I've lost something.  In the last few days.  Something intangible.  I don't even know for certain what it is, but it's gone.
I'm not who I was at the beginning of the week.

Very well, yes I do have an idea what it might be, but that's based entirely on a neurosis.  Time will tell, one way or the other.
And if it's not that, what then?  If the neurosis proves false, as neuroses should, will this sensation of something missing vanish too?

By a happy accident, I was reminded recently of Jeff Wayne's iconic War of the Worlds album, and realised with some amusement that it had probably been something like twenty years since I'd heard it in its entirety.  So I bought it, and refreshed my memory.  Wonderful - I was back in the workshop at the Queen's in 1980, building scenery.  A nostalgic sniffle, as is my wont.  Lovely.

Then I tried to remember some of the other music we used to play at the time, while putting together the set for The Last Enemy...  Oh yes, that's right, there was a copy of Best of Vangelis - so I grabbed a copy of that from the iTunes store...  and got a shock.

"To The Unknown Man"
I don't think I've ever played a piece of music that's proved quite so evocative of such a specific moment in my life.  I was transported back 28 years, probably the last time I heard it. I could smell the size boiling in its bucket, the sawdust, the latex glue, the disinfectant in the loo.  I could taste the lunchtime sandwich from the Queen's café bar.
I was just 20. I was inhabiting a whole new wonderful world I'd never imagined I could be a part of. I had friends, I had purpose.
I was in love. I had my whole life before me in all its glittering possibilities.

All those wonderful, naive, hopeful, wide-eyed possibilities.  Such a long time ago. So thoroughly forgotten.

I carry some fairly bulky baggage.  No surprise, that, everybody does; but I had no idea I was still carrying anything so old, so utterly unresolved, still so raw after all this time.  I'd just put it all away in a drawer in some dusty room in my head, and simply stopped going there.  Today, all unsuspecting, I peeked inside, and quite literally collapsed under the flood of old emotions that came pouring out.  I thought, in my foolishness, that I'd dealt with all that - I could comfortably talk about it, examine what I thought I felt about those years, convince myself that my cynicism was all that was left of such thoughts.  Confronted unexpectedly with a glimpse of the actual feelings and experiences of the time however, it's clear quite what monstrous arrogance that attitude was.

Cathartic, I guess.  I'll keep it on loop until the shaking stops.

So, I'm currently in rehearsals for Tapestry of Fear, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 2nd-9th August (previews 31st & 1st) at Underbelly's Baby Belly 2.
Ok, that's the plug done with.

Hooray, of course. Work is always good, it's a fun play, a great cast, it's all going to be a fantastic experience, and it effectively translates into a three week working holiday in lovely Edinburgh, a good part of it during the Fringe.

But Lachesis always had a nasty sense of humour.  In the months between Counterfeit Skin and my being cast for Tapestry of Fear, there seemed to be a major paucity of jobs about that I could realistically apply for.  Yes, "apply for everything" of course, but I don't think even my towering characterization skills quite run to convincing portrayals of teenagers, nor would it be a terribly sensible thing to put myself up for the part of a Bangladeshi grandmother.  And so on.

The moment I was cast, however, the floodgates opened, and the casting sites and publications seemed filled with parts for slightly overweight, middle-aged bald men.  Many were even offering attractive, realistic pay.  Woo.  And every one of these parts has been either auditioning or performing or filming during the exact weeks that I'll be in Edinburgh.  Every single one.
It's always going to be like that of course, and it does make me laugh rather than cry, but it really is quite impressive!

Really, they don't happen, Big Things, no matter how much we want them to.

For example, there's the Big Thing that I've been hoping for ever since The Great Hormone Revolution of 1972. That's never happened. Came close-ish a few times, perhaps, and maybe even very close once, I like to tell myself, but it's remained stubbornly elusive. The effects of long-term hope are of course deeply damaging, and easily spotted by even the most casual observer.

