Notes from My Phone

My mind is a bit jittery/skittery right now. I have done the usual things to calm it: drunk too much coffee, stayed up too late, spent too much time on my phone, read too many books at once and spent too much money on things I don’t need (two new (to me) pairs of dungarees? Don’t mind if I do.)

Amazingly, this has not helped.

‘Dear BBC,

WHY oh WHY does leaving too many brain tabs open and flooding my system with adrenaline not calm me the fuck down? I am at a loss.

Yours,

BEWILDERED OF POPLAR.’

I am not feeling mad or bad, but I have done this enough times to know that I am hurtling towards a brick wall of regret if I don’t find ways to stroke the furry walls of my mind into a sleeker state. Credit where credit is due here, at least I know what’s happening ahead of time. That’s progress.

Foresight is good, a plan is better. The biggest part of my plan is to buy myself a watch instead of talk about buying myself a watch, which is what has been happening for the last few weeks. If I have a watch, I will pick my phone up less, because I will have another means by which to check the time that doesn’t involve me going: ‘Oh! It’s 11.30 a.m.,’ thus wasting the next hour scrolling Instagram for pictures of interesting pumpkins.

Another part of my plan is to close a few of my mind tabs down. Stuff happens and I think, ‘I could write a post about that.’ I make a note on my phone, write about something else and then get overwhelmed by the idea of writing too many Substacks because my list is backing up and there’s not enough time or patience in the world to either write or read everything in my head. Glaciers will surely melt before I’m done.

This post is my notes dump. You don’t have to read it, but I have to write it.

Let’s start with a bunch of kids doing something Tik Tok related in my favourite underpass at the weekend. Their tail work was excellent. I stopped to watch them make their video. Their dancing was terrible, but perhaps the added weight of their tails had caused issues with balance they hadn’t banked on. Anyway, fair play to them.

Now for a sign I saw for a brow bar (by the way, brow bars are a thing of the future that Tomorrow’s World never predicted. The internet yes. The need to have your brows rotivated on the regular? No sir.) that claimed that it had been: ‘Curating eyebrows since 2015.’ Like your eyebrows are going to have their own exhibition at the National Gallery. ‘Here’s Damien Hurst’s Reflections on a Scouse Brow from 2016’ - cuts to a diamond encrusted skull adorned with Groucho Marx style facial hair.

Now for my pernicious eavesdropping habit:

‘But why do we always have to walk on the same paths as other people?’

This from an extremely irritated small child to her parent. I don’t know, small child. I just don’t know, but it is a valid question for us all.

‘But I told you I was naughty. Just like every day. It’s just the same as always.’

From an extremely world-weary child to a just plain weary parent.

‘It’s just been the bestest day of my life.’

‘Because you saw a crab?’

‘Yes. Just the very bestest.’

Another small child, skipping down the pavement in Whistable, sparkly wellies flashing in the sunlight, genuinely living her best life. In thirty years she won’t remember this, but I will bear witness.

At the weekend my sister and brother in law came to visit and we took them to a Thai restaurant we like by the Royal Docks. As we stood up to get off the train a man sitting by me tugged on my coat. I looked at him and he said: ‘You trod on my foot. Say sorry.’ I knew full well I hadn’t trodden on his foot, but as a woman in a hurry to fork Massaman curry into my face I decided to go along with it. ‘Sorry,’ I said. He stared and said: ‘Now say sorry again.’

This is where all thoughts of curry flew out the window. One apology is fair enough for something I didn’t do. Two is ridiculous. ‘No.’ I said, as everyone in the carriage tensed to see if I was going to have to use the Brazilian jiu-jitsu moves the girls taught me last time they came to visit (gouge the eyes out apparently. Go all King Lear on their ass). I gave him a huge smile as I said it, which confused him enough for me to make good on my escape. Although I was quite sad I didn’t get to try my Goneril and Regan moves, even if it would have put me off lychees for the rest of my life.

Yesterday I went to a charity shop in Bethnal Green that I love. The first time I went there, a very cheeky man was blatantly stealing a hat. I say blatantly. He came in with no hat on, took a hat off the shelf, put it on his head and walked out with it. When the woman behind the counter came out and said: ‘You need to pay for that hat,’ he attempted to style it out: ‘I came in with this hat on,’ which was a bold statement when the price tag was still dangling from it and we had all watched him nick it. After attempting to persuade her that he would bring the money next week but had to take the hat now, he gave in, but I admired his chutzpah.

Yesterday there was a man shopping in there who was also conducting a loud, largely one sided and extremely fragmented conversation with the staff. I will attempt to replicate it.

Browsing bedsheets he suddenly said: ‘Do you like Bridget Riley? She’s an artist? I love her.’ (I wondered if he had seen a striped sheet that reminded him of one of her paintings). The woman in the back said something offhand. It didn’t really matter. He wasn’t in it for the responses. He countered with: ‘Do you like Beryl Cook? She’s an artist, too. She painted fat people you know?’ Indistinct murmur from the woman. He continued: ‘An art critic once asked her why she painted fat people. Do you know what she said?’ Mumble. ‘She said 1) I am fat and 2) painting fat people means I don’t have to worry so much about what to put in the background of my paintings because there’s less of it.’

He moved on to the bric a brac and picked up a mug with a seal on it.

‘Oh, Bridget Bardot would love this. She would really love this.’ He waited a mournful beat while he stared at the mug longingly. ‘If only I knew her. I would give her this.’ Another wistful moment. ‘Bridget Bardot once hugged a seal you know?’

He picked up two figurines and took them to the counter. ‘I’ll have these. I don’t know if they’re Chinese or Japanese.’ The woman at the till: ‘They’re Japanese. They’re wearing kimonos and it says made in Japan on them.’ He wasn’t thrilled by this factual exchange: ‘If you say so.’ They did a complicated system of payments because he had specific change requirements. Then she asked him: ‘Do you need a carrier bag?’ He replied: ‘Yes. I do. But I want a masculine bag. Give me a masculine one.’ The woman was bewildered but gamely started hunting through the collection of carrier bags. ‘Will this Sainsburys’ one do? Is that masculine enough?’ He inspected the bag. ‘Yes. I’ll take it.’ As she was filling the bag with his figurines he said: ‘It’s a good job you didn’t try to give me a Tesco one. I once got accused of shoplifting in Tesco and I’ve been boycotting them ever since.’

I had to stop myself from following him out of the shop, I loved him so much.

Finally, some notes that I made and now that I read them back mean absolutely nothing at all to me, which is a shame, because I can see why I would have written them down at the time.

Small Horse Park

Telescopic Sausage Spear

Smurf Fart

All suggestions as to what the hell I was thinking can be left in the comments.