I again switched the day around just to beat the Monday winter blues. It means a shorter writing session today but I gain more by having my day peak later.
A lunchtime run helped to keep Mr Melancholy at bay for a few more hours. It’s been a bruising few days in terms of gigs. I was on stage at around 2am in the early hours of Sunday, which was an enjoyable, if too-brief, experience, particularly among such strong comics, but by the time I got home, I’d done 21 hours without so much as even a cat nap.
I’d caught up with some of my oldest friends on Saturday evening and felt better for it. Leaving early to get back home for some pre-gig lightly (faux) buttered-crackers, I then ventured out into what was a crisp and slightly foggy night, the kind of night that tells you Christmas is just around the corner. By then I was starting to feel the lack of sleep. But the adrenalin of a night like Saturday’s got me through those final few hours. Come Sunday morning though, I was feeling it. At this age, the body lets you know about it and yesterday I was completely wiped out.
It was nice to catch up with my friend and fellow writer-comic Sean on Saturday night. We, and everybody else there, witnessed a shocking moment of racism from a European comic. It was a moment compounded by their refusing to leave the stage after they were immediately gonged off. Fair play to the audience and everyone there not buying into the line for even an instant. The UK is an absolute mess these days and we have plenty of problems. Even the prejudice of the bad old days has been on the rise post-Brexit and I’ve seen things since 2016 that has left me dismayed at this sporadic, retro-direction of travel we seem to be in now, but we’re still better than most European countries when it comes to multiculturalism. When the shock of the comic’s blatantly racist gag subsided, I found myself wondering how on earth he thought he could get away with such a line, and also pissed off that someone thinks they can come here and get away with that kind of material.
I had the football on yesterday afternoon, but my main focus was on sourcing another ‘keeper for one of the two new Star Wars Football teams that have joined the league ahead of the new season. There was some back and forth with eBay sellers, none of whom were giving an inch on the prices and I lost out on one figure after refusing to compromise on the 15p gap in our respective valuations.
I spent much of the day trying to assess how I’m feeling having finally weaned myself off the ‘happy’ pills I’ve been on for almost five years. While they quashed my anxieties once I went on a higher dose, there was never a single day where I felt ‘happy’ on them. I just felt able to deal with the days, but I was zombied out. Slower, I struggled to write, and worryingly, lost the ‘flight’ part from the ‘fight or flight’ thing we all have. It’s now or never as far as I’m concerned with the pills. My GP, who I think was almost broken by the pandemic, has taken a long sabbatical. He’d counselled against ever coming off the pills so long as I’m in my current situation, but concerned with time marching on and my daily word count piss-poor (excuse my French) for a long time, I’ve taken matters into my own hands. I’m not sure whether the difficult gigs of the last few nights have impacted my mood more because I’m now off the meds, or whether those two nights in front of hostile audiences were going to have a bearing on my mood regardless of what I was taking.
More importantly, it feels like a victory to be off these pills. At my lowest, I was on a high dose that really shut down my body. Apart from somehow being able to do 20k runs on them (albeit being sick once I got home), I’m not sure they did much else, apart from what they were supposed to do, I suppose, which was get me through the post-2018 collapse. In that respect, I guess, I’d have to take my hat off to the pills. But now it’s time to try and come back and see where I am with everything.
Some SMALL talk with The Beard on reaching the café this afternoon, regarding 1) His dodgy knee, 2) Ronaldo and his ‘explosive’ interview and 3) My third nose job.
One latte down.
I order my second latte from the sleepy waitress who still appears to be settling into her new cosmetically-enhanced lips, which arrive at my table almost a minute before she does.
I thank her.
She gives nothing back.
But then, to be fair, given I’m writing about her cosmetically-enhanced moue, I probably don’t deserve a response.
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