Fuck it. I just got home. It’s not midnight yet but close. I am SO HUNGRY. I have a week’s worth of HelloFresh in the fridge, but Brian is asleep in his room and Tom is asleep in the living room. I can’t very well cook and eat. So I’ve spent £25 on a Tops Pizza and I’ll have to eat it in my bedroom.
Today started with a cold Lime bike, still 40 minutes to get up to Queen’s Park where the studio is. We are recording an audiobook about egodeath. It’s fantastically dense. I’m not reading it, I’m directing. The reader is a friend of mine. She wanted not to do it, but she’s doing it. She’s right for it. She’s a good reader. But she hasn’t done the prep and no amount of chutzpah will carry you through such dense prose without fault if unprepared. If it was more fluent I might be coming in occasionally with interpretation notes, but largely today has been about getting through it. She’s got a cough. She doesn’t like the studio as it’s air conditioned. She’s brilliant thankfully.
Still there’s a lot to get through in a short space of time. She wanted to do it in two days but it is almost certainly gonna be a three day thing. Today was maybe the hardest for me as my ear hadn’t cleared at all. I’ve been half deaf for ages.
After the studio I rushed to Mornington Crescent and to Theatro Technis, where we do Scene and Heard. The Factory were doing Julius Caesar. Lots of the Othello company were there playing whatever they were playing. I was small parts, able to largely observe and marvel, and occasionally able to step up and do a thing.
As we were warming up there was an almighty POP and a good two thirds of my hearing came back. There’s still something not right, but I’ve got some hopi ear candles I ordered online. If my bedroom pizza hasn’t arrived by the time I’m finished this blog I’ll see if I lie for ten minutes while one of those things scientifically pulls the earwax out. They use controlled convection to soften and pull out the earwax, and despite the fact you might be pissed off with the fact they aren’t offered by trad doctors, they work. I have had past blocks cleared by them. I once asked a gay vicar I was living with in St Moritz if he had any, thinking they were well known things. He suggested I put a roll of paper in my ear and set fire to it. “Are you serious?” “It’ll be the same as these hopi ear candles you are asking for.” “Are you sure?” “Yeah, it’ll be just as effective.” He was being clever, the cunt. I rarely notice, so aged 22 I did as he suggested, trusting his wisdom. He meant “Neither of them will do anything,” cos despite being bold enough to be out gay Anglican, he had no truck with anything out of the ordinary. Maybe that’s why he’d ended up the English vicar of St Moritz. I pulled it out almost immediately, of course, that hot hot tube of paper that could have done my ear serious smoke damage. That was almost thirty years ago and he was at least twenty years older than me. One of the early lessons that age doesn’t always bring wisdom. Many people stick to limited tracks forever.
I’m still pretty easy to fool if the thing you are making up presents like genuine experience but actually comes from deep secret prejudice. I’m getting better at reading these unevolved people though and discounting them – there are plenty of signals. But I really really want to see the best in you all. I hate it when you let me down like Brent did there.
Bedtime soon but I need my cheese. My phone just went zizz so I think it’s close. Studio again tomorrow and hopefully we’ll speed up. The glossary today was hard going. I think it’ll be easier going forward. I hope. Matt the studio engineer is a master. We are finding a way to work together, the three of us. We all just want it to be a good product. I think it will be… My friend is great, the text is great, the studio is great, I’m great. What’s not to love?
#Postscript
It arrived late. I have moaned about it. Boo is very suspicious of bedroom pizza. I am as well but I’m gonna munch half of this, and then almost immediately have sleepydrink and find out what cheese does to dreams…
I might have run out of sleepydrink. Aaargjlh
AlBarclay 