30 things I'm glad I discovered, and 10 things I'm curious about - (20 M)

Things I'm glad I discovered

1. Dark blue nail polish
2. Pink/red hair dye streaks in my fringe
3. Golden eyeshadow (when rosie does it)
4. Lucifer the show
5. The wicked and divine (comic series)
6. My leather jacket
7. My denim jacket
8. Charity shop clothes in my size
9. Lush fun - yes the playdoh stuff
10. Dragula
11. Hostel travel
12. Music festivals
13. Black and white hair pomade
14. Ear cuffs
15. Pound coin ring pendants and asos jewellery
16. Calvin Klein aftershave
17. DIY dressing gowns
18. Primary coloured clothing
19. Atomic blonde
20. Buffy
21. Dorian Electra
22. Indie wrestling / Effy Gibbes
23. Caramel hot chocolate
24. Beard painting with facepaint
25. My dad wrote a porno
26. Bioshock
27. Contrapoints
28. My white bowie heels
29. Not wearing the Bowie heels to anywhere with dancing
30. The rock soc



things i'm Curious about:
1. Lush glowsticks as eyeshadow
2. Leggings
3. Dark blue lipstick
4. New Aftershaves
5. Sewing
6. Colourful tattoos
7. Very Mild genderqueerness (demi boy?)
8. New crafting fields
9. Learning to actually do eyeshadow without looking like a clown
10. Moving to a new city

the valentines day night i spent with a gay porn star

So a friend of mine from the radical fairy party and I had been messaging back and forth since the party, mostly as friends hearing about him and his boyfriends adventures. Until one day, out of the blue I get a message saying “hey, I’m hosting a party in stoke as my alter ego “ripper moff.” As almosot all of my stories go, I was intrigued. 

So the weekend stumbled around and I rock up in Stoke, headphones in and staring down at google maps like it would save my life. When I arrived into central Stoke it reminded me of a town in a zombie film. Shutters and gaggles of strangers. A zombie hipster horror film. I squirmed around for a while, getting increasingly aware that the bar I was being summoned to was the other side of the town. Not open yet.

I get in and having smoked the place out, receive a message saying come to the hotel. I tag along and halfway through, find a glittery red figure in a Mary Poppins hat, a cruella devile coat, and a thickly coated crimson glitterbeard. I shouted over something charming. “oh hello darLING” they grinned with open arms. Their boyfriend trailing behind with a leaning tower of bags. I thought the boyfriend was supposed to stay in Scotland. I tag along and they scurry me into the nightclubs “back passage” with a few cheap jokes.

I’m introduced gradually to a gaggle of transdudes and NBs with an assortment of tattoos and slightly genderfucky clothing. I tried to smile and mingle, helping out behind the scenes (read: hovering awkwardly and saying the wrong thing, why do I keep having the scooby doo “their right behind me” moment?) until the Scottish boyfriends says to me with a grin and an accent. “hey, the games are beginning in a few minutes, you should volunteer” he smirked. “we’ll see” I replied with a tilt of the head. “oh heads up, we might be having our friend Max over, he’s a Frenchman in the adult industry” he half warned half advertised.

We watched the first song. Ripper in giant red boots lipsyncing to "popular" from the wicked musical, glitterbearding the owner of the venue and dressing them in sparkly spandex. I mingled with the crowd, and tried to make friends. There was a moment when I nipped to the loo, hearing a notable french accent from the sink as a skinny guy with a pair of oversized glasses washed his hands and mumbled to himself. After I returned to the dancefloor I was joined by the scottsman and the burlesque act.

 “so the games begin when our friend comes” I get told.  “wait, skinny guy? French? I think he’s already here” I admitted. At this point I wasn’t aware of who the blind date was. All i knew is my name was on the list.

So I got called to the stage alongside a larger, slimy dude in his 30s, and a pink/purple haired gentleman who lacked the gift of conversation. The host grinned “So these fine folks are here to compete for the evening affections of a French porn star, they will be asked 3 questions and rated on their answers.” The penny dropped. The penny totally dropped. The penny practically death-dropped.

