street a few weeks before, and I got my ears pierced so that I can alternate to special earrings when the feeling of wearing a ring on some days feels overstimulating (although the piercing won’t be healed for a couple months yet.)

7. Although not particularly queer at all, I read ‘Being Boring’ at the registry office in town and then shared my own words just for us in pansy cards (more queer!), surrounded by our first memories in the glass house at the Botanic garden. I have never felt more safe and settled and at peace than I have being with Kev. Even when I was in therapy for my anxiety the first year we got together, I felt that I was coming home to further understanding. For the first time in my life I knew this partnership was a team. It was important for me, for us, to spend some time just the two of us. That’s why we combined a subway ride, for Kev, and a wander in the Botanics for me, to chill out, to create some space and prepare for a lot of love from quite a large number of friends all at the same time. Normally I’m much more comfortable in a 121 or very small group hang out. I didn’t want to feel knackered from being with loved ones.

   

   

8. We met our family and some friends in the local park for a picnic later in the afternoon. This felt chill, easy and spacious. I didn’t want to feel claustrophobic inside a restaurant or hall somewhere. The park is also open and used by everyone, a community space to gather and express yourself. It meant sharing our queer joy and love with others who happened to be there on their Thursday. Throughout the day it felt great to go through the city and bump into people going about a regular day, it felt extra special having people ask and smile and congratulate us seeing the flowers and our outfits and trying to put two and two together. It got us a discount on a vegan sausage roll and a free cookie too!

   

9. We ordered salads from our favourite local vegan breakfast and lunch spot Green Goose and vegan ice cream from our favourite La Gelatessa. We don’t drink, so often (very often) visit each place when we’re out and about for a wander, or feeling very lazy in bed! Ice cream in the park just makes sense! Two lovely friends went to collect the orders for us all and our parents had ordered picnic plates, tubs, cups etc. The chocolate option was nearly all gone by the time we got home and we are still dipping into the huge tub of mango iced tea.

   

10. To chill out with a mini break/honeymoon, we went to our favourite spot to camp on the beach. We got lucky with some gorgeous Scottish sun.

    

    

My past keeps presenting itself to me, entwined with the seeds growing, into something new, into what’s to come next.

At the beginning of March I planted tomàto seeds at home. The packet tells me they were originally grown in Bellahouston. I try not to wonder where and who they’ll go on to next, when the fruits haven’t even seen me. Each previous burst exploding the memories as bright and clear as if they were replaying right now, I’m back in the greenhouse, next door to my gran’s back gairden, the sun beaming into this tiny, glorious haven.

Fruits.

My papa took us to pick from the brambles bushes that line the fields nearby. The sweet, sweet jelly on white, plain bread. My teeth gently grab my lip and my fingers linger, feeling the sugary fuzz, as if I’ve just eaten a piece.

We plant tomatoes in the library and try 3 different spots in this vast building to see where they will grow best. Up on the 5th floor, between the large window panes, we can see lots of shoots begin to grow. The glass roof of the old building is still too cold, even if the aesthetics are more photogenic.

I see the red of our primary school jumper, sitting in vines along the gym hall floor as we learn in our Gaelic lesson that tomato is tomàto, bread is aràn and egg is ugh.

‘Hidden treasure for those who seek’ a title from a 1934 book by Constance E Andrews becomes a writing prompt in my borrowed Hidden Lane room. A retreat to create, to play, to enjoy the sun from the window and the colours against the cobbles.

The brown bracken from last year sleeps against the small furls of green peeking up through the mossy ground on the island. We have escaped to for rest, for closeness. The ferns remind me of my childhood garden, leading into the darker forest, extending our home all the way up to the top of the hill, part of it all.

We climb Strone hill on my birthdays, plenty of stops for our little legs as the steep path creeps along, to enjoy the view and a bun at the top. I can see Glasgow, I can see Arran, I can see where the nuclear base hides as another submarine sneaks by.

I’m reminded of a book, The Minpins by Roald Dahl, we listened to it on tape to fall asleep, or accompany car journeys, its a little creepy, but the intrigue, the pull and lure to what could be in the woods was there, even if it might be frightening. But it was another book I read as a pre-teen that intrigued me more, The Mennyms by Sylvia Waugh. Its about a family of ragdolls that have been alive for decades, and living alongside humans undetected. I wonder what it’s like to read as an adult, there were no copies of it in the library anymore so I bought a cheap copy to take on the bus. I wonder what my take on it is having lived another 30 years.

We’ve taken the ferry after the train, where I’ve seen my great grandpa’s face and my granpa’s name, guiding us through the swoop of the station. Connected to both, but only knowing one.

We heat the wood burner and combine tomatoes and eggs into a shakshuka breakfast, tearing bread to scoop up the heat.

As wee cherry vines we wind down the dark path each year from school, crunching along the icy pebbles under our feet, past the big fancy house, tumbling toward the church below, to sing Christmas carols and surround each other in light. A little older each time, a new song, a new memory, a new leaf, but linked together to share in this small village tradition. (the youtube vid below shows the windy path)

I buy a book from the station, Virago’s ‘That Kind of Woman’ Rebellious stories by Colette, Anaïs Nin, Virginia Woolf and others, edited by Bronte Adams and Trudi Tate. It includes a short story by Leonora Carrington and a prose poem by Gertrude Stein, both who have popped up again and again this month.

“They stayed in a place and were gay there, both of them stayed there, they stayed together there, they were gay there, they were regularly gay there.” from Miss Furr and Miss Skene by Gertrude Stein.

Gertrude inspired the art show on at Strangefield and was a reading in a Gaberbocchus Press Common Room evening. Leonora’s life will be in a film showing at the GFT later in the month that I’ll be heading to see, I’ve enjoyed her surreal words and art since reading The Debutante.

We wind down the station drive, never seen before, the fire has created a new path from the old driveway, we pass tiled walls and keep going, and going. Last week, the bright morning light shone through the falling water from the last remaining fire hose that was tending to the burnt façade. A starkness from the grey, thick, smoke filled streets that surrounded the burnt orange of Sunday’s flames.

I look back on my childhood and smile, it is very green.

Fresh, growing, calm.

April is here and the tomato seeds have popped out, the garden green leaves climbing through the cheap Asda soil. Three terracotta pots house the plants that stare out onto Rutherglen rooftops hoping to see the sun after Easter’s snowfall.

A Gardener’s Ecstasy.

There’s only one outpatient clinic in Glasgow that sees your cervix at a colposcopy and it’s a pain in the arse to get to by public transport. I don’t drive, so previous visits to the hospital for work used to take a bit of planning and a hope and a prayer buses would turn up.

Luckily I’ve yet to showcase my bits up there and instead, this week, I got to present my fanny at another Greater Clyde hospital.

So far that’s Inverclyde and Royal Alexandra.

When I was on my way, sitting on the wee rickety McGill’s bus from Paisley, the ones that look like they’ve been smooshed down from regular sized, I wondered if I should make myself a loyalty card. Like the Glasgow Ice Cream Tour passports recently released to visit the likes of Peacock’s in Battlefield, La Gelatessa in Strathbungo, Nowita in Partick etc, and you get a lovely sweet treat and a stamp in your passport and visit bits of the city you wouldn’t always. I get to have my legs akimbo in front of a different doctor telling me they’re not treating me, yet.

