Twice last night.  Twice, for goodness sake.  Waking up in all kinds of a state, from different variations of the
same dream.  I've never had it affect me like this before... but then I suppose in many ways, I'm in a particular combination of circumstances that are new to me.  Not the emotionally-charged situation, been there before, nor the specific focus, the object of my... well no, I've felt similarly before.  But the two together, and the one leading to the other... that's new.

Another new skill, though not, I imagine, one that's easily taught in any drama school.  At least, not as a subject.

Maybe I just don't notice when I'm not feeling like this.  Yes that's probably it.

Loved-up couples seem attracted to me like flies to shit.  No matter where I go, they congregate.  After a particularly fragile day today, it was bad enough to have a pair of lovebirds sit either side of me on the tube, continuing their conversation in front of my face; bad enough to have to wait in the queue at BurgerKing for many extra minutes while Jim and Trace occupied the counter giggling and kissing their way through their indecision as to which particular lardy delicacy to buy...  but it was certainly the final straw when, having finally obtained my own guilty, fatty treat, and sat down at one of the many empty seats in the station to consume it, Jean-Claude and Mimi made a bee-line for the seat next to me and began an in-depth investigation of each other's tonsils.

Really, it's ok.  I want folk to enjoy life. Really I do. But please, Deity mine, if you're going to deny me the opportunity to partake of that particular facet of life's tapestry myself, why taunt me with other people's enjoyment of it, hmm?  What does it achieve, apart from increasing the gloominess of an already somewhat glum bald poof?

I can't deny that I was warned.  You laid it out before me, my cardboard fate, dancing on its field of linen.  The meaning seemed clear, and I was relieved when the summer passed without incident.

Other interpretations have flirted with me, less specific, less personal, less me.  I thought I had it, with this latest; it seemed so apt, so nicely-fitted.

And there was the rub.  So unconcerned was I, having decided on that meaning, that it came as some surprise to find the original reading weaving itself into my life after all.

It cannot be, of course, I know that.  What I feel, what I see, must be viewed through eyes of detachment.  Reality has no place here, and fantasy must find no place in my thoughts and reactions.

There was a time when I would have done otherwise.  Younger then, I might have dared to consider it.  But I will not follow that path again, the danger is too great.  Forewarned is forearmed (for which, I owe you thanks).  I will not do it; not now, nor when the same inevitably happens again.

It may come, but it must come to me; I shall not go seeking.  But it is hard, oh so hard.

One dress rehearsal separates us from the baying/paying public.  Sadly, we can't get into the theatre until 6.00, as the space has been rented out to the Beeb in the daytime, for some kind of reality TV show.  So, a line run at 2.00, at the flat we've been using for rehearsals, a brisk walk from Hackney to Hoxton, the dress, and then, in theory, we're all ready to go.

Rumour is that ticket sales seem to be very healthy.  Coo.

So, in this rehearsal, as usual, I crouched down at the beginning of that final scene.  Unusually, however, this time the movement was greeted with a muffled crunching noise from my left jeans pocket.  I knew what it was at once, but I couldn't check until we'd finished.
Sure enough, my glasses, which had survived so many challenges throughout last summer (they never really did recover from my having squashed them flat by trying to poke my head through the van window when it was shut) had expired.

Odd sense of loss, which has nothing whatever to do with the amount they cost.