The slimey guy was asked the first question “so as a Frenchman … I love food but I personally cannot cook. What would you cook for me?” he was asked. I froze. Think. Think think think.

“I totally fancy yooooooooooouuuuuuuu” garbled the drunken first guy. I was next and I smiled nervously. “I would cook you pancakes … because it won’t be the only thing getting flipped” I stuttered. Pretending to be more confident than I was. The purple guy froze like a rabbit in headlights. “well. I would cook you bangers and mash because I'd bang your mash” he replied. I winced gutterally from my soul at such a terrible line.

“Question Two, as a porn star I’ve seen it all! What would your USP be in the bedroom?” I was chosen first. I didn’t have time to think of a funny answer. “You wouldn’t have to impress me, and also I’d let you have snack breaks” I winced. Fully aware that wasn’t the peak answer to that question.

“Question three, I’m travelling to Vegas soon, if you were my date where would you take me” the Frenchman asked. I can’t remember the other answers. I suggested “the festival circuit. So you can watch someone else perform for a change” I gulped. The host made the audience cheer us, and the draw fell down to me vs the purple guy.

Purple guy won and I was given a kiss on the cheek, “it’s a shame, you’re cute too” he confessed in passing, me getting lost in the eye contact and the politeness for a solid ten seconds. Him and purple guy vanished upstairs for his drinks, and I carried on, thinking that was my entire connection with Mr Max Angel. I scurried around chatting and mingling, and getting told how handsome I was by a passing drag queen. I reacted a knee jerk “thank you” that thinking back was totally in my retail voice.

Hours later I found the scotsman and his friends in a gaggle. I joined them drunkenly and mingled. Joking and complimenting the assortment of monochrome tattoos in my area. Max and the purple guy were both called to the stage for a parlour game involving an oversized bedsheet. 

The purple guy didn’t turn up and max stood there alone. 

I was quick to pick up the slack! I hopped on stage and stood in the bedsheets. Ripper strode the stage and gestured to me and max, next to a pair of the Scotsman’s friends. “the aim of the game is to swap clothing. You will get more points based on who wears more of the partners clothes. You don’t have to swap anything and we wont judge you for that, but you get two countdown timers, or one minute.” They explained.

Now I had auditioned for naked attraction. Nudity doesn’t weird me out. However it REALLY didn’t weird out Max. this was his bread and butter. The first of the two timers went and I flung off my clothes like a mad man, scrapeing up white skinny jeans half my size and a suffocating black tee shirt. The zip wouldn’t go up. These jeans weren’t designed for me. the second timer finished and the bedsheet dropped. My genitals hidden by strategically held underwear from the entire crowd.

In the flurry to switch back I accidentally kneed max in the forehead. Apologising profusely as I bent down to grab my jeans from the dark, very aware that I was now at face level with Max’s quite sizable genitals. It wasn’t arousal. It was a deep awareness that I could lose an eye. When the timer stopped I managed only just to zip up my jeans. I was still topless. Max however, revelled in the nudity. The boss, whom I’d accidentally insulted earlier than night bought be a cider as a thank you for being a good sport and I wandered away. So pink guy was a coward.

I managed to find a topless Max slumped at the end of the night, focussing on his phone. I joined him and the seat and got talking idlely. Partly out of desperate curiosity, partly out of the charm. he compared notes about the people in the photos and footage of his twitter, his day-to-day stable job in computers, and how he got ghosted by the purple guy without him even saying goodbye. A new friend, I smiled. We headed to the hotel, and I discovered he was staying in the same building.

The next morning we shared an uber and a coffee. It was a small gesture, but I was gradually becoming smitten. *his job is literally to make people fancy him* I reminded myself sharply. But the cheek kiss goodbye and the lilting French accent was too much for me, I melted and hoped I’d see him again. Maybe sometime.

a weekend with love dragon 2, in Manchester the dragon trains you

After a night in a hellish 1930s hostel I got back to the venue with minimal faff. It was going well. I made it to the cafe and met the mish mash of young and old. Grateful Phoenix at the bar with a smile. The first one I met was pax, a vaguely dude shaped Scotsman, who was either 14 or not as loved by puberty as I was expecting. It was warm. Wholesome almost.

