Day 581: Careful Mouth

Dog events today: being barked at by way of ferocious welcome; burrowing underneath a blanket; trying on the (tiny) harness; picking up strategies; hand-licking; learning how many carrots is enough.*

I am no longer enamoured with my dentist. I sense that she doesn't actually give a shit, or do a very good job (I learnt this to some extent when I had to go back to have the temporary filling shaved back to stop it slicing into my tongue). She also did a check-up, which I paid £23 for, but seemed mostly to involve naming teeth. When I pointed out a tooth that was giving me pain, she then identified a 'clearly visible' chip in the tooth, around the filling, with decay underneath. Just before that, I was all done, with only the two danger teeth in question. No longer reassured by her no-mess attitude. Time to move.

Also, the 'we can do a root canal today' became 'I can't do a root canal or an extraction on that tooth - it's too hard' within the space of about four seconds, thanks to the x-rays, which she'd looked at in much more detail before. Why is it, when my instinct is really clear, that I feel like a bit of a nobber? Either way, I have to live with that feeling. I'm SO not going back.

Given the temporary filling and the hideous pain in the tooth next to it when anything goes near it, and the cavity on the side I chew on, it looks like I'm going to have to do Careful Mouth until I can get the work done. Good that I declined the offer of paying £300 up front today, for work that won't be done. Every, every, every cloud. Seriously. Every one.

Victoria Sandison

Very sweet, very calm and unfazed, slightly limpy fox today down the back between St Paul's Rd and Essex Rd. He/she actually came towards me... but then loped off. I love being close to foxes. I miss shouting at them out of my window. Maybe, when I move, that will be possible again! Let's hope so.

* two slices. We're talking about a REALLY small dog.

Day 580: Diverse and Dangerous

Diverse, that's what today has been. Despite researching a shed-load of libraries, I chose to spend the morning in EAT on Marylebone High Street, working, taking calls and talking to trustworthy-faced strangers. I am one of those too, which means I get asked to look after people's computers sometimes, and chugged by every single street fundraiser that ever breathed. Even if they see me being accosted by five of their colleagues, even if they've just done at me themselves, it's like they take one look at this face and their killer instinct kicks in. Surely she'll... but she's a sure bet.. (etc). I'm not. I have never neglected my computer-guarding duties, though. Not once. 

Then I went up to Vital Regeneration/The Help Project - a scheme that helps people in temporary accommodation get back into the employment market. There is SO much potential here. I feel strongly about working with people affected by homelessness and obscene London rents, as I do about helping people be a relaxed and easy version of themselves, at their actual best, in situations that scare them (as job interviews often do). And I get to volunteer with them.

Another thing I noticed. I WAS going to "have to find somewhere to volunteer" when it was part of a guardianship organisation's deal (dot dot dot... a great organisation, actually, that encourages community connection by housing people in residential properties as guardians and asking them to volunteer for at least 16 hours a month in return for the cheaper rent). I think it's good and I was up for it. However, it does taste sweeter to be volunteering for a project purely because I want to, and am excited by what we can do. 

After that, a whizz over to St Pancras and a quick sit (some work, again) and then off down to Elephant for a French conversation session, then back to Haggerston for a rehearsal. A good one. It started painfully slowly, but ended with energy and playfulness. Though I'd love to do something about the draggy starts, it's so, so, so much better than it going the other way and I enjoyed it. And on top of that, thank you, Jo, for lots of free clothes, including one with a scary rabbit face on. Pretty, pretty!

Oh, oh, oh! And Ella was a potato!

Ella Jean

Day 579: Various Different Versions of the Sun

Really? Then why jump?

What a week of work. What a delight. I’ve done pretending, teaching/coaching, facilitating some stuff that I absolutely love and I’ve had that joyous experience one more time of welcoming in a group of strangers, ranging from formal to warm, scary to scared themselves and saying goodbye to glowing faces, all of which have broken into smiles, and whose owners all have laughed despite themselves, put themselves on the spot, tried things out. I would never go so far as to say I’ve said goodbye to friends, but to people that I like and have delighted in, for definite.

