Ruby Stark

On Tuesday, I went on a work outing to a bowling alley. My boss and I prodded each other on our way past to the bar or the loo or the food laid out. I attempted to skittle the pins in the next lane, but missed. We went for a few drinks afterwards, and when I said I was leaving, Malt walked me to the U-Bahn. I wanted him to come home with me, but it didn’t happen.

On Wednesday, my friend, Suki, came for supper. I made gazpacho soup and bread and a salad with French dressing and tzatziki. We ate and talked about why people believe in homeopathy, and about boys and having multiple irons in the fire while we played with the cats.

On Thursday, I was beside myself with tiredness. I had had three early-morning visits to the doctor to get more drugs and have my INR level checked with a blood test, so I was completely shattered. At work, we had a review meeting and everyone wrote down good and bad things about the past two weeks’ work and then we grouped them into categories for discussion. When we got to the final item, all the points were positive, so someone suggested we have a group hug, so we did. Each of the fifteen people in the meeting hugged each other person and it was very moving. I love the company I work for so much.

In the evening, I went to a programmer meetup and watched Dust give a talk about running a certain programming language on a certain hand-held device. I decided against going home to get some sleep and went to meet Malt and some work friends for someone’s leaving drinks. On the way home, I listened to Sunset Rubdown.

Today, I have pottered and, soon, Malt will arrive for supper.

Tomorrow, I get on the sleeper to Paris.

First of all, I have the feeling. It’s where you’re vulnerable to your own thoughts of what has happened, but oblivious to the outside. It’s like what is going on inside you expands to fill the world. It’s a feeling that comes the day after a late night with little sleep. It’s a feeling that is massively augmented by sex with a new person. Some other times I’ve had this feeling: the time between getting thrown off the street at one a.m. and going to bed the night after that one, the first time I had sex with Dusk, the Sunday I left Bradford after visiting Matte for the first time after we got back together.

So, my boss arrived at around one p.m. and I changed into my pink and blue cotton dress that shows my shoulders and back and scar and we set off for the brunch place. We bantered and laughed and it was good. We arrived and ate foul German breakfast, all cheese and bread and, for the meat-eaters, speck. We talked in the front room of the pub, a smoky fire making the place smell like a place in a village my Dad used to take me to for roast beef sandwiches and lemonade and lime. We talked with my boss’s friend, Margo, and I used his phone to ssh into my remote server to restart a site I’ve been working on recently.

My boss’s friend rang and invited him for supper and he said he had planned to spend the evening with me and she very kindly said I could come, too. So, we set off for a long, a very long, walk to his private office in the centre of Berlin. We jumped fences and traversed river banks (he said if I fell in, I would have to remove my clothes to avoid drowning and he would finally get to see me naked). He took my hand. I found myself feeling quite tremulous and shivery, rather like I felt when I’d gone for even a short walk after I died. We got to a tram stop and he wrapped me up in his arms. It felt weird. We finally got to his office and he showed me the helicopter and the matrix of smoke generators he is working on.

We set off again and walked to his friend’s house. We arrived with beer and wine and everyone was so warm. There was Victoria, my boss’s friend and our hostess, a nice couple with a sweet baby with whom my boss played which made my heart melt, and Margo. I sat in the kitchen with the women while Victoria told this long story about her demanding friend and, I think, nearly broke down during the telling. They chatted fast and close as they prepared food and I felt like I was in a Woody Allen film, or maybe Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. I tried to remain standing and worried I was going to be sick.

We went into the sitting room with all the raclette things and sat down and cooked the cheese and I ate pickled onions and scoffed down potatoes and a cherry tomato and felt so much better.

The group asked me whether there were any German stereotypes and whether I thought they were true. Treading carefully, I said Germany was known for being ruthlessly well organised, which I found to sometimes be true, like in running orders at gigs. I also said that German people were said to have no sense of humour, but I found that Germans are always laughing and have quite a similar sense of humour to the English. Someone speculated that this stereotype existed because, occasionally, foreigners would come up to Germans and say, Heil Hitler, as some kind of bizarre joke and would receive no laugh in response.

We talked about the German guilt about World War II and the holocaust, and they said that it is only recently that people have begun to make jokes about these things in Germany. Victoria said that she had gone to stay with a French family when she was small, and the father had been in the war. Her parents had warned her to be ultra polite and respectful and not to be insulted if she received a frosty reception. However, she said she was able to translate a letter written to the man by a German soldier and that, afterwards, he had hugged her.

As the supper went on, my boss and I exchanged close glances, and I fell for him more and more. There was a thread of closeness between us in the group, two people revolving around each other in the warmth of a friendship group. When I looked at him, I felt excited, felt proud.

Finally, we had to leave to go to a colleague’s birthday party. We hugged everyone goodbye and then came out onto the street and quickly kissed for the first time since the weekend before and then we walked to the U-Bahn, his arm around me.

We got to the bar and there was Olive, Thora the birthday girl, my boss’s best friend, John, and a few others. My boss and I sat on our stools with our legs touching, not really talking to one-another, but with that secret kinship you can share with someone when part of a group. I really like John – he is gentle and clearly adores my boss and they support each other a lot.

We moved to another bar and, on the way, plugged our headphones into this jack in a wall that lets you listen to the movements of the building. We danced to old ’60s girl groups like the Ronettes. I sat down and my boss sat down next to me and I put my hand on the inside leg of his trousers – very bold, for me, with a boy – and we kissed for a long time. He stroked me all over my arms and back and neck and shoulders and the slow desire that had built over the whole day turned into a scared certainty that I wanted to go home with him.

It was half four in the morning and I said that I needed to take my drugs which were at my house, but, that, if he wanted, he could come with me.

We got in a cab with Olive and got out and went into my apartment building and came upstairs, me very nervous. We drank water and I took my pills and then my boss took off his trousers and I took off my tights and we got into bed and I put out the light and we started kissing.

I just loved the way his hands stroked me all over. He put his hand in my underwear and stroked my clit and I started sighing into his ear and then he pushed a finger inside me and I bucked and squeaked and gasped and, thinking about it now, I get a twisting in my spine.

After a while of deliciousness, I faked and then we lay together for a while. I kissed him and pulled off his boxers, feeling really scared now, and knelt between his legs and put his cock in my mouth and began sucking him off.

OK, so he had, by far, the biggest cock I had ever seen. I could just about close my fingers around it, and could only get about a third of it into my mouth. I stopped for a moment and then asked him for advice and he said I was doing fine and I aborted and felt really bad.

We snuggled for a while and he said, “So, I think we got a problem. I am not sure I fit inside you.” And I decided to tell him about being intersex and he took it incredibly well, just as another of the scar stories I have told him. And he said, “We figure something out,” and I felt so happy that he was seeing it as a problem to be worked at.

So, he fucked me again with his hand and I pulled off my dress and he sucked at my breasts and it felt so good and I am pretty sure he will be able to make me come. I really wanted him to fuck me.

We fell asleep and I woke three or four hours later and woke him up and we talked and I asked him whether he considered himself a happy person and he said he was very happy until a few years ago when this girl he was in love with died, and, since then, he has been slowly healing. I listened and hugged him and kissed his cheek as he told the story.

Later, we sshed into my remote server and he helped me set up some handy stuff. He left about two p.m. and I went to go a mozzarella burger and chips and walked through the street listening to Bob Dylan in that vulnerable/oblivious state.

I realised how desperate I was to talk to Cat. She went home with her date last night, too, and I thought how magical it would be to discuss the feeling with someone who had it, too.

Last night, Dust invited me to an ambient electro gig at a squat in Mitte. I had kind of resolved to just go straight home, but then got persuaded to go and have a drink with my work friends, Cal, Olive [the woman who invited me to go to a woman-only massage parlour but who then never called and I think might have a boyfriend but who I still can't figure out and who is now warm and kind to me], Reed, Smirk and Stroke. We sat out on he pavement in the warm summer smell and drank beer and cracked dev jokes. Stroke, who is extremely good looking, further revealed his vulnerable side with an admission that he is always telling bad jokes, and his girlfriend calls him grandpa because of his poor memory.

My boss texted me to arrange a time for meeting for brunch and I said that if he comes to pick me up, he could help me choose an outfit for the day. He agreed.

