it's a boys world

Perched atop the rolling hills of Tuscany, I'd spot the Sienese skyline were my glasses within reachable distance. Cyprus trees peek their tips out over the fluorescent green grass typical of italian spring. The romance of it all really is something rotten, though I admit my decision to write after nearly a year and a half adjournment is inspired less by this consummate scenery and more by the wish to expose my husband-to-be for gaslighting me about an arachnassault I narrowly survived last week. 

I suppose I should start by explaining to those who don't yet know just how busy a year it has been. For starters, I am now balding at the fault of two men, the first of whom impregnated(!) me and a second who spectacularly exited my beaver last november, leaving me with a cocktail of hormones that would make my hair fall out more abundantly than a short fat man hotfooting his convertible through a midlife crisis. At the age of 40 I became a mother. Not long before I would be proposed of marriage, something I had come to ascribe only to starry-eyed twenty-somethings rather than myself- a senescent and cynical mid-lifer with a rented flat in a part of town intended for those refusing to level up. 

Early last year my father congratulated Tim for making me "the happiest he's seen me in a long time". I objected to a man congratulating another man for a women's happiness and reminded him that my smile was instead born of the richness that was unemployment. You see, in February 2024 I hit pause on my hectic working life as a London doctor and traded it for a six month sabbatical. It started extremely well with a solo business class flight to Bangkok (where I would try to appear nonchalant in the glory of its decadence while I covertly pocketed the mini salt and pepper shakers like the true insolvent I was). I spent a week meditating in Koh Samui, kayaked through caves near Phuket, and received a hand carved wooden luggage tag with my name embossed compliments of The Six Senses Yao Noi. This was followed by a week snowboarding in the French Alps, a trip to Southern California to eat dollar tacos and showcase my new british arm candy with the nice teeth, and a spiritual experience under the moonrise over Joshua tree. But the pleasure and leisure came to an abrupt halt the day before I left for Milan Design Week last April. I wasn't quite feeling myself so did a pregnancy test if only for the reassurance I could safely drown in Campari spritz and cured meat over the next week. In an instant I realized my eyes were not in fact crossed, but that double blue line not dissimilar to all four or five of my positive covid tests meant my sabbatical was effectively over. 

Weeks later I would lay moribund on the sofa for three months of "morning" sickness. I shit my pants in public on the day I was too tired to put underwear under my trackies (and ironically wiped it up with a t-shirt that read not today satan). I dry heaved into an Ikea trash can after Tim lovingly presented me with a shriveled vegan hotdog made of quinoa that resembled Shrek's penis. After 14 weeks of this I was finally well enough to return to work after my 'sabbatical'. The hospital was noticeably next door to a pub called "the spread eagle" and I often cogitated about this absurd reminder that I should have stayed virgin for the extent of my intended time off. 

Being a "mature" pregnant lady, I had to do lots of extra prenatal tests. This included the oral glucose tolerance test to check for gestational diabetes. I wondered why I couldn't ply my cake hole with pan au chocolate instead of that goopy drink made with 75grams of sugar. My tendency to multitask was like never before while I entertained conversations, went to the gym, treated patients, and trotted around on public transportation all the while doing things behind the scenes like building placentas and eyeballs and testicles. I was busy. Too busy to read about childbirth or motherhood, until the day my water broke a month early and also about an hour after I had just read the chapter on premature rupture of membranes. When my 30 hours of labor reached its precipice, I found myself surrounded by the most inspired team of female surgeons, nurses and midwives shouting at me to push because I was so close to meeting my baby. They seemed to know this because they could see his hair IT'S BLACK (sic), and in an instant I wished he would have just stayed in there because this defied everything I knew about genetics and my understanding about how the world worked. 

The months that followed have been a blur with minimal time for anything beyond simply trying to keep my child alive. I have never faced so much uncertainty. But one thing I am certain of is that last week when I dropped trou in the night, my hand was met with a massive nodule on my arse which the mirror confirmed to be a nasty spider bite. I knew this because there were two punctate marks where the fangs would have greedily sunk themselves into. It was also extremely red and indurated. I was disillusioned when (panicking of imminent death from its venom) I showed Tim who suggested this was nothing more than a pimple. He is a creative not a doctor but spoke with harrowing conviction. I did not previously identify with having a pimply ass and told him I'd never in my life had a zit on my behind. He argued against this point by saying he had never in his life been bitten by a spider in his home. He then negated my suffering for the next 24 hours by gesticulating at me with extended wrists to simulate my new super hero capacity to shoot webs out of my arms. I was too tired to argue my defense until two days later whilst sat on the toilet bleary eyed at 3am I noticed a colossal, HAIRY brown spider on the ceiling, staking me out with his seventeen eyeballs and licking his chops in preparation for his next meal.  I ran to the bedroom to wake Tim up to: 1.) Save our souls and 2.) inform him I was RIGHT about it not being a pimple, to which he accused me of having invited the spider inside because thats how convicted I am toward being right. This man with whom I have created our combined flesh and blood was gaslighting me in front of my very own psychiatrically minded eyes. So I want the universe to know that Tim is a gaslighter. 

And for the record I have still never had a pimple on my butt, neither is my son's hair black. 

The end of an era

There have been new ends to old eras lately. 

Firstly, my mother has finally caved and acquired a cell phone! This woman has resisted the technological bandwagon since people started playing Snake on their Nokias. Her rationale  - "i survived this long without a phone, so why would I need one now?" Though my compass tends to point to her when searching for the voice of reason, this particular logic fails to represent her finest body of work.

First of all mom, they barely even had cars back then, so what are you gonna do these days when you're somewhere off the interstate and your whip breaks down? Pull out your Thomas' Guide to find the nearest highway phone booth, and pop in your quarter? Call your daughter collect? Do you even have my thirteen digit London number memorized? To be fair, she is an engineering genius and would probably just fix the rig herself with a sewing kit. 

Secondly, your logic holds disregard for the impossibility of functioning in a world without two factor authentication. You must accept that Facebook is not going to send your login verification code to the landline (which by the way, isn't even cordless!). How will you post all those macro photos of the backyard plants or last night's fennel salad without it?

