Why Do You Watch Me So Forlornly? Don't Think I Didn't Notice, I Know Many Of You, I've Gazed At Your

Excerpt from my WIP Dead above.

Hi, I love ur blog aesthetic, I feel like I'm having a warm bath with side of lemon tea.

Thats so sweet of you! Thankyou💚

I'm teaching myself a new skill, its going as expected, I'm running into a lot of walls and I'll find myself tracing paint marks or picking lint of the carpet than actually making an effort.

So I keep reminding myself that in five years the time will still have past anyway. Or that sixe months ago I would have had a little foundation already, if only I stuck to it. So yes you'll feel frustrated at the beginning or halfway through, yes you'll have days or months of procrastination of feeling like there's no point even continuing, but the time will pass regardless. So in a year you could have bits and peices of a project, or you can have nothing at all, you could have a baseline of understanding for a new skill or none. It doesn't matter if you think that the payout won't be much, because it will be something as apposed to nothing. Rome wasn't build in a day as people say, so don't measure your own progress to harshly, just continue to build at your own rate, but if you believe in your project don't give up, progress is still progress.

We connect with people without words everyday, some hold a door open, you share a smile with someone at the bus stop or  when passing by each other on a walk, we say I don't know you but I see you, here we both are living together on this little rock, living this little life that is all to fleeting but so worth it.

It reminds me of a friend I had in school. Diane moved from Russia when we where 13, she didnt speak much English, and the few Russian speakers at our school where so much younger than her that she barely saw them. I remember seeing her in the corridor outside our first science lesson, she was leant against the dark green tiles lining the walls, her school uniform brand new and her hair dyed auburn. Everyone had already grouped up with their friends, talking and laughing so loudly it created this mass of sound that only kids can make just before a lesson. My science class was rather chaotic and hyper. Diane stood silent away from everyone.

I wasn't known as the most outgoing in our class, if anything most would have described me as shy, but really I just never had much to say. Seeing her there though, I knew I had to say something, I knew none of the other girls would try and bring her into their social fold, so I went up to her.

"Hi, are you new" she looked at me hesitantly as she tried to piece together bits of language in her head "Yes, I'm Diane" 

"I'm April" there was a beat of silence, neither of us knew what to say and I wasn't the best at small talk, so instead I just looked towards the rest of our class and said "they're a little" and I made a large frazzled gesture with my hands, trying to encapsulate the chaos. She looked from me to them and laughed nodding.

After that we'd sit with each other in all our shared lessons, at the beginning I would write her work for her and I know I probably shouldnt have. but when your 13 and your friend is freaking out over homework being due or not having her notes written down you just end up doing it. Eventually we realised she could write her English assignments in Russian then put them into Google translate, and then I'd re-write them  grammatically correct. This wasn't perfect but it's not like she had a language aid or anything so we made do. Our jokes usually consisted of calling each other suka or using our made up gesture - a sideways palm from the centre of our forehead down to the table. It meant get a load of this nonsense, ffs or I'm an idiot, usually used when someone was making a fuss in lesson or when we'd make a silly mistake.

We didn't need words, not when we had laughter and silly little gestures, sometimes I felt closer to her than with friends I'd had for years. I guess what we have now is a language made up of vine and tiktok references, that you could giggle with someone over even when your language didn't translate. And in some ways we're more connected over those trends and references than anything else despite the language barriers. We connect over joy, humour and humanity.

Diane moved back to Russia before we turned 16. I don't know where she is now or how much she remembers of me, but I do treasure our friendship. Wherever you are suka I hope your okay. I miss you.

The book so far consists of messy notes and pieces of different plot ideas that don't fit together built up over two years. Most of them are my frantic half asleep scribblings that don't make any sense lol. Now i just need to build my Frankenstein.

Screw it , I'm going to write this book.

Okay so I'm not American and I don't live there but I still decided to download xiaohongshu (rednote). The only social media I actually use and post on is Tumblr but I wanted to have little nosey lol.

First of all it was really quite funny and heartwarming to see the interactions between the Americans and Chinese rednote users, there where so many Chinese internet slang cheat sheets and memes being exchanged and taught, like the American tiktok refugees where so ready to learn a whole new language so they could participate in meme culture and I love it, lmao not to mention how there's a Chinese saying where it basically means cute aggression, but for when they see a cute cat and when you translate it to English it reads as I want to lick your cat and that was definitely a bit of a funny misunderstanding lmao.

But overall I kinda love how petty the Americans from tiktok where, they literally said we are going to go straight to the supposed source. ngl not the finest moment when asked for help on English homework the answers given where wrong lmao, it's apparently being agreed upon that when asking for English homework help on rednote, it's best to ask a British user instead of an American one lol.

But it is nice to see people exchanging culture and joy even with a language barrier and the Chinese users where and are so welcoming.

Screw it , I'm going to write this book.

The bad news is that it sometimes feels never ending and apathy whispers into your ear that this numbness is peaceful and to just sink into it's depths.

The good news is that apathy is a cold filthy liar. They want you to drowned, but they don't know that happiness is always around the corner, and it will yank you out of the dark water. I swear one day you will laugh so hard your sides start splitting and the pain will leak out of you. I swear you will sing and dance and feel something other than heavy numbness, the sunrise is golden and it burns, it heats up your heart until you feel like there's something to live for and it's just on the horizon. Wait for it. Please.

I know right now, with everything that's going on in the world, it feels like the night will last forever, it's darkness stretching out for years and years ahead. But I have to say that one day, the soft pull of life will tug at you. You'll find yourself sitting quietly in the summer months enjoying the warm rays and the birdsongs, maybe you plant some flowers or berrys. You'll laugh till your sides ache and your heart lightens. You'll make art and get paint on your clothes and on your carpet. You'll read books your friend recommend and gush over your favourite characters together, maybe you'll write your own. That's what's getting me through, that one day it will be summer, the days soft and I'll have my book finished in my hands and maybe someone will read it. Maybe they won't. But it's things like this, the soft things, that make everything worth it.

Just before covid hit my brother and I at 15 and 19 found our selfs homeless. I had a choice, my brother would go into care or we could stay together, but only if I took responsibility for him and had somewhere to live. So I applyed for social housing, the guy that processed my case was sympathetic and at some points I was holding it together better than him, do you have any other family? No, Do you know where your mother is? I wish I did, how old is your brother? 15 are you in any fulltime education? Not anymore. He looked at me like I was something tragic and I suppose I was, there isn't a metaphor for what I looked like that works any better than just what his naked eyes saw; a girl abandoned by her mother, her life in a bag on her back completely thrown on how to deal with everything, and all he could do was fill out a form and send it and me off. it's going to be okay.

Somehow despite the odds we where given emergency accommodation and a year later a property to rent, I suspect we where pushed up the list because of my brothers age, we where lucky, some people wait years in hotels or streets all over the country, living out of suitcases and rucksacks.

As lucky as we where, luck didn't cover all the things I suddenly had to know. I had no idea how bills worked or paying my taxes, I didn't even really understand what "taxes" meant until the final notices where piling up in front of us. It's something they don't teach you in school or at least mine didn't. They never taught us how to survive in a world like this, they assume our parents would be there to explain or we'd be much older before it mattered. what's more useful in real life, how to formally address someone in an email or how to keep the lights on or how to find food when a tin of beans is too expensive.

Though I suppose the email ettique lesson was useful for something in the end,

To whomever it may concern, I'm writing to you regarding my payment plans and how I'm choosing to fork over alot of money and won't be buying enough food to live off this month. My regards.