Blue Dress Hot Mess

July

24/07/2025:

I decide to wait for the Circle Line via Liverpool Street. It feels like a Bold Move. Like in some way I am trumping London, like if this were a game of cards I would suddenly – mentally cautiously, but physically confidently – have the upper hand. My Gaga Poker Face has been perfected by years of singing. The flaw in my plan is the 8:30am commuter; the slugs and the snails. The creepy crawlies who come alive and times their speed by 100% at certain times of day, but still move in their unseeing, unhearing, senselessly sensual state (I say sensual, because there is always time for a Tube Crush. A caught eye. A regular commuter walking in the other direction under the High Street of Victoria. You know who you are, Good Sir).

I nearly miss the train, writing. A nice man stands up and gestures to his seat. I take it, gratefully. It is a long way to Shoreditch. 

There is a gash down my thumb where the dog cage snagged my skin. I did not think it was that bad, but it is now four days later and still peeling and blood red like roasted tomatoes or sunburn.

The Save the Children man outside the office says I look like a beautiful, smart woman (vain flattery works), but I tell him I have to rush back to work. I do not know how I could help him and his cause; I would like to. He smiles anyway despite my rejection – a politer one amongst the thousands he must wade through daily, standing waving leaflets along the Temple-end of the Strand – and says: go back to work! Be your most wonderful and creative, Lady! I smile. I like him. I like his mindset. I want to be more like him, so I try to in my day.

The more I see people, the more I look at them, the more beautiful they seem. On an entirely surface, objective, but curiously unjudgemental, level. There are women on the tube whom I would place easily on the cover of Vogue – down the New York runway. They are real – sharp chinned, curled hair, thick-eye liner, liver spots. I think they are beautiful. They are smiling. They are very alive. It is the women I notice more than the men. 

A father in his grey-striped suit wheels a pushchair round the corner of Canon Street platform, a baby in the front asleep, a girl riding on the step behind swinging her arms like a rodeo queen. It seems like a jolly commute. I’d carpool with them anytime. Just so long as that baby stays asleep. 

The woman down the desk stands up. Taps her clamped fists against her thighs. 13:38. What am I doing, who am I. She asks no one but herself. 

My grandfather is dying and I cannot think of anything. My sister rings in hysterics, my mother rings crying. I sit and work all day, hard, as though my life focuses entirely on this. I walk through Shoreditch to the tube and do not think of anything. My mind has never been so quiet. It is usually a rave. Now it lies empty. I hate that I can think of nothing. Not even of my grandfather. Buloo (he wears blue jumpers). 

I go to the pub and meet my ex boyfriend semi-unexpectedly amongst the group of friends I find there. I do not drink and it looks like it might rain. I wonder when it is going to hit. The rain. The tears. I remember the sobbing for nights and weeks and almost a year when my grandmother died. I was fifteen. Now I’m 22. I fear the sodden pillow, but I still cry in Slipping Through My Fingers. Some things just hit different, I suppose. 

Suddenly everything feels trivial. Suddenly I want to see the boy again for a date because it feels frivolous and fun. People have actual Things happening in their lives and yet the bus driver honks at a cyclist and they swear at each other through the window. I stand in the middle of the London street and stare, stunned. Suddenly everything feels trivial. Suddenly I want the boy. Suddenly my grandfather is awake again. Suddenly my friend texts me and says it’s possible her mum has cancer. Suddenly everything else feels trivial. I feel a little sick, and go to bed smelling of lavender. 

Late July, sometime

The tube is dead silent like we’re all in a tomb. A man yawns. His mouth’s a well which he tries to quell with a quenched fist. A woman opens her book upside down. They hold us at Embankment, opening and closing the doors. I check my watch: late. I flick my hair, beyond the point of worrying. I’m going to text the boy, ask him to move our dinner earlier. I am too tired to pretend. My grandfather is dying (he is still alive) and I have an enormous spot in the centre of my eyebrows. 

Eating dates III:

He moved the date earlier and now I’m going to be late. The tube’s been suspended. I sit on the bus and I think about the person who has – tried – to take their own life at Euston Station. Their pain. Their pain which exists in a world of too much complexity to ever explain. The best of all possible worlds? Philosophy dies a death hardest in the face of suicide. I am going on a date. I feel no nerves and no excitement. I know that Date III should hold more feeling. Oh well. I have a job and that gives me more feeling than my stomach knows how to handle. Fizz and excitement and popping candy and sugar coated strawberry laces (none of which I’d like to eat – I prefer chocolate). I have a job, in an industry which makes me feel alive (Fashion). I sit on the bus and I think about the person who has – tried – to take their own life at Euston Station. I feel sadness. 

He kissed me no tongue third date. That feels wrong. The kiss felt nice. But empty. Who kisses with no tongue unless you’re deep into a relationship and popping off to get a drink in a pub? We disagree about some things — equality — on a fundamental level but I ate a Caesar salad and had a nice time. I wonder whether he’s too baby, too young, too linear. Too uncreative-unartistic. But him being all these things doesn’t mean he prevents me from being creative, from being artistic. On the contrary he seems to love it. Seems to lap it up. He left – saying inches from my face that he was very keen. I said I was scared – that I never did this – that I don’t date. I’m horrified and glad I was so truthful all at once. The sky is still blue in the sweat of the night and the clouds are a fluffy beige. Armpits of an old man. I don’t know what to do. I feel horrified and confident all at once. I should allow myself to feel; I have not allowed it for so long. What if this sudden panic in my body – my throat – my lungs is good panic? What if it’s something? The homeless lady opens a can of beer over the pavement and swears compulsively because she’s on ecstasy. Everyone here seems to be. The well dressed young boy walks past with two late-night Dominoes which reek of garlic mayo and my last relationship. I feel sick again. Scared. Too scared. Do I let myself feel? If I let myself feel would it be good feelings? Kisses are sometimes all the same – soft lips, lingering white wine. I walk home blindly through St James’ Park, texting my best friend in mad panic and writing unstopping with every step. I don’t know what to do. I didn’t eat the anchovies in my Caesar salad in purpose. Just in case. Just in case it was a sign. I want to kiss him again. I want to kiss his face off. I want his tongue to tell me whether it’s a yes or a no. I don’t want to go on holiday in this limbo period. I feel sick. James Bond. Kisses of Fire. ABBA didn’t know a thing.

He just texted and said I was extraordinarily pretty and interesting. Just why no tongue? I feel weird about no tongue. 

Breathing is suspended. 

01/08/2025:

There is an engine fault on the train. Everyone around me is eating crisps. I look up and dash a quick smile at my father opposite. I look back at my Dick Francis, and focus. 

He should have kissed me properly. Therein lies the entire problem.