I’m not normally a McGill’s bus kinda gal, but today it was the preferred choice from Paisley town centre. Before I made it to Paisley though, I already had to; divert to another route due road works and missed the bus I was originally aiming for; been shouted at for not hailing down a number 10 for a lady who was on her phone up the street and nowhere near the bus stop; had the bus held hostage by the ticket inspectors, sorry, revenue protection officers, and made to get my app out to show which cards I’d tapped on with. This felt more intrusive than getting my bits out.

The Royal Alexandra Hospital is up a steep hill that catches you off guard a bit, so a climb with last minute anxiety, after a stressful journey, heading toward the maternity building had me puffing before I sat down.

Maternity. Sounds like eternity. I’d hate to be here and told I couldn’t have kids after a colposcopy.

I’d hate to walk up that fucking hill if I was about to have a baby!

Why are hospitals up a hill in the first place? Like castles. Authoritative on high. Viewing approaching enemies to the regime.

I’d say the waiting room is more of a waiting corner-of-a-corridor, but had the tell tale signs that I was in the right place; carefully cut out rectangular sections of information related to the cervix, HPV, abnormal cells, LLETZ procedure on white printer paper, mounted on neon cardboard in orange, green, yellow and pink surrounding a textbook anatomy illustration of the body parts being highlighted on the walls surrounding the beige-blue chairs in their L-shape.

At my last appointment I was handed a pamphlet with further information that contained a link to a video that was no longer on youtube by a charity that had gone into liquidation earlier that year. So I wasn’t too trusting that what was on display was up to date.

I was in the corridor corner with two others that were about 30 years older than me. I wondered if they had children. Had they wanted to? Could they not have them? Were they glad they didn’t have them? Better to regret not than if they had. The corridor was cordoned off from going any further down the hall by a folding partition that was shorter than my 5’2 stature and more see through than necessary. A group of soon to be parents on the other side of the partition were called through to a room for a class and I could see them slowly glide in with a peek over to us on our side. Who’s being hidden from who?

I don’t want to birth kids myself now. I’m not sure that want was ever there. I didn’t dream of fairy tale or fantasy futures much as a child. I’ve been content to see where the journey takes me. Being alive as a human at all is a wild thing to be doing.

Still something there, probably nothing above CIN1 but we’ll cough to clip for a biopsy just in case. And we’ll send the smear results away too. Just in case. Just in case, just in case. Its as frustrating and anxiety inducing as it is good to check every last nook and cranny in my fanny out.

No treatment unless it’s absolutely necessary, I’ve already had LLETZ treatment when I was 20, so it might shorten my cervix further, which would be a complication when giving birth. Which I don’t want to do. ‘I’m still young enough to do it so maybe I might want to give it a go at some point’, even though I’ve said I don’t want to. It’s frustrating to say what you want and it to fall on ears that don’t listen fully. Or won’t listen fully. I’d like to be explicitly told that not treating me will be better for me in many different ways and not just because it creates a higher risk during childbirth. But that’s yet to happen. It feels more convenient not to.

It’s taken me over an hour and a half to get here today for a 15 minute appointment. Convenient for who?

I still don’t want to learn to drive.

I will, maybe, when children come into my own family life. They just won’t come from my body.

I sometimes think of myself at various stages of my life, when i was a child, a teenager, 10 years ago, and wonder what I would make of myself in this moment now. I don’t think any of my decisions would change to much. I’d still be intrigued, I’d want to be silly and misbehave in some respects and push the boundaries of what’s mischievous and dangerous. I’d sleep with the same amount of people (not when I was 10). Maybe less cis men. Probably less cis men. Although what amount that is i’m not even sure. Less alcohol would help actually for everything around sex to be honest.

I’d advocate for myself more at the GP, the Sandyford. I’d want the debilitating social anxiety about the social norms about going to appointments, the stigma and shame from nurses and receptionist about missing appointments to go.

I used to fear going to the hairdresser at one point in my life for fear they’d make fun of me for using a box hair dye, they make fun of that online, I’ve seen the videos, they’d do that behind my back too. Now I go to the hairdressers and the opticians more regularly than anything. They don’t tell me I’m silly for being afraid to use the phone because its hard to process what people say on the other end if i don’t know who they are.

Being alive as a human at all is a wild thing to be doing.

(I’ve ‘benefited’ from having knowledge about smear tests, abnormal cells, colposcopy and treatments from my very first smear test and having worked with a cancer support service for about 7/8 years but i’d probably direct people to https://eveappeal.org.uk/information-and-advice/preventing-cancer/colposcopy/ to find out morex, I took in the information here better than anywhere)

To check he hasn’t died too. Once in our time, I thought a possibility.

I unfollowed and blocked him nearly seven years ago now so it’s tricky, but not impossible.

He has posted about a new record, so he was at least alive five days ago.

But R was alive five days ago too, so it doesn’t really mean anything.

He knew R from the punk scene, well over a decade ago. I can’t remember how well. I can’t remember from the alcohol haze and the time that’s passed.

Knowing someone from many different things, but yet not knowing them. Knowing them from friends stories, over shared food, the smiles across faces, being in the same spaces, with the same people. Knowing them. I knew him. I’m sad he’s not here.

The tiredness has soaked its way in, right on through to my bones.

Finding myself having to work on a report again just before Christmas in work that I really shouldn’t be, its exhausting having to keep reading over and typing up words and actions you wish you didn’t need to see. It’ll need to keep until the new year now.

We spend the winter solstice weekend in grief, around friends, around food, still in the dark.

I’m not sure what’s happening outside my day at the moment, I’m so angry people are on hunger strike, I’m glad there are people with energy to support them and help them. I’m so angry. I don’t know what more to at this moment.

The guilt surrounds me always.

Any book I see about Palestine I move in view on the shelves, or books about community, or books on how the world got here. Nudging something along a shelf feels like it’s keeping something in motion, moving forward, not letting it go stagnant.

I wake up to fireworks and a scared cat when 2026 arrives. I sleep so much. My brother has been up for the last week, it has been a good distraction to show him round the city, go for food and move our minds from feeling worse.

I’ve been at work but no one in the team is in so I’ve spent almost three days with this report to type in the spaces between daily library life. It seems to remain unmoved, unchanged.

We danced on Sunday, moving my body felt good but it wasn’t quite right. No shame in it not feeling as good as it has done. Its winter. You’re grieving, the room is grieving. I’m glad we’re not drinking.

Moving, keep moving.

invited to the cinema last minute I decide to go and I invite a friend who I think would like to see it, and some pals from Book club. I followed along knowing the grief was soon to be on screen and beside me.

Following the colours on screen and my teenage memories of Shakespeare and what a play is felt like it was being reimagined there too. The blending of teenage and adult emotions, body reactions, life experience. The simplistic, minimal images, dialog and metaphors felt like being back in the classroom and learning to put pieces of life and creativity together. And the visceral reactions to loss of every kind that we all know. Sometimes run from, hide from, but it’s around us, crying quietly in the rows.

moving, moving our feet. Feeling the train moving over the tracks as we move away from the city.