So I should take that as a cautionary tale, and learn from it. There's stuff in my life now that contains vague, tantalising possibilities of Big Things. I must not fixate on those possibilities, must not hope too hard. Dream, by all means, but I mustn't rely on the Big Things coming - concentrate on the here and now, enjoy the things that come my way, and expect nothing.   Otherwise my finances are likely to end up as distressed as the emotional bankruptcy caused by the Other Big Thing.

Why do I do that?  Why is it that, when somebody I work with compliments me on what I'm doing, my first, automatic, almost unthinking reaction, is to inwardly assume that they're being sarcastic?  I behave as I should, of course: I smile, I thank them, I do the modesty thing, but all the time I'm thinking, "are they actually taking the piss? Is this their way of telling me I'm rubbish?" 
Why can't I, instead, allow myself to take their words at face value?

It used to happen when I worked behind a desk, and it still happens now that I'm pursuing my new path.  Of course, there have been jobs I've done in the past, that I genuinely was rubbish at. I knew it, my employers knew it.  Maybe that's where it springs from...  although generally in those jobs, the folks in charge left me in little doubt as to my lack of ability!

A few years back, while I was still living in the house of filth, I stumbled across a series (or rather a "miniseries", as such things are called across the Atlantic, for all that its twelve solid episodes) called "From The Earth To The Moon" - made by Ron Howard and Tom Hanks, on the back of the Apollo 13 film.  At the time, I thought it very well made. And promptly forgot about it. Spotted the DVD set on Amazon recently, and bought it.

Granted it's a bit "gung-ho America saving the world from communism" in places, but curiously I've found it rather beautiful. I remember well the last years of the 1960s, and the attention we, as awestruck kids, paid to the Apollo program. For us, of course, it wasn't Walter Cronkite and Jules Bergman, but Patrick Moore and James Burke, but the excitement, the tension, the wonder, the wonder, are the same. What's more, the series puts a far more human face on to the clean-cut American jocks that rode the biggest firework the world has ever seen. With only a moderate amount of starstripey cliché and mawkishness, too, which is impressive.

Thus far, I've only reached Apollo 9, first Earth-orbit rendezvous with the LEM, and the first two-man spacewalk. I find myself feeling odd sadness for people like Rusty Sweickhart, who never flew in space again (his own words in the episode suggesting it was his bout of space-sickness that would ground him).  And I find myself very aware of those people who maintain that the moon landings were faked...  and, in a most peculiar (and vaguely inappropriate) way, I want to say, "of course man landed on the moon - I was there".  Well.  I was there watching the telly, anyway.  They went.  Of course they went. Of course they went.  I watched them do it.  It was the defining moment of my generation.

I remember, as I'm sure millions of others do also, my father taking me outside, around 9pm on the night of 20th July 1969, and standing there with me in silence, gazing up at the moon. Still gives me a most extraordinary thrill up my spine to think of it.  To have been alive at the point in time when mankind first stepped on to another heavenly body, and to have watched it happen. To have lived in times of wonder and glory.

"Homo sapiens. What an inventive, invincible species. It's only a few million years since they crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenseless bipeds. They've survived flood, famine, and plague. ...  And now, here they are, out among the stars"

Yes, I'm a corny, sentimental old sod. Yes.

Davros:   Rather nicely done, I thought, yes.
Unexpected regeneration cliffhanger:  Yes indeed, liked that very much.
Torchwood, Martha (who's forgotten how to act again), Sarah Jane (yay):  Yes, ok, I'll buy that, made me smile.
Stolen planets in perfect balance (one of them Callufrax Minorr, a nice touch): Nod to the past, reasonably subtly done, yes.
but
Harriet Jones, former prime minister: A weak joke the first time, weaker still now, worse with the Dalek providing the punchline.
Harriet Jones, technical genius behind the subnet?  What? WHAT?
The Dalek "message" being just "Exterminate" over and over...  really, Russell, you can do better.

Here we go.  A week into rehearsals and, in traditional fashion, I've hit my usual paranoia, doubting myself, certain I've tried the patience of my fellow cast members, and so on and so forth.  The regularity with which this always afflicts me would be quite funny, if it wasn't so annoying and debilitating.

