Sunday Morning Witterings: Paint, Electrolysis, and a Cocktail Bar Without the Cocktails

caption...

Well hello, folks. The dust is starting to settle on my life a little bit, which can only mean one thing: my unconnected rambling witterings are back.

It’s Sunday morning, half past nine, and a floating shelf in a bedroom beckons, along with scrubbing the paint I spilled in the kitchen off the floor, a job I despise because I know it won’t be done as perfectly as I want it to be done. I’m such a perfectionist that I hate starting any job I know I can’t execute to my own ridiculous standards. So, naturally, I’ve come to hide in my office with a very large coffee and write a Substack instead.

Today’s agenda:

• The “Little Basic House™”

• Work

• A few other bits: surgery, sobriety, and the strange business of starting over

---

The House

After getting back from Bangkok almost a month ago, I was immediately thrust into the “When are you moving out of this bloody house” phase of separation life. I get it, she wanted space, closure, a clean slate. But it meant I had to find a new place, fast.

I got one, my new “Little Basic House™”, about two weeks before I flew to Bangkok. It was secured in the nick of time, but there was no chance to move in or decorate before surgery. When I finally returned home, weak, bruised, and with a nose that felt like it might fall off at any moment and a chin still swollen like Bruce Forsyth, I also had the worst cold I’ve had in years. Perfect timing.

just before I got my hands on it

Picture this: unable to blow my nose for fear of it detaching, running a temperature, and dragging boxes into a cold, bare bungalow with no hot water (it turns out stupid me didn’t realise there was a valve that needed to be switched on, oh well, solved). Glamorous, no?

But slowly, with some leftover Farrow & Ball paint, Pinterest, an heroic amount of Temu cheap bits and bobs, sheer bloody-mindedness and hard graft, it’s coming together. Steve was one handy son-of-a-bitch with a trowel and a jigsaw, and it turns out I haven’t forgotten any of those skills. The living room is now quite nice, the fireplace colour works beautifully with my favourite painting of the two ladies, which I had painted, then framed and stretched myself, and the Eames chair looks quite at home.

We are not there yet, but we are getting there. It's looking a lot cooler now.

The kitchen is the funniest thing I’ve ever done, part moody modern, part camp cocktail bar. There’s a fake Rolex clock on the wall next to my time-trial bike, a neon sign that reads Stevie Time, and a growing collection of alcohol-free mixers lined up like trophies. I’ll do proper photos soon, but suffice it to say it’s chaotic perfection.

---

Work

I’ve been back working for about five weeks now, and for the first time in years I’m just doing a straightforward contract, showing up, solving their problems, and not building quant trading algorithms or financial voodoo. And you know what, I’m happy.

I’d forgotten how satisfying it is to just be good at something. Thirty years in this game means I can smell good architecture from a mile away. I know when something’s wrong, and I know how to fix it. And yes, it still amuses me when people in Teams meetings say things like, “Can you send that to her,” and I think, “Who, me?” like Homer Simpson as Mr Thompson. It’s surreal but also deeply satisfying.

---

The Ouch Section (a.k.a. Electrolysis and Other Delights)

Travel has been minimal lately, except for a grim trip to London for yet more electrolysis. For the uninitiated, which let’s be honest is everyone, it involves a fine needle, an electric current, and language not suitable for print.

More Bargain Basement, €20 Ryanair flight to London and back in a day.

Mine’s done under local anaesthetic, a doctor pops in every half hour to inject my face like a pincushion, and even then I still yelp when she hits an un-numbed spot. The electrolysis this time was mainly for my groin area, but I had some time left over, so they did my chest and face too. That’s why I looked like I’d caught chicken pox for a week.

The good news is that everything’s clear and ready for January’s final act, and progress is progress. My Thai surgeon and I had a follow-up call on Teams yesterday. He looked at my face and said, “Vewy beautiful, vewy beautiful, I am vewy pleased with your forehead.” It was like a cartoon professor. Then he tried to convince me to remodel two ribs, as in break them, to make my torso slimmer. I politely declined. Apparently, it hurts like hell.

---

Mediation

In relation to the divorce, I’ll simply say that I’ve started mediation sessions. I’m not going to write about it because it’s very private, and to be honest, I find the whole process much harder and more upsetting than I expected. To see the pain on my separated wife’s face was awful. I hated doing that to her. I also hated being under such pressure and scrutiny. I’m a private person by nature, and this feels like the ultimate exposure. It often feels as if I’m being treated like some sort of serial liar. Some may believe that because of what I am, but I’m not a liar. I’m a good person, and I kept reminding myself of that in the session.

