Naive Psychologist

So. When your day begins with your boy saying ‘can you see anything, is there anything there, do I need to have a worm tablet’, you know that it can only improve.

Don’t you.

I did a gig on Friday night. Is that how you say it? ‘Did a gig’? No idea. Which goes to show.

It was an all-female show. I’ve been doing a bit of research on women and comedy and that whole ‘they just aren’t funny’ thing. It’s very interesting and I’ll tell you more about it one day, but one of the wider observations I would make about shows with an all-woman lineup is that the age range of the crowd stretches. A lot. And that’s what really makes the difference. So, Friday night rocked. The audience was ace – what with their stretched ages and everything – and I had a great time.

My set was a small part of my first full-length script. It’s called She’s Not Just Quiet – She’s Dead. It (the script) still needs work, but it’s getting there. It’s a story as much (maybe more than) as it’s stand-up, so I had to whip it into shape a bit and make it a bit punchier than I think it will be when it’s the proper full-length script. In its stand-up form, it ends with the eulogy I wrote for the dead librarian.

My friend who came along said to me ‘I couldn’t believe it when I realised what you were going to do…I don’t know if you’re reallly, really brave or just crazy’. She said this because the last time she saw me – three weeks ago – I was delivering a small eulogy at my dad’s funeral.

Such a thought did cross my mind. More than once. What was I doing going to a stand-up gig on the month anniversary of my dad’s death, on the three-week anniversary of his funeral? What was I doing going out on a full moon? What was I doing, going out at all? And what’s with this eulogy? Is it disrespectful, am I just trying to make a point, and if I am, what is that point?

But for the first time in ages, I was looking forward to going on stage. In fact, not just for the first time in ages, for one of the only times ever. I was looking forward to being on stage. In the afternoon, as I was rehearsing, I was saying the lines over and over because I was enjoying them (the lines, the words, and the spaces in between the lines and the words) not because I was petrified that if I didn’t repeat them I would forget them. And I was looking forward to being on stage because it would be fun to share those words and those lines.

I’ve been working on this script, or at least the idea of this script, for ages. Simply ages. I have tried everything to get it to work. This voice, that voice, her voice, his. A carefully-plotted outline, free writing, writing on a whiteboard, on butcher’s paper, on the computer, standing up, sitting down, in bed, on the lounge. And for a year, it just has not worked. All I have had is the kernel of an idea I’m commited to, but no idea how to make it work.

And, now, all of a sudden, She’s not Just Quiet – She’s Dead is pouring out of me. Okay, maybe pouring is an exaggeration, but the script is drawing words – good words – to it like a magnet. Okay, maybe they’re not all good words. But they’re not all bad. And there’s a freedom about the writing that makes me think it must be working.

In the moments when I can work (and let me say that despite this pouring of the words, there are more moments when I’m on the couch than when I’m at my desk) it seems strange that I can work on anything, let alone a piece of comedy. I was trying to explain it to myself (and sorry if I’m expressing myself awkwardly here, my oldest boy is playing the piano just a metre or so away from my left ear and I don’t like to ask him to stop), and I said to myself something along the lines of ‘you are keeping it in a separate part of your brain’ and ‘you are keeping the different parts of you at a distance from each other’.

But clearly this is not entirely true.

Anyway, if you need me, I’m back on the couch, I really can’t think anything much at all with eldest boy practicing his thirds and fourths over there.

So, in case you haven’t caught it yet, here’s the you tube link. Well, not here exactly. Down there at the end of the post.

I love that song.

I’ve been listening to it over and over ever since we heard the news that she died the other night. In a funny kind of way, that song is just the tonic I need. What with one thing and another. Takes me back to the days when Sunday nights were all about Countdown and memorising the Top Ten because there’d be a test on it at recess the next day (we didn’t call it Little Lunch then) and then trying to make sure I got as many roast potatoes and as much gravy as my brother.

She had a bit of a hard life at times from what I recall. I hope that parts of it were ace though. She gave us goose bumps. She deserved some happiness.

And those boots. You’ve gotta love the closeup on the boots. I wanted another pair of boots, and my mum said we couldn’t afford them and I said (and this is true as anything even my dad remembered it) ‘well, if you didn’t drink or smoke we could afford them’. And they say kids these days have no respect.

I’ve been at lectures this morning. I’m doing the course in applied ethics that I was accepted into, but was not smart enough to follow the enrolment route in time for first semester. I told you all about it at the time. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?

Anyway, after Dad died, or in fact, in the week that it became clear he was going to, I followed up on the enrolment, because I thought a bit of structure would be good for me. Plus, it’s something I’ve always wanted to do.

It’s doing my head in. You could see that coming, couldn’t you? Yes, the mister could too. Still, it is good to apply some rigorous thought to my (strongly-, if, as it turns out inconsistently-held) opinions on euthenasia, abortion and the death penalty. Plus, it makes a change from word twist. I was thinking the other day how time-wasting has evoloved from minesweeper to free cell to word twist.

On Monday, it will be the 15th anniversary of my mum’s death. And then a few days later it’s my brother’s birthday. Then a few days after that it’s my dad’s birthday. Do you know writing that has been very good for me. I feel a small barrier breached. Sorry that you have to be involved in my therapy. Maybe you should shut your bloglines subsrciption off for now.

You wish you could be living with me right now, don’t you? Just in case you can’t imagine how great it is, I’ll let you know I just made a cup of coffee with cold water.

But yesterday, I did have what I believe to be a significant breakthrough with a writing project that I believe is an excellent idea, but have not been able to get on top of. Time will tell. Though probably not the time of the next week or so which is likely to involve a lot more time on the couch, under the blanket, watching Scrubs DVDs. Also, Curb Your Enthusiasm is, as my youngest boy would say, hair-lary-arse. He says it like that so that he can say the ‘a’ word. They swear a lot my boys do. But not as much as I do.

I’ve quite enjoyed watching the diving. Not sure why we’re supposed to be getting all outraged that the girl who appeared and the girl who sang are two different girls. Like, yes, it’s outrageous, but, like, on the scale of outrageousness it’s down the ‘not so much’ end. Olympics references.

Well, I think that’s it. I’m off to drink my coffee before it warms up too much.

Okay. There’s too much faffing around going on here. Which is, as everyone says, fair enough and understandable and so forth, but equally, I know I’d feel better if I started feeling mildly productive.

The problem is (apart from the obvious – I mean the problem in pure practical terms), there’s just too many projects in the embryonic stages. Which leaves a person with a lot of scope for faffing. So. In the interests of just getting something down on paper (remember, you can’t get to the final draft if you don’t have the sixty millionth draft and you can’t get to the sixty millionth draft without a first draft which really does involve just putting words down, however crap imperfect those words may be) I shall, before 4.30 pm, write myself 2000 words. Possibly 2500.

It’s 2.24 now (my time).

If you need me, just email. I won’t be turning the internet off.

Update: 3.18 pm. One cup of coffee. Two lines of the mister’s chocolate. One short conversation with a man looking for ‘Mr or Mrs… (I hung up! I’ve never done that before. No ‘sorry not today’. I just hung up!). One just-made cup of tea. 800 words.

Fascinating, no?

Update: 4.40 pm. Some illicit checking of bloglines. Bit of following links that could’ve waited. 2000 words. Not all of them completely useless. Now, I’m going to reward myself with ten minutes of The Bold and The Beautiful. Don’t act all shocked. You already know I watch rubbish television.

My crime is that I have just finished off the bag of Twisties someone gave my boys. For a present. Yesterday. I didn’t let them eat the whole lot in one sitting.

My punishment is that the Twisties are chicken.