And today, the giggly pleasure of working/playing with That Neil Bett and Adam, and some strangers, bright-eyed, hilarious Stirling – a fabulous creature if ever one was met, Sarah, Dave, Andrew, everyone on it and in it, everyone ready with a story and a laugh. AND we got finished ahead of schedule – how good is that? Just goes to show the truth in what we played with yesterday – that trying hard makes any task harder, that playing, flowing, staying curious makes everything a breeze. And honesty – lots of clear instruction, feedback, playing. And I LOVE doing things with people who do what they do well and without fanfare. Everyone just got on with it, and was all human and funny with it. How lucky can I be, to have a week like this?

I'm watching various different versions of the sun, with moon attending. I’m walking through Hyde Park, bunking off bouffon to take the sun into my skin and spend a peaceful moment on my own.

I watched some fabulous theatre in the park. On a stretch of grass with a park bench facing it, a crow, a squirrel and two rabbits did a status dance. The crow thought he was it. He spent his time, well, crowing, and hopping towards the bigger rabbit to shoo him away. The squirrel didn’t give a shit, and came and went at her own pace, like a jester, exempt from social rules. The bigger rabbit paid lip service to moving, offering a half-hearted hop at every chase. The little one, who appeared from the bushes after a particularly vocal shout, seemed unaware. This carried on until, all of a sudden, a regal-looking heron swooped in and stood centre-stage. He posed for a portrait as a French woman raised her camera, turning his head to the side. Most of the time, he just stood.

don't fuck with me

The crow changed his tack, still crowing and making ratchetty sounds, clucks and scratches with his beak, but subserviently facing away, semi-brave to make himself heard, but reverent nevertheless, bowing down and crawing at the ground. The rabbits shuffled off. A pigeon came. Finally, the Frenchwoman’s flash put an end to the heron’s reign and the crow remained, ruling only by default, without a subject in sight. Status play at its best. Thanks, animals and birds. You entertained me.

Empty trees set against a pale blue sky, budding their very best, too early for the summer warmth. Sun setting brashly, all chintzy gold and lake-long rippling reflections. Moon rising wholesomely, lit in a palid light, but present through the trees. Lovers kissing up against trunks, or cosseting in the grass. Do I imagine them humbling in their throats like pigeons do?

wtf

I’m getting myself in gear to wander home and work. I have so much to do. I’m grateful, though, for the gift I gave myself – a bit of evening off, relaxed, at ease. Hyde Park Corner beckons, and the overground, a bus, maybe… some way to make my way back to my room – my room for just another week or so before my home comes into play. God, I’m looking forward to that. Big, gumptious thank yous for this week. Seriously… glitter and peacock feathers in the air, fireworks, fanfares, trumpets. Tooooooot!

Heavy metal owls and ker-plunk sticks, for your viewing pleasure

Day 578: Gnash

Thank you, Tottenham Court Road, via Kate Boo. I kind of know you’re right about this, and I’m certainly almost determined to believe it. No, it never has ‘worked out’, whatever that means, with anyone else, and I’m fascinated to meet the person about whom I can say this. Excited maybe too, but fascinated above all else.

Oh, the power of the mind. I went to the dentist today. Just the clean, clinical smell of whatever it is that dentists’ surgeries smell of so immediately made my hackles rise. Add to that the fact that whatever I’d done to my tooth hurt so much yesterday when caught up in an unlikely mackerel breakfast that I was rigid before I even reached reception. My dentist (and I’d like to keep her) is a hardy, down-to-earth woman in her fifties, I’d say. Big glasses. Persian. No nonsense, to or from.

She told me that I wasn’t able to respond to her properly because I was too tense. She whacked me almost upside down and swung my legs in the air after injecting my gums with numb (I found out afterwards that I’d lost all my colour when it went in, hence the flip – all I noticed was that my thighs had gone weird). She wiggled a crown and made me bite down on metal tools, presented me with the options and the cost, and then drilled the living shit out of a back tooth. It’s amazing what fear can do. That’s what we discussed, legs high, waiting for the injection to kick in. There was hardy any pain but the fear of it had me locked from chest to jaw, all twisting feet and cramps. All in the mind. Not surprisingly, she agreed.