We are now remote. We have to move our bodies to shelter for the night. To take in the view. The hills and mountains. To live just for today and tomorrow, focus on keeping dry and warm and fed.

Feet over ice and hands in the boggy moss. We can do hard things.

My period arrives at 4am in my sleeping bag. The fire has gone out and I nip outside. My bare feet in the grass.

My body keeps moving.

The Mitchell Library in Glasgow has been running very chill zine making sessions called ‘cut and paste Tuesdays’.

And that’s what i did this week!

Challenged myself to pair words and bits of images on each page of the mini zine

I leafed through Issue 62 (Summer 2024) of Tate.etc with cut outs from images from the artists:

Alvaro Barrington

Anthony McCall

Firelei Báez

Eisa Jocson

Caroline Coon

Beatriz Milhazes

Mary Delany

Tate works have been on strike this week due to facing ‘in work poverty, mental and health issues’

Bouncing under the soft lights.

A swirl of burning, perfumed notes winding round our warmth.

Relief leaves my body, its escaped energy feeds into our flow.

Feeling your smile before I see it, trying to catch it, taste it, before it leaves.

Even though I know it’ll be back again.

The cold touch of ice is sweet.

A childish treat.

Besotted by the playful, innocent rush.

We blend and weave with the bodies around us.

Flowing as though we are the soft waves under sun warmed water

I reach up for the harmonies rising above my head

I want to hold onto them for a little bit longer.

I am so happy here and so are you.

Embrace our friends when the bright lights return,

This thrill of new things to come.

1

The early Monday morning meeting left me unexpectedly positive. You shut up and listened.

You spoke up to be heard. And were heard.

Message from you came in as I moved from workshop to meeting with a couple questions ringing in my head, my smile beamed as I ran past you in the hall, I saw your smile returned.

‘how is our in-action as a library being perceived?’

I’ve noted. Quite fitting for the morning.

“we’re not going to change for the better is we don’t understand where we come from”

You shared.

‘How do we try to do that well?’

I continue to write.

These are seeds of change, we can start with the questions as long as the action follows.

You make me smile but I feel a tad sad.2 You share how different the reception in here compared to some libraries in England has been and you are so grateful. I have done very little other than helping show people round the building and signing up the borrow. How can so little can feel like so much. How can doing even less by some be possible?

Refugees are welcome here.

Do you know about Instagram?3 Its a social media app and platform that we have just starting using. Do you know about instagram? We can upload photos and ‘reels’ and let people know what we’re doing. Do you know about Instagram? you can message and chat about our love of books and how much you love the library and can remember when your wee granny took you back in the day. Do you know about Instagram? You can have some fun, and autonomy, to highlight what great things your doing in the library. Do you know about Instagram? I can't use it on my phone though so I can message, or follow, or be social.

Culture wars. An Interactive workshop

You had a quiet voice to share warring words.

The laws the law.

What what if it’s wrong?

Seeds of Change.

I haven’t really kept up a list of the books we’ve read anywhere online or on paper since 2019, I rarely keep lists, but below is what we’ve chatted about so far.

Everything in a BOLD font I really liked or enjoyed our group chat a lot. Didn’t completely dislike anything apart from one book (which i haven’t included in the list, but will spill in the comments…maybe).

COVID 19 lockdowns meant book club chat moved online from Becoming until All About Love being the first offline chat again in the summer of 2022 (?) I think.

Books on the list with an accompanying cover image I have really liked to read or the discussion has been great from them (link to more info in the image)

Are there any on the list you love/hate/question?

1. Beloved by Toni Morrison

2. Being Emily by Anne Donovan

3. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

4. Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez

5. Testaments by Margaret Atwood

6. Becoming by Michelle Obama

7. The Good Immigrant by Nikesh Shukla

8. My Autobiography of Carson McCullers: A Memoir by Jenn Shapland

   

9. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

10. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

11. The Burning by Laura Bates

12. Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution by Mona Eltahawy

13. Watermelon by Marian Keyes

14. A Decolonial Feminism by Françoise Vergès

    

15. Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami

16. Black on Both Sides: A Racial history of Trans Identity by C Riley Snorton

    

17. All About Love by bell hooks

    

18. Against The Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa

    

19. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

    

20. Feminist City by Leslie Kern

    

21. Mask Off-Masculinity Redefined by JJ Bola

    

22. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

23. You Made A Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi

    

24. Bunny by Mona Awad

25. Lifting the Veil by Ismat Chughtai

26. Our Women on the Ground: Arab Women reporting from the Arab World edited by Zahra Hankir

27. Scotland Her Story edited by Rosemary Goring

28. Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park and Translated by Anton Hur

    

29. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo and translated by Jamie Chang

30. Gathering. Women of Colour on Nature. edited by Durre Shahwar and Nasia Sarwar-Skuse

31. What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama

32. Wordslut. A Feminist Guide to Taking back the English Language by Amanda Montell

33. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

34. Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

35. A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez

36. Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay*

37. Good Girl by Aria Aber

38. The Feminist Art of Walking by Morag Rose (TBR)

*edited to update most recent reads

**not all books have called themselves ‘feminist’…but we read them…so they are to us now

A whole ream of paper that has printed out overnight

Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics

It’s still printing the odd page out after someone else tries to sort it three days later.

At least some interesting reading for the scrap paper pile in the library.

I feel tired. But content. I’m craving something slower. Summer has finished. Just in time.

Waking up to your face in winter will bring the sun.

We let the water fall on us both

soft objects, candle light

skin slips

but we hold on, close.

You listen and know how to wait for me.

We’re together, it’s our space. one month. A vivid room. As we grow we remind ourselves how we met. Palestine remains on our walls so we never forget as we continue on when so many cannot.

I visit home. In the sun. I couldn’t recognise myself there.

New MP to write to now. New MP replies that don’t come or might as well have said nothing. Reading Stone Butch Blues whilst writing to him made me feel sick.

“The world’s patience with me was fraying, and that panicked me”

I am anxious, panicked. But the energy from it motivates me to build more connections with people, to share what i know, to create spaces that are kind and supportive. To energise us all more to keep going and changes the places, spaces and discussions for the lives we all really like and love.

“There’s others ways to be than either or”

Leslie’s writing reminded me of how isolated i was after breaking up with Dave and moving away from a life that was damaging myself and others around me.

“that’s not what Annie agreed to get into”

Although loving being able to centre how i really wanted to live, enjoying my own company, having the means to live creatively and explore what i wanted more healthily. I was still frightened of sharing everything with more than my very close friends. Groups of people are hard work, so much noise, so many eyes on you, interpreting their thoughts. How draining to resource the energy for something i could never know or change. The slow comfort of a reading group can be moved into other spaces, find what you love in louder spaces. Use and action from what you hear. Do that how you can, it doesn’t have to be exactly like everyone else, but alongside them, in solidarity.

“I used to just listen, but now I care”

And that starts by figuring out how to get tidy the flat together. To have the energy and resources to support each other, to have fun together. And to share that with our friends, family and community more too.