Thirdly, even in absence of these fatalistic practicalities, what about the deficit of wellness applications in your life? I survived the terror of many hospital night shifts thanks to the campfire soundscapes of my myriad wellness apps. They really help quiet the noise of a mind on tenterhooks. You know Meghan even has one that allows you to titrate your own combination of healing sounds to the perfect soothing effect- 20% interstellar rocket jet, 40% oscillating body fan, 20% amazon basin rainstorm, 10% grecian summer cicada, 5% los angeles city ambulance, 5% brown (not white!) noise. 

Anyway, all these points are now moot because you've finally signed a deal with the devil like the rest of us mortals. Since acquiring her new device, Mum has impressively taken technological leaps, mostly in her mastery of emoticon, although she still requests I ring her on skype via her Dell desktop, lest she "get too much radiation" cradling the cellular too close to her temporal lobe. (I promise she got her covid vaccines and does not wear tin foil on her head except when coloring her own hair.) 

Another era ended at Shepton Mallet this June when I attended Glastonbury festival. That was the end of the era of never having been to a festival before. Some would argue I've still never "properly" been to a festival because I remain street drug naive. Maybe one day I will pop my drug cherry. Lately I've been curious about tripping on acid because of the way people describe the connectedness they get to experience. I am desperate for this. Earlier this spring whilst out riding my bicycle and dressed in a caramel colored teddy hoodie, I spotted a cockapoo taking a shit. It was actually so windy that day I got a downstream wiff of his poo. What followed that afternoon was my own pilgrimage with violent gastroenteritis. Coincidence or connectedness? I thought we looked alike in our matching curly coats and glassy plush toy eyes, but the poo connection was really something extra by way of unification with the animal kingdom. Is this what LSD is like?

But back to Glastonbury for a second. You know, I had been warned again and again about festival toilets, particularly day 4 festival toilets. This is not a place that makes you feel clean, and it is definitely not a place you want to be negotiating with your period. I started my period on day two. I experienced another episode of connectedness to that Lauren Mayberry of CHVRCHS whilst she was on stage, splattered in red paint à la rock n' roll and I was hovering over the latrine with my dangling tampax. what a vibe! the toilets weren't even that bad. Highly recommend. 

Lauren Mayberry, Twitter

Another era which appears to have come to an end is my active dating life. What I mean is... I have a boyfriend(!). And no I did not get back together with my "ex" (is it really an ex if it was only a few months and now your demented brain can barely recall their last name?) although I did bump into that particular fellow on a flight to Seville back in May. To be honest, the run in wasn't much of a shock because I was the one who had booked those flights to go together way back when we were still pretending to like each other. He went off to his friends Spanish birthday party and I decided to go to Spain anyway with Janie and make it about a girls trip. I had checked us both in and specifically arranged for our seats to be on opposite sides of the plane. But British Airways had other plans for us and some sinister agent from the underworld pushed our seats back together between check in and boarding. How is this even possible? What is the name for the opposite of divine intervention? Anyway, we were polite and made small talk until he fell asleep. I subsequently wrote BA a scathing email and received a 100 pound voucher for the inconvenience. Now my focus is on trying to understand the five year identity shift from bachelorette to girlfriend, which at my age feels as serious a designation as marriage. Let's see. 

And finally, the most recent era to have taken to close is that of my twenty year hustle toward professional medical licensure. A couple weeks ago I sat my final specialty board exams, which if passed, will mark the final exam of my life, providing I don't decide medicine was all a big mistake and it's time to start the process of re-identification as a lawyer. Results out later this month. Mom, I'll call you on skype once I know. 

Freefall

There's nothing like being in freefall in an elevator to provoke a post episodic meaningful reflection of your life. This happened to me yesterday as I came home from a conference in London. Enter bicycle and me into lift. First we went up. Then we went down, fast. Then we got caught presumably by some safety mechanism that left us dangling, stuck between two floors and wondering what it would be like to eventually expire in there. With an adrenaline fueled heroic strength I managed to force the inner door open enough to achieve a single bar of 3G that would alert my building whatsapp group to call for help. The sound of sirens that so comforts me in urban life were finally for ME! The fire brigade came, pried open the doors, greeted me with big hands and smiles, then pulled me and my bike from the slot between floors. It was terrifying, but not terrifying enough to prevent me from realizing my fantasy of being rescued by firemen was at last being actualized and that I needed to document it. 

I got into my flat and texted a friend who served up enough molecules of compassion to make me burst into tears. There's something about kindness that really brings a person's intense fragility to the surface when they are stressed and scared. I wanted to be held by my mother. Or your mother. Any mother. As a matter of great happenstance, I was due to start my first group therapy session an hour later, which I had subscribed to six weeks prior after one too many near miss mental breakdowns and nasal herpes outbreaks this year (that I'm concerned are steadily migrating upward toward my brain).  In therapy we talked about one woman's anxiety accidentally leaving the hair straightener on and burning down the entire block of apartments, which made me feel better about imagining the shame I'd have incurred had I needed to poo before the fire brigade would set me free. 

So anyway last autumn after seeing the same usual suspects from six years ago popping up on my dating app, I decided it was time to try a little harder to cultivate love in my life by sticking to one person and forcing it to fit. I met a boy my age who was smart and even though I think we both knew it was doomed from the start, we were desperate and lonely enough to stick with it. Little signs from the universe - like when we both separately crashed into high, homeless people on our bicycles -  made me feel like maybe it was meant to be. He was nice too in his own way, like when I deliriously stepped into fox poo after finishing a 70 hour week of hospital nightshifts, dragging it all around his flat before realizing what I'd done, he didn't shame me but rather hosed off my Vans and delicately dug the poop out from the grooves with a tiny stick, and instructed me to lie down on the sofa whilst he bleached the floors. But I am a bit histrionic with quite high standards when it comes to relationship expectations, and he is born of the English state of mind, aligned to mottos like 'keep calm and carry on' and 'never complain never explain'. I have literally made a career out of dissecting emotions and mind things down to their nucleus. I prefer to freak out and then complain and explain EVERYTHING. I also like to give gifts, write letters, ask questions, hold hands. He instead offered to get the zipper on my puffer vest fixed when I protested after he didn't do anything for me for valentines day. Indeed, my vest now has a zipper but it also does that annoying thing where the teeth split from the bottom after it's zipped up. 

There is nothing like a new broken zip on your Uniqlo puffer to make a girl feel like a queen, and so we carried on, me trying to be mature about my apparently unreasonable standards and him trying to be a little more romantic. We decided to go on a ski trip to Chamonix which was disastrous before it even started when he was told by the surgeon he couldn't ski due to the bone edema leftover from his earlier bicycle run-in with the crack addict. But we decided to go and inhale some mountain and hammam air anyway. 

