Week 34, 2026: Of tarts and bras
Ever had a conversation so unpleasant it led to the creation of a new project in your to-do list app? Shaky hands, hot cheeks, new project in Things 3.0. That’s when you know it’s serious. Anytime I think I have made progress towards being okay with feeling misunderstood, I am reminded that I have a long way to go. Onwards and westwards. Outside of The Drama, I have had a very pleasant week.
On Monday, I showed up five minutes early to a friend’s flat with chocolate-covered pretzels. She had kindly invited me into her cozy home and affable circle for book club. As she made tea, I said hello to the other comrades and we soon got chatting about Animal Farm. It was probably notable that I was happy to go long stretches of time just listening but I did manage to bring up the Arab Spring. We all went down to the back garden to smoke afterwards and I repeated the golden rule in my head so I wouldn’t be impolite. I’d smoked before but never in a group setting and it was important to me that I not be impolite. I hugged all of them goodbye, last of all my friend, and jumped on a streetcar with the rest of my pretzels.
Finishing off Animal Farm inspired me to revisit Of Mice and Men. Shout out to the lecturer who asked us to read this novel when I was in college and later helped me write my UCAS application. She once pulled me into her office and asked what I think would happen if she were to suggest we read a homoerotic play for class. I knew she knew the answer but hoped that someone born and bred in the culture would know a good thing she didn’t. I plainly said there would be formal complaints. There’s a lot you can get away with as an English woman, I said, but there are lines that nobody is allowed to publicly cross and this is one of them.
But they’re taking a theatre class, she said, doesn't that make them more open-minded? They’re just looking for an easy A, I explained, disliking that I had to be the one to say it. She told me she couldn’t bear any of it: the censorship, the misogyny, the weather. It’s hard out in the desert. Maybe I’ll just go back to London, she said.
I want to move there too. I want to continue my studies there, I said. Can you help me? In exchange for her help, I agreed to audition for the Prince part in her gender-subversive Romeo and Juliet pla. I was terribly shy then and didn’t get cast but she said she admired that I showed up to the audition room, clutching her script with sweaty hands. Many didn’t. We both ended up moving to London and, as is often the case when two people have said too much to each other, we never spoke again.
So, the reading continues, the running continues, the bra-researching continues. I’ve had two women measure me and give me wildly different sizes, both of which fit well. The numbers and letters have lost all meaning in my eyes. 38B, 36C, 32D. I can't help it, though. I can’t help thinking about clothes, even when it confounds me. I’ve gone my whole life not thinking about them but I finally understand the fuss. Fabrics and silhouettes and colour seasons and body type essences. Necklines and waistlines, textures and patterns, collars and belts and straps.
I was at the nail shop a few weeks ago and the nail technician asked a lady sitting next to me what nail shape she wanted. Normal, she answered in confusion. Why? What are the options? The options are round, square and rounded square, I answered in my head. I know this because of my friend, who would ask for the rounded square. I know that when you’re getting your eyebrows threaded and the woman taps your face, she wants you to pull at your face from either side so she can take a good look. I know the hiss of the straightener when it hits damp hair and I know the feel of hot wax on an arm but I’ve missed the memo on clothes and deeply feel what that woman felt when she said: Why? What are the options?
On Wednesday, I met up with Anouk at Dutch Dreams to celebrate a milestone in her life. We had a little kerfuffle about who should pay for the banana split and she won. I enjoyed the hell out of that split. Incredible ratio of ice-cream to nut and fruit. We talked about day jobs and money and clothes and then perched down on the floor of a library, her rummaging through picture books while we made silly comments. I can see her eyes wander sometimes when I’m in the middle of a story and I don’t know whether to stop or to keep going. I often opt for the latter, rushing through the words, but maybe I should try shutting up.
On Friday, I cut up a business card into six fat strips and used them to test perfume samples I’d ordered online. I took notes like ‘fruity but levelled by a maturity’ and ‘smells like someone I would be on a train’ and ‘reminds me of iron even though it smells like grass’. After my hard note-taking work, I ate three sungold kiwis that had been sitting in my fridge for far too long because I was afraid they’d rot and was sick of not being allowed (by myself) to buy berries until all of the kiwis had been consumed. I recorded a short video of me eating them on PhotoBooth because that felt like a silly thing to surprise my future self with someday. Just a video of me eating kiwis in silence with juices dripping down my chin.
It happened again, lost in my own world at a bakery, eating a butter tart with my sunglasses on. Best butter tarts in the world eh?, a guy said as he passed. They’re amazing, I said, sticky with butter. I had wanted to go to the Toronto Islands this weekend but it was raining heavily so I bought an umbrella and drank a dirty chai instead. In the evening, I passed by a pizza event run by the guy whose business card I cut up (it’s nothing personal! I needed thick paper!) and said hello and goodbye.