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description= A place for everyday creativity + life-documenting. There ll be paper, stripes + plenty of tales. And if you laugh along the way then all the better.;
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before on netflix it was the 3rd time i d seen it and you can move over paracetamol because watching peter kavinsky fall for lara jean is a far more potent healing power day 6 today you will learn that i m coming round to change your sheets is a statement and not a question my mother did just that came to our house helped change our sweat soaked olbas oil scented sheets then stayed to do our laundry clean the kitchen and make lunch and wow it was the biggest treat she also managed to slip in the phrase you could have died because what visit from a mother is complete without a reference to death day 7 symptoms may include getting your money s worth from your netflix subscription for the first time in months because you can t even face reading yeah just to recap you might find yourself unable to read watching sport on tv and accidentally pissing on the carpet but what s this the universe has one more poor taste joke to play on you on day 7 i had my first cup of tea in a week and i didn t like it gets down on knees and shakes fist at thunderous sky begging why cruel world why day 8 symptoms may include a delivery of sunday lunch from people who care about your nutrition and you may even manage to eat it you actually sit down and consume real actual food warm stuff go you which is all a world away from day 1 when i asked for a ryvita served on a paper thing by which you meant a sheet of kitchen roll because even plates felt like too much fuss symptoms may also include some light disapproval from the people who bothered to make you in the first place who may not approve of your decision of what to do with their darling creation it might be best if you don t tell them you plan to return to work the next day because they may well prefer it if you promise to stay off maybe forever look i wouldn t be telling the full story if i acted like day 9 dawns and you become a new person full of life energy cured by a platefull of homemade mince and dumplings and peter kavinsky s beautifully non toxic masculinity but alas as i write another week has passed by and i m still feeling the effects of the flu although thankfully the antibiotics worked and my waterworks have been fully exorcised i m still coughing still sleepy and while i am drinking tea again i still haven t quite got the hang of 3 decent meals a day yet and quite frankly if this goes on for much longer i m definitely going to need a tonic how does a 4th viewing of to all the boys i ve loved before sound to you have you too have experienced this awful february flu have you too accidentally watched sport while in a weakened state maybe you too have been haunted by an evil combination of minor illnesses feel free to share any and all symptoms and cures including restorative netflix recommendations in the comments here or on instagram julie posted by julie kirk at 18 15 15 comments labels flu illness humour life stories life documenting email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest tuesday 29 january 2019 leave to stand a short story about lust and microwaves hey you i wrote this piece to submit to a writing competition last year no it didn t win anything where the theme was cooking and it s always odd where even the vaguest of prompts can take your imagination i mean until then i d never really felt the need to write about the effect a microwave can have on a relationship but that s exactly where the story led me oh and forgive me but it s written in the second person point of view because i really wanted to make you complicit in this awkward little tale of illicit love and vegetable soup please enjoy and remember to pierce the film lid before reading leave to stand a short story about lust and microwaves by julie kirk that microwave is so high up on the wall it s all you can think about just so high impractical awkward you should probably be focusing on him though you didn t shower and pick out matching underwear to come and fixate on a microwave inconveniently bracketed to the wall above eye level well above your eye level at least he seems to be managing just fine with it where it is but you can t help thinking just one lapsed moment of concentration and that s a scalding right there you wouldn t have your microwave that high up you don t in fact yours is at a far more reasonable counter top height you suppose his is where it is because that s where his landlord put it it just came with the house and its tiny shared kitchen some things some people don t get a choice in he glances between your face to where your gaze is pinned on the lunch waltzing around at head height over there what s so fascinating he asks with the genuine interest that attracted you to him in the first place you want to reply it s just not right is it having a microwave all the way up there doesn t it bother you where they ve put it it s courting an accident surely but you don t say that you say oh nothing and drop your head hoping to look coy rather than irritated by a kitchen appliance it s just i didn t have breakfast this morning and you nod toward the microwave i m counting the seconds your palm instinctively circles your grumbling stomach the anticipation of being alone with him had shut down your appetite this morning forcing you to leave your overnight oats in the fridge for an extra night you ve only had a glass of water and a travel sweet all day and you re feeling it now you really do want to eat even though you re not thrilled about the menu you return to staring at the bowl twirling on a down lit stage to the background hum of a 750 watt orchestra trying to remember the last time you ate like this chunky soup tinned microwaved not that you re a food snob you ve got a microwave too one like you say at a normal height mostly for defrosting but occasionally for heating up baked beans or a milky hot chocolate when you don t want to get a pan out and you d choose a slick and creamy squeezy cheese preferably sucked directly from the tube feeling the hard thread of the nozzle against the delicate skin of your inner lip over a supposedly good camembert any day but part of you is gratified to know that he s not really eating like this from choice but necessity it s a money thing not that you think people with more money automatically eat better than those on a budget although of course you ve seen articles linking low income and poor nutrition and food poverty is obviously terrible and yes you do always drop something into the food bank collections at your local supermarket well not always but you have done once or twice when you remembered the steady slamming of his palm against the base of a second can diverts your eyes from the microwave in time to see the last chunk of potato a perfect building block cube of a thing and an oddly olive green tinged pea slop into the bowl beneath you swallow then note that this bowl doesn t match the one in the microwave your eyes meet and you blush caught in a judgmental act although he ll likely suspect you re flushing at his cheeky can spanking and now you come to think of it you are you watch as he rinses out the can dipping in his long slender fingers gliding over its ridges and this time the redness in your cheeks has nothing to do with being caught judging his mismatched crockery those hands they re on the list the list you created last week when he d invited you here and you