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Sunday 5 September 2021

The Toilet Roll Archives (27): Fizzy water and a four day labour - a "Kerry Anne" Update.

If you couldn’t tell, ‘Clumsy’ is my middle name – but to the point where it’s something that’s no longer funny and is actually downright concerning. 23 and falling like an eight-year-old in the playground? Christ xo

Well, hello there? Remember me!?

That’s a phrase that's become far too familiar on this site – I do apologise, but I suppose that’s what happens when you’re a bit of a busy bee and restrictions have been lifted (at least, for the foreseeable. I don’t think we’re done with those good ol’ lockdowns just yet; partially the reason why I'm including this in the TRA). Anyways, how are we all??? Did we enjoy our summers?

I’ve not been anywhere special. I’m still a single jabbed queen and manifesting a walk-in into Vaccination Station any day now. Saying that, I took a two-day-turned-two-week trip home to dog-sit whilst my double jabbed family went back to see everyone in Ireland. That could have been a very sorry time (ik ik it’s brutal out here xo) if it wasn’t for that I could pretend to be a homeowner and do unlimited amounts of laundry in a tumble dryer I wasn’t paying for.

Other than that, not much news, nothing all that important to report. We’re ticking along quite nicely over here. My Spanish swear word collection is expanding by the day (thank you Ines, here’s the shout-out you requested) and I still love a good cleaning party, especially now that The Pink Stuff comes in a spray bottle. Revolutionary. No real embarrassing lock-outs to report either – not to jinx anything.

I did, however, have A Fall recently. Lol, how much of a Nana do I sound? But, yeah, that was pretty bad. I trip quite a lot in public but this one was disastrous: I’d say one of the worst to date, if I’m being really honest. I was running by Tower Hill, on the Thames Path, when I caught my toes under a slightly loose flag and skyrocketed (Alexa, play Flying Without Wings) a few feet in the air and landed face first on the ground.

Of course, this is all has to take place on a busy Bank Holiday weekend: the tourists are there, the families are there, the walking groups are there. So, when I soar through the air and land anything but gracefully on my literal face, the families with buggies and puppies dart over to see if I’m ok. It’s a mad flurry of takeaway coffee cups, concerned mothers and politely-muffled sniggers. I consider playing dead out of pure humiliation.

As the CEO of Slipping, I can expertly say that the worst thing anyone can do when I fall is try and help me up. I’d rather them point and laugh. In this context, I have to act fine because there’s at least six kids standing with their respective caretakers, baffled that a grown adult can fall over like they do in the playground. I bounce straight up and tell them all I’m fine, just a few bruises and a massively bruised ego, nothing to worry about – though the blood pouring out of my left knee and forehead suggest otherwise (can I get a hoi yah for Thrombocytopenia!?). I turn my back from the small crowd and thank them, trying-but-failing to disguise a minor limp as I casually wander into a bustling Pret like the wounded warrior I am to gather tissues to wipe the blood that’s dripping into my eye. Rank.

Because I’m a massive weirdo, I pay £2.50 for a bottle of water because I feel I have to buy something to avoid looking like an attention-seeking wet wipe running off with a bunch of napkins. I never finish said-bottle, though, because I accidentally picked up sparkling in blind panic. I repeat: rank. Am considering making a claim against The City for compensation; the trauma of unintentionally sipping sparkling water is jarring enough to put one off H20 for life, fizzy or otherwise.

If you couldn’t tell, ‘Clumsy’ is my middle name – but to the point where it’s something that’s no longer funny and is actually downright concerning. 23 and falling like an eight-year-old in the playground? Christ xo

Wait, that reminds me: we are officially ‘Kerry Anne’ confirmed, courtesy of Ancestry DNA. I’ve spat in a bag and sent my DNA off to be looked at, though I already know I’m going to be pretty much 92% potato. I’ve always been really fascinated by names, genealogy, – actually, saying that, I’m currently hooked on Etymology Tik Tok (but that’s for another day!) – and I’ve finally started doing a family tree via Ancestry DNA. I’m as horrified as I knew I would be regarding some of the shite I’ve unearthed but, yeah, the website confirms that the name on my birth certificate is, indeed //Kerry Anne\\. Not //Kerry-Anne\\ or //Kerry\\Anne//. First name: Kerry Anne. Surname: Maxwell.