On day one we broke up. Promptly on arrival actually. I then drank half the bottle of champagne I had arranged to be put in the room in advance. Thank God for my advance planning. After downing two glasses I decided I'd had enough of that day and put myself to bed, but not before spraying the lavender pillow mist directly into my left eyeball after the nozzle had been turned sideways in transit. Hours later as I attempted to find the toilet in the dark, I walked straight into the wall and broke my nose. But like true civilized adults we managed to make the best out of a week that could have otherwise been from hell, until the very end when I got persuaded to do jägerbombs by a group of middle aged men on a bachelor party. I consequently came home and packed my suitcase whilst intoxicated, accidentally pouring the ice water leftover from the champagne bucket straight into my luggage. It had been outside on the deck (along with the nauseating scented loo roll we mistakenly bought) and was frozen solid the day before, so when I picked it up thinking it was still a block of ice, I was surprised by its aqueous state which showered out and filled my suitcase up with fluid before I could react . I travelled home with a hangover and a bag of wet clothes. 

I returned to London and have dove back into work and my relationships with females, if only for the provision of my extraordinarily unfortunate dating life anecdotes to friends. One of them has suggested I submit myself to a netflix show that capitalizes on the tragic lovestories of overly tanned airheads who are also incapable of relationships, and I actually considered wether this could be the answer for me. I think I'll wait for my latest nasal herpes to heal before getting back out there into that world rife with potential for freefall. 

Lucky number 7

It's the early hours of pacific daylight time. I'm in the bedroom I grew up where as a teenager I was mostly rigorous when not smoking weed on the balcony from a homemade pipe i'd engineered of baked polymer clay and a filter pulled off the tap of our family kitchen sink. Four days of no pager, no lorries encroaching the bike lanes of central london, and not a single decibel paying homage to ambulance or addict shouting to be heard beyond the seals of my earplugs, and I am almost back to being a tolerable human being.

Every time i'm home I am reminded of the nature and degree to which my mother is a savage. Yesterday whilst taking a short video of us on a hike, she ordered me to put my device away because had I fallen to the point of immovable injury, the only way her tiny body could have saved me would be to "drag me down the mountain by my hair". O this supreme window into the thoughts that occupy her gorgeous mind! The same person whose response to an inspirational story I sent (in effort to uplift her spirit) about a terminally ill patient taking a long lusted-after cruise in spite of the fear and risk of a world writhe with covid was: 'cruises are stupid and a hotbed of norovirus'. This same mother also carefully details my panties with a toothbrush when doing the laundry and still does not own a cell phone. We have much to learn from her. 

I have been flailing through life since I last wrote this spring, spending any time not hospital resident revising for a series of specialty licensing exams. This imposes extreme limits on how a person in such a career track can access a rare molecule of serotonin, and I have found myself doing sometimes an odd thing in search of a dopamine hit. This has mostly involved impulse purchases proved highly relevant thanks to those http cookies that shed more light onto the nature of one's needs and character than any eat, pray, love or psychoanalysis ever could. So I ask, what does it say about a person who spends 150 quid on vitamins from a company touting the cognitive benefits of omega 3's but also spells cognitive 'congitive'? Whatever. The answer is YES I'll try this one. I'll try anything. Especially if it tastes like mango shampoo.

I have been doubling my vibrator as a back massager due to the record tension in my shoulders and outrageous cost of a professional rub. I have also developed a near daily habit of dried shitake mushroom consumption, which in the valley of despair is totally worth the £4 price tag. Those nut butter filled chocolate bars for a fiver are also as good as they are extortionate. 

Life has continued to be met with catastrophe after catastrophe and I have come to understand that this earthly existence is just a series of mishaps of varying degree with brief and fleeting moments free from incident that give an illusion of an occasional good time. I am not sure if I am getting demented early or just too devoid of concentration to proof check my efforts to navigate this life. At times I have taken to my mobile phone's calculator rather than the recommended dial pad to make a phone call. And I am angry when it does not go through. I am often too apathetic to bend over to manage the hazard of an untied shoelace. My camera reel is a series of accidental screenshots of the morning alarm as I fumble to try and silence it by pressing any button so that I might snooze for a period that will invariably make me late for work again. My baseball hat blows off my head every time I cycle through the wind tunnel on bishopsgate and I don't have the will to chase after it anymore. Everything is under relentless attack of gravity. I hurt my back lifting weights and had to walk in the shape of a number 7 for a week and take diazepams just to get vertical. Lucky number 7. My expensive eye cream smells of poo which I think puts me one degree away from Kim Kardashian who has gone on the record to say she'd eat shit if it would make her look younger. I have been criticized by my friends for putting a space between the final word of a sentence and the punctuation mark in text messages. I don't know why I do that but I can't seem to stop ! I brushed my teeth with deep heat. I cannot understand the complexities behind why my mouth has to be open in order to apply or remove eye makeup. The last gift my father gave me was a packet of anusol. There is an occupation of intractable fruit flies in my kitchen. I don't even flinch anymore when accidentally traversing my shakti mat en route to the toilet at night, and it's definitely not because I've reached the intended level of zen. I very professionally spent an entire stretch of hospital nights using my own recycled clinical note template before realizing all of my entries had been indelibly titled "Night Shit" rather than "Night Shift". And not that I feel entitled, but the last man to give me flowers was a patient who had absconded from the hospital and returned with daisies and an illegal high. The last compliment I received was from a friend who crashed her car into a parking lot pylon whilst zooming in on a photo of my butt on instagram. Everything is wrapped in disaster. 

In a final word I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to my father who I left dejected after he inquired about the bruise on my forehead which I had to admit was down to botox so he wouldn't worry it was consequence of something more sinister. But even still, he looked the way I must have done when I learned santa wasn't real. I'm sorry dad.

Now I'm off to go try and find that old artisanal polymer pipe as a tribute to that world where our resourcefulness once led the way of resistance to a cookie-led consumer driven congitive disaster. 

Lucky number 7

Vitamin D

The covid has clapped back- my December arrogance being one of the few able to escape the omicron variant has come back to haunt me. I'll get back to that though, because I want to try writing this thing using a technique called 'sandwiching' where you start with something positive, fill the middle with negativity, then end with a positive. That way you achieve a sort of mindfuckity outcome where someone feels good even though you exposed them to the nasty.

