Love and Whatever is Confusing
“I don't want another pretty face
I don't want just anyone to hold
I don't want my love to go to waste
I want you and your beautiful soul”
Euston Estate 26 by SS
Standing over a frame clamp, hands covered in wood glue, tears steadily streamed down my face. I hurriedly wiped off my hands to hit ‘replay’ on the Jessie Maccartny hit. A warm breeze that felt like Easters in San Clemente meandered through the double door leading nowhere. I’m on the fifth floor of an abandoned council estate in Euston, blue paint peeling off bars on the walk up , nets to keep people from jumping, one of those lifts that fit only fit two and feel like a sinkhole to PS2 graphics IRL. Looking out from the front door, new rail lines are being worked on. The old estate isn’t exactly abandoned, it’s just been overtaken by artists. Not suited for regular dwelling, re: the black mold eruption in the ceiling of the room I find myself in. My friend’s studio was a double bedroom, still with fifties doors that have giant glass windows on them. Walking in that morning, all I could think was how beautiful and authentic it all was. I love this area, the grit. Since moving to the UK in 2020, I’ve barely left Kings Cross, Somers Town, Euston, Camden Town, Angel. Gazing down at the workbench, my eyes slowly close as I let out an exhale. Rewind. “I don't want just anyone to hold, I don't want my love to go to waste.”
Summer 2025 while visiting Peggy last summer ‘back in the 714 days,’ I lied through my teeth “Yeah I don’t know, I’m just looking to have some fun. Isn’t it just a numbers game? I’m gathering as much data as possible across profession, income, personality, lifestyle, among other factors. I’m really excited about this thing right now, but I don’t really have expectations.”
“You’re looking for someone.”
“I am not!”
“You are. In you heart of hearts you’re looking.”
Anahiem 2022 by SS
The summer before that conversation, we went on a long drive from Anaheim to San Diego. On the way back, the best 2 person inter-generational Sex in the City coded symposium occurred in my cousin’s crossover vehicle. I had just ended a long term relationship, the kind where everyone in your life is confused that you’re dating them but say nothing. Peggy being one of them, she insisted that “you would’ve just done what you wanted anyway. It was comfortable , but not a good fit at all.” Peggy’s a tough lady. Worked in factories when industry was still in OC, every Christmas, every holiday. 911 calls and emergency operations department. She was around when women were first allowed to get birth control and credit cards without men’s consent. Her generation gave us Roe v Wade.
“Men of your generation, or should I say boys, they don’t know how to deal with you women. You’re more educated, more driven, empathetic, emotionally intelligent. Women are badasses and they know what they want. We’ve come so far since the seventies. It’s like, the age of women is finally upon us. And the men don’t really know how to respond.” I think back to my data points. They all spent a lot of time talking at me about their money, how tough they are, their aspirations. But they get a little shifty when I tell them about hiking to the abandoned mines every year when they ask what my childhood was like.
There was a man. Because I was dating men. Sweet enough, some sort of boarding school just shy of Eaton. Various fancy schools, acolytes, and expensive hobbies. Someone who bought into the notion of class and a learned identity of Britishness. My face still rail thin from the long hours dancing, I wore my nails long like green talons. He ordered me a drink, remembering the details of what I liked, in a place I was too broke to even know the name of. I felt, seen. And heard. And the expression of currency? I equated to expression of my value or potential. On the Northern Line home I saw the flat - riches my teenage self who pulled rotting Art Deco furniture out of the backyards could even dream of. All kinds of displays of wealth were being thrown around - travel to wherever you think in your mind right now is the most fancy. I thought he was treating me like I had a brain, until I realized despite the acquired posh accent were rattles. The deserts are full of them. Hell I even almost ran over one on my bike while camping. Someone is always more than they seem if you look a little closer. For better or for worse. Rattlesnake or garden snake. Duck season or rabbit season. It’s difficult to tell in tall grass. But if it hisses like a…?
That last midnight I learned he wasn’t good he’s just nice but definitely bad. There was touch too rough past when I screamed red. And it wasn’t the first time, in my life. Can you kiss a prince in reverse and have him turn into a frog? They never look down and see themselves transforming into monsters. Or maybe its Maybelline?
I don’t have the truth or an explanation to tell the differences in the shades of red. But I see it when they try to put us Eves’ Ruths’ and Good Judys against each other. Usually the line (point ha ha) I get is some pre-Raphaelite bullshit in reference to my form. I’d rather them speak their own simple snake language and utter out of their slacked jaws ‘nice tits’ just so that I know where to not keep my apple so that it doesn’t get spiked. Though the good news is that monsters and super villains always have an easy weakness readily avaialbe on earth. The bad news is that we’re dealing with men. Their fate is all the way down the hall to the left past Death probably in office of the the 57th wave of feminism. A defunded boiler room without wifi.
Hellcat Jeans 2026 by SS
I wore my ‘Hell Cat” jeans on an angry walk to a gallery opening. I was elated to be going out, but frustrated at my own loneliness. I wear them on two kinds of days: either when I am spittin’ vicious, or to ward off encounters, to give strength to the girl inside crying in the art studio. Standing in the gallery, playing with giant wool balls hanging from the ceiling, I spot my dear friend Jess across the room. Unwarranted, I blurt out “god there’s a lot of stupid fucking men with stupid fucking hats and the same balloon pants in here right? Look around, it’s an ocean of these fucking hats, mini key rings and counter fit Type I’s that have never seen a days worth of work.” Jess and I have the salmon bites that we hate the longer the taste lasts. “Fuck man these guys in their stupid fucking hats probably have trust funds and are depressed because they paint and have feelings or some shit.” … Sorry Jess. I was mad at men before I walked in... and got more emotional watching the football film about women’s inequality.