It started raining and we dashed inside and had a very cosy and funny talk about trans-continental humour, the role of electronic devices in separating or connecting us, our positions as devs who make the world for so many people. We laughed and laughed and I realised I was spending yet another evening being happy.

We went to see another colleague’s gig and it went on a bit long and the mood dissipated, so I came home. On the U-Bahn, I read a lovely email from Cat about how we are both going on dates ON THE SAME DAY. I replied and said so that means we are going on a transnational double date.

Tonight, I went to see Peaches Christ Superstar with Brown. I arrived at the theatre and we stood on the pavement and drank beers and I smoked cigarettes surrounded by the warm smell of summer. We had a skittering conversation about how God doesn’t exist and how we kept on failing to appreciate the weather and then coming to and thinking we should be noticing it more. I was fast and funny and insightful and felt very cool in my baggies and leather jacket and white t-shirt. I loved myself, I think. I talked about dying and my upcoming date on Saturday with my boss (now brunch, Capture the Flag, a visit to his workshop, a bar for a colleague’s birthday and then the dubstep/glitchcore night) and .

The show was surprisingly wonderful. Peaches came out in a white, cotton catsuit that had a high, empressesque stuffed collar. She somehow managed to be the whole of a musical ensemble as Chilly Gonzales hammered the piano in accompaniment. It was like watching a far more expressive ’50s crooner. The last song of the first half moved me especially: just her singing, “You liar. You Judas”, high high high, one spotlight on her face, slowly fading her into a ghost and then into nothing.

At the interval, Brown and I went outside and carried on talking and drank more beer. When we went back in, I sat in my seat as Peaches sang a couple of slow songs, almost sobbing, “Will no one stay awake with me? Peter, John, James? Will none of you wait with me? Peter, John, James?”, and felt perfectly drunk and warm and bathed in happiness.

After the show, Brown and I walked to find a bar, and just ended up walking the streets, having one of those wonderful conversations where you reach into another person. I told her about Potential and how it talks about the joy of having exciting possibilities ahead, and the pain of the draining feeling as they come to nothing. We talked about passing happiness and trying to hold onto it and regretting it leaving even while it’s still here. We talked about how one can look back on a happy time and the feeling, the quality, the texture of the happiness can still be so strong. I said that I was pretty sure I would look back on these last three weeks in Berlin as a very happy time.

We walked and walked and then finally came to Kreuzberg and went to my favourite pizza place. Brown told me about her recent long-distance fucked-up relationship with this bloke. She got to the part where they were sending flirty texts to each other, her in her hotel room, him on his way back home, and then said, “I’m sorry, I’m going into too much detail”, and I blurted out, “This is the stuff conversations are made of.”

Finally, we parted and she said, “I don’t know which I enjoyed more, Peaches, or the walk around Berlin.”

On Friday night, I picked up my friend, Archigram, from the airport and we went to the same upstairs in a shopping centre bar that Malt took me to the week before. We talked about Archigram’s lovely girl and how fun in Berlin is happening without me having to make it and drank beer.

The next day, we went for a long walk across bridges and through dusty parks in the sun and ended up at the Soviet Memorial. I had been there with my old German girlfriend, Cassette, on a freezing cold night when it was pouring with rain and we were the only people there, the only warmth in the desolate, concrete wasteland. We were really in love with each other, then.

Archigram and I pottered about and talked about the war and having children and making a family.

We popped home and I changed into my sexy, slinky red dress and then we went to meet Brown for supper at the Italian she had taken me to for my birthday and had a cosy meal talking about triligual puns and people not understanding when you are being ironic. I ate spinach and ricotta ravioli steeped in butter and we dipped pieces of bread in oil and balsamic vinegar. Then, we went to the gay/biker/hipster bar for drinks and met Malt, his cute friend, Steffi, Cal and Smirk. We talked about nginx and ejaculation and the Kit Kat Club. Malt and Archigram got along famously.

The three of us went to play Lord of the Rings pinball and then Dust texted me to say he was outside. I went into the street and sat on the kerb with him and his friends and bantered and it felt so continental to drink beer perched on pavement and have a back and forth with a group of happy people.

Presently, everyone from inside came outside and we walked to the club. We got there and then Reed and his lovely girlfriend, Thora, and Wally from work arrived and we all danced faster and harder. Some time passed in dancing and talking and cigarettes outside, and Malt and I made a mini-gang we dashed about the club and danced. He did his winning smile at me like you would smile at a beloved but dimwitted child, or the smile people do when they are mocking you. We went to the unisex loo and it felt pleasingly public with the guys at the urinals and the people in the cubicles snorting cocaine and came out and stood real close and he stroked my back and my neck and I put my arm around his waist and we both stared into the crowd and I looked up at him and he was still looking outwards and then I looked up again and he kissed me and stroked my all over my sides and back and shoulders and it felt really good.

I heard Reed’s braying voice and realised that half the company would have seen, and I cared a bit, but not a lot. The night went on and Malt and I kissed a few more times and he kept on stroking my back and bottom and sides and I remember that, when I kissed him, I pushed my hips against his.

Finally, it was five a.m. and Archigram wanted to go home so we left. We got home and the cats hurled themselves at my bedroom door for the next hour until Archigram made me get up and stop them. But it was nice to share a bed with him again.

We wandered around on Sunday in a daze, went to the new national art gallery and drank coffee. He set off for the airport in the evening and I was very sad to see him go.

On Monday, it was obviously a bit awkward with Malt. No one else commented, which was gooood. A sense of horror and it-was-a-mistake-but-I-couldn’t-have-known-in-advance-ness crept over me, but dissipated when I went out for supper with Malt in the evening. He said he would be Ok with being friends and OK with more, which was very brave. I said I had always found sex with boys difficult and that I naturally leant towards girls and he said it was OK to take it slow.

So, at the moment, I am at the precise nexus of my feelings growing or shrinking. I wish I had the full text of my old Susie Down blog so I could refresh my memory on how my feelings for Dusk evolved. I do know that I felt only trepidation and not longing int the days after we slept together. However, when we had a threesome with Tourista a month later, I remember asking her whether she was keen on him and so I was probably, by that point, keen on him myself.

Today, when I came out of work, sexy D followed me down the stairs and smiled at me with his “I am thinking about having sex with you right now” smile and I skipped away to the U-Bahn light-footed and happy.

On Monday, I came home and went into a cooking frenzy and made spinach and ricotta cannelloni and banana pancakes for my housemates and I. I listened to Bob Dylan and sniffed because of my cold and fended the cats off my pots and pans. As I cooked, I pretended I was making supper for a boy who was waiting patiently in the sitting room and that maybe I would serve him his meal and then give him a blow job.

We sat to eat and it was very lovely.

Since Wednesday, I’ve been out four nights running. I have finally had a week in Berlin where I had nothing planned and was busy. Things have happened under their own momentum.

On Wednesday, I went to see Yeasayer. Natasha and her bloke were there, but I didn’t manage to find them, and I invited Malt, my boss, and forgot I’d invited Cal, and bumped into a guy from work and went with him and Cal for a delicious, greasy fried-mozzarella burger in a punk rock place and then got to the venue and bumped into four other people from work so we were a big gang.

We talked about the first track of the album Cal and I are going to write: The Time I Got Thrown Out of The Lesbian Bookshop/The Lesbians Said No. Malt talked about a visit to Kit Kat Club, and so we were able to name track two: I Went to a Sex Club With a Gynecologist.

I wrapped myself up in Malt’s attention, snuggling into his alpha maleness. He is tall, and has an arresting way of towering over me and looking down into my eyes with a half-mocking, half-tender expression on his face.

We watched the gig. I was completely carried away by their rendition of I Remember as the singer’s voice echoed up high high in the rafters. Malt put his hands under my arms and momentarily lifted me up so I could see what his view of the band was like. I am starting to feel that two-people-revolving-around-each-other-within-a-group feeling. I am starting to feel that luxuriation in his company that I feel with Dusk and my closest boy friends from University.

