If I never have to see another pair of eyes magnified by a thousand times, I’ll die a happy chappy. Brighton Boy and I have been taking advantage of my college’s facilities, snapping macro eyes and lipsticks on pouted lips, torture tools on eyes and devil mascara brushes on dainty eyelashes. We also borrowed a saucy wide angle lens and went wandering the hills, befriending a seventy-five year old pro walker. He was accompanied by two rather fidgety dogs (not exactly ideal models for the camera) and praised us on having a decent hobby, unlike the “other youths”. He was a little hard to get rid of, but what can you expect of a lonely old man with no one but his dogs to waffle on to. Bless him..

Last night with Jenna’s 18th and she’d prepared a beautiful three course meal for her array of nutty guests. Much craziness ensued (and alcohol) — mouldy carrot fights, olympic long jump contests (my ankle feels broken), dancing barefoot in sloshy mud, etcetc. I also picked up the photos from Rupa’s party, and need be said, there was a plethora of incriminating evidence. If I had access to a scanner, I’d show you all such craziness, but maybe Brighton Boy will be nice enough to get them scanned in for me. I’m impressed with the super hardcore flash of a disposable camera! Such vibrant colours for a throwaway camera.

Friday afternoon we stood looking shifty on the streets of Camden. Camera in hand, zoom lens in palm, I was snapping away the bizarre characters found wandering the pavements. We stood nervously up against a rubbish bin, my skin shivering with nervousness. Deliberating was the deed of the day and he would tell me yes, then no, and I’d say yes, then no. My feet would wander forward then backwards, scuttling around in circles with a yesnomaybe answer. In the end, I did get it done. The pain was, in retrospect, quite nice. The familiar feeling of a needle tearing through flesh…

It’s a little sore, but I’m glad my baby’s back in her rightful place (just a little above the previous scars).

Hasn’t he got beautiful eyes?

I haven’t really got much to tell you. My days have been (or at least felt) hectic since my birthday. In between working most nights, seeing Brighton Boy, attempting to attend college and remain sane, it hasn’t left much room for reflection. Today I slept in until late, falling asleep on the sofa in front of Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. Tomorrow I may get my arms pierced (again), but probably won’t because I can’t find a place that uses staple bars. I’ll shop, maybe, and perhaps I’ll even take some photos. Today I am the epitome of a mundane lifestyle.

Fuck chronology

Here I am, cradled in the arms of my lover, and I can’t stop shaking. I’m convulsing in fits of fear with his muscular arms bound tight around my twelve year old’s body. My breath is stale, vomit-inducing in fact, and my trousers (which I’m still wearing) allow the odour of tobacco to linger. He’s in his underpants, his torso hidden by a baggy blue t-shirt that I’ve seen time and time again. His member is expanding, massaging my arched back and his lips soft on the nape of my neck. He removes them for a brief second, coos an onomatopoeic shh into a modded ear, and places the velvet around my neck.

I can never tell if the tide is in or out most days. The sea is the sea and all I know is that lately, I’m just too scared to think any more about it. The watter ripples effortlessly below our feet. Soft amber yellows dazzle my eyes as they adjust to the witch hour’s delights, and the word naranja erupts into my thoughts with memories of ‘92. I pause to capture this moment in the shutter and his stomping boots move his tired frame right into my image. The image of approximately 2:59am, February 13^th, 2003. Embedded in pixels - this is a poor substitute for genuine brain matter selectively pigeon-holing this fragment of space. There aren’t many boats in the water, but there isn’t much water either, so I convince myself that the tide is out. Or maybe there’s always that amount. In or out, I figure it’s just water, and we’ll leave it at that.

It’s so dense in here that I can barely breathe. The cheap stench of tobacco permeating my scarred lungs, mixed with the abundance of inebriated soldiers in here makes my skin stand upright. The girl beside me speaks of a judgemental revolution; the boy tell me left fights for the bottle; the other opposite tells of excrement covered CDs. Upstairs we share a whisper as strangers pass by. Our voices hushed, people come and go like cliché school friends as we divulge secrets of abuse. Her body and mine, the survivors of inertia.

I want to be on a warm train, I say. Dribbles of snow flutter like paper doves, swimming in the sky and fighting for people’s attention. Inside the carriage the climate morphs into something more tropical as I take a seat in my own booth. I wonder why nobody will share my booth with me, before realising that I’m misplaced in first class. Feeling like cheap, under-rated goods I haul ass to the common carriages. A girl beside taps rhythmically on her phone, a shifty male dangerously eyes a a vulnerable lone female, and the sky begins to crack. A subtle surge of decadence begins and the solar queen dives for her crown, splashing droplets of warmth across a rusty forest, untouched and moist.

Clandestine, we are. Untouchable in a cocoon of irrepresible words, actions, images. We live for today - we could our tomorrows yesterday.

So he’s standing there, and I’m standing here, and there’s this space between us – stale dusty odour lingering between the duo of tills between us, and I’m waiting for the initiation. The softcore interrogation, the subtle questioning, the flick of a discreet camp wrist and he’s away. You can’t stop him now – he’s a parasitical workforce.

“So, when d’ya finish?”