Earlier that day, the local tarot reader stopped by. Sayin’ something about dating and old Cockney phrases about seeing ya in your stockings. Everyone was talking to me about the past weekend, my Beach Boys strip act, complete with surfboard. An oddity for the general public in Central London. The most I’ve gotten harassed on public transit has been while carrying a surfboard, people think you’e approachable. A woman walking her dogs along the towpath looked at me with instant realization, and then shrunk her excitement. She whispered tentatively, “… are you the stripper from Saturday night?”
Aside from this, love was a major theme rolling through the conversations of the day. I tell the man sitting next to me in a folding chair with two pairs of glasses on, red hair dye setting in his hair, and a scooter laid beside him something about being done with dating.
“My heart is burnt out from other things.”
“Love?” I ask him.
“No, drugs.”
A sigh. “My heart is burnt out falling in love too fast.”
UGH I could vomit that something so cheesy came out of my mouth. He chuckled, voice cracking like a mix between a Camden seagull and Peter in 1972’s Brady Bunch episode Dough Re Mi.
“…I don’t know man, I just keep meeting freaks.”
“Have you ever thought about the fact that you’re hanging out in the wrong places?” He broadly gestured around him.
Flashbacks to my last weekend at a ________, and the following weekend of getting locked out of my house and waking up on a boat. This morning’s observation two people crouched next to a brick wall shooting up.
“Excuse you, does that gesture include me?”
“You wouldn’t be down here if you weren’t one too.”
“I love how much of a lover girl you are.” Cailin said between bites of hummus. Bloomsbury pub full of corporate goons, but one of my most treasured impromptu evenings together.
She had caught me in the hallway of The Place, greeted me with a hug and “how are you?” Overwhelming sadness must have flushed my face, as she immediately responded to the nonverbal cue: “okay yeah… I’ll see you at 6:00pm. We’re going out. I have a mountain of work, but we need this.”
Us 2025 by SS
Perched on a barstool I sneered, “I am SO not a lover girl. Me? Concerned with MEN?”
Cailin proceeds to rattle off names of a couple ex lovers.
“… hear me out those were different.”
“nah dude when you’re into somebody you’re into them. I think it’s cute!”
“I’m trying to be better. I think that whole chemical 6 months to fall in love thing is real, but I think I’m just open to connecting and being vulnerable and generous if I like you. No one is making it past date two anymore though.”
Peggy am I really looking? Or being open to what comes? Proactive openness. Openness as an active state of being… Cailin and I keep chatting among courses of delectables in this pub neither of us can really afford at the minute.
“What are you even after then? Because you could find someone easily but what’s REALLY going on?”
I tell her what I tell each person I’m seriously interested in the context in which I exist:
Realistically, I grew up down the street from Disneyland, my parents met at a double feature showing The Little Mermaid at 1989 while they both worked in Disneyland. I don’t care where in the world you place me, how many people I’m dating, each Dworkin 2nd wave feminist book I consume, or how many data points are added to the spreadsheet, that’s where my head is at. Magic, fantasy, forever. (Gross.)
P and M at Epcot 1990s courtesy Sullivan
Magic Kingdom Korp 1990s courtesy Sullivan
… Or, at least it was. I’ve stopped looking. It’s all just too painful. I’m still hurting from a couple of untimely ends. I’m hurting from having to wrap my heavyweight chain around my fist on the way home past 3:00am, the energy spent shooing snakes. I’m hurting from the ones who watch from trees as I run, the one who tried me while at. How stupid do you have to be to catcall a woman holding a 2 × 4 full of nails with steel toes on? What is the goal? What do you hope to achieve? It doesn’t matter how little I wear, how much I wear, wherever I go - theres no one. No men, no women, no theybies. No meet cutes. If snakes wore clothes it’d be unfaded type I’s. And would you like your hissing movie captions in conservative misogyny or the blue hair rainbow skittles misogyny?
You're the one I wanna chase
You're the one I wanna hold
I won't let another minute go to waste
I want you and your beautiful soul
Peggy never got married. No kids. My brother and I sitting up late at her house playing N64 Mario Kart was her maternal experience, and for her that was enough. ‘There was no one I met that I was willing to compromise my life for, those quiet moments in the morning having coffee especially. You’ve gotta really like someone to gamble those kinds of precious moments that make life worth living.’ The more women over 60 that I’m friends with, the more they’re adamant that I stop looking for someone. They’re telling me how badly they want to just live alone, have adventures, get on with their creative work. I’d like a beautiful soul, there’s been one or two bets placed on quiet moments already. When the ‘Hellcat’ jeans come off, and I mute the noise from the streets, I’m somewhat ashamed to admit I’m still in Fantasyland watching Snow White or consulting Emily Post’s 1922 etiquette book. At 27 in the year of our Lord 2026 I’m finding it really difficult to negotiate the tension between these points of fairy tale and feminism versus cold the lines of reptiles.