After the gig, Cal, I and four others from work set out into the night. We hiked across a large barren area around the gig venue that felt like no man’s land, like machine gun fire was about to burst out from the darkness. We surged along, a happy gang, laughing and talking and shouting. We got to the bar and I spoke at length about pop music to one guy, and about online-dating to another girl. We drank beer and talked about the Bible and places we’ve lived and drug-dealers and the German language. The beer went down easy and, suddenly, it was two a.m. so I picked up and walked home along the wide, deserted, still, crisp streets listening to I Remember which goes, “You’re stuck in my mind. All the time.” I reached a cross-roads and stood in the middle of the street and looked down at the stillness in all four directions. I got to my apartment building and leaned against the wall to finish my cigarette, and my head flushed with the beer and smoke and filled with happiness and my smile was so wide and I couldn’t help but laugh.

I came inside and wrote all this to Cat, ending with, “I wish I could lie down with you and whisper all this in your ear.”

On Thursday, Dust came for lunch at work. I met him a while ago on the organising committee of those unconferences I was involved with in London. He looks very like Dusk: same smile, same colour hair, same shape of face, and I think my attraction to him is at least partially owing to that. Anyway, he, Malt and I talked about our jobs and it was good.

A little later, Dust asked me if I wanted to go to see Alice in Wonderland with him and a friend. I had put on a dress that morning, chiefly for Dust’s and Malt’s benefit. I now walked to the cinema in it, freezing fucking cold. We sat on a wall like a group of kids slumped on the pavement while Dust and his friend smoked a spliff, then went in. The film was terrible. We went to a Turkish place afterwards and I ate a falafel sandwich and then I walked home, yet again basking in the wonder of living in such a central and lively place.

On Friday night, I went for some drinks with people from work. We drank in a Russian place and cracked coding jokes (from fist import pain) and talked about Wally’s old job as a theatre technician (or, honk, a person with no special skills – “OK, I’m going to need three honks to set up this lighting rig”). We laughed a lot and drank a lot and talked about Dark Star and John Carpenter and the third song, Just Call Me Hank, on Cal and I’s record. A few of us went onto another bar in Kreuzberg and played table football and I walked home drunk again listening to Between the Buried and Me that I discovered on some geek’s blog.

I slowly recuperated on Saturday, making it out of the house for long enough to buy some food. I went up to Prenslauer Berg for Brown’s extremely genteel, grown-up party. The occasion was the installing of her new sofa that conspicuously lacks a boyfriend to sit on it. I talked to the journos about the dying newspaper industry and drank yet more beer and had a long, jokey conversation and half fell in love with with a pretty, blonde-redhead editor who looks like Lauren Lee Smith.

Malt texted me and said he was at Kottbusser Tor and I yipped excitedly inside and left the party about twelve a.m. On my way out, I walked through Brown’s apartment building and felt like I was in a bombed-out Russian hallway heading out into the unknown.

On the way to the U-Bahn, I thought about and interview I’d read with Al Pacino. He said that when they were making the film, he was in love, for one of the few times in his life. And he would come home from the horribleness and the violence to his girl and they would just be together. It made me wish for that railroadedness, that sanctuary, that marked-out-of-timeness.

Malt picked me up at Kottbusser Tor, and, in an endearingly formal move, held out his hand for me to shake it, and brought me inside. He was there with a very old friend from school, an interesting man who told me about his job as a diplomat, a girl he knows from University, and a third woman who, when I smiled, gave me an astonishingly blank expression that felt like a challenge. Later on, she warmed up a bit.

The bar was upstairs and small, and we were wedged in a corner on stools, surrounded by people and head-nodding techno. After more beer (my tolerance seems to have gone up quite a bit), everyone else left and Malt and I were left alone. We talked my perfect mix of bullshit and serious: his ideas for a terror trombone replacement for the Death Star, my puppy-drowning career and membership in the top 1% of programmers (a running joke), gender politics of the German language and spandex suits. We leant against each other, my legs tucked against his, laughing close and lovely.

Then, the conversation took an alarming and baffling turn. I began on a dissertation about why I think Rails is much better than TurboGears and he attacked my arguments, speaking in a tone of voice that bordered on angry. We vigourously debated the points for a while, and he trotted out the old argument about it not being OK to trust €XX million of the company’s business to default configs. I felt anger rising inside me at the feting of the earning of money. I wondered whether I was talking myself out of a job, and thought I didn’t much care if I was. Fortunately, we were able to get back on track, and had a good laugh again.

We left the bar about five a.m. and I walked home.

On Tuesday, I moved into my new place in Kreuzberg. The lesbians were out, and I arranged my few things in my huge room. I have a great view over a little park and out over the rooftops. The two cats are delightful: the older one, Pecadee, taciturn and sober, the younger one, Rocket, dynamic and always wanting to play-fight.

On Thursday, Musk, Vanilla, Vanilla’s mother and I all at supper together. It was nice. Things are so domestic here: we share the shopping and they buy tulips and mangoes and there is beer in the fridge. The apartment is light and airy and has a great view down the street. For the first time in my life, I am living in precisely the area I want.

On Friday, I went to meet Brown for a Vietnamese and then we met some of her friends at a weird hybrid gay/hipster/biker bar. We drank beer and talked about the BBC and Brown’s failed romance with a chap who lives in Cairo. There were quite a few gays in our party, but they were not annoying. We went on to a basement bar in Neukölln that was red lit and full of fairly boring people. I left about two and got home and played with Rocket on my duvet and wrote to Cat.

Today, I went to meet my cousin, who is visiting Berlin, and his girlfriend. We ate an early lunch in a good cafe down the road from my house and talked about the films they make and our family and living in a foreign country and my job. It was really nice.

This evening, I went to meet my boss, Malt, for Capture the Flag. It was cold and raining, and, despite some kind translations, I found it hard to join in properly because I couldn’t really communicate. But, it was great to hang out with Malt. I think I might be falling for him. We have banter and his smiles give me little lurches and he’s tall and a little protective and confident and alpha. Thinking of having sex with him brings a mixture of desire and repulsion and shyness and fear. I haven’t fantasised about him yet. But, this slow growing of attraction is the way it always seems to go with boys.

Malt left about nine to go to a house-warming party. He didn’t invite me, and I’m not sure why.

It struck me that I always give savoury names to the boys I really like: Grain, Dusk, Malt.

I got the U-Bahn back to Kottbusser Tor and walked up through Kreuzberg. I stopped off and had a soul-warming pizza and beer, then came home.

Tomorrow, I am hopefully going for a massage with Canvas.

I’ve just started reading Endgame Vol. 1: The Problem of Civilisation by Derrick Jensen.

I got off the U-Bahn at Hermannplatz and set this song by Dust Covered Carpet going. I walked along, tranquil with just a few whooshes of cars going by. I walked diagonally behind a cute, queer-looking girl with black hair who was carrying a wastepaper bin and it felt companionable and easy. The song took me into my building and through the corridor, across the courtyard, up the stairs, into my apartment; and it continued while I took my medicine and got a glass of water and removed my wristwatch.

Today, I wrote a lot of Clojure and watched tech videos and made a lasagne and cut my finger and it took an hour and a half to stop bleeding because of my anticoagulant drugs.

Tonight, I was out with Delicate. We met at the U-Bahn station and then pottered around on the street, killing time before the gig. We went to the venue and got beer and talked. The first guy came on. Words fail me. He was dressed up in a sort of poncho that was probably some sort of religious statement. He lit a candle on the table next to him and sang acapella, deadly serious, about the trials of his life. The only good part was this sort of fast, almost imperceptible waver in his voice. I felt like pouring my beer all over his candle. Then, he got out the clinky sticks. I couldn’t take it anymore and went outside and smoked a cigarette and took this photo:

I went back in and found Delicate and we watched the next band, a guy on guitar and a woman on performance art. He did squeaky, skittery sounds while she flapped her arms, crawled on the floor through the crowd and tap-danced. They did one song where the guy said, This is my favourite song of ours because [the girl] wrote it for me and it’s bigger love than real life it’s called Money 2. He then did his guitar thing and began shrieking like a pterodactyl, and the girl answer like an even angrier bird of prey. Thank God the audience were laughing. I loved it, and the strange, internalised malaise of irritation at something I can’t identify lifted.

Delicate and I left and wandered around on the street. He bought a chocolate croissant and I bought a banana doughnut and some Lucky Strikes. It felt good to be out in the quiet streets: Berlin is great at providing you your own little world. I felt happy for about fifteen minutes again, and then it faded. We walked to a bar and ate nachos with cheese and guacamole and I drank ingwertee.

