I’m lying on Ginny’s sofa. To my right is a glass of chilled white port that my agent sent to me for opening night. To my left is Louis the cat. He is just doing his cat thing. He won’t be there for long. He ain’t no Pickle.
It was so hot today. I met Paul and Ryan for breakfast in Jericho under the air con in Jericho Cafe, and then went for a walk to Port Meadow with no aircon, before realising it was too damn hot to go for a walk in a meadow with just a flask of water. I ended up in The Odeon on Cornmarket having a glass of £2.20 Fanta plus excellent air conditioning. Then I had light lunch in a cheap air conditioned pasta restaurant before staggering out dripping again into the Sahara. I tried some ice cream but I could feel myself fading. I got an emergency black cab back to Ginny’s. I haven’t slept long hours lately. My body went into catch up mode. I shut down like an overheated laptop, after just managing a cold shower, in Ginny’s spare room, covering my bits with a towel in case Casper decided to throw open the door again.
My dreams were extremely detailed and completely insane for an hour. Then my alarm went off and I had to wake up and wake up again into showheadedness.
I had ten groups of hot audience members come and meet me in the tree. They were all so hot and knackered that it was easy to shift them into intimacy but harder to get them to be playful. If it’s raining their play is buried beneath a protective heaviness. If it’s hot they’ll play soft but nobody wants to be called on to be energetic. That’s where they all were. Knackered.
Some skagheads shot up in my playing area between my 5.30 check and my 7.40 arrival. They pulled the case bits out of the water and utterly decimated the remains of it. They destroyed the sandbag as well while looking for value and tipped out my pack of almond flakes for the strange fishes maybe hoping it was a stash.
They even left their needle case for me but not the needle thankfully. I got it all cleared up before the first group. That’s not a good life drug, junk. I just bought Naked Lunch as my next book. I didn’t expect the worlds to collide so quickly.
Of course they left their paraphernalia. But a shame they needed to trash what I’ve built when I have to lead my audience in a process: “What is it, Josh, is it a body?” “It’s a stick and … some empty sacking.” “Oh thank God it’s not a body. But wait Josh – it’s not a stick. It looks man made.” “I think it’s just a bit of ship timber your majesty.” “But it has these hinges, look.” “I can’t work out out.” “And this material. Is it crocodile skin?” “I think it’s leather.” “No Josh it’s crocodile skin. Go with the prompt. It’s the disintegrated remains of my son’s bag. Lost like he is. Gone back to the ooze oh thou mine heir etc etc”
Everybody stood up when we did bows. Good for them.
AlBarclay 