So I went to visit my best friend in Montana! And that was awesome because wide open spaces, animals, nature gallops, sunsets, belly laughs, and hitting the slopes. She also reintroduced me to the joys of boxed mac n' cheese and marijuana in responsible doses,  and sent me home with a suitcase of organic facial creams, cosy loungewear, environmentally conscious soap preparations, bougie vitamins, and,.... boxed mac n' cheese. 

It was a short week and before I knew it I was back at the Bozeman airport checking my bags next to two apparently 12 year old girls who had two bags of  their own- "this one's the guns, this one's ammo". okkkkk, America. I looked at the lady behind the desk, "this one's the skin cream, this one's the mac n'cheese". It's been eleven years since I moved to Europe and I don't really know where I belong, but it's probably not on a plane with ammo. 

Having grown up in southern california I used to scorn the transplants who all seemed to move there for the same reason- the weather. as if the most compelling thing in your life was the fucking sunshine?! When I was 23 I was energetic, idealistic and in search of a pulse, diversity, culture, a hustle. 'nobody moves to new york or london for the weather' I would say, 'they move there to chase a dream'. What an arrogant little pest I was, spoiled by an upbringing of plentiful vitamin D and happy people.  Now that I am older and angrier and had some time to pursue my dreams in places with vulgar population densities, discourteous costs of living, AND shitty weather, I can categorically say GIVE ME THE GOOD WEATHER. I am totally ok with the sunshine being the most compelling thing in my life. How do I know? because I spent another cold and dark winter with intractable churlish inclinations and then suddenly the sun came out and i felt like being nice to people again. and it was awesome.

I know there's this thing called Seasonal Affective Disorder where you get moody in dark months. I tried to fight this last year by (cringe) lying in a tanning bed. I stopped that after the shopgirl suggested I not wash for 24 hours afterward "to let the tan fully soak in". just couldn't cope with conversations like that or spending my time wondering why someone didn't  explain to her the difference between a tanning bed and a spray tan? The point is, my vitamin D consequently plummeted and with it so did everything else. 

There was a day in February when I almost just completely lost my shit. I was cycling to work for forty five minutes in a headwind with 100km/hr gusts, multiple moments of which were met with neither the peddles nor my entire being moving forward at all. After a protracted period of this I suffered something of a panic attack with somatic symptoms telling me physically and emotionally YOU SHALL NOT ENGAGE IN THIS BULLSHIT ANY LONGER! and all I could think was to get off my bike, throw it into the traffic and find a train to Heathrow where I would buy a ticket to anywhere else. But then I realized I do have some British in me because I just zipped it up, kept peddling, and eventually made it to work and carried on like everything was fine. At least it will be a tailwind on the way home, I thought. NOPE. I'm not being funny when I say that it was a headwind the entire way home. How is it meteorologically possible to have a headwind in both directions? I got through my door and thought, fuckit i'm going to treat myself to a box of mac n'cheese. I was sooo looking forward to this small salvation when I opened the box and dumped the tiny pasta into the pot, only to find that the packet of powdered fake cheese was MISSING. Did a quick survey of my lifetime karma points to try and understand what I had done to deserve this. The only thing that could have made the day more shit would be having your vibrator die just before the point of climax, which definitely did not maybe happened. and that was the start of six weeks of illness spawned by this miserable winter and the stress that accompanies chasing your dreams.

In consideration of this, I realized I have never had big dreams, or any dreams really! I operate more on a get momentarily inspired, pursue the thing in earnest, then move on to the next thing, kind of vibe; zero visions of where I would be in 5, 10, 20 years. I live my life in monthly increments and actually the only recurring dream I have is to go on vacation. These last days I've squirted so much warm, salted water up my nostrils in effort to relieve the sinusitis, that if I close my eyes and concomitantly spray the coconut lemon hand sanitizer I picked up in Montana, it almost feels like I'm on one. 

Going back to the topic of America for a second, one of my big gripes being an American is having to file/pay taxes every year on income earned abroad. So I have my normal UK taxes, also the taxes for my side hustle/being an independent contractor in the UK, and my American taxes. My entire life these days would appear to be just mac n' cheese and taxes. The worst bit is that I have a US tax accountant who "does" my taxes, which means she sends me a form that I spend 5 hours filling out, and then twenty minutes after I send her the financial details, she sends me the completed tax form to sign, along with the bill for hundreds of dollars. Like what does she even do when she "does" my taxes? I think she tries to impress me with her efficiency but actually I really wish her turnaround time was longer so I got the feeling she was the one doing the hard part. 

On a happier note, Ida came to visit! She is my friend from the Milan days and is a big fashion buyer boss for Globus. She has assistants and impeccable standards, is ridiculously beautiful, magically does not age, and has an enviable wardrobe and a figure that looks air brushed in real life. She also studied literature and elevates me on the order of everything from books to the comparative frump of my daily living. We had both been feeling overworked, upset and anxious about the general state of the world, and were mutually desperate for a girls weekend. A girls weekend can really make all your problems go away for a minute. When we were making plans in advance of what to do, she had a very simple set of requests: "i just wanna cuddle in bed, have a couple nice dinners out, and read the penis book". READ the penis book. I told you she studied literature.

We ended up having a wonderful weekend, ditching the usual ritual of working for mid morning chats, long afternoon walks, beautiful meals out, and even a late night dance. But getting ready to go out looks very different when you're approaching 40. There is a preparatory ritual which includes a cocktail of paracetamol, oral and topical ibuprofen, proton pump inhibitors, calcium carbonate, high dose vitamins, lots of water, and even some light stretching. Once we were prepped, we proceeded to the Nomad Hotel for a gorgeous dinner, where at the end, Ida asked a patron of the restaurant to get her coat whilst he was standing there with his wife, waiting for his own coat. I interjected "sorry she doesn't speak English", before hastily ushering her out to a black cab en route to the Connaught Hotel. From there things got weird and we ended up at The Box in Soho, which I will leave to your imagination and to google. Weeks later I am still being punished. 