I came home from work knowing I needed to do some blasted laundry. I took off all my clothes, packed everything up, slung my bags over my shoulders, set out and lit a cigarette. I bought my disposable lighter when I left England and have had it with me ever since. I don’t keep track, but this is the longest I can remember keeping a lighter.

I sloped through the snow, the bounce of my bags making me feel like a soldier, like Matt Damon in Saving Private Ryan when he says he is going to stay with his company and steps up onto a pile of sandbags and then drops over onto the ground on the other side with a whump and a jangling of gear.

I got to the launderette. All the machines have names and I opened up faithful old Herta and put my clothes in and set her going. I now sit, listening to Sunset Rubdown’s The Ballad of Little Lord and thinking about my Clojure mp3 crawler.

I worked on it all last night, bar a break to make supper and talk to Cat (she sent me a Valentine’s card with a picture of the Queen of Hearts). Usually, I would have rounded off the evening with a bit of a film, or some internet, but I just went straight to bed.

There are certain activities that give me a lasting glow of fulfillment and happiness, but if I do only them, I feel rushed and frenetic. In fact, I could order them from most glowy to most default: going out, volunteering or doing activist stuff, spending time with my friends, spending time with my family, cooking, coding, reading, blogging, making music, going on the internet, watching films, playing video games.

What if i were to only do activities high on that list? Always be producing or setting up potential or creating? I’ve toyed before with the idea of stopping my consumption of entertainment, and that is just a cruder version of this new idea. I wonder if I could do it. Certainly, if I look back at the happiest times of my life, I was spending a lot of my time on activities high up the list.

My dear Cat,

I am sitting in my kitchen in the dark, smoking a cigarette and listening to Bob Dylan’s Idiot Wind.

Thank you so much for the book. I have never read any porn, nor SM literature. I am going to tuck myself up in bed with it after I write to you.

It was really good to talk to you today: a contact point with caring.

It has been a strange, disembodied day. After work, I went for a sedate drink with some colleagues, then left to meet my new friend. I took the U-Bahn across Berlin, got a measured happy birthday text from Matte and then walked through the snow listening to increasingly brutal music: Lone Wolf and Cub, then The Blood Brothers and finally the raging Converge. I stood outside the gallery and smoked a cigarette, freezing cold, feeling increasingly disconnected.

Brown and her two friends arrived and we talked and looked at paintings. Then, we went for a truly fabulous Italian meal at a place that felt like a sort of peasant restaurant with people at long tables talking and eating as a part of their lives, rather than as a special event. The atmosphere had the texture of good, nourishing bread. I ate buttery spinach and ricotta parcels with melting Parmesan. I will take you there.

We went to a weird casual hipster bar and drank some beer.

It felt peculiar to spend my birthday with strangers in a foreign city in the dark, snowy weather. But it was living very close to the surface, very in the right fucking now. And they were so kind to take me out, and it was a good time.

Tell me about Kilroy.

I have begun work on your CD. It is an especially trickalicious task because I know nothing of your taste in music.

With Flick, I was slightly surprised we didn’t become more frequent lovers. Other than that, I saw him as a remote friend, but someone I could closely relate to. But I haven’t seen him in years.

I can’t wait to hear your thoughts about Potential. And I think my life hasn’t moved on from hers either. Especially fashion-wise.

When is the queer party? Tonight or tomorrow? What are you going to wear with your shorts?

Sleep tight, dear Cat,
Many kisses
Ruby

A few days ago, I spent the day baking bread and writing code and pottering. Cat, someone I knew a bit in previousnortherncity, buzzed up on Facebook. She is queer and older and went out with Dusk years ago. She is a damaged alpha in that she is confident and strong-willed and inspiring, rather than in the embarrassing faux-male way of Angelina Jolie.

She asked if I’d really died and I said I had and we talked about that a bit. We talked about her boyfriend and her son and her crush on this girl. We talked about Matte and Dusk other old lovers.

Over the next few days, I kept on thinking back to that conversation. Today, she sent me a message: “in fact, talking of candid, i might have to sleep with you sometime, cos then i can casually drop into conversation that i have slept with someone after they died. that should be a conversation stopper.”

I woke up on Saturday and went downstairs and bade Dusk goodbye. He had a meeting in London. About twelve pm, Archigram, his girlfriend and Jordan arrived. They, Emma and I ate goat’s cheese, Parma ham, home-made bread and sun-dried tomatoes, and drank orange juice and cups of tea. After lunch, we played a game of Cranium with much hilarity. One all-play round had Archigram and Cyp both having to whistle us Say a Little Prayer, and they both started on the same bit of tune in the same key and produced an eerie, impromptu duet and then they couldn’t whistle anymore because they were laughing so much.

We went to the shops to get some last-minute supplies and then spent the rest of the afternoon talking.

In the early evening, Richard, Haz, Dusk, Grain, my Dad, my brother, and my Mum’s friends Sue and Vince arrived. My brother began cooking like a hero and everyone milled around in the kitchen and drank a lot and talked. It made my heart glad to see my friends and family together, and to see my friends who didn’t know each other getting on. I think pretty much everyone talked to pretty much everyone.

Dusk seemed a little withdrawn, but I’m not sure why. My Mum thinks it was because he was older than most of my friends, but I’m not so sure. I think maybe he was tired and maybe he was distracted by his meeting and maybe he was phased by meeting lots of confident friends of mine. He said he has a theory that middle-class families are, fundamentally, articulate and discuss abstract concepts, whereas working-class families don’t talk about things outside their direct experience. He said this results in a higher ability of the middle classes to adapt and aspire.

We did an informal survey, and found that, of the people who identified as a person with a working class background, he, Grain and Cyp thought their families supported the theory. Archigram’s girlfriend felt her family did not.

I had been nervous about showing Dusk where I grew up, because my Mum’s house is big and has a big garden and she and my step-Dad are rich. (At the same time, I was excited to show him off to my family and other friends.) I asked him whether meeting my family and seeing our house illuminated anything about me. He said another piece had slotted into the jigsaw puzzle: the articulate and well-to-do environment I grew up in explains why I can move to a country without speaking the language or knowing anyone there. He might be right.

I wore my red clingy American Apparel dress and Cyp said, “Ruby, if you weren’t a lesbian [his word for me being queer]…” He’s so damn handsome, but I just don’t fancy him.

Three thirty a.m. came and most of us staggered off to bed. Richard and my brother stayed up and sat at the kitchen table and drank a bottle of Amaretto.

I went to bed with Grain. He kissed me on the mouth and said, Goodnight, Ruby, and he asked if I’d like to spoon and I said yes and he wrapped me up in his arms and curled terribly close around me and said I am good to snuggle because I am petite.

I didn’t really sleep that well because I preferred being snuggled to moving so I could relieve my cramp or undead a limb. So, most of the night passed in a strange half-wake half-sleep where I listened to Grain breathe and thought how nice it was to snuggle after such a long time spent with Matte’s dislike of nighttime snuggles.

We slept in lots of different positions: me with my head on Grain’s chest, turned together with legs entwined, me on my back and Grain with a knee around my hips and and our hand together and Grain’s breath on my cheek. I slowly got more and more turned on. He kissed me all over my neck. I kissed his cheek slowly and delicately.

Thing is, though, we’re friends. I feel something very deep in my heartt for Grain. But, whatever it is, my feelings about our friendship and his relationship prohibit further exploration. When I came to the next morning, my desire faded into the deepness.

We got up and I fetched Grain a bowl of Wheetos and a cup of tea. Then, we saw that everyone else was already up and had started building an igloo in the garden. We went out to help. For the next three hours, a few of us gathered snow, heaped it in a sledge, took it to the igloo and shaped it into flat blocks. Then, the others sawed it up into bricks and built the structure. Mum brought us out cups of tea and we drank those. Richard brought out beers and we drank those (I felt fantastic for twenty minutes, then rather ill, then OK). At last, Archigram, his girlfriend, Richard and my brother had a beautifully-curved structure mostly complete. We spent an hour doing the almost and then horizontal roof, and then it was done. We got candles and my Mum took a photo of all eight of us inside. It was utterly joyous: the hard work, the euphoric warmth, the beer, my family, my close friends and the utterly pointless but oh so beautiful house.

