dressed for space

I've been listening to Trust A LOT recently within the past few days - not just this particular song, but the entire TRST album as well. The music makes me want to dance lazily and smoke in a dimly lit basement club that plays all the good goth-tinged music. I aspire towards lots of paths of life which I can't possibly achieve. A few days ago I was watching Paris is Burning and I wanted to be really good at voguing and serving you X realness, though I've probably missed the whole point of the film. I was watching it in bed on my phone in the night and I got really tired so I had to turn it off and go to sleep.
A lot has been happening since my last post. Last Wednesday after Lee Rigby was decapitated by two men there were some posts on my newsfeed about it, obviously, and just when I thought I was lucky enough to not have any racists added on Facebook...



WOW!!!!! What a fucking rotter!!!!! WOW HUH!!!! Luckily I managed to act like a proper grown-up human being who stands up for what is right, and I'm really proud of myself for doing that:


Then he unfriended me! Who's the coward now? It does pain me to say this a little bit, but he won't be missed. It's funny, though, that he could only say 'DONT LIKE IT FUCK OFF DURRRR' to my fantastically clever and witty retort (it wasn't even the first comment, oh dear). I can only hope he was licking his wounds in defeat.
But after I made a status calling him out on his cowardice, someone made a comment that I didn't know how to respond to:



and all I could say was 'um'. I didn't see the comment until the next day, but when I did I felt like that person had single-handedly shat on everything I believed in, and I ended up cutting myself really badly because I felt so weak and awful. When I told my mum she told me that I'd done the right thing by standing up to the racist loser, and I cried a lot because I felt like I didn't deserve her niceness and all the things. I am so tempted to just not use Facebook anymore but I only ever use it to check the official page for Android in La La Land, which is a new documentary about Gary Numan moving to Los Angeles with his lovely wife Gemma and their three daughters and the new album that's coming out in October.

Friday was the last day of college before the half term (it involved me making a 'soft grunge' collage about Gary Numan on rubbish Photoshop Elements and my journey home being ruined by a tree lying across the road), and on Saturday I went to Birmingham Pride. I had lots of fun! I had this really nice cider called Brothers, went to a lot of clubs, met some fun people, bought badges and a new pair of sunglasses, went on a ride at the funfair which was there and ran into someone I'd met at the last Only After Dark! When I got home I was very tired from having fun and I think I might have slept. I don't really remember what I did on Sunday. It probably involved lots of sleeping.
On Monday I went to see The Great Gatsby again just to be able to get out of the house, and on the way home I bought myself a meal of ham sandwich, milkshake and chocolate. Yesterday was tons of fun, because I went shopping and bought lots of makeup and fun things! I even managed to find the first Tubeway Army album for £6!!!!! Six quid!!!! Sick squid!!!! I also bought the latest issue of Elle because there was a free Benefit mascara inside. I haven't tried it yet but my mum uses it and it's supposed to be really good, so next opportunity I get I'm going to use it.
I also listened to an interview with Gary on BBC 6 Music and he was so lovely and I was squealing lots and they played one of his new songs that's going to be on Splinter, it's called I Am Dust and it's magical. I also watched the program about David Bowie that was on BBC2 on Saturday. It was really good, shame they didn't mention that China Girl was originally by Iggy Pop from his album The Idiot.

When I spoke to someone I know who works at college and with whom I regularly share my blogs and things, I showed her the blog post I made before this one, particularly the bit about my dissatisfaction with portrayals of men like me in mainstream media and the feeling that I can't make an active change because I'm only small, she told me that I actually have made a big difference in the way people around me at college view subjects like sexuality, gender identity and expression and feminism, and at that moment I felt confident and brave and magical. Even though my college is only a small fraction of the big scary world I live in, I feel really proud that I've influenced people positively.

The videos that have been released from Android in La La Land so far really speak to me on a personal level. In the first one, Gary speaks about the highs and lows of his career, the price of fame, living with Asperger's syndrome, and his relationship with Gemma. I can't stress enough how important it is for me that I have someone to look up to who goes/has gone through the same shit I go through every day, and that that someone is an accomplished musician who has completely and single-handedly revolutionised music within the past three decades... I just... it all just means so much to me. I physically cannot find the words for it anymore.

“The whole reason for wanting to just… get out… for a bit was to stop this mental life that it’d become… just try to get my feet back on the ground again and try to take stock of what’d happened and what… was going on. And I started to cry and get really upset about it and I… y’know, like dominoes, ‘cause one thought happened, the next thought’d come along, you couldn’t stop it. (tch-tch-tch-tch-tch!) I'm absolutely… into pieces all over the floor… y’know, go and find Gemma… and get all hugged up and that and calm down. Depression.. and anxiety attacks started to happen, all the time… and your life is falling apart around you, and you haven’t written a new song in three years and all you’re thinking about is kittens! And I'm in la la land, and I didn’t give a fuck! And I kind of got through all that… It made me even more focused and more determined to do what I was doing and try to prove everybody wrong.”

I feel like I've been waiting all my life to find a favourite musician who I can truly, honestly relate to without feeling like a massive creeper. I've said before that the two best things to ever happen to me are The Cure and Gary Numan, and they've both helped me get through my rubbish life in ways I have too many words to physically express, and I owe everything to them. Absolutely everything. I don't know where I'd be without those two important figures in my life.
Thank you friends!