'..Another Reason To Smile.' x
INclUDeS: FREE e-BOOK LINK:The Diaries of Leo Tolstoy (PDF)
Friday 6 June 2025
If this is a bit of a different surprise to what you might have been expecting. If you thought this was going to be my Aural Contraband Music Playlists newsletter, it’s moved to HERE:
Dear Chasers!
Well, from looking at the title… you would imagine I’d at least be smiling on the photographs shared with you today. That’s not the case. That’s the raw ugly truth of ‘how I look WITH reasons to smile’ - I haven’t quite figured out what my reason to smile is yet. I haven’t been feeling great all day but I am okay, fine right now (thanks for asking! - How are you as well? Good?).
I have a reason to smile and that’s just battling with myself and winning about whether or not to write to you tonight. I also had to battle against myself last night. I also considered leaving Substack and all active hobbies entirely - indefinitely. OMG!
I believe that I reconnected with my inner child last night. I found myself in a suicidal state of mind. Seeing figures outside the bushes, as I was leaning out of the window with a smoke, hideous shadows that I had to check twice to make sure that they weren’t real people lurking behind the wall in the undergrowth behind my house.
Coming to the conclusion that I was only hallucinating and in that case ‘were these demons or dead relatives coming at me with a message’.
They were terrifying to look at but I always face my fears head on. I stare harder than they do and in my concentration I automatically mime a headbutt too. A ‘Glasgow Kiss’ we used to call them (headbutts).
As they begin to blur into something more palatable to look at,I allow myself to wonder what if it was my Dad in his new ‘deathly/heavenly’ form? Last night my mind telepathically told him that: ‘I’m coming to see you and stay with you soon'.
*Sobbing* my face was a wet bundle of tacky hair from my head, black smudged clumps and streaks of mascara from my eyes, snot from my nose clinging to my top lip and my cheeks and my chest from constantly wiping everything with my dress.
Sitting in the dark listening to a few select* songs that took me back to a couple of random moments in my adolescence - nothing happening on those days I recalled... just a memory of walking down my old street... nothing traumatic or useful.
*these are the EXACT random few songs that I referred to as the ‘select’ songs which came to mind last night and I’ve shared them with you here in this mini playlist - and - in the SAME order as to how they came about in my ear. So, play from start to finish. x
I grieved for myself as I imagined being dead. I was embarrassed about leaving a fat effing heifer of a corpse to deal with splattered ‘grey’ dinting in the sofa as rigor mortis kicked in. It was weird. I've not been in that head-space for a long time and never over something so trivial.
The lesson learned by this minor blip at the higher end of the emotional richter scale the lowest end being that of life was, the progression in the way I pictured the world would be after my immediate'finite’ moment.
The world I'd be leaving behind was different form the world I’d imagined years ago when I physically attempt to die (twice). In those days my super smashed ego was like
....oooh they better choose the best looking most flattering photos from my phone for the huge slideshow at my funeral event.
I'll make a list of songs (as long as my arm) and hope they're played int eh correct order.
I wonder if mum will wear a t-shirt with RIP daughter on it and a picture of me? OMG I’m so ashamed people will see how I was this ugly big-eared, bushy haired, bright eyed, sulky little twat kid -(horrible child I was!).... fuuuck!
You know all this showy blowing smoke up my own arse at my demise! It was plastic reality. It was ignorance.
This time around, last night. I felt like it would be one of those almost ‘sad-but-not-too-bad’ moments; where every one would find comfort in the mass agreement that she (me) ‘‘is in the best place for her really!’’ and that would be it.
All my stuff would be skipped out. Some poor bastards might pull straws between up to see what unlucky fuck had to carry my cardboard coffin down the aisle...
IF they didn't listen to my instructions of letting the state get rid of the body by not identifying it or claiming next of kin for it. If the authorities come a knocking just do what we all didn in the olden days against the Bay-leafs (Bailiffs) - hind behind the sofa leaning back on the bay window! ha.ha.ha. *THAT’s IT* that’s my ‘ANOTHER REASON TO SMILE’ done and dust(ed). xx
One Last Final Word About This Mortality Beeswax!
I heard a quote somewhere. I remember it to be something like...
"Instructions for when I die:
i. scatter my remains in the ocean,
ii. don't you dare get me cremated”
..ha.ha. It ‘twisted my melon man’ but it kind of stuck.
My instructions would be
“when i die - let me burn but don't fucking cremate me!'
Check out an older newsletter post of mine:
This is the ambiance screen with rain sounds on my TV right now. Bit of a shit blurry photo (sorry that’s my Samsung J6 relic camera’s fault!). My own windows (one is built into the back door but is frosted glass) the door is in the same room next to window. They overlook the garden.
Both my actual windows are covered. Blinds on the window, a towel wedged at the top of the door over that window and it’s fucking raining outside. What kind of numpty does this shit?
It’s like I do it during the day too and block out the natural light only to sit and enjoy synthetic lights instead. No wonder I look like a fat vampire; some people are blessed with melanin and others like me have seek out our in bottles or admit that we’ll be pale and interesting forever.
That said. I won’t change. —- — A bit of tall tale there actually.
I think I have gotten used to blocking out the outside world and keeping the windows mostly closed through the day because;
A: Depression is soothed when I’m in my ‘self-made’ cave. I feel comfort and safety - like I’m in my own den. Like it’s night again. Even at 9.35 am I’m done with the day. Closing Time!
B: I do this also because my boyfriend has one volume level and that’s 80% UP LOUD. He speaks to me like we’re on a building site. Even when he is being polite it sounds like he is barking at me.
I get embarrassed that the entire neighborhood can hear him telling me nicely to ‘stop fucking farting Chase!’ or ‘we’ve ran out of toilet roll and I need a sloppy shit Chasey’ - anything private is broadcast when windows are open.