Now you have to understand that this is the key line to commencing work-related, mundane conversation. If you want to begin dialog with any other co-worker, you must first blurt out this somewhat code-like sentence, if you want to gain any recognition. I tell him my rota’d times, and he nods, because he’s going to forget those times in a microsecond, but quite frankly that doesn’t matter – I’m sure he’s got ulterior motives. He recalls that it was my birthday last week, eagerly asking me what kind of debauchery occurred, and begins to sniff around venues.

“Any bars?” he asks.
“Plenty,” I say, raising an eyebrow with my back to him.
“Which?”
“Some in London,” I say. I’ve figured the best way to keep it from getting out, is to become the King of Discretion. You can tell people what you did, but don’t divulge too much. Right?
“That’s cool,” he swiftly croons. “Have you heard of a club called Popstarz?” he asks. He knows I have. “I’m supposed to be going there on Friday.”

And it wouldn’t be so bad.

It really wouldn’t.

If he weren’t so fucking irritating. With his dangly oversized gold hoop earrings, swinging from his lobes and cartilage like a goddamn rocking chair. His slick back hair exposing his growth-like forehead, smothered in ickle pimples (not that my skin is any much better, mind you.) His lanky legs, lean torso, thin and stick-like fingers reaching out when he hands me my folder. I shudder when I think of him.

So when he says, Whatcha doing Valentines Day, I start to cringe. This could get ugly. Nothing, I say, in fact, I say, I’m working. He’s working too, he says, and he might just spend all night with me. There’s this sly grin across his face, his thin little lips like strips of sausage across a chicken breast face, and I think I might vomit soon. Really, I think. I might just cancel my overtime, I say, nod my head, and turn back to my customer.

Today, to pass the time (and there was lots of it), I wrote haikus.

5:36pm
Fire in my mouth
The posh lady speaks in tongues
Silent child screams

6:01pm
She’s a golden girl
Giant clowns around her trunk
How did she happen?

A weekend In short (because any other way is far too mentally taxing in my present condition):
Seven foot Chinese transexual ladies, Like A Prayer spiritual epiphanies, margarita cocktails in glasses the size of goldfish bowls, chocolate cake in my eye (I can’t see), showering with two men and watching a girl pee, torn underwear (exposing myself to you all), sipping white wine like a bitch, my flashing cyberdog top and lots of attention, the new G-A-Y bar and Christina’s “Dirrty”, grinding hips and sleeping on Brighton Boy’s lap on Old Compton Street, disposable cameras (and underwear), giant fists and Peaches singing “Fuck The Pain Away”, girls in dresses, boys in dresses, comedy crack loaf, lipgloss lolita, oven cleaner on my hands, oh it’s burning and the carpet isn’t cleaning, take this chocolate cake away and bring me back my underwear.

There’s photos, too. Feel free to laugh.

I’ve been mentally jotting all day. Psychologically scribbling in my cerebral notepad of all the things I could do, if I wanted to, now that I’m going to be a legal adult. The list is, of course, filled with utter garbage that will have little effect on my way of life at all, so I abandoned this task fairly early on in the wee hours of this morning. So I can vote, so I can drink, so I can finally get a Visa card and order lavish amounts of commercial goodness without leaving the confines of my homeland. I can finally order that gay porn I’ve been gagging for (you know, the one with the giant fist, yeahyeah, don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.) I get a whoopy chequebook, I can sign my own consent forms when going on field trips, oh, and of course, now I can see eighteen plus films (like I hadn’t, come on.) I can enter pre-determined holiday competitions to be whisked off to the isle of Ibiza with four of my buddies, and I can work an all-night shift at the supermarket of my choice. If I wanted to, that is. If I really wanted to I could pop along to a Chippendale-esque showing and oogle at the strutting of over-muscular middle-aged men.

Of course, this is if I was really desperate, right?

I think the thing that will make it most fun – this whole turning into a “legal” adult thing – will in fact be nothing to do with turning eighteen at all. It won’t be anything related to being able to obtain sordid porn, placing a misguided vote for my country, or even be able to drink in my favourite friendly pub without the fear of my illegality being discovered. It won’t be associated with the prospect of paying for my own phone line, or the prospect of owning an IKEA store card. It’ll be something to do with a change of thoughts, a shift of mindset – a rift of positivity pushing me further into becoming the person I want to become, and always have wanted to be. This year I’m throwing out the shit and bringing in the sweetness. Onward with two thousand and three, the age of eighteen and many new experiences.

It’s a busy weekend ahead, and this is one of the first birthdays where I’ve been physically shivering with excitement in.. well, longer than I can remember. Brighton Boy and I are still unsure of where we shall end up on Friday night/Saturday morning. After much surfing and attempting to decide on a club to visit (G-A-Y? Heaven? Popstarz? Blowup?There’s so many) I’m still no closer to finding somewhere. My guess is that our drunken feet will take us wherever our groovin’ boots will be a wandering (as long as we end up in Peckham after 9am the next morning, alive, I couldn’t care less.) Rupa’s party (livejournal meetup extraordinaire that she is) is the next day (hence the Peckham destination) where I shall no doubt be re-meeting fabulous people. Time seems to have whizzed by so fast that I only just realised that three months ago to the Saturday, Brighton Boy and I met for the first time, at exactly the same place.

So do me a favour this weekend, and have a good one. ‘Cause I know I will, whatever I do, wherever I go, and however old I’m turning.

(PS - I can’t guarantee I’ll be acting like an adult, at all, though.)