We entered the "sexy vampire room" and sat in a circle, learning sensation via rope against skin. The black hemp rope was much softer than the other one. It tickled, not entirely a distraction but enough to make me escape some of the background noise in my brain. There was some questionable knot lessons (that I failed) and then a hushed cheese toastie break. During this break I met a mistress in a shiny necklace who seemed to embody a much more mumish energy to the kind I was expecting. Her name was mistress Susie and she was much more civilised than I expected.

I remembered a thing that was mentioned in passing last night, about the sessions being £100 per go. A "tribute". Maybe a side hustle for mum, I thought, aware that no one could clock me passing for either butch or domineering.

Of course after hearing all the horror stories I began to wonder if I was in too deep ... before really springy couple arrived. Mid 30s, not particularly kinky looking. "Its a second date" one of them admitted with a giggle. Bold move, I thought. But to their credit, their presence defused all the tension in the room. made me feel safe.

So the playfight session began, and I was paired for a warm up with Phoenix. Getting close enough to smell his aftershave in what was essentially competitive cuddling ... to start. It eventually escalated, each person having a different flavour, a different style. Some were goofy, some had a machismo rivalry, and some were borderline flirty. It was fascinating seeing peoples entire dynamics explained in a 10 minute scrap, people who'd never met before. I found out later that day, that Pheonix wasn't wearing aftershave. apparently my dry spell was much longer than i remembered.

So I completed that day, eating cheese toasties and listening to an 80s music mix with a dominatrix, a cutesy semi-hetronormative couple, a trans guy who looks about 14, his genderqueer master, and a completely zen German with a daft moustache!

that night i was walked to canal street and released. having been point blanc referred to as "ayyyyyyyyyyy Cardiff boy!" by a random stranger. it took me a solid 30 seconds to work out the welsh badge i was wearing. head above the waves, a mental health charity found near Cardiff. I never got to confirm that theory. she vanished before i could. i browsed the pubs before heading home, a box of chicken and chips in my arms, cradled like a child. i called it a night!

Day 3 crawled up. I didn't think I would come back, but they convinced me. So I went back to the dungeon. At this point I don't even associate it with its primary purpose, its just a gothy house to me now. There's an almost familial vibe with the main 5. Dragon as the cool older brother, Susie as the mum, and Phoenix as the dad.

This time around for the rope stuff, I was partnered with love dragon. This was doubly intense, partly because he chose to be topless and because he smelt palpably of pheromones and gruff manliness. I was then paired with Susie, and intimidated by her legacy, I began to second guess myself. My 3rd partner, Pax the trans guy, almost fell face first in a trance state. So all in all a success?

I also heard dragon, a tall German man with the voice of a hippie and the body of an otter in a kink bar, awkwardly stutter talking about the cleavage of an attendee. Starting off with "I'm super SUPER gay ... but I found it really interesting doing this task with a female bodied person with such cleavage" he stuttered, still graceful in awkwardness. His unusual combination of fascination and fear making Susie blush right into a fuscia colour scheme that matched the walls.

In the break between the events we chatted, and Pax was walked to the station. "I'm fed up of people who keep asking me questions about the event without reading the thingy" Phoenix ranted at me. I thinned my lip awkwardly, hadn't I done that? was this a weird critique? "I wouldn't say this in front of customers ... but you've been here all weekend so your part of the family now" he uttered bluntly... so I've been adopted by a German hippie, a dominatrix, a transgender puppy, and an awkward drama kid grown up. What is my life?

but joking aside i was strangely honoured. how did i feel comfortable skipping to nudity and wrestling with these people, hell to be considered part of their group. so much closer than i would be with my housemates or anyone else, yet only having met on the Friday, in a dark lane by an industrial estate.

a weekend with Love Dragon, the first day

How did I end up here? Huddled by the wall of a strange yet warm pub on the sketchier side of Manchester. waiting for a German bondage expert to introduce me to a ton of hippies known as "the radical faeries," in what was promised not to be a sexual activity despite taking place in a literal Rihanna music video style dungeon.