Silly little sticker chart. A gold star sticker really helps to dishes get done by two people who hate dishes.

Art, craft, routing and practise, helping it all develop and get better. Knitting, evening art classes, body doubling craft nights at the gay bar (maybe with less young queers aggressively sexualising you whilst they try to hit on you in front of cringing faces). Showing up to the community meal more even when i’m knackered after work. Texting my parents more even if think I’ve nothing to share, share nothing more. Enjoying you share which bit you’ve got to in Nicola Sturgeon’s book to reread the sentence in my book again. Has she said she’s queer yet?

Yellow and green and yellow green, early growth, life is blooming so early. Let’s rest with it until it fruits in spring.

When I want to write, don’t know what I want to write about but i want to keep practicing, collage poetry has helped a lot, and keeps me off my phone, mostly. It helps me play, doing something without feeling a need to be great at it. Like the act of painting, seeing colour, smelling the paint and feeling the splodge go from the pot to paper, that’s what counts and not what image is created.

I use the free magazines and papers that circulate Glasgow (The Skinny, stylist, metro etc) so it’s free. I flip through the pages and skim read the articles until the words, sentences and phrases pop out to me. Ones that sound funny, seem poignant to something happening in the world right now or sound lovely. Then cut. Cut the whole line out and place it in a pile. Go through each page of the magazine or paper and don’t flick back through.

When you have a wee pile ready start to place your phrases out on paper or a table to mix phrases together until something works.

These might not make much sense, they might be a first draft for future lines or poems. Like taking notes, continually writing something. Practice.

Or you might end up with something silly.

Here’s a few examples below of my notes from my writing group session. Its lovely to have the time to try. Creating more and finding myself more playing about.

Desire

A desire path is a living record of collective

blossoming from somewhere between

past and perpetuity. 

I love yew

To step closer to death,

I think it's environmental change

that will sow the seeds for a

sexual thriller

pond

Barriers of access could be 

stagnancy

Queer people wanted more

from the aftermath of the break-up 

and to see what comes out of it. 

that’s hot

the fidelity is fucked…

it’s hot

We get the early bus and I run to grab a coffee for us to share. I go get it because I’m less social, you can do the talking with friends so easily, and I let you, you’ve also done the communicating via message. I’m not great at that either. I quietly made the infographic we see being shared this morning again. We make it to the patch of the park early and the faces and signs start to grow in number. I see faces I know, and they keep turning up. The trans workers bloc looks and feels like it’s pretty big. I end up stewarding and see that it is pretty big. That feels good to see the solidarity in person. We can feel it. only one terf shouting from their car drowned out by the sound of singing. I’m glad we go to decompress in the park. I see you in the cafe and you ask how we’ll manage Monday, I ponder if we postpone, you feel like it might be a good idea, it’s all been quite heavy. I say i’ll have a think and see about changing the date.

I text the group chat about postponing. There’s 25 likes on the message and no counter offer. We’ll just hang out and decide when to defer the date to on the night.

We stay in the west end and we’re off to see the lads at home. Born on the same day but still not due to be here. It feels like you have always been here, that’s what it always feels like with friend’s babies doesn’t it? They both look so cute in your arms. And your arms. Maybe we’ll have wee ones, but maybe slightly bigger. We gift you random bougie things, but making sure one cinnamon bun remains with you!

We walk in the sunshine to friends’ for some food, having not made it to your party the previous weekend. The door to the warm air was open and the conversation felt similar. The sun has been lovely but I’m tired and so I’m so appreciative of your lift home in the car.

Just two days left of work this week. One day at the prison library. I didn’t sleep, did I remember to tell you that you need your ID? Yes, we’re all in past security and deliver the poetry session and get asking for feedback. One additional request for more LGBTQ+ books. Noted, sent to the person who’ll order. That won’t be me anymore.

I email everyone signed up to come and read Stone Butch Blues that it’s postponed and I’ll update with a new date as soon as possible.

Training today: how to get your staff, trying to somehow get through life, to come to work on time.

We catch up after work in the local bar to go through next steps, or no steps after not getting funding for a community writing workshop. It’s not meant to be this time, but something will come up again. We talk through the complexities of charging for your skills and time with people that you might not always have the disposable income. I’ve been there, and you, we’d benefit from free things too. We put them on. I hope you get paid for your talent again soon.

Days off start now.

We meet you at the pizza place since it’s sunny and we’ll take away a large on to share in the park. You’re getting the keys to check on the cat. He’ll need water and some treats. And some play time. Just to let you know he might try and hump them. Its ok. Thank you, it’s really appreciated. I leave a little early to call you.

You’re lighter on the phone. I’m meeting who you always have been and hear your name so clear. I’m sitting on the bench as the road is too busy and the smell from the bridge is too much and i want to focus on you. I’ll speak to mum and dad more I say as I politely nod to the person I dated a while ago as he wrangles his kids into the park. I’ll chat more once we’re back from the weekend away. I’m glad we helped in a small way you be you whilst just being us.

We are at the community meal but we’re away early tomorrow so I’ve not signed up for the dishes. We still need to pack and I’m not sure where everything is.

It’s heavy but we’re on our way. One bus, one train, walk to lidl and on a bus again. The beach is clear and our little red tent looks laughable small against seascape. The sand feels good between my toes and the walk and talk feels good between our many many anxious thoughts. A lot of uncertainty is around and more coming. Some very exciting changes in our life coming with horrendous changes, both temporary and maybe more, to yours and our friends. We’re a team and we need to recharge or we’ll lose our communication. It’s necessary. Relax. Ice cream and warm water swims are our weekend. The sounds of the waves and your laughs as you crash in them, breathing in the salty air, feeling the warmth of the sun on my sunburnt nose and sitting by your side watching the fire. I’m glad we exist.

I’m glad I have the day off work again, although we should have unpacked. But a day in bed feels better.

I email everyone again about the change of plan about Stone Butch Blues.

The book club’s tonight and I’ll need to remember snacks. It’s such a nice day and we’re not talking abut the book so it’ll probably be quiet. I go in early even though i’ll be in until late as i’ve got my annual performance meeting. I go in to see it’s been cancelled and debate going home. I just stay. I get through my list, including my testimonial and poem back to the poet and thank him for his session at the prison. Its so sunny outside and so warm. It’s 6 o’clock and no one’s here, although it is normally a 6.30 start. Shall i get collage things out? I make big pages for a couple people to help make a zine if they want to keep their hands busy. I’m tired. A couple people show and bring spring rolls and oreos. I go to collect the badge maker and return to 20 people getting stuck into collaging and the snacks. I catch up with a couple of pals although i’m not stringing words together well, I’m tired, I’m relaxed around friends. I go round asking how people are and see when when to talk about the book I pitch September, just the next book after July’s pick (Braiding Sweetgrass).

I see you’ve left a comment on instagram, angry that we are ‘shirking’ away from talking about trans rights, we shouldn’t be calling ourselves queer feminists and that you disappointed.

