Tlönista

Sketched this at dusk in the pasture at Mudchute Farm, straddling a row of tires. Four or five white-and-brown cows graze slowly across the field, snuffling wetly and chomping and shitting, big placid lawnmowers. It’s clouded over, although out where the O2 and Canary Wharf towers loom the sky’s still peach with sunset.

A trio of kids trip through the field on their way home. Curious and frank, they come up to me and look over my shoulder.

“That’s good. How long did it take you to draw it?”
“How old are you?”
“Are you from America?”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Do you smoke?”
“Are you a virgin?”
“Did you go to art school?”
“What’s your name?”

They giggle a lot, harass the cows (who merely walk somewhere else and continue grazing), and traipse off again. Presently I finish up and head back home too. It’s not dark yet, but the sky looks like rain. There are a zillion different kinds of birdsong in the woods and I think about how if I wanted to I could learn which birds they all belong to.

Time to quit faffing around and start making comics.

i will become a COMIXVEDETTE

I’m edging dangerously near emo-indie-cartoonist territory here. Luckily, I have made a solemn vow that I will go out and troll for dates and tawdry sex on Gumtree rather than make comics about how I have no life and can’t get laid, so you all are safe.

Yes yes yes, I will write about Angoulême…but now I’m desperately catching up, and there’s simply not enough time in the day. I had planned to take a bath after work and there wasn’t even time for that.

Looking at my budget. Living here is affordable because our rent is outrageously cheap but I can’t count on that with the next place. I’m going to need another job. Seems like everything on Gumtree is either a) during my work hours, or b) super dodgy — but — I will persevere…

Against all odds, it seems I’ve acquired a social life.

Last Thursday I had a random rendezvous with a fellow girl geek and, it seems, did not scare her off. We end up chatting till late and I nearly miss the last train home. Friday morning is thus kind of unproductive. At lunch my co-workers and I go out for Vietnamese and I have proper pho for the first time in ages, and also Vietnamese iced coffee (ca phe).

There isn’t much to do that afternoon. I print out the Google Map for fellow Couchsurfer K. Z.’s birthday party in the evening. I’m looking forward to it, but an old nemesis of mine and Jennie’s is going to be in town, and I can’t miss that either. I text Jennie. “Let’s go torment D. J. later on.” We decide to meet up at Holborn, sevenish.

While sitting around in a coffeeshop waiting for Jennie, who’s stuck on a bus in a traffic jam, I doodle idly. The nemesis we’re going to surprise, by the way, belongs to CFI, a rather slick, corporatesque American secular organisation, which happens to be opening a new branch in London tonight. Their schtick about “culture war” and “separation of church and state” and what not sounded irrelevant enough in Canada; God knows what they hope to accomplish here, in Britain, where the official religion is nominally Church of England but is in practice nonchalant agnosticism. It’s so misguided it’s almost funny. With that in mind I hastily sketch out a mocking cartoon, whatever, finish it when I get there. Then I text a mate I met ages ago when gate-crashing a goon meet and arrange dim sum for the next morning.

Jennie and I get to Atheist HQ shortly before a scheduled talk by Simon Blackburn, a British philosopher and Humanist. A CFI bigwig is giving a speech. We scam some food and sit in the front row. Jennie scribbles copious notes and I draw whilst making snarky comments in a stage whisper. D. J. can’t help but notice us, especially since he’s next up to give the standard Go CFI! speech. Yessss.

Simon Blackburn doesn’t show, and doesn’t show. I figure he’s passed away quietly and I’ll read about it on Leiter Reports tomorrow morning. In the meanwhile, Richard Dawkins, who just happens to be in the audience, gets herded up to the mike for an impromptu Q & A. How random is that? He got questions from a surprising number of philosophy majors. I managed to get a stab in about reductionism. A couple women bring up the gendered rhetoric of New Atheism but unfortunately they ramble and nobody much cares. Eventually Dawkins escapes the inquisitive mob. And before we had a chance to show him the comic, too!

Jennie leaves the cartoon on the desk in front of the hall with the CFI brochures. I go off to the loo. When I come back, the cartoon’s gone. She tells me that some guy picked it up, read it, giggled, and ran back into the hall with it. We flee, burning bridges to Neo-Atheism behind us.

So I set off for K. Z.’s party, a couple hours later than I’d intended. Naturally, I have the map of the area but forgot to write down anything useful like his flat number or mobile. So I wander through the halls of this yuppie Tower Hamlets apartment building until I hear party noises. I stumble into a random party, grab myself a gin & tonic, mingle for a while and am beginning to wonder if perhaps it’s the right one when K. Z. appears and we yell respective greetings over the dj.

To my surprise, I’m actually the kind of person who can go to a party full of strangers and successfully mingle and — I enjoyed myself! Go figure.

A Typical Conversation Begins

Me: NICE PARTY EH
Random Partygoer: WHERE ARE YOU FROM?
Me: SOUTH-EAST LONDON. THE UNCOOL PART.
Random Partygoer: NO LIKE WHAT PART OF AMERICA
Me: TORONTO! CANADA!! BUSH IS NOT MY FAULT!
[Pause.]
Me: SO HOW DO YOU KNOW K. Z.?…

I remember to, y’know, check the time and once again manage to make it back before the last train. And the next morning — okay, midmorning — okay, lunchtime — it’s back into town to meet up with J. for dim sum like I promised. We stuff ourselves on shrimp dumplings and pork buns and deep fried things and wander out into the city, ending up at Borough Market. Oh. My. God. Spices and ciders and cheeses and breads and all manner of meat and produce and did I mention cheese and fresh fish and chutneys and sausages and I’m gonna have to go back. J. waxes eloquent on mackerel while I covet cheese wheels.

At that point the Tired hits. I excuse myself abruptly and head home, where I take the most epic nap ever. And that, kids, is my weekend.

Next weekend: Angoulême.