Yesterday, I went to see the Dieter Rams exhibition at the Design Museum. I walked through London in the freezing cold and my new leather jacket and all I got was memories: booking a table at a former-squat cafe in Vauxhall for my old girlfriend, Cassette, and I; Matte telling me that she’d slept with that guy; sitting with Matte on some steps opposite Liberty’s on the first weekend she came to visit me in London, when she was head-over-heels in love with me; running with Matte along the south bank, through the rain, to the Design Museum to see the Jonathan Barnbrooke exhibition.

I liked Rams’s designs, especially the hi-fi equipment. He seemed to be a designer who thought appliances deserved their space in the home, rather than having to apologetically blend in with the furniture. However, you could see that even he would adorn old designs with his current pre-occupations: note the change from straight to curved record player arms.

I walked around in the cold for an hour and then went to meet Archigram, and his housemate and girlfriend at a Vietnamese. We troughed down some tasty food and then sat and talked in the corner of an underpopulated pub next to an expired log fire.

We then moved to a gay bar in Dalston that seemed to have a surprisingly number of straight people in it, and no hot lesbians. But, it was great to sit at a table, surrounded by friends who are all in the same moment and level of drunk and mood of party, laughing and pouring back beer as the bar raged around us.

We went back to Archigram’s and sat in his kitchen and drank a disgusting concoction called chai latte and then went to bed. I caught some sleep on a mattress in the living room, woke, went down and talked to Archigram’s other housemate about Australia and then ate toast with everyone.

I drove with my Dad to the house owned by his friend, Sapphire, whose lovely and diffident and funny husband died ten years ago and the house was built by Lytton Strachey and frequented by members of the Bloomsbury group (she has photos of Virginia Woolf in the garden). Sapphire’s grown-up children arrived in the evening. Gina is thirty and very beautiful and flamboyant, but caring. Sam is diffident and funny and warm like his father, but slower and more softly handsome. My nascent crush developed into a gentle yearning. I thought quite a lot about having sex with him, and about wrapping myself up in his quiet attentions and feeling him stand behind me with his hands on my shoulders. In true life, we traded quips and smiled at each other. His girlfriend, Heather, also with us, was very nice.

Christmas passed with a walk, drinks, a stubbornly uncooperative log fire, lots of food, a game of Cranium and easy conversations.

Now, I am back at the Mom’s house sitting on the sofa with my little sisters and cousin. Em is being fucked around by her dicksuck of a boyfriend.

Last Monday, I went to see my favourite noise boy play. Snow and ice still covered the pavements in London and the traffic outside my house was standing still. The weekend before, my sister had told me she is pregnant. I was so pleased I could barely contain it. I felt close to crying: crying with joy, crying with excitement, crying that she was doing something I never can. I rang her to check she was OK and gave up waiting for the bus and walked down the hill to the tube. I didn’t slip, which was a miracle.

I took the tube to Liverpool Street and then walked up to the venue. I went inside, bought a glass of lager at the bar and asked where the gig was. The guy told me upstairs and I went up the spiral staircase to find dusty wooden floor boards, twenty people, someone doing a painting and a guy setting up. I leaned against the wall, the cold, exciting feeling of the beer creeping up the back of my neck. The guy played a droney, guitar and reverberated-screams set with unintelligible images playing against the wall behind him. I relaxed into another secret-life night, feeling anonymous and lovely and alone.

Then, the guy who had just played came up to me said, “Hi Ruby”, and it was an old acquaintance I met in Leeds who also has a solo acoustic project and numerous punk bands. We swapped our bands’ CDs and talked about making music.

Noise boy got stuck on the motorway and didn’t turn up, so I set off home in the snow, reading David Foster Wallace’s essay about David Lynch and getting that nervous, opening-up-of-intellectual-possibilities excitement.

Last weekend, I went to the Butlins in Minehead for ATP with an old friend from Leeds, Min, his girlfriend, Flaxen and my friend from work, Creak (cool + geeky, but held up on squeaky scaffolding).

We arrived about nine p.m. on Friday after a four hour car journey, a lot of Haribo and a lot of Tesco value crisps. We saw the Yeah Yeah Yeahs play in the big top area, and though they played Fever To Tell – by far their best album – they just weren’t that exciting. If you saw them in a low-down pub, they’d beat you senseless, but they can’t do stadium rock.

I began to drink rather a lot with my old friend, Archigram. Then, Creak and I saw Fuck Buttons play and I realised they are really a hypno band and I really got into them. We drank some more and then Archigram, three of his friends and I went to the on-site Irish pub and danced like loons to Battles, Daft Punk and Johnny Cash. We went back to Archigram’s chalet and drank more and had a really unpopulated party where we cracked jokes and talked about girls. We were in bed by five a.m.

The next day, Creak and I woke late and Min and Flaxen went swimming. When they came back, we all watched a documentary, Sherman’s March, about a guy travelling the route that Sherman took across America and about the girls he meets and falls in love with. He meets these crazy actress women and talks with them about deep feelings with a camera against his eye.

We finally left the chalet to go and watch some bands. I got crushed by Om and bailed on the Dirty Three to go and see Shellac. They did another great version of The End Of Radio, Steve Albini barking, “Can you hear me now!” Someone asked Bob Weston whether he masturbated over how good they were. Albini gave away a bottle of Chicago-distilled liquor that someone had requested he bring.

Later, I met up with Creak again and we stood right at the front for Battles. It was super cool to see Ian Williams and Tyondai Braxton each simultaneously play guitar and keyboard, and their music worked mostly on an intellectual level, and made me dance a lot towards the end.

Modest Mouse were mostly boring, bar a lovely version of Trailer Trash. Archigram, his friends and I went with Creak to a party being thrown by one of his friends. The friend was this weirdly sexy, mustachioed American guy with a weird American name who had a sexy girlfriend. He was skinny and proper and she looked like a flowery Shoreditchbitch. It was all a bit sexy, basically. Unfortunately, most of the party seemed to be on coke, so the conversations were unsatisfactory. We left to go and watch more bands.

The For Carnation (ex. guy from Slint) were extremely boring. And they didn’t play Being Held, their only great song. Beak> were fun to dance to.

Afterwards, we disco danced for ages and drank really disgusting Carlsberg. There were a few cute girls around, but all appeared to have boyfriends. We went to another bar on the site and danced more and Creak struck out with the girl he’d been following around for a while. We went back to Archigram’s chalet again for more drinks and Nutella on bread. In bed by five a.m., again.

Sunday morning was super lazy. Everyone went out and I started watching Burden of Dreams, a documentary about the making of Fitzcarraldo. It is a searing indictment of the sort of life I lead that I was sorely torn between watching a documentary about an art film and going to watch a difficult noise rock band. After a brief internal struggle, I went to watch Shellac for the second time. They played less well, but Albini related an amusing anecdote about the couple having sex in the room next to his: “I don’t so much admire your stamina as your persistence. I’m not sure if you ever reached the summit, but you just kept climbing that mountain. Five times, actually, between two a.m. and seven a.m.”

Josh T. Pearson was mostly a misguided wash of overdrive, but some beauty emerged in the quiet bits towards the end. Then, Deerhoof fucking killed it: so tight, so fun, and the sexy drummer is such a great player. The audience were really into it, and dancing about, and I loved it when the guitarist pretended to be a jungle animal, stalking amongst the amps. Someone overheard the barman say they were the worst band in the world. Someone else overheard a member of staff say that they fucking hate ATP.

Finally, Archigram and I fought our way to the front for The Mars Volta. Cedric’s voice was weak, and Omar didn’t look that into it, and they had a new, poorer drummer, but it was still great. The whole front section danced like crazy and sang along, and Omar looked sexy in his white shirt and jerkin.

After that, we had to leave to get home. Flaxen, like a trooper, drove us all the way back in the dark. We arrived home about two a.m. and I fell into bed and woke up a few hours later and set off for work, a shadow of my former self.

I hadn’t really thought very much for forty-eight hours, and it was a lovely feeling. ATP is all about the scheduled life and simple choices and the alternate universe. You go into a playpark for a few days and leave everything behind. There isn’t even much sex to distract you: it’s mostly guys who are in their secret club, and the few girls are with their boyfriends.