I reply quickly but I’m tired and I feel it’s maybe too blunt. I check with my friend so not to disturb you

I’m tired and your careless words have had an impact.

I check in how your letter writing night is going, you’re happy with how many people have turned up to write to their MP about the ridiculous trans guidelines. Trans women are women. You’re glad to connect to more people and that people ate the soup.

I’m tired and your careless words have had an impact on me.

I’m tired. I can’t meet your expectations. You expected too much from a book club. I hope you find where you want and need elsewhere.

I’m tired and your careless words have an impact on others.

I wish I wasn’t so disappointed in you. I want to trust that there is more care and support from my community.

Took the chance to write whilst having no phone within my eyeline (they’re not allowed in). I can’t take visual reminders with photos like i do with everything else. So i have my words instead. So do the men.

It felt good to just practice getting words out on the page. Just going with the flow and not writing a personal essay.

We learned what a shadorma is. And i created my one below viewing the scene in front of me.

Loud in here

surrounded by red

write it down

get it out

where will all this growing end?

Maybe just his shelf

But I’ve been doing the dishes. Keeping going.

I text my (mostly) offline partner about the ruling in the middle of another conversation. I’m short and direct and apologetic. I won’t see him until tomorrow. I want it to be tomorrow right now.

I’m meant to meet my cousin and watch a play this evening, but feel ill and shattered, it’s probably my period coming. I cancel and rearrange to meet another day.

Our feminist book group chat is quite active today but i have no energy to interact, other than a couple of ‘heart’ reactions to messages. Templates to MPs and comforting words are shared and i’m very grateful.

I meet with a friend on my lunch break and drink a coffee so strong that everything feels incredibly vivid. I nip into town to buy baby clothes but buy cheap easter decorations and a yellow moka pot. I head to the weekly community meal, near my partner’s end of town and I feel glad to be around others. I’ve put my name down to wash the dishes again. I’m tired but dry the numerous bowls that the sweet plum pudding had been in. I mostly listen to the chat around me tonight. I only remember speaking to say that I’m tired, and I thank the person across from me at the table who’d gifted me sweets.

We do nothing but lounge in bed all day. I read Universality by Natasha Brown. It’s good, but not good for this week.

We decide to clean the whole of the flat. I do the dishes. I clean everything i can find. I dry them so i can get the next lot done in batches and away in cupboards. I feel like i’m clearing out my head. We catch up on some online live streaming of the local protest in town. We cry on the couch, write to our MPs, donate to Five for Five. We go for a walk and get literally elbowed out the way in Asda trying to get some chocolate eggs. We decorate a table with gorgeously silly wee spring decorations.

We have an egg hunt at 7am and an Easter Bunny Breakfast soon after. We go for a walk and almost steal eggs from a children’s egg hunt.

We visit the community space again and we wash up after taking a friend some lunch and chocolate. I make some tea and scour the little library shelves for something to read. but everything’s very heavy and serious and i need something lighter. I wash the dishes from lunch, dry them and place them back in our bags and on the shelves. We visit one of my closest friends who’s in the hospital with her twins. I’ve not seen her in weeks and i’ve missed her. I’ve been holding in new anxieties since they arrived early, they melt away once i see them all.

I can start work a bit later as I’m facilitating an event tonight. It’s to show people a library collection of a writer from Glasgow. I book some time off within the first couple of hours of arriving. I’m tired and i need to do my own dishes at some point this week so i request Friday off. People turn up to the library event and I make a couple of good connections for future projects, although perhaps through the book club, now that i’ll be starting a new role soon. My friend meets me and we nip round to a local bar to have a couple of alcohol free pints and catch up before heading to hear the band i’ve still not listened to properly. The person who’d complimented my top in the bar turns out to be the singer. I’m surprised at how the fatigue has lifted and i’m not crying at the 9.30pm start time. The night was good but i’m glad to be home. I don’t sleep well, i get maybe 3.5 hours sleep. I normally sleep well.

I pick up my laptop that I’d stashed in the cupboard at work and decide to stay downstairs for a coffee. The coffee machine in the cafe is broken and being replaced. My period starts. My time off is approved. I don’t have any paracetamol. I don’t have any in the office either. I’m on my way home, doubled over on the double decker. Thankfully i kill my pain. I cry. I keep my laptop open and continue with work. I feel bad about cancelling my night at a book launch for someone in my writing group. My partner comes over, which is a change to our norm. I normally don’t see him until the weekend but I think I might sound in need of comfort, so he picks up food and brings an easter egg. I fall asleep before 8.30.

I’m in training all day on the other side of town. It’s better than expected but still a long day. I head back to the office to hear a colleague has quit. I join a book group in the evening to hit play on video of the author they’re discussing. They watch almost 5 minutes of it. I leave to head to meet my partner and my friend, we’re getting our tarot read whilst painting pottery. We were all just here last week so we have dishes to pick up. Espresso set. Three egg cups. I go first. I’m comfortably confident and open and not as usually shy with a new person as I can be. It’s probably not the 0.5% mocktail.

Accept: Three of Wands. “The Three of Wands symbolise the occurrence of opportunities, which you are going to appreciate a lot since these opportunities are going to widen and broaden your experience in life. The Three of Wands represent that you are the one who is in control of your own life and future”.

Reject: The Hierophant. *Rejecting the Pope but he’s only just died*. “Key Meanings (Upright): Religion, belief, commitment, traditional institutions, conformity, traditional values, knowledge sharing, marriage, spiritual wisdom, social groups, education, safety, teamwork” *Reject the former*.

Embrace: The Devil. “The Devil card advises that you show some spunk. There may be nothing to be gained by trying to be subtle or strategic in this situation. Your best bet could be to express your true emotions, possibly even including anger. Acknowledge that you have whatever feelings you have. While it may not be necessary to act out what you feel in every situation, accepting the power and depth of your inner experience enables you to remain true to yourself.”

I paint flowers. In therapy, when I was painting flowers I said I liked to see pretty thinks when i’m working through thoughts and feelings in my self. I also like flowers though. So it’s maybe both.

My sister messages me early and we have a chat. It might have been sparked from the last weeks news and media coverage, but maybe it’s not and its coincidental. It was good to chat. It takes me until 3pm to start my own dishes. I stop and start but they’re done. I keep being pulled to go mooch in my art supplies. I feel like i’m looking at my past lives. And quite literally a cut out image from a magazine review of the movie, Past Lives.

I sign up to do the dishes at the community meal next week.

I’ve spent the last month or two talking about reading and writing but I’ve done very little of the two. I miss them both.

But i’ve enjoyed the things that have popped up that have been out of my ordinary scheduling or planning that have paused them both.

I was invited to chair my first author event at Waterstones for a writer I don’t really know and for a book that’s not in my usual reading pile. But it piqued my curiosity, as did the opportunity to try something new. I think events, and books and writers, like this help me to widen my perspectives and include wider ideas, connect our similarities and make me process and reflect to how it went and how i would do things differently next time. I think this might come across as a basic thing we all do, but there would have been vast years of my life where i wouldn’t have even taken the opportunity or dismissed a conversation and person if we didn’t ‘click’ on everything, in my head, even if not in actuality.