What is it about the human psyche, that makes it so much easier to latch on to your own solitary low self-opinion, than all the nice things other people have ever said about you?

Screen. Green pencil sharpener, tupperware box, old phone. Diary. Journal.
Keyboard
Edge of desk.
Me.
Chair.

Bookcase, side-desk.
Paints, evidence of lack of artistic ability (relief, actually). Newspaper, desk light, wigblock, phone.
Laptop.
Me.
Chair.

Scanner, router, wifithingy.
Printer.
Turntable.
Pot of paperclips, broken camera.
Mug, highlighters.
Mouse, keyboard.
Edge of desk.
Me.
Chair.

Nothing.

...whether anybody actually reads this rubbish.

Can it really be so long?  Just a shade over four years ago.  We sat, amid candles, wine and cheese, on that disreputable velour sofa of mine, framed by (I can think of no better term) the squalor of my old house.  We watched Julianne, Anthony and Giancarlo in their beautiful, dark wonderful gavotte.  I cried (of course).

It's been four years since I last watched it.  Incredible.  Why did I leave it so long?  How did I leave it so long?  It was bad enough that I waited three years to see it in the first place, but to wait a further four to see it again?  Awful.

Silly thing is, it was an act of desperation.  After a day of increasing dark, I needed something to occupy the evening.  Something safe.  Two crates of borrowable choice in the lockup (including this, of course - how daft is that!), but it was closed for the day, so Tesco was my rescuer.  There on the shelf. £5.  Odd that such a thing should be "safe", but there it is, I never could explain how these things work... but of course, it's perfect. The perfect, exact-fitting, cockinthehole antidote to all that ails me tonight.

Vide cor meum still rips me to pieces, of course, but that's unlikely to change.

As if there weren't already enough reasons to feel optimistic about the future of a certain well-known revived sci-fi television series, when the producer's mantle passes to its new bearer...



It's hard to explain why, but this picture makes me really happy.
What's not to like about a man who possesses such a filing system?

Just home from shooting a short film down in Bournemouth, in which I play the character of Santa.  I'd better not go into too much detail about it before it's completed and actually 'out there' as it were, but suffice it to say it's satirical, surreal, and very funny.  A very talented team, too, which usually makes for a nice working atmosphere.  There were no flaps, no strops; just everybody getting on with what they had to do.
And hospitable:  The producer and director both gave up their beds so that I, and another cast-member, could have somewhere to sleep while we were filming. There was food, there were snacks, there was beer.

Yesterday was my shooting day (they have two more including today).  It began at around 7.30, at a small private tennis club, where two of us spent several hours running around showing just how bad our tennis skills were, as we attempted to produce a convincing rally for the camera.  Must have been good exercise; my legs still ache today!

So. The Edinburgh Fringe show, which I'm itching to get to grips with, but can't.  I liked very much the glimpse of script that I saw at the audition, but that was over three weeks ago.  It's been more than a week since I heard I'd got the part, and it's quite an effort of will to keep the enthusiasm for it alive, without something tangible to look at.  I have the tantalising evidence of the rehearsal schedule, so I know when I'll be doing things, but not yet what. Please, Mr. Postman, bring me a script tomorrow...

At the same time as all this, it turns out Counterfeit Skin is being revived. Hooray!  Except that its performance dates coincide exactly with the period when I'll be in Edinburgh, so I can't be involved.  Quite a sad and poignant moment this morning, seeing the job advert for Leo pop up on CastingCallPro.

So, in summary:  A play I'd so love to do again, but can't, because of another play, for which I've yet to see a script.

It's fine, of course, that's just the way life is, but it's deeply frustrating.

I'd reached a pretty low ebb today.  A series of unsatisfactory auditions, where either I wasn't pleased with my own work, or everything had seemed ok, but then I'd heard nothing.  Add to that, a stack of applications that had gone nowhere, and a growing suspicion that maybe I was just being grossly arrogant in thinking I had any future in this line of work.  Even auditions that had gone well were now subject to fine scrutiny as to what I'd done wrong, what I should have done better, etc., etc...

