Drunk at the Jazz Club is a song by Zanzibar Chanel not a retelling of events. However, I did go to a listening bar that had the sexiest speakers known to man.
I love it when I feel called to capital B “Blog”. To give a solid play-by-play of what I did at a specific point in time. I’ve said it before, but nothing compares to the carefree and passionate nature of the 2010s blogosphere. Writing unencumbered takes work these days, though the rare “who cares” of it all drips off my shoulders when I remember that somewhere in America an eager Chloe is awaiting my next drop (ly Chloe). I told myself that this year I’d share my actual writing here but that feels like work and this is definitely play—we’ll get there.
My early 2010s blog houses posts detailing my 17th, 18th & 19th birthdays. I’ve always lived for (and documented) birthdays, so for continuity and posterity, here’s the birthday post—literally ten years later.
8 Tiny Birthday Escapades aka Offline Adventures in the Key of Turning 28.
First of all, Aquarius season started out rough this year. Rough in the “I can see what lesson you’re trying to teach me but can you not” type of way. I fought back by tending to myself, read: (1) going to barre class, cackling with friends (never a one-time event), and (2) taking sweet trips to Sunday markets – I’m on a personal mission to make Sunday the new Friday because Sunday is truly the sexiest day of the week.
Being a birthday person – a lover of birthdays – I took the day off work to soak in whatever the day had to offer. As the sun came out, I headed back from the gym removing layers of clothes and relishing in the scarily premature incalescence — cries in climate change.
My morning was filled with offerings from (3) Clarice Lispector, Octavia Butler and Megan Thee Stallion. I’d been bouncing between the pages of Agua Viva and Parable of the Sower; jaw-dropping at the existential similarities between the two texts. Jaw-dropping at the crude comfort I found in their words. Jaw-dropping at how both Lispector and Butler strike me as a little strange and I love that. Jaw-dropping at Lispector having an Aquarius rising (I knew it, she’s a little too odd not to) and Butler and I sharing two out of three of our Big Three placements — tell me you look into these things too. As for Megan Thee Stallion, she soundtracked my glorious morning spin session (and it was her birthday too).
The day (and the subsequent days of celebration) was filled with all of my favourite things. Tear-jerking declarations of love, yellow flowers in the mail, (4) a facial, (5) incredible food, (6) a gallery trip - Tate Modern to see Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrors, (7) a cinema trip - American Fiction had me in stitches, walks along the river, vegan pastries - Lish says I shouldn’t make veganism my new personality trait*, (8) seeing/listening to my favourite DJ, Donna Leake, at Jazu accompanied by the smoothest Dirty Martini known to man.
In the listening bar, Donna Leake mixed records through exquisite hi-fi elm wood speakers; my body reacted to the music in a way it hadn’t in a while. There was something flirtatious about the way she played.
Aquarians are known for being flirts, it’s in our nature, we truly can’t help it. Love month** has had me unusually attracted to people, ideas, and projects alike. I’ve been flirting with mixing vinyl, flirting with running, flirting with picking up bass, flirting with getting into ceramics, flirting with going back to Chinese classes, flirting with fixing up my French, flirting with going vegan, flirting with femininity, flirting with watching my heart fill in unexpected ways—a lot of flirting.
At the bar, Lish and I discussed the importance and joys of flirting. “If you think about it,” she said to me after placing down her pear margarita, “when do we ever stop flirting?”. She went on about how everything is flirting, à la Janelle Monae’s “Everything is sex” verse. There was something promising and abundant in her words, in her spelling out the joys of charming and being charmed, in us sharing the ways we give love and attention to others. When I looked down at her hands, her nails were dotted with tiny little hearts; of course, they were.
A lot of the things I know/believe about love and life have been shaped by people I met while they were 28. I remember meeting one of my really good friends when I was 24 and her, 28. Back then, I looked at being 28 with great admiration; it was cool, smart, and fun, it knew what it wanted and it was beautifully eagle-eyed. Currently, I’m intrigued by 28. I think 28 is intrigued by me too. Though it might be my third day out here, I look forward to jokingly calling myself a 20-something, nurturing those closest to my heart, writing, and not buying a single book until I finish every last page of the several I’ve bought this year —bar the poetry books, we sit with poetry and chew and chew and chew.
My week ended at a film screening of a documentary about London’s first Black Lesbian and Gay Centre. Being in a room filled with Black queer people (lol seeing as I didn’t go to the Kelela gig) was the best way to top off the week. Sitting around a table in a pub after the film, I noticed that we cumulatively had more nose piercings than I do fingers and my mind drifted back to a time early last year while living in Taipei when I recognised my need for more Black queer friendship. Fast forward a couple of months and here we are — God bless Aquarius season.
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Tiny Escapades is an exploration of life offline. Offline being, off of Instagram and TikTok (though I deleted my TikTok after having it for one day back in 2021). This break is an attempt to root myself in my immediate surroundings and answer to the emergent and serendipitous calls of life around me, to create distance between myself and joy that is crafted and performed by myself and others. Word of mouth and text/email invitations have kept my calendar full thus far and I’m simply curious about the things that find me when I’m disengaged from the constant white noise of social media. It’s also really important for me to strip my relationships back and see what comes of our interactions without a meme or story as a catalyst. It’s also really fun and intentional to make new friends over text***, it’s very 2007 after-school MSN energy.
*Earlier this week a poet referred to February as ‘love month’, though not groundbreaking, it was new to my ears and it’s stuck with me. I’m into it.
**Technically I’m not a vegan.
***This doesn’t apply to dating apps, Chloe says I use dating apps like such a millennial and that’s true Gen-Z shade.
Listen to: Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine by The 5th Dimension