I like my bubble of like minded people but i’m growing, I have the support within myself and with the people around me to deal with change and difference happening around me, to me, to others. This time last year i didn’t, my anxiety was affecting my body and I didn’t understand what my feelings were or were doing to me. Play, talking, writing, immersing myself more in new things have built up my resilience again. Being seen for me, within myself and by others connects me to the world again too, and that world is much wider and more colourful thanks to communicating with words.

Books have always helped me connect to myself and connect to other people. I didn’t imagine writing could do the same.

I’ve been attending a writing group since the end of last year (i think?) and recently trialled an anger writing workshop in collaboration with its organiser, to channel more complex emotions via writing. It went really well and glad my experience of facilitating groups and working with vulnerable and difficult emotions works well in another way and with other people. I’m really keen to develop it to run again.

I’ve also made two zines this month! Well, been a part of one which led me to make another. Physically seeing something that’s connected to me, something i’ve attended or made with my hands, being picked up and read by other people is a different level of being perceived i have never experienced before. But it’s not scary! In fact, i want to make more. I want to try and build my own legacies and be part of histories to be discovered by someone. Like i’ve done recently with a Glasgow writer who’s been infamous in The Mitchell but I haven’t heard about her before. Almost, but not quite heard her name, or paid attention to the right thing at the right time. (one zine as part of the Soft City project)

Catherine Carswell was a writer and journalist who grew up in Glasgow toward the end of the 19th and into the 20th century when the city was at an industrial peak (the good and the bad). She’d been pals with DH Lawrence and got threatened with a bullet by the Burns Society for writing about his life, his behaviours and character, not just his creative works and she managed to get her marriage annulled when it was almost impossible to at that time. She’s had her collection of letters in The Mitchell’s Special Collection, where i’ve been for 10 years. And i don’t remember hearing about her. Her novel Open the Door! is almost autobiographical, but isn’t, and follows the path of a young Joanna from childhood in the city to Italy and London. Glasgow is always with her or she’s with the city, often staring to the roof tops and beyond, thinking about her place there and where else she could go.

I feel like i want to write more and communicate more about my experiences in the city. Help myself remember what i do and feel in the city. Help connect to others who feel similarly or to help some understand what its like to have been a woman here for the last 17 years.

I was with a group of students today, mostly young men, who were looking at the gendered use of Glasgow’s urban spaces (or something like that). I left their research interview quite hopeful. They were interested and will be writing and researching this, my words might seep in a little, nudge them to some books, or have a different perspective of the cities they are in and think about how other people that are not cis men use them.

Sometimes the little things I’ve been doing throughout my life are making changes, I’m curious how my words might do the same…

Wild strawberries

have ovaries

And I guess I have them too.

But I’m less inclined,

to spread them out,

‘round the garden

at number two.

I don’t read Esquire regularly, or honestly, not even ad hoc, but i was tempted to buy a copy last year just to read one article, as it was about Winona Ryder. And i probably would have paid £7 for it, maybe.

But i didn’t. Because i can access it for free with my library card! i mean, it is also available to read on their website but it’s not quite the same thrill as feeling like you’ve snuck a look at it without paying. (have shared how to access it via your library card at the bottom of the blog/newsletter).

I have had an unwavering love for Winona since i became an early teen, and was searching for lots of films that came out the year I was born, or around the late 80s and early 90s. Probably to try and be a bit different, but also i was curious about being part of the 80’s world even though i had no memories or feelings attached to the period.

Beetlejuice (1988) and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) are just a couple of my favourite comfort films from that time. Both highlighting to me, via great storytelling, that doing things your own way, by being different to other teens in your class and following your creative passions, can work very well for you! They were a comfort growing up in a small, rural Scottish village and town as a teen, where even reading books was seen as a bit odd. Which i found odd.

I also quite liked looking at Winona Ryder, and Keanu Reeves. And maybe whoever Joan of Arc was in Bill and Ted (it’s Jane Wiedlin).

However Winona has stuck as someone i have followed and adored for quite a long time. Both on screen and off she had an aloof creative intelligence that drew me to her. It felt as though she understood the complications that living in a world that didn’t know how to place you in their perfect set boxes. And she had style that seemed effortless and gorgeous, dark features with a beautifully pale face.

It’s only recently that I’ve looked back on my fondness as more than just a relatability to being a bit odd, anxious, overthinking and talking about death and the taboo easily (a la Lydia Deetz, Susanna in Girl, Interrupted, Charlotte in Mermaids, Veronia in Heathers). Has it always been a bit of a queer crush instead? Do i notice similar characteristics in her and her characters that I’ve been latching on to? Is there comfort in knowing other weird women are out in the world? Or is all of the above all true.

I am too lazy to read back these blog/newsletter posts to see if I’ve mentioned before that calling myself queer has taking a long time, but so did calling myself feminist. I find it hard to fit or align with many conventional boxes society places upon us, but also when the boxes are often seen as outwith what is conventional too! I often describe my processes for understanding the world around me like going to a big shopping centre/mall. I know what i’m looking for and what i like and where i might find it, i just have to go round every single shop to double check i’m not missing something else that might align better, i like to snoop and research more and more.

But i usually come back to the first shop i started with.

Perhaps similarly with queerness and feminism, then too. I have acted and flung myself forward in life by being and doing things in a queerly feminist or feministly queer way, just without really realising that’s what i was doing or was. I have often realised the infuriating discrepancies in how women and men can move through the world, and from a very early age, fought for myself and many of us that are not cis, white, hetero boys and men to be seen and taken seriously when we were being shut out or overlooked unfairly. And maybe more recently have been happy to highlight how men are affected by shite patriarchal structures too (to see takes time, thanks Georgia O’Keefe- i’ve probably quoted you before too).

I knew i liked men, masculine people and felt romantically and sexually attracted to them. Sometimes someone that was more feminine. Sometimes as a teenager, the odd time i wasn’t with my bf of my 20’s and as a newly single post lockdown 30 something, it was anyone that was a moving body in front of me after a couple bottles of lambrini/pints/cocktails.

I’m enjoying my usual meandering thoughts within my own head coming out on the page here, but just to pause and potentially apologise for the ramblings, rambling off piste.

I’ll bring it back to where i got to writing about this as it was comforting again to read in the Esquire article that Winona’s head potentially works in a similar fashion :

“While I ponder that, she’s moved on, somehow, from Paul Mescal’s shorts to the martyrdom of Joan of Arc. It’s getting late. I tell her I must go. I need to collect my daughter from a party. We say goodnight. Ten minutes later she texts me a photo. It shows her as a small child, sitting on the shoulders of a beaming Lawrence Ferlinghetti, in his office above the City Lights bookshop, in the mid-1970s. Her arms are held out in front of her, fingers stretched towards the future.

(from the Esquire article: Winona Ryder’s Songs of Innocence and Experience by Alex Bilmes.)