It all started after Dragula, when I discovered my life in the suburbs wasn't exciting enough, and required some queering up. I've met rad faeries in the past, strange people with unusual clothing, glitter, and funny names like Dandelion Chalice. I didn't think much of it beyond the novelty. I would have never been able to guess that half a year later I'd be in a pub in Manchester in late January, meeting them for a hippie training thing.

After waiting half an hour more than expected and having to pretend I'd been stood up for the sake of the pushy bar owner, I met them. Two amab people, a bearded figure with a soft German lilt, and a person with chaotic white hair and a glitter scarf. They called themselves Love Dragon (the German) and Grateful Phoenix (the blonde.) Arguable the polar opposite of the sorts of people I'd be expecting using the venue.


The first room emulated a fun bar that lead into a rich wine red upstairs, filled with bedrooms. Each starting off normal until I found the top room, a red and black chamber with chains and medieval imagery and the kind of restraints required for an exorcism. As far as first times go, I was getting mixed signals.The walrus-y man, the German, took charge. The soft accent being this paper thin veil between me and the overwhelming feeling of "this is how I die" that flooded me. He sat on the central bed and spoke, securing eye contact.

We started off with a trust exercise, me in a ridiculous black vest technicolor legging combo. We joined hands and the two people on the outside had to guide the middle person while keeping their eyes closed. I held their hands. Soft hands. How can their hands be so soft? And walked, waiting to feel the energy and guessing at my destination.

After that occurred we were debriefed and I was asked whether I wanted to start off as the massager or the massaged, and whether I had training. I chose massager. I could imitate, the mountain of pure German that stood before me, and so the grateful Phoenix stripped off and lay still.

We vibed well, the German and I. maintaining eye contact and brushing coconut oil across the strangers body. I shifted in my leggings, in order to hide any physical reactions to the stranger arse naked on a bed in front of me. I felt it then, all the vague poetry the team had spouted at me, the eye contact making me feel like the hesitation before a kiss. It was somehow both incredibly homoerotic and yet entirely wholesome. My affections seeming to magnetise more to the partner masseuse than the body in front of me. "How do you not fall in love with everyone you massage with?" I attempted to ask. Dragon smirked back at me calmly "what makes you think that's a bad thing?" Counter-riddled the dragon.

Sooner or later it was my turn. I wasn't phased by nudity, so I stripped off following suit with the Phoenix and lay there cadavourously. (Is that a real word? I like it regardless!). Soon I was lost for a moment, in a limbo between the present and my thoughts. It wasn't as sexy an experience as I imagined it to be, I felt like a hedonistic Greek emperor getting serviced by his team. My little joke about "accidentally joining the cult of Dionysus" suddenly becoming increasingly relevant. At one point the hands joined forced into some kind of across the body massage rumba.

Finally love dragon took his turn, stripping off rapidly and laying there. For the second time that day I had to remind myself that although the butt can and should be handled. Everything has to be done professionally and not in an uncomfortable way. This time the magic didn't stick tho, Phoenix and I often missed the frequencies required for a silent joint meditation. "Don't focus on the experience for me, I'm a forest I don't care. The important thing is your exploring the forest in tune together" he prescribed. I tried to read the braille of the body, but there was no spark this time and I suspect Phoenix felt that too.

I left in a bizarre state. Deeply turned on yet somehow deeply turned off at the same time.

a tale of dragula, genderfucks, and suprisingly friendly kinksters

Over Christmas my fascination piqued. There was a free TV show I’d see drifting around online a bit. Drag acts dressing as terrifying monsters and other things that go bump in the night. I binged the entire 3 seasons in one sitting over the course of a week, loving all the campy over the top, almost buffy-ish aesthetic choices. There was a tongue in cheek to it, especially given the henchmen of the hosts. The boulet brothers, statuesque drag queens, always had a topless brooding figure behind them, and an scrappy Asian man in his underwear for any practical needs (ie to play a zombie victim within a sketch.)