In those days after Ida left, on International Women's day to be exact, we both received the gifts of Covid AND our periods. First I thought it was going to be mild (the covid not the period) because my rapid test was only faintly positive. But the next day it lit up like the landing lights at Heathrow and I was down for a good nine days, followed by an aftershock of fevers and sinusitis, expelling shocking, consolidated formations from my nostrils. This is ongoing. The 'rona actually took me down on the two year anniversary of when we first met. Which reminds me- do you remember the phase of weird impulse purchases the world made during the first wave of the pandemic? Well that also came back to haunt me and I decided I could no longer survive without this:

THIS is a device that cores and hollows out your pineapple. The other, more sensical thing I decided to treat myself to was a cleaner, which after years of cleaning the bog myself,  feels like the best money I ever spent. 

OK I'm wrapping this up now, getting to the other side of the sandwich. But before I get there let me just say that happy people in London are not to be trusted! There is no reason to be happy when you have no reserve of vitamin D and therefore no resources to synthesize serotonin. The happy people here are drone-bot spies from the government, or they work at the tanning salon and have excessive spray tan soaking into their brains. In fact, the people I trust the most are those who like to complain and talk endless shit with me. This is one of the reasons I have gotten so close with the girl who does my nails. She is Romanian but lived in Italy for ages so we talk shit in italian together for an hour + every two weeks and it is therapyyy. This week I tipped her 20 bucks because she is so much more to me than the girl who does my nails. And mom, if you're reading this, I just want to say that I had my nails painted green for you this week because IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY and green is your favorite color and you are the QUEEN and I'm so sorry I have put you through all these years of paralytic anxiety and I absolutely love talking shit with you too! In honor of you I'm posting a picture of my green nails, which I'm sorry also represents an unmarried hand with green nails. I'm sorry you still have to put up with your primary care doctor asking you why I'm not married whilst palpating your abdomen. And just so you don't worry, I started taking vitamin D capsules and everything is fine.

holidaze

Well, I can't say that the festive season/lead up to the new year was much of an elegant one, nor was 2021 in general my favorite. The highlight of the year was probably the one time I managed to single handedly verbally deescalate an aggressive patient (who had been encircled by 20 hospital staff and security) by simply walking up to the scene with an overly high, tight, and bouncing ponytail and asking them if they wanted milk or sugar in their tea. I did this whilst also avoiding being called a cunt, which has become a relatively standard nomen of adoption in my current line of work (praenomen being "Dr", of course).

Covid wiped out hospital staff over the holidays but somehow i managed to escape testing positive (perhaps owing to the herpes I was battling, putting my immune system into red alert and rendering even the indefatigable omicron variant powerless in the face of my personal space!) What this meant was that I got to sell my soul to the NHS by picking up vacant shifts pretty much every day from mid december through the first week of January. 

On Christmas Eve I tried to treat myself to an Uber to work instead of the usual bicycle, particularly because it was pissing down with rain. But I couldn't manage to get one because Uber SUCKS and so I cycled in all the sog to the hospital. The doctor shortage crisis was so bad that later that evening I was called to move to a totally different borough of London to cover a hospital I'd never before worked in. In the middle of the night! Then when I went to unlock the cyclette (again in the rain), my key snapped. Did I mention it was Christmas? managed to jig the lock off at least so my bike wasn't forever chained to the bike rack (what would you even do in that instance? who would you call?), then cycled across london at 5am in my scrubs, arriving at the other hospital, said a quick prayer, before draping my broken lock around my bike to fake lock it. It was a true christmas miracle it survived the thievery bicycle corporation of london, and I could return home later that morning on my private transportation to find the fresh mistletoe I'd recently taped to the ceiling in a dried up pile on the floor, little white berries chaotically scattered everywhere, which all somehow seemed symbolic of my personal life. 

On Christmas Day I had nothing to unwrap except the lid of my takeaway sushi box, which was perfect. I put Ted Lasso on for the serotonin hit I needed, and for the first time believed myself to be receiving special messages of commiseration and solidarity from the television when at the end of the episode/a particularly shiteous day, Ted snapped his house key in the lock whilst standing outside his flat in the rain. 

Things got weird in my brain space working so many days in a row and flip flopping between day and night shifts. Some flavors of depersonalization and paranoia. After returning from another night shift, I put the shower on and whilst I was waiting for the water to heat up, returned to find a mountain of bubbles frothing up from the drain. My first thought was WHO HAS BEEN BATHING IN HERE DURING THE NIGHT?!!!!!! I even checked the window to see if someone had maybe climbed in. Then I noticed my very expensive shampoo which was half empty half full but turned on its head and suffering a loose cap which meant it had slowly leaked out during the night and now I can't afford a new one.  I was desperate. I  considered changing the "looking for" section of my Hinge to "women" for the first time because, why not?! and also couldn't stand the thought or risk of being asked again by another man the horrifying question: 

'why are you single?'

I then stared for a prolonged period at my face and realized the shape of my eyebrows across the bridge of my nose was completely uneven and had anybody my entire life ever noticed this? and if so why didn't they tell me?

I thought about experimenting with psychadelics, not to party but to access some kind of higher, deeper, more meaningful version of my psyche or spirituality or humanity or life experience. I told this to my supervisor and he suggested psychotherapy rather than manipulating my neurobiology with chemicals. I'm just not sure about anything. I got my nails done with gold sparkles only to arrive back at home and wonder if I had entered the age where twenty-somethings look at me and think "she should dress her age". I should dress my age. 

I had these kinds of relentless thoughts over and over in the lead up to new years day, which I (falsely) hoped would hit the reset button on those thoughts and on my life, and now I'm just wondering, does this kind of 'reset' actually happen on the 1st of January for people? or does January just continue as a more bleak, cold, wet, and dark extension of December for anyone else? 

Because 2022 began waking up very groggy and sort of feeling my way to the kitchen sink à la -eyes wide shut- to fill up the kettle. Turned on the tap and was surprised to find the water vigorously spraying up at my face rather than going into the teapot. My reaction time was slow, or I was just full of apathy!! I did not scramble to turn the water off. all very odd. The screw on the sink had come loose as if to send me another sign from the universe to wake the fuck up. So I decided to go for a walk, listening to the song "ABCDE F (EFF YOU)" on repeat in esprit de corps for everyone on the planet who has ever been wronged. I then decided to take care of my skin for the first few days of the year, using copious amounts of retinol to the point i gave myself some kind of bacterial rash in the corner of my nose. Took my prescription for antibiotic cream to the pharmacist (who turned out to be a verryy junior trainee of something not a pharmacist) who then asked to take a look at the rash. So I pulled down my mask to show her. She looked at me, kind of perplexed, cocking her head to the side the way that dogs sometimes do and said:

"so it's just that right there?" whilst pointing to the left side of her face (the rash was on the right). 