And then an email arrives.  From an audition a couple of weeks ago, which I thought had gone well, but which I'd pretty much given up on by now.  I'm going to the Edinburgh Fringe. 

Just like that, the world changes, self-belief returns, and I can accept the possibility that maybe I can do this after all.

Extraordinary thing, the mind.  I never cease to be amazed at my own capacity for irrational emotional reactions.

A small thing occurred today.  A very small thing, which in and of itself, means nothing whatever.  It bears a passing (though very tenuous) similarity to a much larger, more significant, more painful thing that happened many years ago.  Now, I know perfectly well that it isn't the same at all, and yet there's a massive emotional reaction.  I watched it start, knowing it was starting, knowing it wasn't in any way an appropriate response, but quite unable to prevent it happening.

Now, some considerable time later, my rational mind is still watching this all going on, still fully aware that it's a completely phantom emotion, inappropriate, out of all proportion, and unrelated to real events... but equally without a clue how to switch off this constant layer of unruly angst that permeates everything.  The only thing guaranteed to kill it, is an external event, out of my control - which is a problem in itself, because the absence of that event, the waiting for it, becomes bound up in the existing emotional gordian knot.  I have, somehow, to force myself not to want that event, not to attribute huge significance to it, not to think, "everything will be fine when that happens"; because to do so would be to reinforce, amplify, legitimize the problem.

None of this is especially ground-breaking of course - I've no doubt it's very familiar to pretty much anyone who's likely to read this:  Everybody has their own little pot of neuroses, and their own ways of working round them.  It does fascinate me though, that two such conflicting ideas can co-exist in this way:  That I can be rational enough to sit here at the keyboard and make a stab at describing what the irrational, emotional part of my head is up to, yet not sufficiently in control to stop it.  Fascinating.

Tourists in Edinburgh have the worst peripheral vision I've ever encountered.  Even worse than tourists in London; even worse than people in Tesco on pension day.

Edinburgh people themselves, of course, are lovely.  Even the staff in the Travelodge I stayed in, were excellent.  Surprisingly so - I've stayed in a lot of Travelodges, and this one, though a bit abraded in places, has some of the best staff I've seen in one.  The breakfast was jolly nice too, which is certainly not always the case!

On the Royal Mile:  Gorgeous, gentle-faced, smiling young man playing the ropiest-sounding guitar I've ever heard... but the way he was playing it was so full of joy that I almost wanted to dance down the street.

Further along the Royal Mile:  Coming towards me were two students, one Cheguevara t-shirt, the other the ubiquitous tweed jacket, skinny jeans and slightly-too-small trilby.  Under their arms, each carried a good-sized red flag.  Freshly made, by the look of them.  As they passed me, a snippet of conversation, in the plummiest Etonian, "...well yes, because you see, that's the trouble with the white working class..."

Maybe I'm just being a bit sensitive, but this seems a bit off, frankly.

I get a message through a casting website, out of the blue, from a student film-maker, telling me they'd looked at my CV and thought they'd approach me.  There's an exchange of emails, including the script, which I like, and I say so.  They ask if I'm ok with the fact that there's no cash involved.  I say that's fine.

There is a pause for a couple of days.

Then I get an email telling me the role's been cast, and thanking me for my "interest in the film".  Er, excuse me? You approached me, remember?

I feel like shouting email obscenities.  But I shall not.  However, young film-maker, might I suggest that if you're going to approach people like that, you make very sure you want to use them first, rather than gaining their interest and then shitting upon them?  Thank you, this has been a public information broadcast.

I'd had a most wonderfully moving morning.  Tears; glorious, cathartic, joyous tears. Tears over the perfect ending of something marvellous.  Tears too, at a touching honour paid to me.

Thus equipped, even the most mundane of chores seemed blessed, so I popped out to buy a few bits and pieces.

I emerged (to use the cliché) blinking into the sunlight.  And was assaulted by the beauty of spring.