I’ve even heard him just chatting on his phone* casually and I’ve been stood in the garden with our dog, all the doors and windows tightly shut closed. You can literally hear him through the outside wall (the structural walls or whatever they’re called) and through double glazed PVC windows too! It’s mental.
*fucking hell don’t remind me about overhearing phone calls again!
Recent Thoughts about Thoughts:
RE: LOOKING ROUGH.. feeling on top of the world! (Leaning over the edge of it about to take a long run up and jump the fuck off.) x
Ever noticed how life seems synchronised with our image?
Nothing hard happens when your hair is on point. Nothing shit goes down when you’re dressed to kill. You don’t get dumped when your make up is flawless. It’s always when you’re wearing grey tracksuit bottoms (that used to be white), when you’ve not straightened or brushed your hair and just that second took it out of bun (top-knot).I mean, I’ve never been dumped without a spot on my face and all of the above.
That’s where I get superstitious; I only wear those scruffy trackies when I’m at home ALONE. If we’re arguing and I think it might end with him walking out on me, I immediately start straightening my hair mid-argument. The make up is non-applicable to me as I never really wear any - but I do reach for my two pieces of ‘make-up’ equipment, mascara and lip gloss.
It’s actually only lip balm but I’ve become accustomed to referring to it as lip gloss. It was because in the olden days long ago when dragons ruled the world until Henry VIII shot them down and chopped off their heads, back in the days where my boyfriend would actually offer to do nice things for me like - pass me something he was closer to reaching than I was.
I’d ask “please pass me that lip balm off the table”
HIM: Lip what?
ME: balm
HIM: what?
ME: LIP BALM there it is ..
HIM: I don’t know what you’re on about!!!
ME: That there in the little lip thing there! *points*
HIM: Oh.. Lip gloss stuff??
ME: *laughing* yeah the ‘lip gloss’ stuff.
I’d have to smear a load of it on my lips quick in case in the next minute he might turn round and tell me we’re done. He never did. He has threatened to end the relationship once while I was dressed in grey, hair in bun (top-knot) and no shit on my face.
So, I avoid wearing any of my grey clothes when I’m not feeling good about the atmosphere. I make more of an effort to do my hair and I am constantly applying and reapplying lip ‘gloss’ all day. I have a weird habit of taking one to bed with me every night. I hold it tight and wake up some mornings still ‘Just Clinging On’ to it.
Most mornings I’ve forgot about it existing and it’s gone to the end of the world forgotten about until we pull the bed out to clean the carpet and find ‘the lip gloss graveyard’ down my side of the bed.
*NEWS* I am going to go away with him because he blackmailed me (but in a good way one which was more beneficial to me). All OK.
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Draft WIP Poem by Chasey Delaney
‘ Posters progressed to canvas mass prints of street art and abstract fancy paintings
Shit wallpaper with nicotine staining the abandoned cobwebs stretched out across the ceiling
Old furniture progressed to a new place upstairs and downstairs welcomed in Ikea
After Dad Won the pools and spray paint hit his old bike to turn it red like my three wheeler handlebar
Streamers and an empty drinks carton wedged between the wheel and the mudguard progressed to a plastic box with six rubber buttons each one a different sound effect
None of which matched the motorbike noise so I kept buying those cheap drinks and replacing the cartons
in the back wheel and I kept getting told not to or the tires would go bald
Before that happened I’d seen something new and it wasn’t long before two wheels progressed to four more on a big-ass skateboard that was as wide as a surfboard and as heavy as old wooden door almost
I couldn’t ride it so instead I’d kneel and pray to god that my left leg didn’t get twisted
Between the pavement and the board at high speed or as much as I was capable of age ten
When Dad died he progressed from digital profile photos to old portraits framed on the wall. Is that what it takes for our family to celebrate the image of one and other!?///// to be continued?? “
SOMETHING TO consider REMEMBER:
I’m going to post all week 6 days to my blog (online only). If you want to read these letters in real time, please follow and/or subscribe (to access Subscriber’s Chat) so when I post online ONLY and just share a link to it in the Chat, you’ll be able to keep on top of them as they’re coming.ON SUNDAYS I’LL SEND YOU A ROUND-UP EMAIL WITH QUICK LINKS TO ALL THE WEEKS NEWSLETTERS. How’s that sound to you? Good I hope? ..x
Recent Screenshots *ART* :
((( Credit Instagram: lawsofdarkness )))
Check out one of my other random ‘blast-from-the-past’ post:
GOODBYE WITH LOVE AND A LOVELY EXIT SONG:
Sub/Follow Each, All or Any of My Current (ongoing) Publications:
JustClingingOn - Main BLOG - here I try to keep it more wholesome and sentimental family , relationship topics
*LOL*justclingingon - Side BLOG - here I try to tackle deeper topics - still lifestyle choices and shit going on but I try to write it from a more ‘funny’ laughable, lighthearted perspective.
ChasingTheMUSE - Secret Stack - Sort of a spin off place to talk about other ‘imaginary relationships’ The MUSE being a person I admire, obsessions, confessions, talking about being in love there.
ItsJUSTaPOEM - POETRY place - A bit scarce of content at the minute as I’ve lost my love of poetry a little bit. Starting to get back into it - bit by bit - slowly but surely.x
AuralContraband - Music Playlists - I choose themes and tunes and embed individual songs in a long playlist style, images and soon to be incorporating information, reviews, opinions and videos too.
The Daily Chase - THIS ONE! - Just dropping in with a little bit of something on a daily basis. Let you know how life is going. x
Well that’s all for now. Thanks for reading and supporting my work - even by just sharing or hitting the like button. Take it easy! x