I, Robot

Dispatches from the mainframe

I have been struggling with motivation recently, hence the radio silence on my Substack since mid-June. A dizzying combination of an intense work period, getting evicted, and having some health issues has resulted in a distinct lack of output from myself. I wish I was one of those people who could be creative through any storm, but I unfortunately suffer from Baby Bear Syndrome (BBS). Everything in my life has to be just right.

I’ll do away with discussing work which I find to be gauche, but getting evicted and developing an unknown fainting condition¹ has somewhat put a downer on wanting to write a Substack. My brain has felt so constantly full to the brim, slopping around with thoughts on the nature of thoughts, that over the past few months I have been unable to feel anything other than overwhelmed.

Now as we approach the other side of it, there is light at the end of this entry.

I must say that getting evicted is perhaps one of the worse housing experiences I’ve had. I think I’m someone who derives a lot of stability from The Home, likely due to frequent house moving as a child (plus all that pesky trauma). To be living in London at the whims of landlords is not the life I would choose for myself, but here we are.

My feelings on moving haven’t changed much since I last wrote about it, only that I now have become very practised at the art of ‘throwing stuff away’. I hold no ties to the physical world, aside from anything that I deem ‘useful’². Ellie, on the other hand…

I’m not a driver but I am intimately aware of the concept that other drivers are the real danger. I bring this up now for no reason, other than it has just popped into my head when talking about how much I love to have the minimal amount of items possible despite living with another person. I do not bring this up because Ellie loves items and won’t throw any of her loose shells away³.

A reminder of when I performatively moved house.

On the health stuff – I’ve developed an affliction where I faint at random and without warning.

Never has my she/they identity ever felt more affirmed: internally genderless with no ties to predated notions of ‘womanhood’, externally and physically no better than a Victorian maiden. I swoon, I blush⁴, I have a snatched waist that withstands the tests of time.

I went to the doctors about the fainting and they handed over an ‘ambulatory monitor’ for my heart, which basically means I am connected to a bunch of pulleys and wires for the next 7 days. I wear my device at all times and I love my device. The other night I leant on it in my sleep and woke both myself and Ellie up to a noise akin to a Nokia ringtone. I love my device and my device loves me.

I don’t know if anyone remembers⁵, but I have a recurring intrusive thought that I am secretly a robot. I am bringing this up for no reason at all, and it is definitely not at all exacerbated by the fact that every day I connect myself to a set of wires that have very strict instructions for operating. Right wire green, left wire red.

The not showering part comes very naturally to me.

One boon to the device is that it tells the time (although they forgot to update it when the clocks went back, so it tells the wrong time). It is hard to not be of the mindset that these wires connect to a clock that is powered by the electricity of my body. I am become Walking Clock, destroyer of my own sense of humanity.

Sometimes I find having a body deeply troubling. Sometimes I wish I were just a brain in a vat. But then I remember that when the nights get cold it means the water from the tap is extra refreshing. And that makes it all worthwhile.

I’ll say one quick thing on having a job, if you insist. Managed to (sort of) meet Derren Brown at a work event. And when I say ‘meet’, I do mean I got too shy to introduce myself and stood next to him holding my drink as if we were engaging in conversation.

Let me be clear: I love Derren Brown. I would religiously watch him on TV as a child and I still maintain that he is one of the greatest stage performers of our generation bar NONE. But I watched Derren so much as a child that I became obsessed with the idea that someone could read my thoughts. And that fear has never truly gone away.

Imagine being a child, accidentally thinking about a bum, and then remembering that somewhere out there Derren Brown will know that I accidentally thought about a bum. Although to be fair, he’s also gay so maybe he would have enjoyed the free bum pic.

I know logically that no one can read my thoughts. Then again, logically Derren Brown shouldn’t have been able to stick people to their seats with the power of his mind, and he did. Anything is possible in this crazy place we call Earth.

Listen, I do feel a kinship to Derren in a way. I, too, enter social situations and expect to deduce everything about a person using my Big Brain. I am just much less practised than him and more likely to incorrectly deduce that someone is mad at me. The power of the mind!!

Anyway, forgive me for becoming a selective mute in the face of all that. I wish I had a story to tell about what enlightening conversation I had with Derren Brown, but I don’t. Just the reminder of everything that he took from me… and everything that he gave me…

He loves a flat cap, that guy!

This Substack has been a long time coming and I’ve been battling the demon of Wanting Everything To Be Perfect, to the point of feeling debilitated. So I’m going to leave it there and fire it off into the ether. Hope that’s okay with you all.

Thanks for reading – I hope you all enjoy my new icon hand drawn by icon Bridget from Bridget’s Substack! She’s really captured my essence.

See you in the next one,
Imogen xx

1. I am fine, I am now just prone to fainting which is a fun way to get out of doing any work.

2. What I find useful is any kitchen appliance, 5 jumpers I’ve owned since I was 21, and a slew of old love letters (for yearning and pondering over).

3. Nor would I make her! But if the question is ‘do I like having loose shells around the house’, your honour I plead the fifth…

4. This is a recent thing also, that I have started to blush at odd intervals. Or rather, I blush at the precise moment that I start thinking ‘wouldn’t it be weird if I blushed right now’. The power of the mind!

5. This is giving ‘oh I’m just a little worm…’ vibes, sorry!!