On my route home, I often pass a gardeny, watery area on Canonbury Grove. It’s so-so. It looks like it must be pretty, but I’ve never stopped. At night, so-so turns into delicious thanks to some night-scented blossoms which pump out their rich sweetness into the air and wrap it around me as I cycle by. This brings me joy. Tonight, I remembered this as I turned in. I was already in the throes of bliss when I realised that I couldn’t actually smell it. Maybe the wind was taking it another way, or perhaps the blossom’s passed. Why let that stop me in my tracks, though. Bliss is bliss. I carried on, and enjoyed the sensual glory of my nose, even if imagined.

Jim Crace. Bugger me. I love the way that man writes. He pentamets it up iambically, only not quite rigidly… there’s a rhythm about reading him that dances in my mouth. I feel lifted, carried, held. I love it. In safe hands.

 

Day 577: Surfeit

I am stuffed full with a surfeit of wonderful things to rave about. I'll keep it brief (I won't). 

I had a wonderful day on my birthday. This is Big News. I often experience that very differently, don't enjoy myself at all, spend my time actively aching and bemoaning the perceived lack of progress in the year that's just passed. It's not about getting older, it's about feeling that I haven't done many of the things I want to do and that for some of them, time is most definitely running out. 

I have the best owl

However, this year, it was different. I worked. This is always a gift. Given my choices of a fairly transient lifestyle over the past few years, a day without work, especially midweek, often means a day without non-transactional human contact. I mean of course I can go to a cafe, or talk to strangers, or do something that involves other people, but it's not the same as being expected to be with others, and to have a reason to be there - a purpose, if you like. I enjoy the people I'm currently working with very much, though unfortunately I haven't had as much time as I would have liked to catch up with some of them - we're busy while we're there - but I enjoyed my busyness and the people I was busy with very much.

I was going to sit and work for the afternoon, as I had the day before, but a happy chance meant lunch with Grundel - how fantastic - and in the evening a birthday dinner  with Pudding, Adeel and Debbie. We did our drama training together and we haven't all been in the same room together for a very long time indeed. We finished in 2005 and I suspect we've only all been there at once one or two times since then, though I've seen all of them in between. Debbie's wedding gathering... I think that may have been the last time - and then as one of the main people of interest, Debbie was pretty busy making guests happy. I had a delightful time. Lots of group chatter and individual conversations with everyone, a reading from Adeel (very talented) and even a walk back to Oxford Circus to pick up my bike. Thank you all, for everything. I am more grateful than you can possibly imagine, and full of joy at the noticeable shifts that have happened between this year and last. 

Dragon rollllll

This time last year, something very significant happened - something that, along with a whole lot of work and play and support from other people - has done a huge job at dissolving all kinds of blocks that I've been hanging onto. You know, like on the Daz adverts, when you've had the 'this blood and mud and red wine not going ANYWHERE, motherfuckers' bit for the other detergents and then you have the 'oh my god, Daz gets through even the toughest dirt' sequence, with swirling water and bubbles and bits of filth lifting up and getting swept away. That's a how some of this feels. That significant process and in addition, work with a fabulous coach and some fine women and all kinds of other stuff... maybe I'm not in love yet. Maybe I'm not on THAT path, but goodness, I feel like I've done a lot of clearing.

So, a sense of progress helped, and being surrounded by good, proper, beloved friends with no fuss at all, just excellent talking, their generosity and warmth. Lucky me, and lucky me too for all the fabulous people who managed to send me card and gifts, even though this year I've hardly had a proper address.

More good shit during the week - a briefing for a job I wasn't expecting, but am very much looking forward to, meetings with friends and work people, bouffon class, a whole day of clowning with John Wright and a whole bunch of brave and funny people, a performance and the watching of a show that I enjoyed hugely. And oh, the singing, oh the voices! They made me ache with happy, they did. Actually ache. 