I was annoyed. I already had a doctor look at it and I am also a doctor and I am in a hurry and I am here for topical antibiotics not ketamine written as a script on the back of a cocktail napkin. why were we playing 20 questions? 

"its the red rash on the right corner of my nose", I said. 

to which she responded:

"but you have another rash on the left side of your face" 

Then I, perplexed, cocked my head to the side the way that dogs sometimes do, and  realized the ''rash'' she was talking about was my MOLE. 

But before I could blow my top on the deeper meaning behind my rage manifesting as an explanation between the difference between a nevus and a rash, I thought... 

"what would Ted Lasso Do?"

...and I kept it cool when I kept my mouth shut.

Cheers to a dignified and patient 2022. 

Signing off,

Dr Cunt 

the plight of 2021

Anyone else feeling themself walking the line of imminent dissociative fugue? No allowances for pleasure or reflection, at least not without a PCR test. just panic, survival, crisis, work, night terrors, work, hamster wheel, and feeling nostalgic about each and every one of my ex boyfriends. A year where being mindful feels uncomfortable and boring at best and looking ahead is met with the wrong kind of uncertainty, so instead I've been doing a lot of looking back. 

And as with most times I've found myself moody as well as in keeping with the world's current state of omicronion affairs, I too am presently suffering an outbreak of my own, that gift of herpes that keeps on giving in my right nostril. 'Tis the season.

Last time I was here I was considering the tactic of manifesting love. This was the GenZ inspired advice that I've since learned doesn't actually work. Will revert back to the millennial/GenX persuasion that you get it when you're not trying, because actually since manifesting, my love life has never been more shambolic! but other than failing in love and watching the pores on my face progressively expand in size to the wormhole of infinite possibility, here's what's been going on in 2020 and 2021. 

On the final night of freedom before lockdown 1.0, March 2020 when London was voraciously getting their last social pint in at the pub, I quietly picked up my dry cleaning as well as my seeing glasses which I had left in the uber a few days before. The uber driver and I met in a dark alley near the camden roundhouse on a foggy night and he handed them over to me in a plastic baggy. It was a covert assignment, like a drug deal only for Linda Farrow opticals. I then picked up two cans of beans because... ...toilet paper hoarders!!, and went to bed. I have thought a lot about doom and what this behaviour says about me on the eve of the final hurrah. I have reached the conclusion I am a highly practical introvert who may also be pathologically boring.

Bumped into the very attractive neighbour who also lives in the penthouse of my apartment building  and could have  been the perfect lockdown lover. I was taking out the trash and wearing my hair shaped like a pineapple and sweatpants with socks AND birkenstocks, which he commented on. That was the beginning and end of that. 

I'm an organized person so lumped all the dating apps into a single folder on my iphone called 'fuck my life'. I then deleted them all. Then I redownloaded them again. Then deleted them. I need rehab. 

One guy on a second date asked me if I would sign a prenup immediately after learning that my financial situation included owning two (2) shares of pfizer stock and another one (1) in beyond meat. 

During the winter I returned to hospital medicine. In my first week back to feeling very golden for saving lives during a pandemic, rode my bike to the hospital and got pulled over by a copper who slapped me with a 50 quid fine for running a pedestrian(!) red light. This was still zombie apocalypse with ZERO people or cars on the road and i was late for work asadoctorinapandemic. Must have been collections coming to grab back at my karmic debts. Imagine. Cried the whole way to work on the cyclette.

Later that week I got shit on by a bird whilst riding my bike home from the hospital.

My flatmate moved back to the countryside and so I started living alone which was great until I almost died multiple times choking on a shrimp summer roll and then a banana slathered with peanut butter. Had to throw myself over a chair. Which then threw me into existential angst about who and how long it would take for me to be found if i went out like that. Looking for a flatmate who is as skilled a lover as he is the heimlich. 

Googled and read the wikipedia page for identity crisis. Twice. 

The candelit Vivaldi Four Seasons that I watch in a church every christmas season was obviously canceled due to the 'rona but rescheduled for July in the middle of a heatwave when the sun don't set. So that was weird. 

Escaped London lockdown 2.0 by the skin of my teeth, flying to switzerland last christmas to help deliver Roki's baby. Slept in the airport overnight and woken up by a squadron of policemen wondering if I was fugitive or homeless, staring down at me and my possessions on the floor, demanding proof of identity. But all's well that ends well and whilst i spent the holidays in quarantine (but not jail!), Roks slid meals under the door, inclusive of my favorite champagne, gifted me a gorgeous leather bag (which I would later spill fish sauce into on my way to work), and graced me with the honour of welcoming her third bebé into the world. This was the highlight of 2020.  The second was being on top an empty St Moritz with my snowboard.

Caught the mouse that had been freestyling in my living room for the better part of 2020/21. Realized this when i came back from switzerland and my heater was broken. Electrician came round and pulled the sofa back...

"ughhh miss, you know you have a mousetrap back here?"

"oh yea just kick it aside"

"ok but there's a dead mouse in it and it's decomposing"

I became obsessive about cleaning my own apartment. Have you ever accidentally tipped over the toilet brush to spill poo water all over the tile? Me neither. shit. 

I became bored and lonely and so started filling my brain with garbage television like Selling Sunset which for lack of my own personal life, became so emotionally entwined with that I cried genuine tears on at least one episode. I hate myself.

Found a zucchini in my takeout burrito, confirming my longstanding evidence-based belief that england doesn't know mexican food and Deliveroo and UberEats cyclists in london are the biggest pillocks on the planet. can i get an amen. 

Got the gift of UTI for my birthday whilst on holiday in Greece which resulted in pill popping antibiotics and swirling D-Mannose martinis rather than something more pleasantly intoxicating. 

In the autumn, began receiving quotes for funeral plans in my email inbox. 

But the best bit of 2021 was finally getting to go home to California and see my loved ones, where there is so much endemic plastic surgery that when I told a man my boobs were real but the smile was fake, he asked if I'd had my lips done. 

