Ha! I came back to this page to find a list of names: Brad, Kevin, Andi, Sarah and Sarah - all people I had the pleasure of working with last week. Some, I knew before, some I'd only met in the last week or so. All of them made me laugh or smile or think. A lot. And it wasn't just them. There were more, Claires and Chrisses and many others. That's a part of the work I do that I really love. Good eggs and many of them. Loving that!
There was another list: work, play, story. Most of what I remember is about the story. I was asked to write something as homework and fuck, it was good. Not necessarily the story itself, but the doing of it. For years, I've envied people who say that they sit down and write and the story comes; that they don't know where it's going to come from or what it's going to do, but they show up and write and something comes out. That's stage one. The next one is to edit, and that's a different pie altogether, but the getting it out, that's how it happens. I've berated myself for not having had that experience and for not being a 'proper writer', but not only did that happen - I sat, I wrote, the story turned up and did its thing - but it gave me proper rememberings of all the other times it has happened... in fact pretty much every time that I've genuinely set myself to writing something. That doesn't mean there's not work... the work is in the getting round to it, the thinking about it. I was going to say that it's in the editing, but that part didn't feel like work. That just entails reading and tweaking, like playing with clay or doing a bit of a whittle. You just keep shaping and when you've finished, you leave it and look again. There might be another bit to shape.
The glory of this task is that it wasn't to write something good, it was just to write something and deliver it. So what does that tell me? Stop trying to write a fucking masterpiece. That's not the point. All the stories are shouting at you. Just write them down. They might turn into prose and they might turn into poems and they might turn into nothing at all, but at least give them a chance. At least do them the courtesy of letting them out to play. They've turned up at you. If you keep ignoring them, they'll have to go somewhere else instead. I thank this blog for letting this happen, whether it be the writing or the awareness of it. Writing this blog always feels like that. Words arrive (sometimes they come earlier in the day and I look forward to putting them on the page, more often they trip along one after the other, without my having any way of knowing who will show up next). Thank you. I love it. I really do.
Today, despite a long raft of no-blog days, I was moved to write by the kindness of strangers (as well as by the collective build-up - things just don't feel as good when I'm ot sharing them). At about 9.15, I arrived at Birmingham International Station, to go to the Premier Inn. First, I walked to the wrong place, remembering with my wrong bit of brain that this is where we'd been before (even though there was a nag that said this wasn't true). Then I worked out where it was and, despite already being spooked by an empty, night-time NEC, I decided I'd walk.
I took the deserted 'Skywalk'. I plodded along pocked linoleum listening to the pad of my boots and screeching industrial noises, like blades being sharpened, coming from the open-only-so-far-that-you-can't-throw-yourself-out windows. The flat escalator walkways were not working. There were more metallic noises coming from down the distant escalator. I felt like I was in a horror film, walking towards my inevitable slaughter at the hands of some familiar psychopath. Probably a sequel. I imagined Clockwork Orange-style encounters with teenage boys, too young to curb themselves, too old for it to be harmless, delighted to find someone stupid enough to parade around their territory alone at night.
I was scared. I felt angry. Why put me here? Why make me walk along a deserted NEC. Why... (etc). I was angry at my employer, at the Premier Inn, at the non-existent information signs and shuttle buses. Then I realised - nobody has made me do this. Nobody said 'don't get a taxi'. Nobody said 'don't ring the hotel in advance and find the best way to get there'. Nobody shouted 'whatever you do, don't use google maps to see if it looks like a safe walk, or we'll sack you'. I chose all of this. That didn't make me less angry, not immediately, at least, but it did feel clearer. Not a victim of anyone else's actions, intentional or otherwise. Just my own.
My plan had been to walk to hall 17 and find the footpath, but by this time I was cross and still a little bit scared. Ha. Really scared? Not exactly, but aware that I was alone in a big, dark building, which may turn out to be locked, a long way from anyone. It's a vulnerable place to be, mentally at least. When I saw a taxi sign, I went for it. I got outside to find a dark taxi rank and unlit bus stops. A car pulled up. I ignored it. Strangers, I thought. Even if they offered to help, I couldn't say yes. The car was zippy and cool. Music was playing. Although I didn't see them, I imagined a couple of early twenties men. Not something to be risked. I think I swore more in that few minutes than for a very long time.
Finally, I saw a man come out of the building. He was carrying armfuls of stuff. The back door of the car opened. I ran up. I figured if he worked there, he'd know whether the doors by Hall 17 were open or not. You know what happens next. He said they weren't. He said they'd all be locked. He loaded up the boot with all his stuff and said 'Do you want a lift', almost apologetically. He said, 'My wife and little girl are inside,' and so they were. They drove me all the way here. It took more than 5 minutes, even in the car. On the way, he showed me the woods I would have had to walk through. Not nice in the dark, he reckoned. Thank you, thank you, thank you, generous strangers. I really, REALLY appreciate it.
Oh, and thank you man at the desk, for being sweet when I came straight back down without really setting foot in my room, as there was a shouty party going on in the one opposite. Thank you for the advent of twin beds in the first turning into a king size bed in the second. Two pillows looking all sparse, with almost another pillow space between them. IT'S STARFISH TIME!
Celine, when she does a show, is the only person I know who consistently manages to get most of her friends to come and see it, even if the last one she did was two weeks before, through her charming and sweetly relentless emailing and facebook posting, texting, ringing people up, charming them into it. It's lucky that she's an excellent actress, very watchable, and has comic timing most performers would give a limb for. 
