Loud talkers, fruit flies on tall glass outer rim, split socks and Early Man clothes transition
Wednesday
It was the customary early start this morning rehearsing a new chunk of my show. This made for a late morning arrival in the café. Some early Spandau Ballet could be heard coming from the café as I made my way in.
There were quite a few loud talkers in here today, all Portuguese of course. It’s a Mediterranean thing. I grew up in an immigrant community. They talk fast, they talk loud, and man, they love their tobacco.
This is quite a challenging week. I did know it would be though it has become slightly more difficult in the last day, but I’m just trying to focus. We all have these periods. You set the jaw into a hard clench, brush your hair if like me you’re spending the winter wearing a headlamp to save on energy bills, and just do your best to get through it. Some good gigs and big spots on the comedy circuit this week, it’s just the life-crap marring what would otherwise be a positive experience. And most comics will tell you that gigging is damn expensive. Really feeling all the travel costs right now.
Mood wise, having lowered my meds to the absolute minimum, I’m now finding weeks like this one are challenging me in a way that with the meds was much easier to negotiate. It’s a trade-off. You want to feel less zombie, but there are weeks like this one when maybe the zombie-state might’ve worked more favourably. I suppose it’s a positive that mood-wise, it’s been a while since I felt my spirits drop to this level and I think come Saturday, chances are, having come through the next few days, hopefully unscathed, mentally I’m back on my feet. Maybe I just need another round of Star Wars football games to get me feeling better. With the season almost over, Hoth and Tattooine are, for the second time in 3 (Silver Age) seasons duking it out at the top of the league, with the Icemen currently enjoying a 2-point lead over the 7-times champions from Sandy Lane. Remarkably, both teams are still unbeaten after 15 games.
In other anal news, I split a sock this morning, on the heel. Think I was too aggressive pulling it up the shin. I suspect it had shrunk in the wash so wasn’t able to draw it up to its usual height. I grabbed the first unmatched sock I could find and that’s currently where I am this morning. I’m at that stage in my life where I’m less concerned about how a sock looks and more how it feels. Do these unmatched socks feel comfortable on the shins this morning?
Yes.
Are they comfortably holding their position on the shin?
Yes.
What more do you want?
As I conclude this post, Not Mick, the café regular who looks the spitting image of Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood, has just finished his usual breakfast of latte and chips. I know Not Mick is having a few health problems. His, these days, untrimmed beard, indicates things are worse than normal for a man who has over the last decade occasionally displayed a volcanic temper in the café. Every time he’s tried to build up some familiarity with me, I’ve shut him down for that reason. He looks increasingly unwell these days.
I swat away one of the tiny fruit flies whose lineage in the café goes back to the early noughties. One lands on the outer rim of my tall glass and I make a mental note not to drink from that side. If these flies carry diseases, I’d be really irked if I was to catch it via a latte glass.
It’s a very autumnal day in south London. I doubt, the injury aside, whether I’ll have the time to head out for a run this afternoon. I’ll concede that’s a relief as running into a strong breeze or worse are my least favourite running conditions. Seeing today’s grey weather, I think of Early Man. At what point did they start to twig that around this latter part of the year, in the northern hemisphere, things start to turn cold?
Once Early Man started to make clothes out of animal skins, were the last remaining nudists, these reluctant adopters of clothing (perhaps because Early Man had yet to work out how to kill off any enduring lice in the furs) in those particular early colonies considering they ought to make the switch to clothes because it was the way to go in terms of keeping warmer in these colder months, or was it more that they felt they needed to because they were sensing their lingering nudity was no longer welcomed in the camp? Was there a feeling nudity had had its time?
Were these last nudist enthusiasts still switching back to nudity six months later when the green shoots of spring emerged, or could they see the nude era was finally at an end?
Meantime, a call from a woman calling earlier than our scheduled appointment sees her sign off with an ‘alright Poppet.’
Not heard that in years.
A good moment, maybe.
I left the café on a SMALL talk high note. Seb K was off this morning so The Mullet was covering his morning shift, working alongside Phil Collins. The Beard rolled in just before midday and we spoke at length about his current knee issue. The problem has been bad enough to see him work limited hours and he’s concerned he may need further surgery. Compounding his own defeated mood was the fact his team Sporting had lost in last night’s Champions League, but I’m hoping he got something out of the fact I asked some good, strong questions concerning his knee, making sure we only spoke about him. Truth be told, he rarely asks me anything, but that’s fine, as being new to this raconteuring lark, I’m liable to waffle on for too long.
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Hard to follow the Star Wars football these days as in the pod (similar for Champions League having shed BT Sport) but good to see Hoth having a good season.