And it’s the small moments. Creak and I slumped against the barrier waiting for Battles, drinking beer and kicking balloons. Standing outside a chalet in the nose-wetting air, waiting to be let into a party. Eating a Burger King veggie burger while Explosions In The Sky drone on in the background and we wait for The Mars Volta to start. Smoking cigarettes at each loo-stop on the way there, plumes of white coming out of my mouth in the headlights. My neck warm in Archigram’s scarf. Cramming down cheese and bread before the next band.

A few days ago, I texted two old crushes, asking if they want to meet up. First was Allure, a girl who still makes me tremble a bit when I think of her. I also credit her and her short, slightly protruding upper lip for my love for Julianne Moore. (On a side note, credit goes to Activisto and his down-eyed, sardonic looks for my adoration for Peter Saarsgaard.) She didn’t reply. Whatever.

Second was Chesire, a girl I knew slightly at the last place I lived. We helped run a rock camp together in London a while ago, and she also came to ATP with me. She’s queer, but in an I basically only like girls way, a bit older, seems to be kind of wrapped up in herself in an interesting way. She rang me a few days ago and suggested I go round for lunch.

I traveled there, kissing London for its variability the whole way. We hung out in the kitchen as Cheshire cooked a bean bake thing with cheese. She wears workman-type clothes: straight up and down trousers, hoodies faded t-shirts. We talked about me dying, and me moving to Berlin, and her recent tour. She does good abstract noise/drone guitar stuff. She said the reception on her latest tour was kind of mixed: some loved it, some seemed unimpressed. She said she’s going to turn away from a record, release, tour cycle and just make music for its own sake.

Her housemate, Vargas, joined us for lunch (“This is Ruby, she’s a queer”) and we talked about Dilute [get the live album; it will change your life] and making music and pop punk. Afterwards, Cheshire and I talked about relationships. We talked about non-monogamy and being up-front about it; we talked about how non-monogamous and monogamous relationships have equal potential for getting you bent out of shape by love; we talked about hanging out with exes; we talked about her forays on a website called gaydar; we talked about my dislike of mainstream gayness and mainstream gay people and I revealed my homophobic, misogynist side to a reassuring amount of laughter.

I really like Cheshire, and I fancy her, too. Our footing as friends meant that we could have a far more interesting conversation than if we’d been feeling each other out romantically: less guarded, a far wider range of topics available for conversation. Is that always going to be the case?

We went to see an exhibition about Olive Morris, an activist from the ’70s who pioneered squatting and women’s rights in Brixton, then we said goodbye. She was going to try and meet women “outside the pond” at a lesbian night in Shoreditch. I was like, “Um, you’re going where? Let me just recap the key words here. Lesbian and Shoreditch. The two most unpromising words imaginable. What’s it called? What does that mean? It comes from a Hole song? Jesus fuck I thought it couldn’t get any worse.”

I went to a gig down the road. The first guy was a scrappy punk-rock rapper with old-school drum machines and activist lyrics. “I live in my heart.” Third was the Islamic call-to-prayer plus distressing noise guy. Before his set, he struck up a conversation with me, asking, “Who is Saint Jude?” referring to my t-shirt. I explained that he is the patron saint of lost causes and omitted the fact that the valve in my heart was named after him because everyone who had what I have was a goner. We talked about books a bit and about how he gets panic attacks when he plays in his hometown. Then, a guy told him it was time to setup and he went off. He looks like a bookish punk rock squat guy. He’s cute. I tried to find him later, but he was gone. Some guy who looks exactly like the drummer that the guy in Mutual Appreciation enlists for his band struck up a conversation and we talked about Portishead and choirs.

Later, I walked home in the rain and watched Humpday. It’s about two guys who make a drunken bet to have sex with each other on film for an amateur porn festival. I know, it sounds like a shocker. It’s actually about their friendship and one guy’s marriage, and how their bet becomes really important in their lives. I found myself extremely moved by the subtlety of the conversations, their relationships. I just sat in bed and watched and grinned.

Last night, I played a game of capflag with an assortment of squatters, anarchos and geeks. I met Whip and the other forty players at the tube and then we proceeded to the area near the abbey.

We divided into two teams, red and blue, and each got half the territory. Each team took their flag and put it somewhere in their territory that was accessible by at least three roads. They then agreed a jail area and the game began.

If you get the other team’s flag and return it to your base, you score a point. If you are touched by a member of the other team when you have the flag, you must drop it. If you are touched when you are in their territory, they can escort you to their team’s jail. You have to stay there until someone from your team runs into the jail and touches you.

The game is a very pleasing combination of stealth, camouflage and athleticism. You can sneak around the dark streets, ducking into doorways and behind cars and into shadows. You keep your distance so others can’t see your face-paint and then try to act like a tourist or passerby (civvie). You can run like the wind to get away.

I thought the game would feel chaotic and disjointed, but you hear just enough reports of activity from your team, and see just enough clashes from a distance to make things feel connected.

In the first game, I ran with Whip and another guy for a while. Whip then got got and me and the other guy ran with a third guy before we had to scatter. Me and the other guy found the Reds’ jail and planned a daring raid that became a waste of time when I blew through at top speed and discovered that everyone had just been sprung.

In the second game, I guarded the flag for a while, nabbed someone from a forward reconnaissance party and took them to jail. Then, the enemy effected a coordinated attack from two sides. In the process of fending them off, I nabbed another of their team and took him to jail. All the people in the jail got sprung right in front of us, so my guy became the only inmate. I was pretty flaked after three hours’ running, so I hung out and heard accounts from my team mates about a squatter group who are opening places in Mayfair.

Yesterday, I met my old Uni friend, Grain, for lunch. We ate steak and drank coffee and orange juice and talked about our friends and old times. Afterwards, we went back to mine and watched Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex.

That is my favourite film of the last two years. It blows my mind that there were left-wing fighters in a rich European country who wouldn’t hesitate to open fire on the police.

After the film, we talked about Matte, and Grain’s girlfriend. We talked about how relationships are so much more complicated than they appear when you are a child. We talked about the way that individual problems can be solved with a rational approach, but that whole relationships cannot be analysed logically: either it makes you happy enough, or it doesn’t.

We discussed marriage and children and watched the Hitler Doesn’t Get His MDMA Pizza video on YouTube.

I had been feeling intermittent chest pain under my arm all afternoon and, faced with the prospect of an evening alone, decided to ring NHS Direct just to be safe. I answered no to all the heart attack questions, but, upon hearing about my recent cardiac arrest, they sent an ambulance.

The paramedics arrived and did an ECG and took blood and asked me heart attack questions. They decided to take me to hospital – again, just to be safe. Grain instantly charmed the paramedics with his calm buoyancy and was excited that we were riding with blues and twos.

We arrived at A&E and the nurses put on a blood pressure cuff and oxygen saturation snapper. They took blood and I said Grain could stay while they put on dots and clips for an ECG. I desperately wanted him to see me with no top on. I think because I wanted him to be my boyfriend. He remarked later that my boobs are bigger than he remembered them.

Wave one of doctors decided that I wasn’t about to die. Wave two said that the only possible explanation for re pain was that my grafted bypass had come away. They would check that later with a blood test.

In the meantime, Grain sat on my bed and we held hands and he told me the story of his friend who lost his mind whilst tripping on mushrooms.

I realised that I didn’t want any of the girls I like: not Matte or Allure. I wanted nurture and strength: Grain and Dusk.

We saw a gurney go past with a covered body on it. We looked at each other in silence. I felt terribly upset that someone had died while we were there. I leant forward and Grain hugged me for a long time and said I was precious to him and that he loved me. For the hundredth time, I fell on love with him.

A little later, I was taken up to the cardiac ward. At two a.m., the nurse took some blood. I got about three hours’ sleep and then woke at six a.m. I’ve just heard that my blood test came back normal and that I should be discharged when the doctors do their rounds.

A few days ago, I watched a film called Lost and Delirious. It’s about two girls at a boarding school who are in a relationship. And whenever I think of the one who was more in love, or perhaps less cautious, the doomed one I get that same feeling of sadness and comfort that I get when I think of Aimee Argote from Des Ark.