The may blossom was out, burying me in its heady perfume.  The verges seemed to be exploding with a billion tiny flowers.  The sun was just warm enough to lift the heart, but the air was cool and fresh,  full of promises and possibilities.

To mark the moment appropriately, on the wall of a corner house, a Virginia Creeper, just testing its new spring world with fresh green leaves.

I was grinning like a loon by the time I walked back through the front door of my block of flats.  Much to the alarm, I fear, of my neighbour!

"Journey of the Sorcerer" pops up on iTunes.

..and it's 28 years ago, I'm standing in the Art Room at Fairkytes in Hornchurch, building scenery with a couple of new friends I've known about two weeks.  I can smell the size on the canvas, the paint, the fabric softener Andy's mum uses.  Andy has just introduced me to the Hitchhiker's Guide, and I'm entranced.

Now, in 2008, this brings tears.  Quite why it does, I'm unsure - but it happens almost every time the tune plays, and with the same images and memories.  I suppose the moment does mark a first step into a larger world, in its way.  There is much that's happened in my life that I can trace back to those Sunday mornings all that time ago.

I might play it again in a minute.

Talented people are an inspiration.  Sounds obvious, doesn't it?  It's easy to forget though, and this week has been a handy reminder for me.  I've spent most evenings, and one day, in the company of a crew of filmmakers, most of whom are impressively passionate about the work they're doing.  They've been afflicted with all kinds of difficulties, most of which haven't really been under their control, and they've risen above them, got on with the job, worked around, and still managed to have that commitment to quality which is so infectious and powerful.  Given the circumstances they've found themselves in sometimes, it would have been so easy for them to adopt an attitude of "that'll do", but it hasn't happened yet.

Unsurprisingly, I'm enjoying working with them immensely, I'm very much looking forward to seeing the final result, and hoping just as much that the opportunity arises to work with most of them again.

I can't really explain quite why discovering the mere existence of this fills me with such pleasure.  Maybe it's just that it has the right name, or maybe it's because, unlike Network Rail's last attempt at such a thing (3000 pages!) it can actually be carried around without risk of a hernia.

In so many ways, it's a symbol of an earlier, simpler age.  An age where travel was, almost by definition, by train, and where such trains were enormous, gasping, oiled beasts, of brass and steam and soot.  Where railway stations, and everybody in them, smelt of hot coal.
This was the age in which it seemed Sherlock Holmes could barely embark on an adventure without first asking, "Watson, do you happen to have a Bradshaw about your person?"  Watson, that stalwart of reliability, always did, of course.  There would be a feverish rifling of pages, before Holmes would triumphantly announce that they had a mere five minutes to reach Paddington in order to catch the 4.38 express.  This, too, was the age when that express would have had a guaranteed connection with a succession of branch lines, all of them catalogued by Bradshaw, and which would have delivered Holmes & Watson to a tidy little rural station, where their journey would have been completed by pony and trap.

The last original Bradshaw was sadly last published in 1961, but as of December 2007 there's this.

Curiously, in our modern era of internet timetables and journey planners, I have a feeling it really does have a place.  I've ordered one, and I expect to find myself using it.

I really hope it succeeds.

Tesco.
Saturday evening shift.  Store becoming quieter, staff suffering a little from boredom and cabin-fever.

Two empty aisles at the far end.  I took my basket to one, an attractive, happy-looking girl in her twenties, the other.  We did a little dodge/dance thing, as one does, as we manouevred ourselves to our respective aisles.  I smiled.

The chap running my checkout seemed as dull, surly-faced and slack-jawed a teenager as I've seen.  Gave every appearance of wishing he was anywhere else (fair enough, I supposed, it being Saturday night). Uncharitably, my subconscious reaction was "chav", and I scowled inwardly. However, as I began unloading my basket, his face lit up in the friendliest of smiles, as he asked me that ritual question, without which no trip to a supermarket would be complete these days, "are you ok packing?".  I agreed that I was, and we began.
"Are you collecting the school vouchers?" he continued, pleasantly.  I told him I wasn't, so he called cheerily across the the girl in the other aisle, to ask if she was.  She gave him a look as if he'd just asked if he could fist her mother, but eventually accepted the vouchers, though without so much as a twitch of a smile, or a thank you.