I like that many pops of relatability often spring out the page when I’m reading something. I like when it feels spooky that seemingly random words, articles, books etc jump out and pull more of my world closer to me, and me closer to the world. I like that Winona mentioned Joan of Arc (Bill and Ted), i like that she related to City Lights bookshop (recently gifted a copy of See Red Women’s Workshop Feminist Posters 1974-1990 from a lovely friend at the book club), i like that she often forgets where she stared and where she’s going but she’s always moving and finding out new things from new questions and thoughts:

“because her brain butterflies from one though to the next, alighting on a topic briefly before fluttering to the next, making connections that aren’t always immediately apparent, following looping trains of thought that sometimes seem to vanish into the air - leaving both of us, i think wondering where we are and how we got here and what we were talking about, but just as often landing decisively on a point and making it firmly and clearly” (from the Esquire article: Winona Ryder’s Songs of Innocence and Experience by Alex Bilmes.)

Which is often how i think i’m coming across, there’s not often planning to make things perfect or decisive, but it helps when someone sees the fun and beauty in coming along for the ramblings, and working to make things progress forward, somehow, some way, without it being the clearest thing in the world.

“A sweet and generous text from her, which ends with two black heart emojis.

Oh Winona, You’re the best!”

(from the Esquire article: Winona Ryder’s Songs of Innocence and Experience by Alex Bilmes.)

🖤🖤

How to use Press Reader with your Library Card

I am cheating my showing you how to use Press Reader by copying and pasting the ‘How To’ section from the Glasgow Life Libraries website:

You'll need your Library Card number and PIN. Apply for a library card now. (Glasgow based peeps)

You can access PressReader using the App for smartphone or tablet or via the Browser on your desktop PC or laptop.

To use the App search for "PressReader" in the Google Play, iOS or Amazon app stores and install the App. (Your Kindle device must be a Kindle Fire).

To access on your Browser search for "PressReader" or click on the www.pressreader.com link.

For both versions:

1. Select Libraries & Groups on the Sign in page
2. Type Glasgow in search box
3. Select Glasgow Life
4. Enter Library Card Number
5. Enter PIN
6. Select Sign In

“Serendipity is the oxygen that let’s community breathe and last” from On Community by Casey Plett.

I was peeling potatoes at a community meal recently and yapping about things i liked and at one point mentioned i wasn’t too keen on poetry unless it makes me giggle and someone shared a silly little poem with me that they had read in Dyke News.

I love silly little poems.

So i went to nab a copy of each issue of the newsletter in Category Is Books.

A mini book on the card spinner by the door caught my eye.

I had picked up a copy of On Community by Casey Plett. I liked Little Fish by her.

And I read most of the essay on the bus before work the next day.

I’ve been thinking about community so much recently. More consciously and actively than i have before anyway.

I’ve been feeling very guilty that I’ve not let more people support the feminist book club behind the scenes.

And that i’ve not been communicating why i have created it the way i have more explicitly.

I think doing that now might help connect us all a little more and sustain this community we’re in far beyond me.

Ass. You. Me. type of thing.

We’ve got really big. and that’s great, but it’s also got me thinking what has worked really well and what needs more help to grow further. Develop for our needs and wants now, not 5 years ago. And sustain the growth and quality of the club for, hopefully, another 5 years.

Consistency is probably something i say the most when people ask why the group is popular. which is something that is shared with other groups that continue well.

I can make the group meet consistently because i know i can’t do it every month. If i can’t find the time, the energy, the money to meet every month, then there will be other people like that too.

So let’s not try doing that just because that’s generally what other book groups do.

I’m also not someone that’s got a background or education in english literature, writing, librarianship, gender studies (one class doesn’t count). But i love reading and feminism, and knowing we need more connections to do more with each other, creating changes in our lives.

It seems like a no brainer to me that a book club, that is a feminist book club, will be ‘doing’ as well as reading. What’s the point of reading about misogyny, sexism and the patriarchy and then doing fuck all about it? However i think i can be more direct about the doing, i need to communicate this more. other than some of the books that explicitly say ‘a feminist guide to…, a feminist lens on…” etc i can probably better highlight why we’re reading about a japanese librarian who magically knows which books to suggest to people (it’s important to recognise how reading and books can impact your life and change perspectives, the importance of a library, acknowledging that reading cosy ‘easy read’ books can be seen as care and rest during the winter months, its feminist to care and support each other through more depressing times etc etc). The book club is feminist because i’m a feminist, we’re all feminists, and any books we pick will be read with that lens.

What i’m keen to change is how we choose what we read. Up until now it has been a mix of suggestions from everyone and then we vote for a few that we’ve whittled down to meet a criteria (which is mostly thats its cheap to buy, easily found and/or available in a library catalogue somewhere) or i pick it. But sometimes a lot of books we can be reading more of, we don’t. things get misses, people feel left out of being seen or heard in some one else’s words and could then feel disconnected. So now we’re taking suggestions on theme and making sure we are more varied in writers and writing. For example we have had queer women in fiction and non fiction being asked for and suggested but it has never ‘won’ a vote, so it gets lost. In May we will be having a focus on queer women in the book we read, but still meeting the low cost, availability checks.

If you’re in a book club and want to meet up with other people that like books and reading then we’re going to be talking about the book. Not just getting together and drink wine. there’s plenty groups and places you can do that if that’s what you want to do. socialising is very important too. but not the main point of this book club. I’ve not had the best relationship with drinking in groups for most of my life (drinking life… which tbf was a young teenager in rural Scotland) so the group has remained, like it was initially set up to do, a place to meet outside of the pub.

It’s really important that this feminist book club remains free. Actively using the library space, the library catalogue and library resources builds up a conscious habit away from always spending money. I am very much for paying people for their work, but i am also very much a big believer in sharing and supporting away from a capitalistic mentality. Which is hard, i am very bad in many areas in my life for frivolous spending, but i can help nurture in myself areas where i make more of an effort to access knowledge and enjoyment for free.

I don’t think I’ve ever communicated that the book club is definitely a place that you will make friends. Because maybe it’s not. you might. I have made some really, really good close friends in the last 5 years. Mostly by picking up on something someone’s said during a book club night, saying that i’d love to chat more about what they were expressing over coffee or after at the pub with people from the group, and going from there. You will get to know faces, hopefully some names if you’re good at remembering them. Maybe if you turn up a few times you’ll recognise someone when you’re out and about other places in the city like at the cinema, or a book launch or a protest even. Knowing you are seen and supported in your views and likes and hobbies by others, and the intersections of these are important at bringing trust and respect to feminist approaches to life.

And i guess myself. i rarely give myself much credit for getting to the stage of the book club where we’re searching for seats for 49 people that have turned up one night! I really needed to focus on building what the club has become during lockdown because i was so, so isolated. But i wasn’t dying and i wasn’t witnessing death and loneliness around me. But i needed to connect and build those connections to sustain me whilst my life changed.