Today, I have that strange, close feeling when I think of Grain. It’s like that feeling you have when you think of someone you dreamed intimately of the previous night. I know if he walked onto the ward, he would greet me with his usual enthusiastic, broad hello and a hug and a kiss on the mouth. But the closeness I feel is nearer to the thought that, last night, he saw me half undressed.

Last night, I went to a party thrown by my friend, Alice. I took my housemates, Camden and Olivo, and I wore the long, sheer, plain black dress that I got in a free shop at a squat where my friends had a queer cinema weekend and that I left to go an Alice In Wonderland party where palled around with and then kissed Allure in one of those successful nights where everyone is in love with you.

We arrived in the pouring rain and I spent the evening talking to my sister and old friends, Lucie, Richard and Charlotte, casting occasional glances at the pretty, straight girls milling around. I think I might need to just put my dislike of gay people aside and start going to stuff where lesbians go. Lord help me.

I talked to my sister about my worry that I’m starting afresh every two years. She told me she thinks I live an exciting life and that I conquer each city I move to. I was very flattered. I said I worried that I wasn’t having a successful long-term relationship and she said she thought it would happen. She said she has been the happiest ever over the last three “settled” years. We decided that maybe settled equals more happy but breeds wow I’m not cool enough dissatisfaction when you examine your life.

My housemates and I got home at about four-thirty a.m

I went to see District 9 this evening with Frost. When she arrived outside the cinema, I realised that I do fancy her. She was looking like a haughty adolescent boy in a hoodie, gray jacket, jeans and tin-can headphones. The problem is, as soon as we start talking, I stop fancying her. She drones about technology and is bashful and slight. In my head, she should be brutishly pushing me up against a wall and putting her hand up my dress.

We came out of the cinema and she said she felt like a cup of tea. I said I didn’t know where we could get one, except for my house. She said she needed to sleep and I said cool and got on a bus.

“I have navigated Iceland. I’ve laid my claim on Portugal.” – Sunset Rubdown.

On Thursday, I went to see Matte in Bradford. On the train up, I thought about the scene in Magnolia where Tom Cruise is at his dying, absent father’s deathbed and he chokes out, “I’m not going to cry. I’m not going to cry for you.”

Matte is moving out of her house to go on the road on her bike to Scotland and stay in a protest camp in the woods for a while and then move on to who knows where? So, this weekend was the last of the normality in our relationship. From now on, we will see each other more intermittently: when I go to visit her in the forest or she comes to see me in London.

Weirder, Matte’s boyfriend was staying over with his band. She picked me up from the station and we walked back to her house holding hands like a shot from a Scorsese film, through the front door, down the stairs, past the kitchen and into the storeroom, and she said, “Ruby, this is Abel”, and I said, “Hi”, and he said, “Hi”. He is skinny and had on cycling shoes and baggy trousers tucked into the tops of his socks and a big knitted jumper and an old farmer flat-cap. He has slightly sticky-out eyes and an arrogant smile, blonde hair mis-shapenly cut and down to his shoulders in places. I fucking hate description in books: you should be able to suggest everything with one detail, or with the way the character acts. However, I studied Abel’s appearance very closely and tried to draw conclusions about how Matte saw him. (Later, I said since I would only meet him for a few days, could she tell me what was, “pretty great”, about him. She said he is fearless and gets really into the thing he is doing, he is sparky, he is very gentle and loving and he has nice eyes.)

We spent the first day in the sitting room: we fitted part of a new ceiling, moved a ton of stuff to other places in the house, rearranged furniture, hoovered and swept.

In the evening, we hung out in the kitchen. I talked to Abel a little, but he spent a lot of time reading. I mostly spoke to his bandmates, Canvas and Scandinavia, about Denver and the US. I also developed a crush on one of Matte’s housemates, Waxen: her animation and looseskinny t-shirt that I wanted to take off and her solid, soothing personality.

After a lovely supper of stir-fry and tofu with Matte, the band, Waxen and Matte’s other housemates, I had a long conversation with Abel’s other bandmate, Mohair, about whether an aeroplane on a conveyer belt will take off. Part way through, Abel and Matte began whispering and laughing and said then they got up and left, saying, “Let’s go into the sitting room.” I finished the aeroplane debate with my stomach in my mouth. I said goodbye to Mohair and went to get my book and sat back in the kitchen, now on my own, reading the same sentences over and over.

Eventually, Matte came back in and asked if I was OK and I said that the situation with Abel, her and I was a delicate balance that could be upset by any kind of us and themness and that I had felt left out when they had left. She said sorry and I said we were all learning and it was tricky. After that, though I felt tiny frissions of jealousy when Abel and Matte cuddled, things were basically fine. Matte divided herself between us amazingly well. When bedtime came, Matte said goodnight to Abel and we left the sitting room and went up to her bedroom and it felt fucking weird. I felt bad for him.

Matte and I got into bed and I kissed her hard and pulled her to me and wrapped her up in my arms. I did it because I needed to feel close, but I felt not a bit sexy. However, that came eventually and we made love a few times. We woke in the morning and made love again. I ate her out and felt like a good boy performing a duty he enjoys.

We did more tidying and pottering the next day. Being at Matte’s house means I live closer to the ground. I have less choice in how I spend my time and no base to retreat to. Everything takes more time: hours go by spent cooking, running a bath, putting up curtains, or hanging out in the kitchen talking to the people who wander in and out. The manual labour and lack of solitude and permanent feeling of cold mean I live far less in my head. It’s unsettling and hard work, but a relief.

In the evening, I went to see my old beloved boy, Dusk, in Leeds for supper. Matte had asked whether I wanted her to come and I had thought it politic to suggest she spend the evening with Abel.

When I arrived at the place, I sat on a stool at the bar and waited for Dusk and drank a glass of lager and let my face become more impassive and felt my cheeks go redder and my legs slacken and watched the bar staff serve the other customers.

Dusk arrived and he told me about his forest research trips to Gabon, Cameroon and Tanzania. He told me the story of how he broke his ankle. We discussed our sexual histories and talked a little of my polyamourous relationship (he had no advice because his only experience is based on being in Matte’s position).

The evening was a handy breather from the weirdness back in Bradford. I dashed off to get my train and realised that, perhaps for the first time ever, I wanted to be with Matte more than Dusk. For the first time, he wasn’t the centre of the universe.

When I got back, I hung out in Matte’s room with her and Abel. He and I talked a bit about Settlers of Catan, and some other board games I hadn’t heard of. He told me about his band and how they tell stories in their songs about a mutant cat, a clown, sea-life and things that have happened to them on tour.

I could tell that Matte was happy that we were all hanging out together. Unfortunately, the last hour was Abel surfing Myspace for old bands and events from Denver and the communal spirit fell apart. Matte and I cuddled on the bed and, eventually, he went downstairs to his mattress.

The next day, Matte and I began the day by making love, then went shopping and then hung out in the kitchen. I made her some pastry and she used it for her cinnamon and nutmeg pumpkin pie. I used the left-over pastry to make an apple pie which Matte would later drop on the floor. Matte made a vegan maple and pecan cheesecake.

The party began and I spent time talking to Highschool and Matte’s friend Clive, Matte’s sister, Hardcore Boy and his girl. The band played and their accordion and saw and double-bass were great, but the stories and glockenspiel not so much. I did like the band in general and, bar his saw-playing, I disliked Abel’s contributions.

While I was in Bradford, I thought a lot about whether I liked Abel. I vacillated between quite liking him and being able to admire his adventurousness and dedication to creating an alternate universe for himself and finding him a morose, cliquey, self-absorbed little boy. However, I can’t pretend to know whether my feelings about him are an accurate reflection of him. On a side note, he seemed pretty remote with Matte: she always went to snuggle with him, or hang out with him, and he was always absenting himself to read his book.

The night drifted away in smoked cigarettes and gentle conversations. I went to bed about four a.m. and Matte followed me soon afterwards. We snuggled in her filthy bed, me still wearing my hoodie.

The next day, we made love again and got up at half two in the afternoon. We hung out in the kitchen while Canvas very slowly made pancakes and the rest of us talked about the Lappersfort protest camp and tripping and lock-ons and work ethics and music. We ate and I made hot chocolates with home-made soya milk. Matte and I started work on a new pecan pie and then I had to leave.

