Yeah yeah, I know, I’ve been busy, OK?
Reader, let me regale you with the epic of my weekend. If you’re here, on this page, you probably know me well enough, so it should not surprise you in the slightest to learn that when on Saturday – Bearing in mind, I had plans with one of my partners to catch up on the 3 outstanding episodes of star trek: lower decks, and cuddle, and kiss, and hold hands and stuff – I was informed that my flatmate’s partner was already on the train over and he would be here in 30 mins, that I made plans to instead be out of the flat.
It wasn’t much of a hassle, I just went to my partner’s place instead, and we did all those things, and napped a bit. Very cutesy stuff, but I left quite late so that the flatmate could get their kissing, cuddling and hand holding time in. I honestly didn’t want to leave at all, we hadn’t seen each other in a month, but I had an appointment on the Sunday AM.
So I awoke on the Sunday, and being the absolute slut that I am, I decided to sort out my STD test (I used to have them done every few months, but it’s been a long, dry pandemic). I had received a box from Sexual Health London in the post mid week and I still needed to do the swabs and all that. I used all three lancets as my freakish Wolverine healing factor just kept healing me before I could get the blood I needed.
That finally done and dusted, I was now running late, so I ordered an Uber and zoomed off to have my first laser hair removal consultation. It was nice, I had planned to read on the way up, but I was so full of anxious excitement that I couldn’t.
I arrived, with 5 minutes to go, climbed the steps and rang the buzzer…
Nobody answered.
I tried a couple more times, and eventually someone else approached, and the door was opened for her, with the nurse inside welcoming her in. She then asked me who I was.
I explained the situation, and it turns out that there had just been a mixup with the diary and that I wasn’t on the books. I nearly cried right then and there.
They had had a cancellation for later on in the day – 2:30 pm, so I could either wait around for 4 hours, or I could take an hour and a half to travel back home (exposing myself to all the risks of the people on the bus and train), spend an hour at home, and then do the same in reverse, with more exposure…
So I stuck around. I tootled down to a coffee shop, where I chatted to some wonderful queer people on a dating app I use, took my coffee to the nearby park, and started reading. After a while, it started raining, so I put the book away, and decided ‘Ok, I can listen to music, duck back into that coffee shop, all good’, only to find – to my horror – that I was down to 12% battery.
So… Getting notifications on your trendy and hip smartwatch whenever someone messages you on a dating app will *obliterate* your phone battery, apparently. That followed was the absolute worst. A 20 minute walk down to Oxford street, where I knew I would be able to find a phone shop (because all that is open locally is restaurants and cafes, and one farmers market, for some reason). I get to the phone shop, Explain the situation there is a power bank available for £10. Fab, wonderful, excellent.
The shop assistant informs me that it doesn’t come with a cable.
I ask for a cable.
They don’t have any USB-C cables here, so he will go check the back.
While he’s away, I check out the foldable touch screen phones. They look nice, not for me though. He returns, USB cable and charge bank in hand, and rings them up… £30.
The cable is £20.
I don’t… Why? Is it hand woven platinum? Will it enrich my life? Have i secretly been poisoned and this cable contains the cure?
So anyway, I spend £10 on the power bank and go to primark, buy a cable for £3, and open the box of the power bank, only to find a USB-C cable in the box…
Not angry, not fuming, I walk back in the rain so that I am in the right area for my appointment. By this point it has been three hours, and all I have taken in today is coffee, before I left the flat, after I was turned away, when I was reading in the park, while I was opening my charger…
So I go and seek out a cafe with a bathroom, I go in (buy more coffee), go for a wee, and return, collect the coffee, step outside and… it’s stopped raining. I go to my appointment and turn up on time, the doctor sees me and is very professional and lovely, and all is fine, we test patch the 2 laser treatment devices and they feel like static shocks. one feels like the end of a wire, the other feels like the side of a wire, both are fine (if a little startling).
I’ve had no reddening of my face, no adverse side effects, no additional latent mutant powers, all has been well. I was very exhausted though and went and collapsed on the bed as soon as I got home.
Today there were tech gremlins and issues with the internet all day, but that wasn’t the upsetting bit. The bit that made me all upsetti spaghetti was a talk with a group of people this evening. They are hoping to run a polyamory event and they were touting themselves as ‘Polyday 2021’.
We had to kindly explain to them that no, they were not allowed to use our intellectual property, they were not allowed to use our name, and that… due to the company that they keep, as well as their handling of the situation, we would probably not be interested in partnering with them in the future, another idea they floated.
For those who don’t know, Polyday is one of the things I have been most proud to work on. I was advised at one point to take it off my CV because ‘it’s too weird’, and I refused – It showcases my skills and talent. The current Polyday team took up the mantle in 2015 when it was about to disappear. It had been operating at a loss and we turned it around, made it… not *profitable*, but sustainable, you know?
For five years we worked on Polyday, built the brand, would get 200 people at the event on average, we have monthly meetups run by the same crew, and obviously, we elected not to run 200+ person events in the middle of a pandemic, but this other group decided to just… take the name, try to pass themselves off as the new organisers.
We are obviously pushing back, and have started to take steps to protect the brand, as well as to improve it going forwards.
So the point of this blog is to track the things I am doing outside of the norm, right? Things that break up my day to day life, and things that I would never have even thought of doing three years ago…
I have written 2 chapters of an erotic novel.
A while ago, I attended an event called ‘Smutathon’, where erotic authors get together and read excerpts of their work, in order to raise money for charity. This year, I gave money to Gendered Intelligence for all the fantastic work they do, but I also decided that I would get involved with the next event. If that’s the kind of thing that sounds good to you too, then follow @SmutForACause on twitter to be informed of future events, Including (I hope) the event where I unveil my writing to the world, whenever that may be.
Anyway, I think the point of this post is that I had a lot of fun pushing my usual boundaries this weekend, and it was at times frustrating, but it looks like it will all be very rewarding down the road.
Until next time, friends