I’m in the backup café today, it is Tuesday after all.
Colour-wise, the latte is just a little too dark for my liking. Heat-wise though, it’s decent. I can live with this. I’m not going to ask for a side-jug of warm milk and risk marring any rapport I’ve built with them here.
I’ve managed to sit at a rocky table so in that respect, it’s really like being back in THE café.
I’d psyched myself up for my entrance today and was set on greeting Double Denim by his first name after last week’s breakthrough SMALL talk, but he’s not in. I was prepared for the possibility that he’d have forgotten my name. Now, given I might not see him until next Tuesday, the name-lapse is a near certainty. Like I said in an earlier post, in his position, I’d have noted my name down somewhere. That’s what I did when I first exchanged names with ‘M’. ‘Elderly lady on single crutch’, I scribbled down. She still got my name wrong and of course these days, she often calls me ‘Harold’.
Mind you, thinking of this, I worry a little how Double Denim might have noted me down in his own notebook. ‘Daniel’ – tight tipper. Likely to be behind the shrapnel that appears in the tip box every Tuesday when he’s in.’
I’m keeping my left arm down on the table, exerting some small force as I do so as to keep the table stable. I’ve barely engaged with the World Cup so far and if FIFA thinks I’m going to be watching 10am kick offs, they’re even more deluded than they’ve already shown themselves to be.
I was travelling extensively yesterday and in a marked departure from recent years, fired up the laptop on the bus to do some work. I suspect this is one of the pluses of finally coming off the pills. The handbrake is finally off the writer’s block. It’s going to be a slow steep climb back to where I was creatively circa 2018, but for now I want to enjoy this small glimpse of light.
The downside of being off the pills, though there has also been an upside to that, is that a couple of setbacks, not huge, but disappointments let’s say, in the last couple of days affected me more than they should’ve, or would’ve, on the pills so my mood on Sunday night was dropping. By yesterday however, after a run in some unpleasant wet weather, with only one gig this week, I decided to see if I could get another show this week. Booking myself onto a show tonight hosted by one of the most awkward and rude guys out there, albeit someone whose views on the industry I tend to share and who I think has, because of his outspoken views on the circuit, been largely ostracised by other promoters when personally I think he’s one of the funniest comics there is at this level – this is a poorly constructed sentence – point is, I booked myself a spot and once I knew I’d be out tonight gigging, I felt better.
I call my aunt. I haven’t spoken to her for a few days which she doesn’t hesitate to call me out on. Two minutes into the call, with no segue, she starts telling me about her vulva. I'd understand this if I was her GP, but I'm just the nephew. How did it come to this?
A segue, while not ideal, would at least have meant she hadn't dropped this on me like a safe falling from the sky and landing on my skull.
We chat for some fifteen minutes. Towards the end of the call, she makes the same specific vulva reference. This is further evidence, I think, that she’s starting to become forgetful. Normally I’d tell her, gently, that we’ve already had this conversation, but in this instance, I’d have to remind her that she’s already told me about the vulva. I don’t really want to revive that specific exchange, so I let it pass, and go along with the vulgarity.
The day of my sixth birthday, long ago, while my mum prepared the bedsit for a birthday bash, my aunt collected me from infants in Clapham. It was spring and must’ve been a nice day as I went home in what was either my PE kit or some hybrid look, part uniform, part sporty, as I remember I was wearing my Liverpool home shorts. Except years later I would realise this was a pirate Liverpool kit my mum had bought me. But that’s a story for another day.
My point is, who knew that spring day of yesteryear that one day the woman taking me home would be some elderly person whose real age had never been pinned down, and who would one day be talking to me, a man unable to heat his flat, about her vulva?
Not me, I can tell you that.
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