As I left, I was wished a pleasant evening (in those terms, too, which was unexpected and lovely).  I'm not proud of myself that I only just had the presence of mind to return the compliment.

Walking down the length of the store, someone ran past me, barging into me, and almost tipping me over.  It was the girl from the next aisle.  Not a hint of an apology, nor even an awareness of having collided, as she disappeared at speed into the throng by the doors.

Sometimes, I am ashamed of myself.
Sometimes, I am ashamed of my fellow human beings.

What is it about this time of year that's so special?

I've been pining for the lack of auditions for weeks and months, and suddenly I get three in a row, two on consecutive days, and another very shortly afterwards - what's more, they're all films, and all planning their shooting for pretty much the same time, so their dates overlap.  This will make it difficult to tell them what my availability actually is... 

The first one was this morning, and it seemed to go very well.  Very friendly panel, and all very very complimentary of my brief performance.  Good for the ego (and, handily, that's the one of the three that I'd most like to get cast for... though I'll guarantee they'll be the one to take the longest to reply)

And whaddya know?  As I'm typing this, up comes another audition.  Shooting the very same week.  What's more, they want me to audition either tomorrow or Saturday, and, if successful, to be available all weekend for workshops...  which I can't do anyway, as I have a fairly full weekend already!

Funny old business.

Reading that back, it sounds like a moan, which isn't quite how it's intended.  More an expression of amused disbelief!  Really rather nice to be getting all these auditions, but it's bizarre how they all clash quite so nicely!

Caught sight of myself in a mirror today.  Well, not just a mirror, many.  A lift, with mirrored walls.  My face, my head, my all, from every conceivable angle.

My first, last, and persisting thought:  "No wonder nobody's interested"

Not very cheery (and indeed, if I look back, most of my recent posts here haven't been that bright. Must try harder).

Not even strictly accurate, in any case - there are people who are interested, at least on the superficial, physical level - but they fall into two groups:

On the other hand, there's that other group of people... who also fall neatly into subgroups:

If I have an aim in life, it's to meet one of the elusive members of:

...but then I catch myself in those mirrors, and despair of such people actually existing.

It's always like this.  I can be absolutely fine, confident in myself, sure that the things that distress me are well under control.  Then something makes me glance aside, and I'm lost.  Often for days.

And so it was this time.  Two days ago, I was happy in my spring cleaning, the world was, if not full of joy, at least full of things I could deal with.  Then a series of tiny, tiny things occurred, none of which should have been the slightest problem. But I lost my concentration, allowed myself thoughts I shouldn't, feelings I shouldn't, and down I went. As I slid further and faster, I tried to grasp at things on the way, to slow myself, gain support, confidence, hope.  But I missed them all. No new footholds appeared, nobody ran to catch me, because nobody saw me fall.  Still I'm falling.  The bottom must be near.

How long have I sat here like this? Head in hand, head in hands.  Keyboard in my eyeline.  Hours, probably.  No sound but the people and the traffic outside, grubby Romford passing me by, living its own life, ignoring mine.  Grubby Romford, grubby Essex, grubby London.  A world on which I hardly impinge. My own fault, I suppose, I don't seek out great gangs of friends, just a select few who I really value.  But they have lives of course.  Days like this, when my life, my soul, has a gaping gap in it, days like this, when my friends have too much on their plate already, days like this, when I sit for hours, head in hand, head in hands, contemplating my keyboard.

So, my Mother's back home again.  Friends will be aware that she had a bit of a fall a couple of weeks ago, fracturing both radius and ulna in her left wrist, tearing some ligaments in her left leg, and acquiring some most impressive bruising.
Thanks largely to the wonderful efforts of her next door neighbour, she was very quickly into A&E, and her arm plastered up.  There was a fair bit of concern about her mobility, the injured leg hampering her movements a lot, especially since she couldn't grab hold of anything for support with her left arm.