Thank you, tasty Aly, lovely Shirley, Yot, Lilley and Daniel for your collection of pleasing owls, your fine words, for being who you are and for one big fat Lilleysnip. Mint!

Day 576: Bouffant

Two fat and full days, back to back. Root, toot! 

Flapper

Fabulous, stressful experience of running a day's assessment centre for the first time yesterday - always a bit of a haul, but very satisfying in the end. I enjoyed it, and it turned out to be easier than I'd thought. Great. It's gone the other way in the past. And I was high status enough, and then some. I can go in gentler. Phew

Lovely people. Delightful to see Barbara and Andrew again. Both showed me proud pictures of their dogs today. Almost identical, both the dogs and their affectionate pride. Gorgeous Sean had the same face as he showed us his comatose cat, flat on her back with one arm draped over his computer keyboard. Aaah, pets. I love them. I growled involuntarily today, a number of times, just thinking about my next go on munchable Aristotle. Rrruurrruufrrhfhhf. In a good way. 

Dog

That was followed by lovely people at the venue inviting me to use the public printer, which meant my portfolio fattened up something rich before my 'job interview'. I really enjoyed that. I don't know why I used inverted commas. It really was one, only I don't want that kind of a job. I'd LOVE the work, though, so here's some trust that something good will come of this. 

Bouffon Bastard Red Bastard. Bastard.

I was a grumpy old fuckcheeks at my rehearsal. It's funny - one of the best groups ever to play with, but I find the rehearsals frustrating. Ah well. I'm also dreading my bouffon course. I hate how shittily unfunny I am. Gaaahhh! Ah well. Nobody's forcing me. Are they, though? I do this willingly. I take the steps. I'm not possessed. I'm not co-erced or even cajoled. I go. I fail. I feel bad before, during and after. And then sometimes I have a laugh and then I go back. Something good will come of this, too, or I'll be... well, I'll be about the same as I am now, I suppose. 

Bouffant

I might treat myself to a birthday haircut tomorrow. That'd be nice. Short and chic, I think. Hit me with your 20s/30s vibe and I will go home happy. 

Today, full to the bulging eyeballs with work, mostly, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I loved it. Pretending, followed by various flavours of writing, transcribing, arranging, French teaching and more. And we pancaked with Marcel, the sweet Brazilian student who's here for a couple of weeks. He's very nice indeed and he seemed to enjoy the experience. It wouldn't have happened had he not been here, so I'm grateful to him for that. 

I ache through every bone in me to be asleep now. Oh GOD yes. 

Day 575: Punching Yourself in the Face

The air is full of spring smells and I'm full of the joy of that. Stalky yellow flowers on a bush in Ruth's garden, some of them staying firmly folded, like sulking children while others fling their arms wide and release a sweet, tangy flow. Come and get me, sleepy bees! I have gold for you in here!

I'm still revelling in our communal corpsing on Wednesday. When I was little and I knew already that I wanted to be an actor, I watched out-takes and knew this was something I wanted in my life. Okay, so it wasn't a movie set, this time, but it was delightful. Whatever the reason for it, the kind of laughter that takes you over and gives you no choice is a thing to be celebrated. If I had one job in this life and it was to make that happen for people, that would be a fine vocation indeed. Oh god, and if it's possible to help them be moved, changed, inspired while they're in that state - fuck yeah - now THAT's a life worth living.

Not an 'Actual Cyclist'

Dinner with Pudding (but no pudding). That was nice. My fine, fine friend Celine, who is being all inspirational by changing her lifestyle completely. Celine has lost (and I hope she won't mind me saying this) two and a half stone in the last four months. Hence no need for pudding. Now, I don't give a shit how much my beautiful Pudding weighs - she's always been someone that I admire and delight in, and she's always been someone who gets stopped in the street by men who are bowled over by her - none of that has changed. What has changed is how she feels and how she shines, and how pleased she is with the choices she's making, and how relaxed she is with it. 