It’s combative, and at times hostile, and yet underneath it all there’s still so much sorrow, and anger, and the two flip back and forth. I suppose that’s what endings look like, messy, necessary, and human. That is all I will ever comment on this.

---

Next Steps

If all goes well, within the week the house will be finished, the gym will be set up, and I’ll be back to my routine, up at six, train for an hour, breakfast, work. I’m also toying with doing some night classes, the type of thing that Steve would never have considered in a million years. Well, maybe he would have secretly, but he’d never have admitted it. Painting, dancing, maybe even drama. Why not. It’s time to start living a bit again.

There will be more of the unpleasant mediation. I really hope this gets concluded quickly and peacefully for everybody, and we can move forwards.

In January, I go back to Bangkok for the final operation. I have to admit, I’m deeply reflective about that. It’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t lived this, but it isn’t about chasing some fantasy or perfection. It’s about being able to walk through the world without feeling like a mismatched collage. For me, it’s something I simply need to do.

“So I’ve got my new fanny, I’m Vicky Gervais, butch lesbian legend! Jeans, tee, swagger, ready for the bar. Flirt with a good-looking lesbian type., get invited back, and… strap-on time? Tie that dildo on and…oh shit, what did I do?”

Any so-called “normal man” would probably look at me and say, “You’re doing what now… chopping it off?” I watched a pile of Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle the other night, and there’s a funny routine with Ricky talking about being transgender and chopping it off and then realising he was a lesbian and strapping one on and saying, “Oh, fuck.” And I get that. I do. But all the same, I know exactly why I’m doing it. I can’t spend my life feeling like a half-finished version of myself. I need to be complete. That’s all.

Sobriety, Again

And finally, a big one. Anyone who knows my story knows I can be an all-or-nothing person. I don’t do a little bit. If I run, it’s a marathon. If I work, it’s all night. If I transition, it’s full throttle. And if I drink, well, that’s where things unravel.

So I’ve stopped again. After four months of trying to be a normal drinker, I realised it just doesn’t work for me. The switch flipped almost the day I moved in here. The cocktail bar now glitters with alcohol-free bottles, and it feels right. I lived sober for nearly fifteen years before, and it’s where I function best, where I think clearly, and where I don’t destroy the things I love.

No alcohol will be found here. So you might be disappointed if you’re looking for a real cocktail.

I also think I had an itch to scratch as Stevie. I needed to go out, dance in clubs, the way I used to dream of when I was younger, when I imagined being a girl on a dancefloor, free. And I did. I went out, danced, laughed, and yes, I wanted to see if anyone was attracted to me. And they were. And maybe I needed that. Maybe that was the proof I’d been chasing all along.

Now that itch is scratched, I don’t need the alcohol or the late nights. This little house deserves a clear head, and so do I.

---

A Quiet Coda

And finally, and I’ll write more about this next time, I did something small but significant. I synced all of my private photos and videos, the ones I’d been hiding away since I became Stevie, into Google Photos. For the first time, they sit alongside the rest of my life, the kids, the travels, the past.

Scrolling through, I found a video from just after my facial surgery. My face swollen, taped, fragile. I watched it and cried. Not out of regret, but grief for the many I wasn’t brave enough to live as myself.

And then I found something else. The last ever photograph of Steve. Jesus Christ, I looked pretty feminine. My skin was so smooth. You can see the red and black top under my jacket. I had two of those tops on at once, tight as hell, trying to flatten my growing breasts so nobody would notice. And I always wore a jacket. You never saw me without one. It was so difficult in the end.

The last ever photo of Steve. The next day, he was gone.

Finally, finally, finally

I’ve just remembered this, and I want to write it down.

For a long, long time, I always wanted to write the story of my life. I know it’s incredibly self-indulgent to do such a thing, but I also know that one day I’ll be gone, and if I don’t write it down like this, my story will be left in the hands of others. There are people in my family who will still be around when I’m not, and I want them to know the truth from me, not from somebody else.

That was an itch I had to scratch.

So to those who don’t like what I do, this is why I do it. Because one day I won’t be here, and I want people to know the truth from me, not from the stories others might invent about how crazy I was, or how deluded I was, or what a liar I was.

I don’t think I was any of those things. I tried incredibly hard to be a man for so long.

And now, at least, the truth is written down.

Stevie x