No pressure
A curiously excellent day. I hadn’t been looking forward to it at all, as my first job was to walk down to the doctor’s office and be wired up to my 24-hour blood pressure test. I have appalling white coat syndrome when it comes to having my blood pressure taken, so I always get an alarmingly high reading. Having half hourly blood pressure checks is not a perfect recipe for a happy day.
Much to my own surprise I did not get hysterical all once. Every time the automatic sleeve inflated, I just said to myself, imagine how pleased you’ll feel when this comes back as normal tomorrow.
On the way to the surgery and on the way back I was beset by several good creative ideas about how I can make the most of projects I have been working on. Once home I simply spent the day executing one of them, a short story assembled from previous material, that I think works far better than I had hoped. I also had the idea of how I would start the sequel to The Second Kind of Darkness (now in an agent’s inbox) and decided that my next dramatic piece would actually be a reworking of my first ever performed play, The Man Who Could See Through Walls. Also thought about poems and had emails from Sarah Barnsley, Robin, Catherine Pope, and Helen about the opera. Chatting with Beth who popped in briefly, to gather clothes for a fitting for an extras part next week. They have been told they can move into their new flat at the weekend, which is really exciting for them. I foresee a good deal of carrying things this weekend.
The day's only discordant note was a strange encounter with a burly south African door-to-door fish seller, who when I asked where his fish were sourced from, he replied ‘the sea’. He was trying to pressurise me into buying things. Obviously I bought. I asked him for a card, and he gave me one with a non-existent website on it. He insisted on calling again next week, and tried to shake my hand as if we had made an agreement. I did not.
I also chatted with Mum, and arranged to meet with her briefly in London tomorrow, and mowed our tiny lawn. Lorraine home after her first day with children at school, rather tired but the day had gone well, and she had gone to pilates afterwards. I sat about this evening chatting with Lorraine with my arm puffing up and down, much to the intrigue of Calliope and Brian.
Still reading Lorraine a short story each night, but in the last two nights she has fallen asleep at the same point in the same story. I read it quietly to myself as my wife snoozed.
Much to my own surprise I did not get hysterical all once. Every time the automatic sleeve inflated, I just said to myself, imagine how pleased you’ll feel when this comes back as normal tomorrow.
On the way to the surgery and on the way back I was beset by several good creative ideas about how I can make the most of projects I have been working on. Once home I simply spent the day executing one of them, a short story assembled from previous material, that I think works far better than I had hoped. I also had the idea of how I would start the sequel to The Second Kind of Darkness (now in an agent’s inbox) and decided that my next dramatic piece would actually be a reworking of my first ever performed play, The Man Who Could See Through Walls. Also thought about poems and had emails from Sarah Barnsley, Robin, Catherine Pope, and Helen about the opera. Chatting with Beth who popped in briefly, to gather clothes for a fitting for an extras part next week. They have been told they can move into their new flat at the weekend, which is really exciting for them. I foresee a good deal of carrying things this weekend.
The day's only discordant note was a strange encounter with a burly south African door-to-door fish seller, who when I asked where his fish were sourced from, he replied ‘the sea’. He was trying to pressurise me into buying things. Obviously I bought. I asked him for a card, and he gave me one with a non-existent website on it. He insisted on calling again next week, and tried to shake my hand as if we had made an agreement. I did not.
I also chatted with Mum, and arranged to meet with her briefly in London tomorrow, and mowed our tiny lawn. Lorraine home after her first day with children at school, rather tired but the day had gone well, and she had gone to pilates afterwards. I sat about this evening chatting with Lorraine with my arm puffing up and down, much to the intrigue of Calliope and Brian.
Still reading Lorraine a short story each night, but in the last two nights she has fallen asleep at the same point in the same story. I read it quietly to myself as my wife snoozed.
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