Seven Hours
Jun. 4th, 2023 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupestripeLike last year, I left ConFuzzled feeling somewhat ill, with the journey back becoming increasingly difficult. I almost fainted at a service station, where I did recognise a fellow con-goer by his Brok In The Multiverse T-shirt, and not even a watermelon flavoured Red Bull (which tasted far nicer than I had expected) could make me feel better. By the time I got back to Pudsey, I collapsed on the bed and barely moved for the rest of the night. The same was the case on Thursday, with me needing to call into work sick. This is a rarity for me, as I think I have only ever done it once before, and I did feel bad about letting my colleagues down. However, I couldn't think straight, felt dizzy and had oscillating hot and cold flushes so there was no chance I could have worked. I was feeling marginally better on Friday, but opted to take another sick day, something which turned out to be wise after I had tried to read for half an hour in the garden in the sunshine. This just triggered the dizziness again, forcing me to stay in bed. I did little here, trying to read but failing miserably, so I just watched Keeping Up Apperances videos on my phone. I think I was on for seven hours on Thursday alone.
Friday wasn't a particularly great day as I also received my first rejection from a furry anthology publisher. I was a little disappointed, but the story was the weakest of the four I have submitted so far. While I do feel down, I am also trying to be philosophical - there is always the chance things will be rejected when you submit them and it happens to every writer. Having my first two accepted is perhaps just lucky, so I am determined to try and write some more this month, with a few more anthologies in mind. I think June will be quite quiet on account of how busy May was, while we are looking at registering for both FinnFur Animus and EuroFurence, which will eat into funds. The only issue is, since arriving back in Berlin this afternoon, the weather has been gorgrous and I just want to go out drinking in it. Alas, I am still ill, but this house is already starting to heat up, with the temperature climbing from 21C to 27C mid-week. I fear it's going to become unbearable again and this could make working and writing a struggle.
On Friday, the second day of Pride Month, I announced my preferred pronouns of she/her and was overwhelmed with the response. Evi asked whether he could call me a 'good girl' (answer: anyone can) while Arcais called me a princess. I was always going to announce this, but Suzy Eddie Izzard announcing something similar on Thursday night was the push I needed. With support for Pride going backwards and so much backlash against trans people, I feel now is the time to stand up and be counted with this, while I also intend to go hard on the kink at the three Pride events I am aiming to attend this year. On the pronouns, I did say that he/him is also fine as Lupestripe the pink puppy is still male, while I don't think I am going to approach my family or colleagues about it yet. I'm going to see how it sits for the coming months, but over the course of this year, I have become increasingly prickly over the use of masculine pronouns to describe me.
Due to the rail strikes on Friday and Saturday, I ended up booking a room in the Holiday Inn at Manchester Airport last night, with it's beautiful sunset views over Terminal 2. Wolfie's parents were kind enough to drive us there, so we drove around to theirs shortly after lunch with all our bags in tow. Leaving the Pudsey house was hard, although I have felt a little less love for it this time due to its narrow corridors. It still feels like my home though and I have been greeted with the familiar sense of unsettlement I have had in Germany for a while upon coming back here. The trip itself was wonderful and highlights our social impoverishment here too, which is making us doubt our long-term prospects here. Financially, in particular, it doesn't really make sense. Still, we are arranging a few things for June, so let's see what happens.
I digress anyway. We hung around in Wolfie's parents' garden for a bit, enjoying a cheese sandwich in the sun, before heading over to the airport for our 3pm check in. Upon navigating the confusing one way system around the airport, we eventually got dropped off at Terminal 2 and had to walk over to the hotel. We needed to register for FinnFur Animus at 6pm so we had three hours to kill, which saw us go to Greggs in Terminal 1, drinking Cloudwater's Fuzzy in the bar and watching Qatar City beat Manchester United in the FA Cup Final. Upon registering, we were weighing up whether we should go out or not. We had intended to go to Collared, where Vulo, Sy and Rallicat were going, but with Stray being out with COVID and Wolfie and I both ill with non-COVID, we opted just to stay in the hotel. This meant it was a rather listless evening as our flight was not until Sunday lunchtime. We toyed with going to a craft beer bar but with the railways out of action due to the strikes and the trams down due to an incident, we didn't fancy a bus. In the end, we grabbed a tasty pide from the hotel's Turkish restaurant and then had a couple of beers in the bar while flicking through our phones.
My night's sleep was atrocious - I have been suffering from this illness since Wednesday as well as a need to get up and urinate about five times a night. I've also had panic attacks too, about writing and other things, so I am wiped out. Fortunately, five straight tests have confirmed it's not COVID, dropping me into the group from ConFuzzled who are ill but who don't have Coronavirus (as opposed to those who do). The heat of my bedroom in Germany does not bode well for good sleep going forward either. Wolfie's snoring last night was also amongst the loudest I have ever heard and I am surprised the neighbours had not made a complaint. Consequently, I wasn't really up for the long journey back to Berlin today, particularly as we had to go through Terminal 3, the worst terminal in the worst airport in the UK. Still, it wasn't too bad apart from all the people pushing in, resulting in us losing our shit with two elderly ladies as they pushed into the Priority queue ahead of us for the flight itself. I felt bad very quickly and ended up talking to them - they were touring Berlin for a few days and I gave them some tips. We had spent quite a while in the airport at this point, having had an overpriced and soggy ham and cheese toastie from Pork and Pickle and half a pint from The Nook bar.
