Ok what I *actually* did was walk around a lot, eat carbonara, visit my old pal Goethe, and sit drinking coffee or negronis while reading @adapalmer.bsky.social’s new book on the Renaissance — which is highly entertaining, even if you’re not a recovering history professor.

Went to Rome for some timely Meditations on Decline and Fall…

Guy next to me on a losing streak still mansplained poker to me. (But tbh he seemed like an Egg so I didn’t mind so much as I would have. I’m terribly forgiving.)

went to Vienna for a weekend so I could wear a beret and eat Sachertorte. there were no trans girls on grindr within 100 miles but the grand cafes were open until midnight, so.

New: Harris tweed suit. Old: cravat I wore obsessively as a twinky boy in London 15 years ago, and a favorite waistcoat from grad school. As my old pal Goethe says: Auch der Gedanke willig, sinnig, schnelle / Sich ums Vergangne wie ums Künftige schlang.

doppelgängeresque

This was taken after I’d finished everything I had to do with the food, hence the beatific expression.

Hosted a trans thanksgiving for 12 guests yesterday in my tiny apartment — cooked vast amounts of food, including two roast chickens, two dozen dinner rolls, miso-glazed carrots, and two pies. Exhausted; contented. Community is fun… but remember, it requires a lot of chairs.

On the train from Scotland to London, periodically refreshing grindr (t4t filter) every 50 miles down the east coast mainline. (Conclusion: t’all need more t4t in the UK, poor dears.)

Made carrot cake for tea with my mum’s cishet friends who wanted to meet the mysterious Other Daughter who mysteriously lives in Seattle and of whom there are mysteriously no photos in the house from before two years ago.

found the perfect disguise as a trans woman visiting the UK: dress like a Tory councilor.

It is properly rainy, windy October fall. Long have I plotted my outfits for this season, laid down my plans in the despised baleful days of summer, biding my time — now at least I can unleash my trench coats and turtlenecks and tweed on an unsuspecting world.

local grindr guys continue to Have Questions. oh buddy, I wish I had answers. every time I think I glimpse the Meaning of T4T, in a fleeting glance in a bar or in the folds of a shared unmade bed, still it recedes from me; I spend a lifetime unraveling its Mystery, and arrive only at the beginning.

nose still taped from FFS and generally not feeling one’s best, but at least the trans girl behind the bar said she liked my leather jacket, so.

a grindr Chaser’s lament upon being confronted with the unfathomable transcendent mystery of T4T. What answer could I even have given him, that he would understand?

I finally got ahold of the data from the CT scan of my skull that I got last year in preparation for my FFS. now I need to 3D print it for a life-size memento mori to sit on my desk. and also for silver earrings.

(in other news that will surprise no-one, Vegas is an odd place, especially if you’re a trans girl ex Brit.)