Prior to this, my opinions on drag were very hot and cold. I used to pride myself in disliking all that superficial stuff and the hot pink bitchy aesthetic, but slowly, via meeting drag acts that were actually talented and much more practical, with comedy being the focus of UK queens, unlike their American counterparts. My opinion dripped like a sand timer until I disagreed with my past self. That seems to be a reoccurring theme of university.

Anyway cut to a week ago. I hurdle my wedges into a backpack and take to the train station, squealing metal rushing me to Manchester, old smokey’s slightly more punk rock sister. Naturally I go to Affleck’s palace to kill some time, exploring the spicier options. Everything from fur coats to healing crystals (which I’m sure have a very mixed success rate, but everyone needs a placebo.)

£20 pounds of drinks and roaming left and I end up in the queue for dragula’s show. Ironically not in canal street, but quite fittingly in a bar called rebellion. 

I queue up and get in conversation with a 16 year old girl in a drawn on moustache, chatting there for an hour about everything from our favourite act to how relieved I am to have escaped the education system. Slowly the queue starts becoming more bizarre, split 50/50 between people in painfully normal clothing, and people in a carnival of glitterbeards, wigs, unusual face paint and clothing only just made suitable despite its more sexual connotations.

Another one I found myself magnetised to was a blonde figure, 5”4, glitterbearded and dressed in a way that almost resembled a Rockstar from the mid 2000s, some mash up of Gerard Way, P!nk , and a new romantic from the 80s. I learned that this figure was called Felix Cited, and after sighing at tragedy of that pun, met their spouse, a perfectly ordinary looking dude in a denim jacket. They seemed as baffled as I was.

We enter the party, me having made friends with a handful of strangers, and of course I followed my curiousity. I cant resist. I start with the creature in the sundress, roughly 5”10 with flowing hair, a shaggy beard, and a face of make up. They had an ethereal energy, drifty yet certain about things. Like something that would help you in a forest at night, some forest sprite. I sort myself out, going to the bathroom and exploring the bar area. There were 8 foot Amazonian women and 5 foot cowboys in a strenciled on moustache. They seemed to surround me, kinksters, genderfucks, and Halloween costume enthusiasts spilling from all angles. I felt safe, yet completely out of my depth. I found a series of vaguely trustworthy looking people and asked for advice. “stay out of spitting distance of the stage” offered one of the amazonians and her harnessed companion.

I switched shoes, rare to be a man in heels and still not the most attention getting person in the room, but half the room was in some variation of genderfuck so me in my wedges wouldn’t even register on the radar.

The show began and two figures, ballpark renditions of womanhood in white contact lenses emerged, speaking crisply to the crowd. To my surprise they brought Ian, the plucky assistant, in his harness and jockstrap. They announced a series of music renditions, the most haunting being Evah Destruction in full mad clown makeup, scuttling to a song called “the laughing track” by crooger, at roughly 5 miles her hour. Mimeing deranged laughter and casting a victimising daggered finger as she chuckled at the audience. At some point there was silly string. I now understood the warning. God help what the audience would be covered in by the end of the show.

Another act I particularly liked involved Victoria Elizabeth Black, dressed like a Victorian morgue worker. She dissected a plastic and paper mache corpse, taking out organs as props and at one point riding against it to a rock song. I slowly discovered that this collection of plastic and paint was about to get more action than I was within this evening.

At the break I met more of the audience, asking about the figure beside me. he wore netting, features sharpened with make up to look bloodied and emphasised, and a crown with a hand crawling from it. A drag king inspired by Landon Cider’s victory … I assumed.  “wow how did you get the chest so realistic?” I asked, my sceptical eye cast over it to find evidence it was a prop. I was told later that I was dealing with an authentic male person, and that those pecs through the netting were in fact real. A flush of mild embarrassment took over me, explaining away my behaviour with the truth to receive pragmatism and a “well I was going for that look” kind of response that made my close inspection seen considerably less creepy than without the context.

By the end of the night I was intoxicated by the audience. Everyone seemed to have so much richer a story to them that night. One notable creature was a 6 foot man covered in latex clothing. Despite his costume, his face seemed trustworthy. I spoke to him for a while before being introduced to his lovely wife, and their friend. “are those … real?” I enquired, seeing a chest that defied all laws of physics. She smiled at me sincerely, “nope, inflatable. Touch them!” she offered eagerly. I jabbed at what was essentially a set of balloons, before she began to market her crafting skills to me. “I love to work with latex” she responded.