I feel asleep on the flight, immigration was the usual, while we just missed the RE8 ODEG so we had to suffer the S9 for an hour and a half. Once back, I noticed the postman had stuffed the slink suit I had ordered for ConFuzzled into the letterbox while Wolfie's saga with Deutsche Bahn has now finally ended. Apart from this, we had a McDonald's as Arcais wanted a Squishymallow plushie and she told me they were doing them as part of the Happy Meals in Germany. Alas, not here, but we had a Maccies anyway as we couldn't be bothered with anything else. After this, it's just unpacking and getting things sorted, as well as wondering whether we'll attend Furality Sylva later tonight. The price has rocketed from $10 to $25 and we have already missed most of it, with it ending at 5am tonight, but we'll see if our other friends are there. We haven't been on VR for over a month so it has been long overdue.
Friday wasn't a particularly great day as I also received my first rejection from a furry anthology publisher. I was a little disappointed, but the story was the weakest of the four I have submitted so far. While I do feel down, I am also trying to be philosophical - there is always the chance things will be rejected when you submit them and it happens to every writer. Having my first two accepted is perhaps just lucky, so I am determined to try and write some more this month, with a few more anthologies in mind. I think June will be quite quiet on account of how busy May was, while we are looking at registering for both FinnFur Animus and EuroFurence, which will eat into funds. The only issue is, since arriving back in Berlin this afternoon, the weather has been gorgrous and I just want to go out drinking in it. Alas, I am still ill, but this house is already starting to heat up, with the temperature climbing from 21C to 27C mid-week. I fear it's going to become unbearable again and this could make working and writing a struggle.
On Friday, the second day of Pride Month, I announced my preferred pronouns of she/her and was overwhelmed with the response. Evi asked whether he could call me a 'good girl' (answer: anyone can) while Arcais called me a princess. I was always going to announce this, but Suzy Eddie Izzard announcing something similar on Thursday night was the push I needed. With support for Pride going backwards and so much backlash against trans people, I feel now is the time to stand up and be counted with this, while I also intend to go hard on the kink at the three Pride events I am aiming to attend this year. On the pronouns, I did say that he/him is also fine as Lupestripe the pink puppy is still male, while I don't think I am going to approach my family or colleagues about it yet. I'm going to see how it sits for the coming months, but over the course of this year, I have become increasingly prickly over the use of masculine pronouns to describe me.
Due to the rail strikes on Friday and Saturday, I ended up booking a room in the Holiday Inn at Manchester Airport last night, with it's beautiful sunset views over Terminal 2. Wolfie's parents were kind enough to drive us there, so we drove around to theirs shortly after lunch with all our bags in tow. Leaving the Pudsey house was hard, although I have felt a little less love for it this time due to its narrow corridors. It still feels like my home though and I have been greeted with the familiar sense of unsettlement I have had in Germany for a while upon coming back here. The trip itself was wonderful and highlights our social impoverishment here too, which is making us doubt our long-term prospects here. Financially, in particular, it doesn't really make sense. Still, we are arranging a few things for June, so let's see what happens.
I digress anyway. We hung around in Wolfie's parents' garden for a bit, enjoying a cheese sandwich in the sun, before heading over to the airport for our 3pm check in. Upon navigating the confusing one way system around the airport, we eventually got dropped off at Terminal 2 and had to walk over to the hotel. We needed to register for FinnFur Animus at 6pm so we had three hours to kill, which saw us go to Greggs in Terminal 1, drinking Cloudwater's Fuzzy in the bar and watching Qatar City beat Manchester United in the FA Cup Final. Upon registering, we were weighing up whether we should go out or not. We had intended to go to Collared, where Vulo, Sy and Rallicat were going, but with Stray being out with COVID and Wolfie and I both ill with non-COVID, we opted just to stay in the hotel. This meant it was a rather listless evening as our flight was not until Sunday lunchtime. We toyed with going to a craft beer bar but with the railways out of action due to the strikes and the trams down due to an incident, we didn't fancy a bus. In the end, we grabbed a tasty pide from the hotel's Turkish restaurant and then had a couple of beers in the bar while flicking through our phones.
My night's sleep was atrocious - I have been suffering from this illness since Wednesday as well as a need to get up and urinate about five times a night. I've also had panic attacks too, about writing and other things, so I am wiped out. Fortunately, five straight tests have confirmed it's not COVID, dropping me into the group from ConFuzzled who are ill but who don't have Coronavirus (as opposed to those who do). The heat of my bedroom in Germany does not bode well for good sleep going forward either. Wolfie's snoring last night was also amongst the loudest I have ever heard and I am surprised the neighbours had not made a complaint. Consequently, I wasn't really up for the long journey back to Berlin today, particularly as we had to go through Terminal 3, the worst terminal in the worst airport in the UK. Still, it wasn't too bad apart from all the people pushing in, resulting in us losing our shit with two elderly ladies as they pushed into the Priority queue ahead of us for the flight itself. I felt bad very quickly and ended up talking to them - they were touring Berlin for a few days and I gave them some tips. We had spent quite a while in the airport at this point, having had an overpriced and soggy ham and cheese toastie from Pork and Pickle and half a pint from The Nook bar.
I feel asleep on the flight, immigration was the usual, while we just missed the RE8 ODEG so we had to suffer the S9 for an hour and a half. Once back, I noticed the postman had stuffed the slink suit I had ordered for ConFuzzled into the letterbox while Wolfie's saga with Deutsche Bahn has now finally ended. Apart from this, we had a McDonald's as Arcais wanted a Squishymallow plushie and she told me they were doing them as part of the Happy Meals in Germany. Alas, not here, but we had a Maccies anyway as we couldn't be bothered with anything else. After this, it's just unpacking and getting things sorted, as well as wondering whether we'll attend Furality Sylva later tonight. The price has rocketed from $10 to $25 and we have already missed most of it, with it ending at 5am tonight, but we'll see if our other friends are there. We haven't been on VR for over a month so it has been long overdue.
