Marylin Moments in a Kilt
I met a friend in Brighton today.
I do not know why, but just before bed the night before, my anxiety rocketed. Maybe because I needed to set the alarm so that I could be up in time to catch the train, and for that reason I couldn’t take a sleeper to help me get off. Had I thought of it, a beta blocker might have helped. I didn’t dare take a gummy because sometimes they can leave me feeling hungover.
At around four in the morning, I gave up tossing and turning, heated myself a bit of milk and nutmeg (a suggestion of Star Trek TNG’s Dr Beverley Crusher that usually helps me), and watched something on telly from the iPlayer’s comedy library.
Comedies are usually twenty-five or thirty minutes. I was getting tired and thought “this is feeling like a long episode.” I found that I was forty-five minutes into a one hour first episode. I stopped it and went to bed and did get some sleep, but was awake before the 7am alarm.
I wore a cheap (Temu’s finest) black and red kilt. I think it looks ok, but it isn’t the most amazingly constructed. It is, however, light and cool in the hot summer sunshine.
It is also light and catches the breeze easily.
I took the non-binary badge off my bag and used it to pin the two ends of the kilt together after a Marylin moment revealed the secret of my lack of underwear to the world. For those who don’t know, kilts are wrap around, fastening in a broad waistband at the top, and usually a large safety pin at the bottom (which I am sure has a fancy Gaelic name).
My other expensive Pride kilt doesn’t need any fastening at the bottom because it’s quite a heavy material. However, it is very fitted and the waistband is unforgiving of the custard around my middle. At least the Temu kilt is more comfortable, even though it is technically a size smaller than my Pride kilt.
The trouble with these smart phones and having time to just sit is the tendency to go shopping online. Fatal! I have now ordered myself a kilt pin with the letters C, U, E, H, N, and U suspended on it.
One other problem with kilts: they make me feel horny! There is a delicious sense of deviance about wearing something that isn’t common in the south of the United Kingdom and could be mistaken for a skirt. I love the sense of freedom down below, so of course I wasn’t wearing any underwear, so there was no hiding the excitement. I had to just sit quiet and wait for it to pass!
On the train, I had a snooze: which is something that is frowned upon when driving.
Brighton Memories
Brighton is full of memories. Most of them extremely happy.
It is where my husband and I converted our civil partnership into a marriage. I have celebrated so many birthdays here. We have had New Year here a number of times. One time in drag! I don’t like drag much: I don’t like makeup – except a bit of sexy and subtle eyeliner!
I have only been here once before on my own; that was for the Brighton marathon. I was BORED for much of the route, which made it much more of an endurance exercise than I was expecting. Also, my husband had one of his episodes whilst I was here, so it wasn’t in any way a relaxing trip.
I would live in Brighton if I could … maybe one day.
I find the view down the road from the railway station to the blue sea exciting, with the salty breeze waking up my spirit.
Daytime Drinking
Now I am very drunk!
I have to work tomorrow.
I also have to catch the train back to Southampton from Brighton.
I have had a wonderfully relaxing day … and I wish that I didn’t have to go to work tomorrow.
This friend is a delightfully relaxing fellow to be around. Dutch. And athletic. And into puppy play!
We went into the Bulldog bar, which was showing puppy night adverts. We are both into puppy play, so we talked about coming to Brighton to share a night of puppy play at this bar. He said that he’d feel happier if we played together first. I was good with that suggestion.
He is actually a switch and thinks that I am too. I suppose that in my job as a development team lead (and previously as a development manager), I can be assertive and “dominant”, but it’s not natural to me.
Later, over dinner, I was more than happy for him to order the food (once we’d discussed what we wanted). It turned out to be a selection of starters and a shared main course. The food was fabulous, as was the company. I did drink way too much wine though!
The bar person in one of the many places we stopped to have a glass of wine and if I was from Brighton. I said no and told them where I was from. I said that I would love to live in Brighton, but if I did, where would I go on holiday? Then I said “sometimes we have to choose wisely which of our dreams to make true, because the dream is better than reality can ever be.”
Is that deep, or just a pretentious drunk speaking?
Double Bind
My Dutch friend and I talked about the deeply persecuted trans community. He knows of a trans-woman swimmer, whom he describes as “considerate” because she is a powerful swimmer, but only reveals just how strong she is when she’s alone.
I talked about the trans-femme double bind of “no you may not have puberty blockers” and “you’ve had a male puberty and the ‘advantage’ of testosterone, so we don’t want you playing sport with ‘real’ women”. It is not fair.
Many eunuchs identify as trans, and we will fight and defend our trans brothers and sisters. If there is no space for binary-trans people, who at least desire one of the binary genders, what space is there for us liminal creatures?
Feeling Fuzzy
The afternoon I spent deliciously drunk and fuzzy. I enjoyed letting go and for my friend lead me all over Brighton and picking things from menus. He seemed to enjoy it as well. He’s a “switch” so taking charge isn’t foreign to him.
Sticking with fuzzy feelings and drink: I really get the attraction for people chasing that fuzzy and relaxed feeling through drink. I am from a family with a long history of alcohol abuse and have lived with somebody who has also abused alcohol.
Fuzzy and relaxed is fun.
Until it isn’t.
Over the course of the day, I had several glasses of wine more than was sensible.
Train Talking
Of note on the journey home was an artist from the New Forest, whom I was sat opposite and who shared two albums of his work with me. It was all abstract, but very thought provoking.
I’m afraid that I was quite drunk and was expounding quite loudly on ideas about gender identity and quoting Oscar Wilde on the artist and the critic from the preface to “The Picture of Dorian Gray”.
Being more than as little drunk at the time of writing, I’m not absolutely certain how we got onto it, but it came out that I’m a eunuch. We talked about gender and the way that the blank canvas that is a baby has the hopes, aspirations, and assumptions of the midwife, parents, and everybody else impressed upon them at birth. Perhaps the talk came out of a fascinating portrait of Christ’s passion that this artist has created: Christ was on the cross, apparently smiling, with his hands in more of a “hey! It’s a joke!” gesture. The Christ also appeared to be nude … and to have no genitalia – a nullo non-binary divinity.
A lot of is art I found disturbing, which I suppose makes is successful because it was evoking an emotional response – the strange Christ certainly made me feel uncomfortable.
It turns out this the fellow I was talking to was one Bob Parks, who was a very edgy performance artist in the 70s; his life has been full of adventure, challenge, and quite some grief. The BBC did a documentary on him, although sadly it is no longer available to watch.
I was lucky to be seated opposite such a fascinating character on the train!
The Morning After
The day after?
I cycled into work. I nearly threw up on the way.
I probably shoulda worked from home!
At least I’ll have a different reason than the usual if I do get a headache! 🤣🤣🤣
If you made it all the way here, congratulations – you’ve just survived my Brighton Wine Tour of Consciousness. I was tipsy when I lived it, drunk when I wrote it, and slightly hungover editing it. You, dear reader, are a hero.
Eunuchorn 
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