I'm very happy for her and inspired to do something similar - again, less for the actual weight and more for the feelings - the feeling of success and health and vitality (oh, yes, Tony Robbins, say that word for me in the way only you can muster, with your cheese grater voice and over-effusive energy). I could feel so much better if I wasn't filling my body (and mind) with loads of gloopy wheat dough, highs-and-lows refined sugars, up-and-downy caffeine and general chemical shite pie. How about Lent. Anyone with me? I don't believe in the kind of God who gives a shit what you do in the run-up to Easter, but I like the idea of joining a mass of people in living a bit differently for a little while. 

Grrrrrrrr

So, I hereby announce that on Tuesday, I'm probably going to eat pancakes; on Wednesday - as yet undecided, as it's my birthday. I'm lucky enough to be going for sushi with Pudding, Adeel and Debbie (so lucky - I usually stay at home and hide in a box), so I don't think I'll need a cake. On Thursday, it's an absolute definite, though. Water and herbal teas instead of caffeine (my sleep patterns will thank me); lots of raw smoothies - which I'm already having - just without the croissant topper; fruit instead of sweets and veg, leaves and other tasty stuff instead of bread-based guff. Let's see how different I feel. 

Yesterday, a grateful Lilleyfix in the morning - such a rich luxury, to talk to that creature And then, the best insult moment EVER. I was cycling on Blackstock Road. There was traffic. I decided to pass it and pulled out (slowly) around a stationary car. The woman on a bike behind me had a bit of a shout. She said that I hadn't looked behind me at all. She was right. She wasn't coming very fast, luckily, and she didn't really have to brake, but it was really annoying for her. I said 'You're absolutely right, I wasn't looking. I'm so sorry.' with absolute sincerity because.... well, because I meant it. I was apologising. What I did was annoying and by luck not dangerous, not by my doing. It could have been. 

Just needs a speech bubble

In response, she spat out the wonderful words: "It's because you're a CYCLIST!" Oh dear. I don't think my involuntary guffaw helped to diffuse the situation any. She carried on with her venomy rant as she CYCLED PAST on her BICYCLE. I wanted to cry out 'What ARE you, lady on wheels? Is that bicycle part of your anatomy, for you cannot be a cyclist - that would mean you'd just spat at yourself." 

The thing is, when you have a bellow at someone from your bike, in almost-stationary traffic, it gets awkward. I know this from experience. Within 30 seconds, I was right behind her again. I wasn't following her on purpose or trying to get up in her face, but in a situation like that, what can you do? And I was still laughing. She was still ranting, too. As we stopped at some lights, she ranted and vented continuously, facing resolutely forwards. I caught only words: 'cyclist' again a few times, and 'idiot' a few more than that. I have to confess that at one point during the stop-start chase I did do a troll growl and monster hands (monster hand - I was cycling at that moment and I'm not good at hands free), but quietly, and really just to entertain myself. She was wasn't looking anyway. She kind of made my day. 

Speech bubble!

I once saw a solo improviser at the Esalen Institute do a piece about road rage, where the driver of a big car got out and started punching another driver and kicking their car, and that it all rolled into a kind of auto-pummelling, where that universal truth was happening: when you're punching and kicking like that, it doesn't matter who's physically on the receiving end, because ultimately, you and that person are the same. You're made of the same matter, you're part of the same flow - you might as well punch yourself in the face because any act of violence affects all of us in one way or another. I love this truth... it's a truth to me, and it's one that nibbles me on the shoulder from time to time, especially when unkind words are flowing towards myself (or just after, in fact - not quite evolved enough not to do it).

A wonderful chat with Shirley about convents and deep shit and trusting the universe and the futility of trying to be in control of it, all sinewy strive-stretching. One tiny person trying to orchestrate the workings of the whole universe, waving its tiny arms about and straining with all it's minuscule might, when all it really needs to do is relax and fall backwards, knowing that it will be caught. Love's one great, big, mighty thing. How could I possibly be in control of that? 

I miss the swamis. I miss communal omming and satsang-sitting and four hours of yoga per day. I'm glad to have some of that booked in this year, as a karma yogi, and I realise that a bit of bending, some meditation, a sprinkling of shared focus and karma yoga - none of that would go amiss. And some dancing. Bring on the dancing. It always helps. Let's sort that out, then.