My mam was (is) absolutely fuming. “You had one job!” she shouted at my Dad. “I was in labour for four days, and you couldn’t even name her right!?”

Mum never fails to throw in the ‘four day labour’ story whenever anyone brings up childbirth. Is it weird that your own birth story can be a form of birth control? Dad obviously blamed the registrar but, in the same breath, admitted he didn’t even remember registering me. Not that it matters, it’s not that deep; it’s just funny – especially when we all consider that that this is the man who cannot for the life of him remember my birthday (I'll hand it to him, everyone else in the fam has weirdly synchronised birth dates).

As the one who made both of these individuals a parent, I’m not that offended. It’s actually pretty funny. Those first few weeks of first-time parenting must be wild. You’re just rolling along, living your best life then, all of a sudden, you’re responsible for the literal existence of another human being. Sleep is on the backburner. Hair-washing is a thing of the past. Those first few weeks must be surreal (and seriously sleep-deprived). Therefore, I think a slight error in the bureaucracy of birth-giving can easily be forgiven. Love you J and F, no hard feelings. Love your daughter, Kerry Anne (shudders).

So, I’ve lost a middle name and taken on an extra first one, along with a minor identity crisis. We’re waving goodbye to Kerry Anne Maxwell and welcoming in – lol – Kerry Anne Maxwell. Dawn of a new era and all that.

But yeah, I suppose there's nothing else to really spew on about. Just wanted to update this ol' thing. Like I said, I'm a busy bee at the moment and, unfortunately, regular posting has taken a bit of a hit. Fortnightly-turned-monthly-turned-semi-annual uploads are the way forward for now. But dw, I've not abandoned yous. I'll be sure to offload onto you whenever I need a good old rant (or decide on a Covid-related theme for this year's Xmas Tree - don't judge us in this flat!) 

All the love xoxoxo


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Saturday 12 June 2021

Toilet Roll Archives (26): I'm 23 - now what?

On why I refuse to call it a 'trip round the sun.'

Hello all, this post is coming to you a couple of days after I intended to pop it up – I do apologise, this week (lol lifetime 😊) has been a bit bonkers. Hope you’re all staying positive and testing negative.

As a quick life update - finished the first year of my MA with a fat first (I call bullshit on 'working smarter' as opposed to 'working harder;' it really is all about putting in the effort!), I've rediscovered the glory of red grapefruit, and I've come home for the weekend for the first time in what feels like fiveever to see my friends and fam. I also turned 23 this week and would it even be my birthday/week/month/szn if I didn’t write a quick post!? Hardly! 

There is nothing that makes me want to curl up into a ball and cringe more than someone referring to their birthday as their “xyzth trip round the sun” or – worse still – “Chapter ABC”. Don't get me wrong, I understand the logic of it - despite the wave of nausea that washes up on me every time I read it in someone's Insta bio.

I think it’s the idea that age is far more impressive when you refer to it as ‘trips round the sun’ – which I wholeheartedly agree with. As much as I joke about the fear of ageing physically (I’ve started using retinol; don’t ask me how it’s going (the 'uglies' are real and raw (skinned)), I’m very much of the mindset that ageing is a privilege. I know quite a few people who haven’t made it to 23. The fact that I have, and can look ahead to 24, 25, 35, 55, whatever, with this freeing sense of optimism and opportunity, is a huge honour. It’s not a blessing because I think that everyone should have the right to feel that way; I think blessings allude to ‘luck’ of some sorts. It’s an honour because it’s wrapped in this special, personal fortune that’s more purposeful than lucky.

Ageing is a privilege because it comes with experience and stories – which means it’s weird that I grimace whenever I hear someone refer to their age in chapters. To me, age cannot be marked simply by pages or chapters. I think it does a disservice to those lengthy, incredibly loaded periods of human development – at every age. Chapters, as exciting as they can be to read, are inactive. They’re done, they’re written up, and they’re put away. It’s like you segment that age, pick it up and file it away, as though 22 doesn’t feed into 23, or 24 or whatever.

