Left or Right

I just spent over a month's rent on half a dress - anyone that tries to tell you weddings aren't insanity incarnate is lying and probably about to sell you something wedding related. To console myself for my temporary (year long) lapse in sanity concerning money I'm allowing myself two caffeinated teas today. Break them rules bitch.

I might have spent a small fortune on half my dress (lord I hope it's the bottom) but it's still only the equivalent of about 5% of what the Edinburgh Fringe would have cost me had I been there this month. I'm not there, but do you know who is? EVERYBODY ELSE ON THE PLANET (or so it feels). All splashing about in the quagmire of soiled leaflets and trodden egos. God I miss it.

My fiancée is there (let's call him Alan), and for the first time I understand what people mean when they call their partner their other half. I feel like someone's turned the volume down on the world now he's gone; I'm doing stuff... Gigging, seeing friends, writing, exercising, exercising our joint account's generosity on satin and shoes that make me feel like a Tim Burton character... But it feels a bit numb.

I'm not crying or wrenching my clothes, but I just can't be bothered with much. It just simply isn't as much fun to be me without him. That's weird isn't it? Is this going to be life from now on? Is he my emotional hearing aid?

Or will this fade, will he become as background as the carpet while I wonder what I was ever so desperately attached to?

I hope it's the former. I don't believe in the one or soul mates, but I've come to believe that a best friend that you like banging is the most sensational thing you can achieve. Worth spending the equivalent of 6 nights at Portsmouth Jongleurs on a dress to marry him in.

I miss the Fringe too. If Alan is my rock, the Fringe is my abusive spouse that I just can't leave because he needs me despite his occasional full frontal violence. I've been to the Fringe In different guises for the last 5years and this year I gave it a break as I'm doing my first solo hour at the Camden Fringe next week (ticket link just to the right should you not have got round to buying yours yet...!). My show is quite based on Alan and our life so not having him here while I'm tweaking and writing, amidst fervent wedding planning, is a little odd... I feel slightly like I'm pretending it's real when actually I'm just a crazy cat lady who doesn't have any cats because she doesn't like them and her fictional Alan is really allergic.

Edinburgh Fringe is intoxicating - a real drippy soup of ego, elation, grinding effort and repetition. Set against a backdrop of twinkles and grey stone architecture. Edinburgh in itself is spellbinding - with the additional furore of the Fringe added it becomes sensational. Like every last day of term rolled into one at a theatre school full of terminally ill models who've taken a very positive outlook on the situation.

I look forward to being back next year - a married woman, with a well rehearsed, planned and presented solo show and a husband back to turn up the volume with me. Here's to various fringes, to finding someone brilliant and to passion. And to our joint account, because that poor bastard needs it more than anyone. Alan, if you're reading this... Please don't check the balance.