I got my photos, and left. I was restless. I wanted to party, to meet more unusual specimens … but I thought I had a 9AM the day after. I withdrew from the party and hoddled to the train station. I was gutted to discover the 9AM I was on a quest to get to, had been cancelled. My brain weighed up the lost potential against the success of the party. I added “go back to Manchester” back on my bucket list, and sighed.

hell in white wedges

People often say "she's hell in high heels" ... apparently I'm "Dyspraxia in white wedges"

I had a hankering for city life, so after an hour or two of checking my friends schedules and finding they were all being adults I decided to pop to Liverpool and see if the giant lush shop were still doing new year sales.

This culminated in me sticking to bold street, rooting through vintage shops, and falling in love with a pair of white, 3 inch platform wedge heels. "Bowie-ish, no! Freddie mercurian" I bargained with myself in Hope's that my little impulse moment of barely there genderfuckery would be worth it. Size 10. A good start. I could fit into them but I could barely zip them up.

"Is there anything I can do to alter these" I plucked up the courage to ask after multiple courtesy sweeps of the vintage shop. The retail assistant/part time barber (I later discovered) smiled and suggested taking them to the cobblers. "And what the hell does style J mean?" I inquired.

The barber looked at them as if he'd forgotten food in the oven. "That's the release date. I can whack them down to half price" he offered. My eyes sparkled at that sentence.

Cobbling expensive shoes was an investment, cobbling cheap shoes was an adjustment. I hauled my victory shoes (£14 by the end) into a bag and left, completely forgetting the existence of the lush shop.

Cut to the next day and I had gushed to all my androgynous or remotely trendy friends about these victory shoes. I even made two reddit posts, one of which attracted over 2k likes (which is weird, thanks r/thriftstorehauls). I talked about them the way people talk about roller coasters or season finales.

I tried to get them after uni, only to be informed that stretching shoe leather is a multi day process, so the discomfort would Have to do.

So I went to Rosie's, the local night club, in my flex shoes. This is where I learned what suffering is. Dyspraxia and stairs, dancing and heels, it was a disgrace and one that felt like Japanese foot binding... that was until I pulled.

Now maybe that was a me thing, being at the right place at the right time with an androgynous pirate looking person who was essentially if Johnathan Van Ness from queer eye played a rogue with questionable eyeliner and a lot of hip themed dance moves. But I feel the extra few inches helped.

You can do a lot with a surprise 3 inches, as I would joke that night. Wanda, the DJ/drag queen/agent of chaos began to torment us. They seemed to be old friends. The entire time all I could think was "JFC how does she not break her foot in her shoes every other night"


I left, of course, limping, heels in hand, alongside my friends. The glam rock heroes of the 80s may have stardust in their shoes ... but for a mortal like me I think I'll pace myself and stick to converse.

What I've learned:

1) £14 David Bowie shoes are a win

2) people wont clock anything aside from a drastic increase in height

3) they help correct your walking and make you pull

4) the trade off is any feeling below the ankle whatsoever that isn't crippling pain

Merida, postmen, cowboys, and australian DILFS, - the green man experience

To be honest I was dreading green man festival, I’d just adapted to sleeping on real beds and I was not willing to live in a cold wet field in the Brecon beacons. it was meant to be "the quiet festival", the slow wind down to normal life from such an extreme situation. Obviously this is not how the night ended up. Something about sleep deprivation means that everything that occurred there was either the best or the worst. credit to the Green Man team though they treat their volunteer staff really well with a very reasonable expectation of hours, lively characters to keep morale up, and cheap food available to keep the cranky hungriness away. 

However it was the people that made that festival particularly memorable. Starting with my main companion for the weekend, a girl with fiery hair that can only be explained through a secret love child between River Song from doctor who and Merida from brave. She was distinctly well travelled and definitely not sheltered, yet had a quite cockney London speech pattern, complete with the unironic use of words like “geezer.” Most importantly she was on my wavelength in a way that I was worried I wasn’t going to find at green man.