And if chapters demonstrate stagnancy, then I think ‘trips round the sun’ are suggestive of monotony. It’s like a tiresome, mind-numbing “here we go again,” which, again, takes the excitement out of the human experience. “My 23rd trip round the sun” sounds dull, like I’m simply repeating old cycles. If you have had a particularly crappy year for whatever reason, then the thought of having to go through that all over again in “another trip around the sun” sounds kind of heart breaking. And then to file it away as a ‘chapter’ and not let that year feed into other years sounds boring and, let’s be honest, pointless. Stories make humans humans, but to leave them as ‘chapters’ of inactive, sedentary experiences undermines everything we’re pursuing and living for.

Weirdly, I’ve always liked those long-ago Nordic vibes of referring to ‘seeing’ age via seasons - .ie. I’ve seen 23 winters. There’s something quite romantic to it, if slightly archaic. It’s pretty. It’s also active and living; you’re seeing age as you go out and experience the world through its seasons. Plus, it also means I’m still technically 22 (hi TS (not Elliot)!) which means I haven’t just wasted a solid year and a half in lockdown.

It’s all relative obviously, and I’m not trying to shit on anyone who uses these phrases actively. Just writing down me perspective n all. Today we’re as old as we ever have been, and simultaneously as young as we will ever be ever again. I think there’s so much to unpack in that duality and to simply underpin it as a ‘chapter’ or a ‘trip round the sun’ doesn’t do justice to the work we’ve done on ourselves that’s as ongoing as it is concrete and isn’t as boring as it might risk being repetitive.

But yeah, happy 23rd Kerry. You're hardy closing the lever-arch folder and filing away 22. Chill. 




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Monday 5 April 2021

The Toilet Roll Archives (25): The Girls vs Zombies (cc the group chat)

Hihellohowareu? Hope you’ve had a wonderful Bank Holiday! Here's a pretty special post in its honour. Big ups to the girls group chat before we get started. All the love always, esp with this consensual roast.

Almost a year ago I was sat in the exact same spot on the sofa, typing out how different Easter weekend was going to be. Whoop-de-do...here we are again. I think I’m wearing the exact same socks too, with a sneaky hole in the big toe – classy, boujee, ratchet etc 😊

Things look a bit different though. The gender ratio has shifted in the flat, I have a new-found passion for mango, and what once seemed an abundance of time has been well and truly filled to Capacity with a capital C (but who wants to talk about that?) My Good Friday Cleaning Party was sick tbf. Went harder than Parklife, but with less Dark Fruits and more fabric detergent.

It was around this time last year we discovered the joys of TikTok and were constantly facetiming each other, chatting for hours on end because there was quite literally nothing else to do. Over the past year, the girls’ group chat has (as ever) been a source of entertainment, of venting, of advice etc. She’s a multi-functional, multi-faceted entity at this point. Out of interest, I scrolled back to see what we were chatting about this time last year and it was the night I found out that several of my linked social media accounts had been continuously being hacked by some third-party app for the better part of a year – I only found out when one of the gals moaned that she was “getting those dodgy emails from [me] again.” My look of horror is still the face of the group chat. Sick. (This is your warning from Fun Auntie Kerry to keep changing up your passwords!)

Speaking of friends and group chats, the whole Who’d Survive A Zombie Apocalypse thing came up recently. What started out as a bit of a game turned into a fully fledged screenplay. All the scenarios were considered, all the character development was brainstormed. Think a B-Tec version of The Walking Dead. Realistically, I've never understood why people try and battle to survive in those apocalyptic films. I'm pretty sure if myself and the gals tuned into an emergency BBC broadcast on the matter, we'd throw our hands up and declare surrender almost immediately. 

But riddle me this: if the purge alarms sound and we’re all at Lucy’s (because that seems to be where we all congregate more often than not), how would the Mary’s Lads fare in the midst of apocalyptic crisis?

So we all know the first to go would be the mighty Cleggy. Amy, we love you so, so much, but when you self-admittedly declared yourself a liability because of your fear of the dark, we knew we’d have to let you go early on. But such a sacrifice can only mean that our battle to survive is done in the name of the Honourable Clegg: A Martyr, A Hero, A Light in the Darkness.

Operation Clegg begins when we pile in a car: Ms Lowe, Lucy Dillon (no nickname reveal yet again), ‘Victoria Rybak’, Helen of Troy: The Face that Launched A Thousand Ships, The Mack, Baby-Trap Barry and lil ol’ me. We tear off into the chaos like all end-of-the-world films begin, even though the most logical thing would be to stay at home, stay up high and lock the door.