Goodbye 2021, we had great expectations for you after 2020 but you remained firm on your pillage for good times. I'll be spending Christmas in isolation no doubt with chinese takeout and my friends and family from reality TV. Cheers to you, 2022.

reminder to not stay in your wet bikini this christmas

boyfriend material

A lot has happened in the two months since I last wrote. For starters, I am now officially closer to my forties than my twenties, appropriately timed given the newest addition to my London apartment- a twenty year old flatmate. Yep, twenty. TWO. ZERO. Are you feeling a little jealous of all that youth? All that hope, promise, and freedom from cynicism? Despite my initial reservations, she has defeated almost every conception of what I thought living with a barely legal person would be like. She is properly GenZ. Unique, independent, technology focused, and ethical (though I did notice she threw a cucumber in the trash instead of the compost today). The age disparity is less noticeable in matters of daily conversation and more in matters of operation. For instance, she is the first to reinstate the value of my independence/relationship abstinence, but when it comes to her using my old school kettle (and by "old school" I mean, the kind that heats up the water by sitting on the stove rather than plugging into the wall) she asked "How do you work this thing?".

In some ways she actually seems more prototypically adult than me. This was noticeable the other evening when she prepared her dinner of crab cakes and salad with premium FETA, while I opted for popcorn and Primitivo. We have a really nice symbiotic relationship developing, where she might admire me for belonging to a Whatsapp group called "Intellectual Girls WLTT" (an acronym for "who love their titties"), and giving zero fucks walking to the local grocery to buy a £10 mango, wearing my robe and this:  

while I admire her for being precocious, vibrant, having undetectable pores, and checking in on me to make sure I'm not stuffed in a trunk when i've been incommunicado for three days. Also as I'm sat here at the dining table typing this, i shouted out to the ether that I was craving a lemon cake, and she went ahead and baked me one. Love her. 

So ya, I turned 36 and it was actually one of the best birthdays I can remember. There was a legal break in strict social distancing at the time so I managed to have a proper party with my crew at a bar in Chelsea and then bicycle back to East London with an oversized balloon strapped to my dungarees while london honked and shouted birthday wishes at me from the windows of their cars. I also treated myself to £300 worth of dental care (dental hygiene not covered either by NHS or my private insurance <insert tasteless stereotype on british teeth>), descaled my kettle, and had a good think about my goals for the year, something I do every August. I tend to really endeavor to execute my goals once I've committed them to the page and as such they tend to be things that are challenging but mostly in my control. This year because everything is tits up and out of control anyway, I decided to add on an annual goal that taps into metaphysics or the law of attraction or whatever, that "when you visualize it you materialize it" kinda maxim. So I added "get a boyfriend, fall in love" to my list. There, I SAID IT. No more of that "when you stop looking for it, it will happen" nonsense. I am taking a different, grab life by the testicles kind of approach and going alpha female on love. Anna, my sage, twenty year old flatmate tells me this is called "manifesting". 

Then. Other things I've noticed about getting older since August: I love to spend money and hate to waste it. I spent 70 quid on some lush eye retinol, only to drop the glass jar on my tiled bathroom floor the moment I took it out of the box. So i scraped up all that anti-aging gel off the floor, including the tiny fragments of commingled glass, and put it in another container. I'd rather dab eye gel with glass shards and pubes in it onto the most delicate layer of my face than waste a full bottle of anything Dr. Dennis Gross. I invest in quality loungewear. I have almost totally outgrown Sriracha. I iron my pillowcases. I am more political. I get excited when I get handed two-for-one cocktail flyers for bars in shoreditch (love a good coupon but also chuffed to think that they don't see my aging face as an impediment to their business). I also noticed a distinct sense of pride when my esthetician told me I had much less body hair down there than most her clients, who are overwhelmingly under the age of 28. I have developed an Instagram addiction that not even The Social Dilemma could spoil and am unsure whether this is age appropriate or not but at very least confirms my evolving strict adherence to habit. I have purchased exactly ONE share of BEYOND MEAT (BYND) because I want to be an adult with assets, but that's all I could afford. I am now more inclined to think I'm bleeding internally after having an episode of black stool than remembering I had a charcoal based pizza the night before, because, deteriorating abdominal organs.  And I have unabashedly picked my nose in a digital work meeting thinking my zoom camera was turned off because, deteriorating cranial organs.

In other events over the last two months, I completed my ballot for the Presidential Election which with Kanye West front and center looked more like a meme than  a political undertaking. But perhaps the most troubling event of late was losing my beloved grandmother, my mother's mother. A deliciously warm and positive woman with the most moving, generous spirit. I will save those real things earnest for the grottos of my heart, but her final piece of advice to me was serendipitously in accordance with one of my own line items: stop waiting so long to have babies. 

all that glitters ain't gold

Every year on my birthday I reflect on the year gone and the year to come to formulate a list of short term goals. August is my birthday month and indeed with the turn of the calendar I've been frantically working to tie up the ends of last year's goals, as well as begun thinking about what I'll put on my new to-do list. 

I'll be 36 this year and while living with rodents and a twenty year old girl was not what I'd have envisaged for my life plan at this age, there are decisive clues that indeed my life in its current state is an age appropriate one. One such example is evidenced by my amazon shopping history:

• book on how to get over your narcissistic/sociopathic/psychopathic ex, CHECK
• gigantic supply of detergent that makes your whites whiter, CHECK
• tea lights, CHECK
• swiffer refills, CHECK

On that last point, I really have no idea where all the dust in my bedroom is coming from. I feel like my life is just a circadian rhythm of dusting. Does anyone else feel this way? Anyone out there who can advise on how to stop it? I don't have pets or uncontrollable dandruff.

In addition to these amazon purchases, other age appropriate purchases of the last month which support my age include £120 on CBD oil to help with the anxiety/insomnia, a green velvet and gold sofa that is to die for, and an iron console table. weeee! these are the things that excite me. 

Less age appropriate expenditures were:

• an external keyboard (because remember I spilled a double margarita on my laptop and the apple store quoted me minimum £500 to fix it, so i settled with a magic keyboard (mom can you plzzz give me money to buy a new computer thx))
• trip to italy (because shouldn't i be more financially and socially responsible?)

This is what traveling during the age of COVID looks like:

(but also, this)

Other ways I know I'm imminently 36:

• I DM'd Kim Kardashian to congratulate her on the statement she put out about  Kanye/mental health for having been well written and compassionate and overall socially well conceived 
• I am waking up in the night with reflux despite my CBD oil 
• I choked on a shrimp summer roll when I was home alone but managed to avoid death by giving myself the Heimlich (actually now that I've put this in writing I think perhaps it fits better in the column of being age inappropriate?)
• I have a cupboard solely dedicated to tupperware 
• On a skype call with my 95 year old grandmother I asked what life advice she'd give a 35 year old and she said "all that glitters ain't gold, oh, and don't wait any longer to have a family"

Happy birthday to all my golden, leonine loves out there. 