She walked me to the station and when we got there, we sat and waited. I said as I looked down the platform at the red light in the humid Sunday goodbye air that I felt like time had stopped. We talked about a life where time had stopped for everyone and everything that wasn’t near us. We talked about how we would survive if we lived in a house. You’d have to be near to something to make it grow.

I got on the train and we talked until the doors closed. I pointed to myself and made a heart shape with my hands and pointed at Matte and she did the same back. The train pulled away and she slid out of the frame of the window and I went and sat down and cried all the way to Leeds.

“Seen from the back of a train.
I rode away from your station.
They drifted in the air.
Like memoirs of old conversations.”

- Sunset Rubdown.

I know the boring relationship machinations with Matte have been going on and on. But, as usual and as consolation to the reader for his trouble, there sex at the end.

Matte came to visit on Wednesday.  Our relationship has become so complicated in my head.  And how I feel about it changes: sometimes, I am cool, sometimes, I cry, sometimes, I jump for joy.  I wonder whether how I feel is just based upon how deep into the relationship I think, how far I resolve all of the implications of the facts.  I wonder whether, at the bottom, there is the truth that makes me feel just sadness, and, the less far I go down, the more happy I am.

There are some new facts.  First, Matte’s new bloke is called Abel.  He is an American, in a band touring the UK, very young, a ragamuffin anarcho and probably a nice person.  Second, she is in love with him.  Third, she is about to move out of her house to go traveling.  Fourth, some of this traveling will be with him.  Fifth, at some point, he will return to the US.  Sixth, she is pretty sure she doesn’t want to see anyone else but me and him.

Matte told me these facts in the park near my house.  We went there to eat olives, spelt crackers, houmous and bread.  We lay down in the long grass and talked and talked.

I felt better: her see-saw metaphor made sense (her in the middle and two people on either end stops her tumbling down and turning into the person on one side when it clunks down without any weight at the other), I quite liked the sound of Abel, things would be more stable and so my mind would be able to solidify.

I still can’t bear the idea of someone else having sex with her.  I am still simultaneously happy and unhappy that Abel is totally different from me; really, I want to give Matte everything. I am afraid that her traveling all the time will make it hard for us to have a relationship.

Fundamentally, I feel like non-monogamy is underwater: I dive down and things feel fine, but, after a while, the pressure builds and I have to surface and breathe.

On the night she arrived, we went to see The Time Traveler’s Wife. I preferred the book – especially as it is so wrapped up in my head with the time I went to New York City – but the film was fine and Matte and I held hands. We spent a day with my Dad at the Tate Britain. We held hands a lot. We went out to supper with my brother, sister and some of my friends. Matte didn’t say much. We went to supper at the house of my friend, Archigram, and had a delightful evening of cracking jokes, eating vegan fish cakes, drinking beer and smoking. Matte didn’t say much. I wish she would talk more to the people I love. We had sex in the mornings and afternoons and evenings.

On Saturday, she brought up discussion number two. She said that she wished we could stop filling time. This is actually something I’ve been trying to solve ever since we got together the first time way back in July 2007. I sometimes feel like an events coordinator, trying to think up stuff she will like. Because we don’t live in the same city, we can’t carry on our own lives and projects when we are together; because we spend sections of time together, we can’t see each other and then go about our own business. We agreed that we’d try to just hang out more.

I said I wish we could stop talking about this fucking relationship and start having it.

I have just re-read some of the posts I wrote about the time when we got back together. (They start here.) There are definitely very low points, but there are lots of very high points, too. Are we just getting through stuff before we come to the other side? Were the previous high points because we were in the first (second) flush?

Saturday, her birthday, was pure joy. We went to see a stage production of Peter Pan, her favourite novel, in Kensington Gardens. The actor playing Peter was just the right mix of cocky and vulnerable, and the script didn’t shy away from Wendy’s ambiguous mother/lover role. When the children flew up into the sky, I couldn’t help crying. Flying and motherhood – those seem to be what get me.

After the play, we ate our picnic of ginger and orange marmalade, bread, houmous and crackers, and drank peppermint tea from the Thermos. Then, we walked through Kensington Gardens on the hunt for chips. We found none, but picked a few blackberries that were in range of the fences. Dispensing with coyness, I scaled a fence that protected some particularly laden bushes. After a short while, Matte followed me and we filled up two carrier bags.

We walked to Trafalgar Square and caught the bus home. Matte made letter pasta with garlic, onion, courgette and tomatoes, and an apple and blackberry crumble. I mixed mojitos for her and drank beer. We ate and then hung out on the sofa. I changed into my faded blue and pink cotton strappy dress. We were both quite drunk. My housemates were out.

Normally, when one is in a relationship, sex starts with a few kisses or an insinuating stroke, or before you are hardly even awake. This time, the whole day felt like a first date. I lay on the sofa and our eyes met and she came over and lay beside me and our sex started bashful. The day before, we’d talked a lot about fantasies. Hers include Rachel Stevens in Sweet Dreams My LA Ex, threesomes and switching from being a boy to being a girl. I had told her that I sometimes think about being fucked in a dress in a corridor by a boy or JD Samson.

So, Matte took me into the corridor and put me against the wall and kissed my neck and shoulders and pulled down my dress and kissed my breasts until I skip-gasped into her ear. She put her hand up my skirt and into my underwear and shuddered when she felt how wet I was and then she stroked me round and round. I think I was quite loud when I said, “Oh, fuckkkkkkkk, you’re so hot”, and then I got even more louder when she pushed one and then two fingers into me and fucked me with her hand. It felt so good. I faked coming after a while and whispered, “Will you take me to bed?”

She did. During our fantasy conversation, I’d told her I adore it when she stands behind me and kisses my neck. She had asked if I wanted her to fuck me from behind and I said, “Mmm, possibly.” Now, in bed, I reminded her of this. I lay on my front and she kissed my neck and shoulders and back and I squirmed and squeaked. She took a handful of my hear and yanked around my head to kiss my mouth. Then, without warning, she put her hands on my bottom and pulled me up so I was on my knees and elbows. She pushed her fingers inside me fast and low and I bucked and sighed. After a little, she sat behind me and eeeked with pleasure as she fucked me.

I made love to her and made her come with her sitting on top of me, my whole hand inside her. I took her into the corridor and knelt down at her feet and slid my fingers inside her and ate her out as come ran down her legs. We slept.

The next afternoon, I took her to the train station.

In the morning, we had made love again. She got on her hands and knees and I curled around above and we kissed as I slid inside.

We held hands in St Pancras while we waited.

I fucked her with two and then three fingers and then knelt behind her and moved my hips against her ass and pretended I was a boy fucking her with my cock. I turned my hand 90 degrees and suddenly she gave an explosion of ahh ahh ahhs ahh and came faster than ever before.

When she went through the barriers onto the platform, she kept on looking back at me and waving as she walked away.

My curtains had fallen down, revealing us naked and vulnerable and nowhere near the real world to anyone out there who cared to look.

After seven weeks here, it looks like I might be getting out of hospital soon.  A couple more scans, one of which will, hopefully, confirm that I don’t need an ICD, then home on maybe Friday or Monday.

I’ve had a few bad days, recently.  On Sunday, the pain of my chest incision and in my back just would not go away.  And, yesterday, I went downstairs to the river to eat supper with Matte, my sisters, my Mum and cousin, waved them all off, came back upstairs and felt so tensely gripped by tiredness, I got into bed and went straight to sleep.  Nights are the worst.  Though it is a huge relief to be free of Monty the heart monitor and Johnny Drip – though not, of course, iPhone – my routine runs: take drugs at ten p.m., sleep, wake at two a.m. going ouch, take more drugs, sleep, wake about five or six a.m., sit up and feel the ouch dissolve from my torso, or take more drugs at eight a.m.

Lots of people have visited.  This is like an injection of real life and is so reviving, so necessary.

Matte has been here since Saturday.  It has been heavenly.  We have held hands and she has given me massages and we have pashed next to the hospital bed and in the lift and she has read to me and she has gone to get us noodles and pizza and we have started planning a holiday in a cottage in Cornwall.  Today, she left London to return home to pack and she will then travel to Belgium for a protest camp.  She will spend a bit of time in Brighton on the way back [heart tug, tears], then go to her Mum’s civil partnership ceremony, then come to visit me in Cambridge.