We slam on the accelerator and speed off in the direction of Pennington Flash, because A) Lucy’s house is around 5 minutes away and B) All good Zombie films take place in the woods.

We’re zooming down the Lancs, Operation Clegg fully underway. Helen of Troy has snatched the AUX cord because she probably has a playlist ready and waiting for this kind of scenario and is it even really a ‘panic’ if Panic! aren’t blasting down the speakers? No tears, just vibes. 

But we aren’t quite mowing down the Zombies at this rate. It seems the good people of Leigh all share the same mindset: get in the car and get away. There’s talk of Lilford, there’s talk of Penny, there’s even a Wigan-bomb dropped here and there, only to be mocked and scoffed at because no one ever chooses to go to Wigan – not to Jack’s on a Friday, not to go buy a pie, and most certainly not in the midst of a zombie apocalypse.  

The traffic down the East Lancs is piling faster than it does on a Monday at 8:00 am. We’re stopping and starting amongst vehicles of squashed families. HOT’s playlist of choice is drowned out by the sounds of car horns, screams and those awful zombie groans that you know smell as bad as they sound.

People are abandoning vehicles and sprinting down the dual carriageway because it’s faster on foot at this point. We are all staring, aghast, at the scenes before us. We’ve never seen anything like it. It doesn’t take long for someone to bash on our window, begging to be let inside.

“Please, please,” they cry out. “I’ll do anything! There has to be room for one more! Please”

The individual in question is soon joined by others. They’re banging on the windows and pulling on the doors.

It doesn’t take long for Lucy Dillon to lose her rag. All five feet two inches of it. 😊

“Would you piss off!?!” she screams. Small in height but large in fire, Lucy isn’t one for sharing resources. She'll yeet anyone.

“This is our car. You aren’t coming in. Get lost!”

And we don’t know how it happens but it does – a window is smashed and Lucy is physically removed from the car.

Lucy is down but there’s no time to mourn. Operation Clegg can’t fall apart before it even gets off the ground. The driver puts her foot down and, all of a sudden, we’re accelerating, weaving through the traffic again to the sounds of a much fainter playlist and the muffled sobs of Baby-Trap Barry because she’s a Pisces.

We pull up to the Flash about five minutes later, because dystopian fantasies know no time or boundaries (clearly) and it’s at this point we make the executive decision to lock HOT and BTB in the vehicle for the time being because neither can be trusted. Their uncontrollable aggression caused by a weird combo of emotionally-charged chaotic-good means things could get very Lord of the Flies very quickly. Great qualities to have when channelled appropriately – but not quite the start we’d need.

Basic human integrity aside, we’d keep our gal pals locked in the car until the time would come to Release The Hounds. Yes, we’ve found our designated hunter-gatherers. HOT and BTB would scavenge for food and resources, bring them back to base, and then we’d put them back in the cage – sorry, I mean car. They protecc, they attacc, they most certainly will bite back. Guys, I love you but it’s a case of service and expedience over rights at this point. Sorry not sorry; executive decision made xoxo.

I’m saying all this as if I could lead the pack and make it all the way. To be fair, the intent would be there because I wear hoop earrings and we all know the bigger the hoop, the bigger the ambition and drive, but no one put it better than Anna-mal-Crossing-Addict/HOT herself when she said “you’d fall over and cut your leg and get sepsis or something, you absolute let-down.” Can’t say it didn’t hurt to read, but, hey, where’s the lie? I’d rather succumb to my own stupidity than a zombie bite.

Let’s pretend this happens after we set up base somewhere high up (I’m thinking the top of that hill near the canal?) Big ups to Katie Lowe, everyone’s favourite Chemistry teacher, who would no doubt use her knowledge of the periodic table to try and make my death a bit more comfortable. That’s right, Ms Lowe knows her stuff – unlike a certain Chem teacher who said we didn’t need to turn up on time to pray every morning if we didn’t tell anyone how she’d sip on her can of Coke Zero and vape at 8.30 am in our lab form room. Yes, Ms Lowe actually knows things about hydrochloric acid and Bunsen burners and stuff. She’s probably Harry-Potter-Potion our way out of any potential messes. One to be protected at all costs.