I have always felt that world was strange and odd and so awful to girls and women especially. It started so young, like in primary school, being able to lead groups and projects, making myself part of the student council and not realising i was the only girl, enjoying ballet and dance and climbing trees and getting good and praised for building things out of wood - and then not being allowed to dance with another girl or not being allowed to say no if i boy asked you to dance at a ceilidh. So i made sure i was going to change that. and that girls will be good and better if necessary. and still create care and kind spaces for boys, who were as confused about these social rules as we were. and still are. I’m mad i’m still doing this today because so much of the world we’re living in makes so fucking sense and can be cruelly unkind, but i’m also so much happier at what societal things have changed since the 90s.

the feminist book club in Glasgow might be a place that can support one of your many communities you find yourself in and wanting to develop more and elsewhere, i hope. And i’m happy if that’s from afar, or if you tried it and never came back. because trying to find what’s for you, and ultimately what’s not, will develop and strengthen connections and trust and care in so many other communities you are in and lovingly a part of, need it too.

So even though planning and consistency are the core which keeps communities active, we need to make room for serendipity, to breathe life into us and keep us going.

like silly little poems from dykes.

(Any maybe none of the above is news to you but i’m glad i’m learning to share and open up more through writing, so thanks for reading this through!)

Some new things coming up for the Feminist Book Club this month (feb 25):

• The collage night in February is using recycled archival library newspaper magazines to create art and poetry to helps us get creative for pretty cheap and have another excuse to just get together. This month we are also joined by a local art project (Soft City) with a feminist city focus, sharing and learning more about our connections to Sauchiehall Street.

• Margaux Vialleron is writing some letters with us later in the month, which is something new to explore with the club and being with each other again to discuss her book’s themes of friendship, consent and loneliness and even city living, in a new way!

More about the book club is best found on Instagram

I would prefer not to be perceived but I’ve learned a lot in the last year about how, when and why it might be a good thing in some aspects of my life.

Much like the infamous phrase repeated by Bartleby in Herman Melville’s story, the refusal to do something can feel defiant, to not comply with expectations, but sometimes preference needs to take a back step.

Last year i started to write to share myself more. To cope more with change and the support sharing can bring.

Writing doesn’t come naturally to me.

Neither does sharing myself.

I don’t really know what someone would like to know about me. A lot of the time they’ve not asked me much about myself. So I don’t share.

I learn and keep learning more about the world and my interiority from other people’s words that they have shared. So why wouldn’t it be the same with my own words to share?

I’m not great at having many things in my mind when i’m in a conversation. I’ve become quite good at asking other people questions, and following up with more, being happy in silence so the other person usually speaks again.

Too much chatting is overwhelming for me.

I think best and i am at my most creative when alone, but often surrounded by other people chatting indirectly. For example in a busy library or cafe with headphones on, or in a big group collaging but we’re either all working silently or chatter is able to be had by anyone, i can take time out to recalibrate without feeling the pressure to respond with something good, with anything.

People knowing things about me and being centre of attention makes me feel quite uncomfortable. Partially because i’m shy, it takes me quite a bit of time to build up confidence to talk to people. Partially because more and more people knowing things about me, means more busy overwhelm of information that’s less controllable and potentially adds to a bigger list of people to update changes to. Partially for feelings of safety and privacy*. Partially because you’re supposed to share things to connect to people in society and i don’t like being told what to do. Partially because i would prefer not to.

I share a lot with people that ask me things directly.

I miss cues when I’m ‘supposed’ to share bits about myself. I remember being on a date and the person pointed out a lot of the things that i thought were interesting or looked nice on them (in one instance their bag) were ‘a very lesbian thing to have’. Which was curious after the 3rd time they associated it with their object or activity. 3 times became a bit of a pattern in my head and i wondered why they were bringing it up. Since i knew they were a lesbian before the date. I think they were trying to use it as a way to see if i was to, because i hadn’t shared the tick box thats the closest but not quite right label for myself, so i left it blank. Bisexual is close, but not quite right, neither is pansexual for me, and i’m not too bothered about finding the right label for the benefit of an app. But they could have asked directly. And i kind of decided they weren’t getting the info out of me until they did ask directly. Stubbornness has often been, and still is to a lesser degree, a big part of myself to work on. It wasn’t my queerness being perceived that i was unwilling to share, it was how it was supposed to be shared i was unwilling to take part in.

When you’re quite fluid in many aspects of yourself, it’s hard to give a short sweet answer that’s preferable for others to put you in a neat little box. So i don’t.

I’d prefer not to be watched and listened to by big groups of people but i will if it needs to happen to increase the quality of something for other people. Like running a specifically feminist book club to be somewhere for people to gather and learn and just ‘be’ with others away from doing the same themselves in their home and work life. Like having to sit at tables in community organising spaces over dinner and not be sure what’s going to be asked of me and with so many people unsure of what’s next on the agenda or to do list, but it might support someone to find a meal for a night, or a group of people that make them feel safe for a couple hours. I can share my skills and experience to take imitative and coordinate someone to wash the dishes next without sharing my whole personal world. Not everything will spill out.

When i am sharing a lot of myself and someone is returning the vulnerability with me, i don’t always know what can be shared with other people. So i prefer not to share on much at all in case i inadvertently share too much and hurt someone.

I talk to myself a lot to share with myself what i think and feel about things. I quite like my own company and often don’t like repetition of what i’ve said. So it might not get shared on again. I find it quite energy zapping to talk a lot, so I don’t. My inner world perceives me so much, having to repeat with more people takes a lot of work.

I would prefer not to share more of myself. I don’t really want lots of people to know much about me. But sharing more and being perceived can build so many more things for myself and people around me.

I used to find that people would have very fixed ideas and thoughts about me, especially after not seeing someone for years. Why would you not thing i would have changed and grown? Why would you shame me for that? So i would often decide that person doesn’t get to know more about me until they show they’re less negative and judgemental towards myself and/or other people. But if i’m figuring things out about myself, other people will be too, there’s room now that people will be let back in, in very small amounts. Sharing enough, having some privacy and connecting to people are forever changing and adapting and i’m still constantly learning how and when best to do it, and still getting it wrong too. And that’s ok, as long as it’s not repeating.

What are some things I could share right now?

• I enjoy writing now. I get excited to share it on here all the time even though i haven’t spell or grammar checked. Its easier writing to ‘someone’ than in my diary.

• I don’t like mushrooms, they feel funny, but i will eat them if you’ve gone to the effort to make me a lovely meal with them and i forgot to communicate this info (what a shock).

• So far in my life I fancy, have fancied and have fallen in love men. but i sometimes like people that aren’t men. I’ve haven’t ever really liked feminine women/people romantically but i have kissed and fucked them. And might again i guess. And maybe I’ll like them a little bit more. But maybe i’ll love no one else quite like my partner, and I’d be very happy with that.

• I don’t have a great relationship with alcohol and i love not going on ‘nights out’ now.

• I really like Winona Ryder and my boyfriend thinks i have fancied her for decades. But it’s never felt like fancying. I just think she is the most beautiful person ever and i loved the characters she’s played in films when she was younger as they were relatebly a bit weird, which i was drawn to. I’m going to write a bit more about my queerness and Winona at some point.

• I finish therapy this week. It was the equivalent of two months rent for me. And worth it. I couldn’t have afforded this even 2/3 years ago.

* one of the reasons i didn’t stand at a window and bang a pan for the NHS during covid was so i didn’t have people view me like a goldfish in my living room. And so that people didn’t see that the goldfish lived alone.

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