So they kept her in overnight.

Somewhere along the way, what began as overnight observation grew somewhat:

Next day, when a physiotherapist asked her to walk a little, she found it very difficult (surprise surprise, because she had torn something in her leg).  The effort made her breathless (again, surprise surprise).
Somebody made a note about "breathlessness", and the rollercoaster began.  "Chest infection", somebody said.  Antibiotics.  Never mind the fact that she's in her late 70s and has had a major shock.  Nope.  Breathless?  Must be an infection.

Her blood pressure was a tad low - well she'd barely drunk anything for 24 hours, and was still taking (as recommended) her medication for high blood pressure.  Now, I'm a layman, but that seems like a recipe for low blood pressure to me...
They put her on a drip.

At various points they worried about (and administered medication for) her digestive regularity, the pain in her arm, antibiotics for the imagined chest infection, perhaps others I know nothing of.  On top of all this, the hustle and bustle and general noise meant she barely got any serious sleep for the two and a half weeks she was in hospital.  It's perhaps no surprise that pretty soon, she felt much more ill than she had when she went in.

For most of the time she was in, almost no attention was paid to her leg, and almost no effort made to get her walking on a regular basis.  A physio came to see her the day before yesterday, and was apparently apalled by this.  There had been talk of moving her to another hospital, with some sort of mobility clinic.  The physio asked Mum if she thought she needed this - Mum's response, apparently, was a fairly emphatic "no" - and hooray, I brought her back to her bungalow yesterday afternoon.  Very shaky, very tired, but much much better already, simply for being home.

We looked at the letter from the hospital to her GP, this morning.
1. Whoever wrote it can't spell "ulna".
2. Makes a big mention of "Chest Infection"
3. Makes no mention whatsoever of the injury to her leg.

Not terribly impressed.

Curious.  A sense of loss.  Not the tangible, angst-ridden, tearing away of something dear or precious, the missing of some important part of one's life, nor even that particular feeling of an experience one will never have again.  Any of these might be appropriate, conceivably, but no, before you ask, it's nothing to do with the play just completed, miss it though I do; miss the cast and crew though I do.

It's just an absence of something.  Something I presumably once had, and no longer have.  Buggered if I can put my finger on what though.  I've spent all day prodding the various scars in my psyche to see if any of them are responsible, but to no avail.  I seem to be in a comparatively well-balanced mood.  And no, I've thought of that too - I don't seem to be missing my habitual self-pity; it's there hiding at the back, pretending to be an aspidistra.

The only thing I can think of is that, for various reasons, some recent and painful paranoia is temporarily not going to be a problem.  Am I really missing the pain of that?  Is that it?  Never bloody happy, me.

...well, the Counterfeit Skin "family" in this instance:  James, James, Chris, Jon, Dean, Ellie, Lauren, Amy, Aaron, Jack, and of course Jason and Kirrie.

Just the best bunch of people.

I generally don't remember my dreams in very great detail when I wake up, so one like last night's, where I can remember most of the "narrative", is worth writing down - as much to remind myself that it does happen sometimes, as anything else.  It's not particularly interesting, I don't think, just unusual for me to recall the details.

I was on a train.  Not sure where to, except that I remember that I had a fair bit of luggage, both with me, and in some sort of cargo hold, rather like on a plane.  At some point in the journey, I became convinced I needed to get off - I may have missed my stop, or somesuch.  I remember a lot of thrashing around trying to get all my luggage together - which seemed to comprise all my current costumes for the play - and a large CRT monitor.  I think I eventually left some of my stuff in the hold.  Everything was yellow.

Leaving the train, I was in a tube station.  A huge one - many many lines. Almost no people though - and all the last trains were leaving just as I arrived.  There was a lot of running down endless tiled tunnels, trying to find a line that was still open.  I could tell that the station was closed though, because they'd lowered the ceilings on all the tunnels to a crawling height, to stop people wandering about.

It all fades out then.