anyone at all

Hello, readers.

It is Wednesday in Margate. It is possible that it might be Wednesday where you are, as well. It depends, really, I suppose. On space and time and whether or not you believe in the naming of days.

Sometimes I fall in love / Sometimes I fall out / Sometimes I’m in love with love / Sometimes I am filled with doubt

Sometimes I think about Kim Boekbinder. Sometimes I think about their album, The Impossible Girl, and sometimes I think about their song, “Anyone At All.” It is an amazing album and a wonderful song and I first heard of this album and this song once upon a time in San Diego. This was a time of stories called Clarion. Many humans of a speculative bent gathered. On beaches. In tilted houses. Festooned across furniture. They talked talk of sea monsters, coffee, and British superheroes. Also, on occasion, of music. The Magnetic Fields. Brandi Carlisle. The Muppets. On the last night, we danced and we drank whiskey and rye.

I once thought that we’d get married / I thought of you as home / Then you said I was your savior / And I wanted to be alone

Kim Boekbinder describes Kim Boekbinder as “Not a boy, not a girl, a fractal of this world.”

I like this. Sometimes I think of myself as enchanted. It seems a good identity so far as identities go. A bit vague, perhaps. No more than Wednesday, though.

It is true, of course, that I also think about you as enchanted.

What makes me run? / What makes me fall? / What makes me so sure, / I don’t want anyone at all? / Anyone at all.

Sometimes it has not been the easiest transition to Margate. It is possible that my flat is haunted. Or, at least, that it is not entirely happy that I am here. Maybe that’s just me, though. Still. It has been here a saga of clogged pipes, gas leaks, shower leaks, and, perhaps, a bit of spiritual leakage, as well. That feeling, do you know it, readers. That feeling when you look at a place in your home and you feel sad because you remember a day, months ago, when you sat in the place and were happy. It is a strange feeling. Not entirely unfamiliar.

The other day I heard someone say that creativity is a process of making as many mistakes as possible. Art, they continued, is the process of deciding which mistakes to keep.

I could write a thousand pop songs / And I could live a thousand years / I could live a thousand times / and still not have all the answers

Sometimes everything is wonderful.

Parts of this everything include this exhibition at The Carl Freedman Gallery in which there are fantastic works of art curated by Russell Tovey. You might remember Russell Tovey from such things as Being Human and that one episode of Doctor Who.

One of my favorite pieces in this exhibition was the very first painting of two men lounging with a dog at their feet, all monsoon orange and electric ease. The two men, their bodies pressed tight.

One of these men reminded me a lot of my father and I thought of his ability to play music by ear and also how, long ago in Britain, people sometimes named queer men with the euphemism, “musical.”

The other day I saw In the Heights, the film adaptation of the musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda. When I walked out, whatever I said, seemed to be said in the rhythm of the film. It was a feeling not entirely unfamiliar. It is fun, speaking in rhythm, because you almost always surprise yourself when making sense is less important than making music.

Sometimes I think enchanted is just another word for musical. Enchanted is, after all, just another way of saying something is filled with song.

If it’s true that we never really know what we think we know, then it’s probably also true that we never really don’t know what we think we don’t know. Somehow everything finds us where it needs to be found.

I hope that your everything is finding you, readers, wherever it is that it needs to be found.

Happy Wednesday.

ttfn.