Day 152 - Lizard Boy

This man has tits on his back

Aaaaaahhhhhhnd relax.


Today was more playful than many days for a while. Playful is great. Playful is happy. And today was just generally better than I'd expected. I had plans with Sandison, so I knew that would be nice, but when I woke this morning to see thick fog outside my window, I feared for them, I really did. How are we going to do a roof terrace mash-up in this business? It was beautiful, though, so to make the most of it, I went for a swim. The pond in fog is dreamlike and slightly surreal. I could make out both sides of the pond, but I couldn't see the end at all. I could hear a duck barking (more than quacking - really complaining) but I couldn't see it. I had both the pond and the changing room entirely to myself this morning. In keeping with the atmosphere. Then I cycled across the heath, just to be in the fog a bit longer, more than anything. I sat and wrote in Starbuck's. Not that great a choice now that I don't drink their cheap filter coffee. Maybe I'll stop doing it. It was nice, though.

Karel is better than this

Home, dither, email, tidy, email, dither, calls, out. Went to pick up my prize from the station (my prize being the the tiny, curly one bearing a gift of my old friend Karel). Karel is a soft rubber lizard, about two feet long. He currently has a moustache. He was the first of 'the pets' when Sandison and I both worked at Hasbro. The others were Anne (a hard, red plastic spider whose back popped open when you pressed her face - a lame toy) and Sarah (a tyrannosaurus rex with especially shit hands). Neither of us ever loved Anne or Sarah really, but Karel... he was something else. When you write his name, you know that he's a he, but when you say it, especially alongside Anne and Sarah, he sounds like he ought to be a she-Carol. In reality s/he's neither - just rubber and stuffing. And the tash. 

But not as good as this

I've always said the ponds are very gender-appropriate. The men's pond is wide, brash and square, exhibitionist (in that it's visible from all sides), open to the sun and quite splashy - there's a high jetty and an actual diving board, I think. It's really quite macho, but fairly shallow. The ladies' pond, on the other hand, is tranquil, enclosed, very rounded, softened with reeds and trees at the edge of the water. It's deep, discreet and significantly colder than the men's most of the time. As I passed the men's pond this morning, I had a look in. Couldn't see anyone swimming because of the fog, but I suddenly heard a shout of 'Come on, son!'. I thought, god, it's much more blokey than I thought, until I realised that rather than a macho encouragement/goad, it was a supplication to the sun to burn off the fog. They weren't in a scrum, they were probably all lined up on the deck reaching up to the sky and dropping into downward dog. 


Well, the sun must have heard. By the time I came out of the cafe, the Heath was a different place. Not warm yet, but bright, and not a touch of fog, or even mistiness. It was beautiful. I noticed buds, leaves half out, half not, blossoms all brash and rats. Quite a few more rats. I watched one for a good while. He settled into my presence and did a bit of grooming and snuffling. He was cute, if a little leathery in the tail. 


Great conversations with Esther Lilley and Jules Munns. Good all round. Grateful for that. I also took the numbers of two boys today: one not like that  and one yes like that. Which was nice. The 'yes like that' boy only looked about 19, but he assured me he was 34, 35 tomorrow. He was very pretty. Smooth-talky as all shit, but ah, there's no harm in it. And I also went to see Springboard impro show, the culmination of their course. I'll be teaching that next term, with Rob. I'm excited. The show was great - some really lovely interaction and some great scenes. There was a spirit of goodwill throughout, amongst players and audience. It was great. And I got to have a good chat to lovely Dominique Gerrard (Springboard's founder). She teaches Meisner. It sounds exciting and I like where she's coming from. I'll be running a mask workshop there too, and someone's coming in to do stage combat. Fab.


My favourite quote of today, by William James: 

Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws night, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. 

Wish I'd done that before.