Iestyn Edwards is...what?

 Marty has the brightest orange socks. He tells me, unnecessarily, Flixy bought them. His feet are very small. I don't like that he messaged saying he was coming to pick some stuff up, so not to be worried if I heard strange noises downstairs; that implies I would automatically be upstairs in my attic. No. He is there for some leads, chargers and records, he tells me. I nearly reply, 'We do not wish to hear this, kindly leave the stage', which, Ken told me, they used to sing during auditions at the BBC in the nineteen sixties. I still fantasise about Ken's niece, Naomi, ringing to tell me probate has gone through so I can now have his flat. 'Or the cash equivalent.'  Confused WhatsApp from Kristian saying sorry (I had messaged him saying he is not to smoke - I saw some photos on his Instagram) but he was put onto work yesterday, and it's thirteen hours door to door delivering parcels. 'Not so sure about this...' One of his routes takes him directly p...

I have sinusitis and a bit of wheeziness. Before my cacao in matcha latte oat milk I tilt myself forward and backward and then roll from the waist to dislodge phlegm.  As a toddler, when I was recovering from the fatal strain of croup, Doctor Halfpenny...I don’t know what he would be called these days factoring in inflation: Doctor Twenty-Six Pounds Seventy-five, maybe? Anyway, to shift phlegm he recommended Eirwen and Terry play the Fishy in the Water game.* One or other of them would sit me facing them on their lap, then tilt me backwards so my head was just off the floor and sing, ‘Fishy in the Water/Fishy in the Sea/Who Do You Like Best/The fishes or me?’  And to be lifted upright again I’d have to reply, ‘You’. I gave them such a complex... ‘Fishes.’  ‘Fishes.’  ‘Fishes.’  By the time we went back for my check up with Doctor Twenty-Six Pounds Seventy-five again I’d effectively renamed his game, ‘Don't ask the question if you can't handle the answer, bitches...

 Bump into Ad. He has long hair these days and mutton chops. He looks beautiful. He's still juggling with cigar boxes but his teaching of Pilates hasn't gone well so far. He felt he wasn't ready even to cover classes but was then disappointed to have only two pupils in them. When he tried Pay What You Can nobody at all came. He's still in the housing cooperative, which he really shouldn't be - paying very little for a four bedroom place on his own. His children moved out more than a decade ago. Jane has moved in. Flixy's Marty lives in the same cooperative. There is so much crap hoarded under his bed its legs dangle above the carpet. He shares with someone Flixy insists is 'strange'. Marty's strange, Flixy. Ad told me about some of the Wunderlich acts from the last couple of years, involving masturbation with Henry hoovers. I say, 'This is just what spit and sawdust variety should be!' not sure that I believe myself.  I hear someone next door...

I switch on the lamp in the sitting room. It doesn't work. When I finally palm aside the two cushions, blankets and a plump black silk bag, I find the lamp's lead has gone to ground with four or more dust-buried refugees from the Innovations Catalogue. I leave it be.  There are two large and near to death rubber plants on the small kitchen window sill. Squeezed beside them is a box of broken plant pots - one containing a dried up bulb - shells, a brass tankard, a mug with its broken off handle within, wooden stakes, canes, disintegrating rope, etc. As I rummage through these items I wonder what abandoned interest of Flixy's they might betoken.  The ice-cream parlour sign above the sink is filthy, cracked, with a rust-rash. The painting of the young Queen Elizabeth the Second looks washed out, the frame grimy. The cobwebs above Flixy's food cupboard are the colour of burnt garlic.  Washing up their supper things Marty, Flixy's boyfriend - who is so effete he makes me...

 Flixy (disregarding my advice at the time) told Trombone Tracey not to pay her last month's rent, she would use the deposit for it. As an avid watcher of Judge Judy and The People's Court I warned her not to. The room as I find it is a collection of non-compensated dilapidations. Ruined paintwork, scuff marks, gouges, nails, blue-tac, oily/sticky patches, water damage, sun warping - and is filthy. But Flixy being Flixy insists, 'I've made you up a lovely bed, with my nice cushions.' Orange bedding is not lovely.  'I told Trombone Tracey to be careful of my nice cushions when she painted the curved bit of wall in her room,' Flixy tells me. 'I stood them upright to give your fold-me-out sofa bed a bit of a comfortable look - isn't it? - and saw there was flaked sky blue on them.' I try and lower my breathing.  Trying yet again to self-diagnose I read how certain strands of Autism are affected by the increased blurring of seasons, added to the alre...

 Up at five to clean. My upper knuckle wound still weeps. Apple peeler stigmata.  #diary #memoir #lgbtqia #gay #funny #humour #brighton

I met my friend Kitty in the street. Her hair was vast. She said something along these lines: ‘I’m growing my hair to sell to a doll factory in Puerto Rico, proceeds going to the Hacienda Verde. Year’s growth: they’re offering three thousand five hundred. Just off to the treatment clinic. They put on it Kamatakan mung-dynasty beans, Tregothnan Manuka honey and Watneys pale, then leave it to do its thing for a fortnight. Then they drain it all off and in a petri dish collect what the beans have poohed out after they’ve eaten and drunk: except they don’t eat and drink like…with mouths…whatever. Then they put this stuff on your hair and you have to leave it for six months till the clinic cuts your hair off - and it gets to the stage where nobody can stand to be around you without the aid of burning joss sticks. I had to take a tarpaulin for a swimming hat at Christmas (I call it Winter Solstice Plus Three these days) when I went on a “finding myself” trip; swam with dolphins. Came back ...