wanted all the reasons to say yes the one you ran through last night when you came up with a lie about why you didn t need to make a lunch for today and again this morning when you d turfed out your bedside drawer looking for your favourite perfume which you then spritzed over your body including behind your knees despite a longer list of reasons for you to be nowhere near here him or his hands they re two of the more tangible reasons you find yourself tracking them as they move around the kitchen preparing your lunch you become transfixed by how in contrast to the pale smooth pale palms freshly laundered hotel sheets that haven t been lain on the backs are sinewy and firm with a drift of dark hairs emerging beyond the cuff line and like much of his skin that you ve seen so far the backs of his hands are ever so softly browned like toast made in a hurry the colour coming from his of love of outdoor pursuits hiking cycling and wild swimming whatever that actually entails you just nodded when he told you feeling you ought to know and would appear out of touch if you asked and even just from his habit of sitting outside with a book on a wall in the car park during his lunch hour the day you d met it had been thoreau s walden he was poring over one hand guiding a sandwich to his mouth the other firmly holding the page open so wide that the front and back covers were pressed against one another you d never spoken to him before but you had read walden and well what better conversation starter is there you d thought it was such a unique choice for a twenty something not that you said that to him rather you d chatted about thoreau s philosophy and the poetry he d found in the simple life until you d both had to return to the office later when you d googled it to recap on the finer points and to check you d been saying the right things it d been a while since you d read it you learned that it s recently become a bit of a bible for the minimalist wild garlic foraging organic record player type of hipster and you d felt a sting of disappointment embarrassment even you d been relieved the following week to see him with a different book so there was no longer any danger you might be drawn into a conversation about sustainable micro homes or digital nomadism now as he dips and darts around the tiny kitchen your eyes drift from his hands to his lean denim wrapped legs legs so long that any two consecutive strides bring him to a halt against a worktop where a third would see him stepping clear out of the back door on to the well patio would be a kind word for it or if he were facing your direction then three strides would bump him right up against you toe to toe nose to chest a steadying hand on a waist and if he did if he came close enough for you to draw in the scent of his laundry powder what then would that be the moment you ve been waiting for the one you daren t actively bring about but if it just happened almost accidentally like that if he bumped against you in that cramped space with that droning oven turning away overhead wouldn t he be stepping straight into something you ve been rolling around your mind like a lucky marble all these months if those hands reached around to the nape of your neck and slid up into your hair and if he were to draw your face towards his and ding you inhale a little too quickly and instinctively straighten up i think that s you done he says mmmuh you murmur hoping your thoughts aren t playing publicly across your face but he s just talking about your vegetable soup with his hands around the tea towel he d been casually wearing over his shoulder he carefully places the hot bowl on to the work surface next to you warning you might want to let that cool off a bit first which feels as much like pointed advice as it does a serving suggestion while the soup cools he prepares the drinks and he s so focused as he cracks the ice tray over your glass so present you almost think childlike but then remind yourself that his is not a child s age he s a grown man with a good job a house well his own bedroom and a shelf of a fridge in a shared semi he can drive he can vote a fact you ve even discussed with him he s voted in a general election and a referendum so not only can he vote he does he carries out his democratic duties so no definitely not a child although when he d opened a craft beer for himself and offered you one which you passed on preferring a nice crisp white that he doesn t have you d flat out refused the fizzy something alternative he brought out from the back of the fridge because drinking pop at a boy s house on a school day would simply have been an anachronism too far this is not after all 1991 he hands you an iced tap water then gestures towards the living room where you curse the speed with which you just calculated that out of the two of you it was only you who was alive in 1991 you sit at one end of the sofa cautiously balancing the bowl on your knees meanwhile at the other end he curls effortlessly into the creased cushions tucking a leg beneath him he angles his body his slate grey eyes and his enviably easy manner towards you and as you watch him watching you you think maybe this could work here today tomorrow you could have well let s not got so far as to say a future together but you could definitely have something and you do want something otherwise why are you here it s certainly not for his cooking you finish the soup even though it s gone cold around the edges an assault on your tongue s expectations and he leans across to take your bowl and put it on the floor he s now so close you can feel his increasingly quickening breaths dancing over your bare arms i had to have this he says lightly grasping the neck of his empty beer bottle before moving it further way and himself closer so that i could do this and this is it the moment you ll finally know even after months of incrementally increasing intimacy the snatched lunchtime chats the shared meal deals the swapped snacks like the time you finished off an apple he didn t want carving through his teeth marks with your own your mouth over his the inching the edging the nearing towards inevitability you re still not all in but you re sure that when your lips meet for the first time you ll have no more doubts that the answers to all your questions will appear before you like the pictures in those water reveal colouring books you used to get as a kid full colour clear picture magic wand stuff his lips graze yours he pulls away slightly to check you re ok with it and you grab a handful of his t shirt in assent your eyes sink shut your shoulders drop and you let something happen you don t feel any sparks just yet but hey what are sparks really just the stuff of romance novels or static and as you suspected his hands do feel good in your hair and oh he s eager and yes this could be nice is nice just go with it get out of your head stay in your body touch his don t be brain be lips hair hands jaw hard chest washing powder he moves his mouth down to your neck you gasp and your eyes open wide in delight and then that s when you see it over his head watching from the kitchen looking down on you with its single stationary glass eye that bloody microwave and no two ways about it it s just so very high ridiculously high too high not like the one you have at home not like the one sitting happily on your oiled walnut counter top at waist height the one your husband uses to make those mug cakes that he considers more like witchcraft than dessert but that he makes for you because he knows ...
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