Dick pic

For me it was the most peculiar Independence Day, observed from a metaphorical lawn chair parked on pejorative British soil, dramatized by the fact that the UK and EU are at present disinterested in hosting Americans within their territories. Not only this but the Fourth of July also happened to be the same day that restaurants, pubs, and hair salons reopened in London. Freedom reigned in Britain while  it narrowed in America. I was sent a meme: 

"Under Kennedy we went to the moon, under Trump we can't even go to Europe." 

I traded hotdogs, for goat cheese stuffed mushrooms and salmon from nordic waters, fireworks for candles, and shitty beer for a bottle of champagne. And yes I am feeling smug. Smug and grateful to live in a country where there is health coverage for all and the man in power listens to his scientific advisors, and people don't revolt against face coverings as a political statement. I did kinda miss the hotdogs though. 

But it isn't all NHS style glamour on this side of the pond. The rodent has started showing up more and more despite pest control setting up traps and filling in structural gaps. Ratatouille even shows up in the daytime now and barely flinches when I screech. He marches into the kitchen like he owns the place, like "bitch, mind your business, imma just get this cheese outta the fridge. You want?" The pest control dude has been here three times in the last month, to the point even he has lost insight into his professional boundaries with me. 

Here is the progression of our texts:

"Good afternoon, contacting you from Pest Control. I have ordered the required stock for the proofing to be carried out. I'm aiming to attend this Friday providing it arrives. Would this be convenient?"

Yes that's fine. 

"Have to ask, that map in your front room I was looking at the other day, where did you get it? I really want it"

[No answer.]

2 hours later... 

"Would it be wrong to ask how old you are?"

Definitely not appropriate but I'm closer to my forties than twenties.

"Did you think I'm in my 20's then btw?"

I didn't think about it!

"Oh haha well I might be younger then you but I'm closer to turning 40 then I am to turning 20 myself."

Well that's reassuring. (Thinking to myself "you spelled 'then' wrong.") 

"I'm glad to be of help. But I'm sure your not that much older then me. When I first met ya I thought you were about my age maybe younger to be honest"

"You* not ya"

Okkkkkaaaaayyyyyyyy.

So anyhoo, I have evidently been traumatized from having been forced into cohabitation with Ratatouille that anytime there is something on the floor like a sock, scrunchie, or birkenstock, an adrenaline bomb goes off in my body. I swear I'm going to have a fucking heart attack one of these days and my flatmate will come home to Ratatouille standing over my dead body, snorting all my Stilton.  This is one reason I really need a boyfriend, or a cat. It's a sliding doors kind of moment in a woman's life.

My flatmate Anna sadly decided to move out (and in with her quarantine lover!) which would have been a perfect opportunity for my boyfriend to move in. Only problem is no boyfriend. So I put an advertisement up a couple weeks ago on spareroom.com. I sent Anna the link and asked her to send me a test message to ensure it was working properly. After a few minutes nothing came in. So I asked her to send me another one, which came through immediately.

Me: Anna, I got the "testing testing". Did you send me anything else?  

She replied with this screenshot:

Me: Oh, I didn't get the dick pic.

Anna: What, that's crazy.

Me: Yea I guess they censored it.

Anna: Yea but i wrote "dick pic", i didn't send you an actual dick pic. 

Not seeing the non dick pic dick pic was the most action I had all winter and spring. It still hasn't come through. 

My area is gold and the flat is so cute, under normal circumstances I'd have been spoiled for choice of potential paying residents. Only this time, presumably given the extremely uncertain covid driven circumstances, I had only four people respond to the advert. 

The first was a boy who wrote immediately saying how nice the flat was and asked enthusiastically if he could come see it, but then ghosted me when I actually replied. SHOCKER! A man who ghosted as soon as a woman showed interest. Gents, if you are ghosting people in any capacity you are a cliche! Girls talk a lot of shit about people like you. My emphatic life advice to you and your friends would be to aim for some originality by actually responding, even if to say you're not interested. This will take you far in life. 

The second was a girl roughly my age who worked in post production for TV. She was absolutely adorable and fun and I knew in an instant we were highly compatible. Only she couldn't afford it due to temporary covid related cuts to her salary. So I offered to subsidize her rent until she got her usual cash flow back. Sadly she was too conscious to accept. She was so good I wanted to pay her to move in. And pay her to be my friend. 

The third was another seemingly chic and edgy girl with a nose ring who worked as a curator for a London art gallery. She was my age and could afford it. But she came with a cat which meant she came with a litter box and I just couldn't bring myself to do cat poo or  cat hair, even with the Ratatouille situation. I have this hangup where hair or fur that's left the body really makes me queasy. 

The fourth was a girl who was working full time and also doing a diploma course in something to do with numbers/cash and ensured me she would be quiet and sensible. She was perky and eager to please, with long blonde hair and heels. Potential for real danger: she was 20 years old and showed up at the viewing with her MOTHER, wearing not only a blazer in desert heat but also a mask and rubber gloves, and stayed this way for the full two hours (TWO HOURS!) they were in my house, even after I had told them I had already been diseased in March. I felt like the hazmat situation might have been symbolic of  her  having lived a very sheltered life, one that would result in her judging me for doing normal human things like pooping or shooting whipped cream directly into my mouth from the can. But as my current flatmate Anna reminded me, "she'll be good for the rent money and maybe her mum will even buy you a Lamborghini". So, I went for it. Stay posted for updates on that after August 1st. 

Other than this, not much else going on where the new highlight of my day is checking the mail. The sense of joy that floods my soul every day I saunter down to the post box is akin to Christmas morning. Only problem is that the disappointment I feel when there is not even a junk letter is excruciating and unbearable. There is really nothing going on. Things got a little exciting for a minute when I noticed a new cafe had opened up downstairs, though my momentary interest was  thwarted when I asked if they did matcha lattes and the barista responded that "they did mocha lattes". Like, I appreciate they both start with the letter "M", but they're really not the same. 

Welp, it's time to go refresh the news and my weather app for the 293903495034985th time today...

(And happy fourth to my cronies on the other side.)