Speaking of protecting, let’s move to the mother of the GC, The Mack. You cannot convince me otherwise that Charlotte would die at the hands of the zombie whilst protecting one of the girls. She is the character in the movie that everyone is rooting for from the get-go who dies in the cruellest, most untimely, most devastating of fashions. Think slow-mo, with some sad monologue playing as a voiceover for good measure. Award-winning stuff that has the whole cinema whimpering because everyone loves Charl-a-lotte.

Which leaves our adventurer, ‘Victoria Rybak,’ who would unleash her inner Robinson Crusoe minus the imperialistic white man tendencies and thrive. ‘Apocalypse’ – what about it? Nothing phases the leader of Operation Clegg. Cars exploding? Zombie bites? Weapon building? Those 12 years as a Girl Guide and that “technically, technically” 1 year in the army will have all been worth it, Vicky; a Bear Grylls with bare skills.

And there we have it, pals: how the group chat would fare in the midst of a zombie attack. This was as wild a ride to write as it probably would be to live (and die), but hey, makes a change. 

Also thanks to the gals (again) for letting this morph into some weird screenplay-story thing. Happy to split the Netflix royalties equally.




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Friday 12 March 2021

The Toilet Roll Archives (24): I don't wear a ponytail when I go for a run.

I had the urge to post this earlier this week but I held back. Other people were articulating how they felt on Twitter so well, I thought I would just wait it out a bit. But then I woke up to discover a Met police officer had been arrested in connection with your disappearance – and later that day found out on what charges. And then I learned human remains had been found out in Kent somewhere, and they've been confirmed as yours, and as of 47 minutes ago that said-mentioned Met police officer has been charged with your murder, and now I have that overwhelming tingly restlessness I get in my fingers to get some words out, any words out. I don’t know whether I’ll end up posting it or not. I might delete it later, like I have done with pretty much all my tweets this week.

I think the connection I’ve felt between myself and other women this week is deeper than I have ever felt before. There is this collective anger and surge of sorrow. I’ve kept pretty quiet and just watched stories unfold; stories of hyper-consciousness, stories of engrained awareness, of lessons in school on ‘staying safe.’ And how we have all just accepted it our entire lives. It’s so weird. It’s standard behavioural procedure. Because “it’s just the way it has to be.”

We all share live locations. We all hold our keys between our fingers. We all make the fake phone calls. We all run down the street in the dark. We all look for the nearest door. We all have sat behind the driver. We all have theorised our escape routes.

“Text me when u get home xo” – autopilot.

We’re all grieving your pointless death. We know it could have easily been any one of us. And we know the narrative on “doing better” and "lessons learned" will continue to play on the TVs and phones of all the women in Clapham who have been advised to “stay indoors” by local police. And yet again, sexual violence is made a woman’s responsibility. Because we’ve been warned countless times: don’t drink too much, don’t go to the bathroom alone, “stick together, girls!” Because your mother knows the threat too. She’s felt it like hot breath on the back of her neck too. She’s held her key between her fingers too. She's faked a phone call too. She’s tried to stop her worst nightmare, which will no doubt become your own worst nightmare, from becoming your reality. So the nightmares become warnings. But the warnings become headlines and press cuts and stories whispered between the mums down the street.

We all know that the headlines about the abductions of women are rare, that the rape and sexual attacks on women we sometimes hear about on the news are usually perpetrated by men already known to her. We know the statistics. And statistics should help distance the threat all the more; they should ground things and give them that factual edge everyone seems to like and trust.

But statistics make things that bit more real, that bit more familiar. It’s all you know. It’s just life. It is what is is. We deal with it: like periods, or pay gaps, or being killed twice weekly by a male partner. It is just what we know life to be so we just get on with it, and protect ourselves and each other: “Text me when u get home xo” – autopilot.

It’s #notallmen. But it is 97% of women. And this is where it starts: the very threat of it being #notallmen. Because, you're right, it isn’t, but it has to be someone; the ambiguity is the threat, and the threat is a blanket as thick as the night. When there aren’t many people in the station. When you know someone is walking behind you and you can’t turn round to look. When it’s 8pm and it is dark and you have to go under the railway bridge. When it is 8am and it is broad daylight and the man on the District line with the sweaty, moustache-coated upper lip continually grazes his hand too close to your thigh for it to be an accident.