The other people involved included a young Jewish guy named Dan (wearing a star of david and quipping about his religion every few seconds) who had an odd combo of nerdiness and confidence that quietly floated him through the festival, and a chef with massive poodle-rock hair (still can’t decide if it was styled like that or if his hair just afros like that) and a nerdy shrine of arm tattoos that he apparently drew himself. His accent was a cloudy, gentle, welsh lilt, and that paired with his cartoonish facial expressions and actions lead me to believe he was destined to be a stall merchant in a video game, or perhaps a pokemon gym leader. Either way I wanted to keep him around. 

On the other hand there was also a gentleman who introduced himself as "love", he was covered in eyeliner geometric cult symbols and spoke with a cadence to his voice that never seemed to arrive anywhere. he was full androgynous hippie, the kind of person who would have been charming if he gave you straight answers instead of trailing off on vaguely hippie-ish enigmatic wankery. he didn't seem to have much direction, and although his aesthetic was fascinating in a post apocalypse grunge homemade way, there was too much of an absence to him. like he was barely in the room even when he was sat in front of you. it also didn't help that one of the first things he explained to me was asking if I wanted to learn how to make a soy bottle into an ash tray and that he was collecting recycling bits for a craft project "as an artist."

On the first volunteer shift I was left with Dan, with whom I traded bad puns regarding basically everything in the area. I talked to one of the live events, a dynamic duo of sisters dressed in shorts and a caricature postman’s uniform. There was a service where people could leave messages for strangers or friends based on descriptions varying from “pink hair girl, elephant leggings” to a match.com style shopping list of traits. One of the posties even took a fondness towards me, adopting me as an honorary younger brother for the weekend due to a slight similarity to her own brother. This was incredibly useful due to the amount of hugs I’d need to keep morale at an acceptable level. 

She tried to set me up on a blind date, but I passed because I’d already found someone for that. I began viewing the posties as like the volunteer fire department in lemony snicket, a cult of inherently trustworthy strangers.

I went to compliment a stranger’s hair – a pink undercut – but lost them before I managed to tell them how cool they were. Luckily for me I found them again as Jodie, the redhead, went to visit something else. A tall figure, dressed in a leather vest with a cowboy hat and glasses, who I shortly got to know as “Mattie.” More commonly thought of by me as “the polyamorous, the 6 foot 6, pink haired cowboy” or simply just “the cowboy.” Despite this incredibly distinctive description he was incredibly hard to find.

He warmed up to me quickly and I guess we became amorous for the evening, everything above the belt but still incredibly good company. He clicked his fingers like he was at a poetry night when he was impressed and had a way of making you feel special for a moment before continuing without you. I found myself wandering around with part of my brain fixated on his whereabouts, not infatuation but fascination. The second time I met him had at least twice the amount of leather. I hope I left a good impression.

Event highlights included Emer Maguire singing science songs about animal sex, the temple of the tattie selling us into an Irish potatoe cult, the burning of the green man, and the mysterious caravan inhabited by vintage dressed people in animal masks, who would gesture to you and draw you if you visited, like an alice in wonderland booth. A raven woman typewritered me and Jodie a poem, and there was a simple sketch in sharpie marker to remember the weekend by.

I also missed a shift of mine and flurried back to the steward tent realising what I’d done. I pleaded for a replacement shift to get an older gentleman with a tan and Australian dark hair and maturely designed tattoos look me in the eyes knowingly. Despite knowing his name I refer to this gentleman purely as “the australian DILF” for ease. He smiled and said “I can see your stressing, go to bed and make sure you don’t miss the next one.” I followed his advice to see him the next morning grinning. “how was the night shift? Good wasn’t it!” he asked hinting. I followed suite and promised him I’d do a shift or buy him a drink or something. I never got to buy him that apology/thank-you-for-being-my-alibi drink in the end.

I did however suffer through my night shift, six hours in wet wellies at the pitch blackness that left a bad taste in my mouth. i was bitter and cold. be warned. volunteering leads you into deep bitter coldness.