Had anybody else noticed how much ANGER there is at the moment? We need to monitor carefully.
One of my Facebook groups regularly explodes anyway. It’s a barometer for the general feeling. It’s 25,000 volatile people who work the festival circuit and are self employed and motivated. It’s always a minefield and I’ll only ever post there as a last resort. I found a six foot five inch tall serving policeman who was willing to stand in front of Big Ben in a Victorian uniform for a couple of hundred quid one Saturday and get filmed. So it definitely can do what it’s supposed to do, the group. I’ve picked up some driving jobs from it too but they go quickly. It has, once again, devolved into shit-slinging. This happens three times a year on average but it’s bigger than usual. It’s taken over my Facebook completely. My timeline is suddenly entirely filled with people shouting at each other because a woman posted an ill advised job offer. They’re shouting at her, at each other, at themselves and at the guy who set it up. Meanwhile on Twitter the first thing I hit upon when logging in is a video of some idiot shouting at other idiots about how they shouldn’t be driving like that while driving atrociously himself. I think Facebook and Twitter are probably over anyway. But I still check from time to time and this time I regret it. More bad energy flying out of my phone and into my face.
I’m stuck in my flat and all the virtual windows I’m looking through are full of werewolves. It’s like in this lockdown suddenly the COVID has mutated into RAGE from 28 Days Later. It’s not even full moon until the 30th.
I get it. We’ve lost a year but we are still paying. It feels like we’ve achieved nothing for killing everything we enjoyed before. All the momentum has been pulled. People are getting angry, while the idiot in chief protects that nasty Home Secretary and loses another tatter of the pretence of integrity, and proves again that the machine of governance in this country, as in America, is small-minded, nasty, petty and childish. We aren’t led by donkeys. Donkeys are useful. But we aren’t lions either anymore. We want it all too easy. We’re behaving like goats. We are standing and shouting and mostly not even knowing why we’re shouting.
Never have I ever felt the lack of a planet B more tenderly. I’d get out of the country if I could but it’s everywhere. I just wish I was in New Zealand like Mel, although then there’d be nobody to look after Hex and he’s cute for a snake with his little snuffy nose and his soft scaly skin and this is what it’s come to! I get my comfort from a fecking snake. A SNAKE!
At least I’m getting comfort. I just had a good long talk with Lou which helped more than the cuddly snake. We need to get comfort and to pass it on to all the fragile frightened people in this darkening world that is new and less easy than the one we had last November. Stop getting shouty and weird people. It doesn’t help. Stop recycling bad energy. Pretty much any badness we get thrown at us right now is a badness that is borne out of pain. We are all feeling it. Everything is different in less than a year.
I remember sitting next to the guys streaming with cold on the tube, and just keeping my breathing shallow. “I’ll be alright and if I get it then it’ll just strengthen my immune system”. I remember when those families came on wearing “those masks they wear on public transport” – “it’s to protect us from them! How cute.”
A year ago today we were dressing the set for Carol.
I was about to sweat, dance and shout joyfully in a room full of people eating, every night for a month in a Victorian nightie, even if I was sick. To hell with it. It’s hard to even say “it’ll all be fine in the long run”. What makes me happy? Connection. Travel. Acting. Warmth. Good food. One out of five is something I guess. Although the last few days I haven’t even been motivated to make good food for myself, and I’m long out of the frame for being able to afford takeaways…
Humbug.
AlBarclay 