An office building near Old Street, mercifully just outside the congestion charge zone. Siwan and I are getting stuck into sorting out all the clothes that have been in my lockup. It’s a mixed bag. Plenty of stuff from Parabolic, with whom I did the Bletchley Park show a few years ago. Parabolic are busy with Bridge Commander now, and they lost their crypt so this stuff has been costing them money to keep. I’ve got it now and the first thing to do is air it out so I’ve hung it. Lots of camouflage. Chris was in the army. It seems I’ve got his stuff now, some of it lovingly nametaped with his surname.
It’s gonna take a few days to even get all the stuff into the office and out of bags, and this is always just gonna be a temporary room. This is a room for sorting, we might have to pack up and run at any time. Worst case I’ll rent a Luton and one shot the removal. Right now, it’s coming piecemeal with Bergmanloads. It’s already clear we will have enough stuff to happily kit ourselves for our forthcoming projects – The Swan and Halloween walk among them. But we haven’t even cracked the back of it yet, there are so many loads still to come. Costume bits, bloody bits, a couple of corsets, accessories, hats, ties… So many shoes. We are keeping it all until we have sorted through, and then we might start jettisoning the crap. Need to know where the level is first.
It’s something to do while I wait for whatever is next. I’m no good at doing nothing, never have been.
Still I’ve been picking through some of the little things that bother me recently. I had a realisation. Things like the boats, and getting outplayed on one of my old event contacts by an ambitious snake – I have carried bruises for a while. But today suddenly the perspective shot in as I was driving. I hate the game playing and point scoring that comes in with office work. I never really understand it when I get caught up in it outside of that context. There’s a lot of bottled poison in workplaces, and I dip in and out of many workplaces, usually as a wild card. I’ve tried to flush lots of the negativity. Met up with the snake. I’m getting perspective. Because it’s only the dayjobs where there’s this weirdness. I think to the Othello Company, it was bliss. My recent film sets – happy sets. When I’m doing what I’m here to do it’s all lovely, it’s only when there’s a money job and there are emotionally stunted people that my instinctive visibility means I can cop it for no reason and I start to pick up negativity that, even now, pops up in my memory like it is new and has to be deprocessed again.
I wish I didn’t need them, the money jobs, but … I wrote the other day about how they make it possible, if you aren’t independently wealthy to a high level. They help with perspective too, you can’t be an actor effectively if you only hang out with other actors, who are you gonna scavenge? I have just noticed that it’s only in these money jobs that I’ve experienced the pain, so I’m gonna pull my pain out of them. I’ll keep working as hard as ever, it’s who I am. But I’m gonna try and take a leaf out of Darren’s book and not let myself get so tangled up and involved emotionally. What will be will be, what people think of me is their business outside of within my profession where it is fucking important. “You’ll run yourself into the ground if you keep giving that much of a fuck,” said Darren. “I’ve done this for over twenty years,” I told him. And I still will, in my way, but I’m not gonna let myself get hurt when people see it hate it and take a swipe. Like N who used to try and make me fall over on the boats, and eventually poisoned the well merely cos he didn’t like me, like he did with Dave before me. But … you see how I’m carrying it still? Old poison. Time to let it go.
BLEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAARRRRGH
So I’m sorting lots of disguises out after having worn many disguises over many years and I think I’m done with putting myself on the line even if I’ll still work like a train. I’ll have another workshop soon teaching people Shakespeare, and I think I’ll be better at it if I don’t give so much of a fuck. I’ll still work hard but if they don’t wanna learn it’s not on me.
AlBarclay 