And then you disappeared in the middle of a pandemic (Happy 1 Year Anniversary huns xo) when going out for walks seems to be our saving grace, and we mourn for yet another woman we have never met but we still knew in some way because she was both one of us and all of us.

I also would like to say that we need to think about the ways in which we respond to young, white middle class women when they go missing, and how we address women of other races, classes and ages when they go missing. The conversation must have its moment beyond #BLM. I have plenty of thoughts, but I don’t quite have the words just yet. That conversation requires a post of its own.

I wonder how many ways in which men can say "not all men?" "Maybe she was drunk?" "Maybe she was wearing a skirt?" "Maybe she shouldn't be walking home alone at night?" 

Maybe men should simply stop assaulting women?




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Sunday 7 February 2021

The Toilet Roll Archives (23): An impulsive post on 'impulse', how creative and kooky can you get, Kerry? xo

I didn’t know what to write when I opened up this Word Doc. I was thinking about how much I miss being impulsive, and I figured I’d go with that.

I miss those lightning flashes where you just do what feels good in the moment. I miss the fierce rush of blood and the cold shivers and the heartbeat. I miss that warm, itchy feeling I get in the palms of my hands that I feel before I even realise what it is that I’m drawn to in the first place.

I suppose it is all in the very root of the word (lol, it always is, Kezza!): “Im” is a prefix for ‘before’ or ‘into,’ and it’s coupled with the word ‘Pulse,’ a word that emulates life in probably one of its most biological definitions. Which makes sense, I suppose. When you actually say the word, “Impulse” takes on a life of its own. It shoots from your diaphragm up to the back of your throat, dancing across your tongue for a brief moment before you it spits itself out into the air and disappears into the air like those exploding stars. It’s that beautiful feeling of life before logic. I really miss that.




It’s a weird combination. I’m all about the logic, most of the time. I like being mindful and objective and forward-thinking. But there’s nothing quite like taking caution and throwing it into the wind – even if it’s just for a moment, even if I don’t do it very often. Because I miss the itchy warmth that spreads over my palms.

I love dancing in the kitchen with my friends. I love accidental nights out in jeans and trainers. I love road-trips-turned-live-concerts-featuring-us. I love uncontrollable belly laughs. I love clicking ‘Pay Now’ and ignoring the pit in my stomach that forms when I know I should be saving. I love the silent screams and the gritted teeth scrunched up noses of embarrassment. I love the hugs. I love the deep breaths. I love the middle fingers and “fuck its.” I love the free falls. They make the best stories.  

I remember I read something recently called ‘Passion is the Problem’ and I see the point because passion is fundamentally ego and selfish. It’s all narrative, really. It’s the whole “I am going to do xyz” and never actually doing it. Passion is fragile and it exists for its own sake. Purpose, on the other hand, wants only what it needs, and what it can get. Thinking gritty, not giddy, gets things done. I like that version of myself. That’s the version of myself I can rely on. She’s pretty cool.

Developing and articulating a real purpose is where it’s at; passion is well-intended but it can be ineffective. And I think impulse lies somewhere in this weird limbo-liminal-middle. You do it because you think “eff it,” because not everything needs to have obvious meaning and purpose. But, I suppose “eff it” is a decision like any other, at that end of the day. That’s important.

I think it’s down to this weird self-evolution thing where every choice you make is a lesson and you take it and move forward. That itchy warmth that glazes your palms is more than just an “eff it” moment. Impulse requires passion, but there’s more than just that. There’s a little bit of thought in impulse. There’s deliberation, even if it’s just for a split second. There’s the teensiest bit of logic in impulse, when you think – even if it’s to go against it! Sometimes the most logical thing to do is to be illogical, right?

I miss that. Because the most impulsive thing I’ve done is signed up to do a half marathon* later this summer, which, upon reflection, is the least-impulsive-impulsive thing to do because it requires commitment and training and time and effort – but, hey ho, that’s Life Under Lockdown, I suppose. Almost a whole year inside. Wow. That post will be up before I know it.

Hope your January was alright and that the new month treats you kindly. All the love xoxo

 

*Doing this for the girls, the gays and the theys bcos there is no way I can let my brother beat me. You’re welcome xo

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