Lurking

"Christmas is just around the corner."

I hate that phrase, it makes Christmas sound like a right pervert. What exactly is Christmas *doing* just around the corner? Creepily touching itself in a dark alley and waiting for us to walk past. Naff off Christmas you gross old bastard.

I like Christmas. Like it a lot. Well... do I? I don't actually care much at all for actual Christmas day. I like the 1-24 December. I like Advent. But I can't prance about pronouncing that "Actually I love Advent." without being the biggest nob on the planet. I'm already a gobby, environmentally obsessed, left wing comedian with her eyes on a gender neutral socialist future: I can't add being a twat about the semantics of tinsel to my list of irritating personality features.

I think a lot of this year's advent is going to be ruined by the election. I have to use social media a lot for work and at the moment looking at my feed is like sticking my head in a nutribullet. Except that there's no delicious smoothie to slurp out of my gaping head wounds; it's factless arguments and terror.

There's no easy answer. Between 2 and 4am on Wednesday when I was lying in a sweaty panic attack trying to calm down about the whole thing I veered wildly between: "Maybe I should take a few days off and get REALLY knowledgeable about the whole thing so I know WHY I believe the things I do." and "Maybe I should shut off the internet all together and just not worry?"

To me, my vote goes Left because I have disabled friends, hospital worker friends and teacher friends who cannot cope any longer with the current status quo. I don't believe most politicians (my girl C Lucas being the exception) and I don't believe the papers either... so, all I can go on is the people on the ground and they are at breaking point. So, I don't know whether the left would be any better at having a go, but at least it might be a change for the foot soldiers? That's my thinking anyway.

The whole ridiculous charade is parading down the street being ludicrous and holding up traffic, while Christmas holds its dick in its hand round the corner waiting to spaff itself all over our faces the second December flicks on.

Perhaps Advent will go some way to blocking it all out? I am certainly capable of downing Chocolate Baileys at an alarming rate and once I've gone through a bottle of that I find most of the world is blocked out. It's blocked out by the carpet because I am lying face down in it singing along to Nat King Cole and wondering why I don't have tinsel up all year round.

Things are just PRETTIER at Christmas. Everything is prettier, everything is more hopeful. Perhaps that's why this election feels so... so rude to be plonking it's disastrous arse -disastrarse TM - in the middle of the whole shiny affair. Surely an election should be the epitome of hope...? Each team laying out the ideas the best minds in the country have come up with? Each team able to use the funds of an extremely wealthy nation to power some BIG IDEAS and have a great offering? Shouldn't this be exciting and hopeful? Why does it feel like we're trying to blow an empty paper bag over the line... why is it all so distinctly un-fun? I think we deserve better.

I suppose that's another reason I lean to the left... because at least they seem to want to try. I get that money doesn't grow on trees and even if it did we'd have cut it down for short term financial gain, but, at least there are ideas in there that don't paint Britain as a dismal failure that should only be focusing on the leaks. We're a pretty successful country... there's so much we could be doing and for ages it's felt like we've been told we can't but not really why. If we need some necessities like schools and libraries and health care, and there's a pot of money... to me, it makes more sense to find out how to put more money in the pot rather than to just cut the necessities? I dunno. I'm a brainwashed hippy I expect.

I should have studied politics instead of spending my time watching Christmas stories where the moral is always something saccharine about it feeling good to help the needy.

I can't wait to put my tree up on Sunday and have a bit of respite from feeling this continual dual action guilt and inefectualness that has settled on my shoulders like an unwanted pashmina. I feel at all times completely powerless and completely like I'm wasting my power. I'll string the lights and light the candles and listen to Nat King Cole take away the outside world and lie on my carpet with the Baileys warming my throat and I'll let that dirty old Christmas jump out from round the corner and flash me what's under his mac. Bring it on, because anything but this.

Commentary

I’ve noticed lately that there is an inefficiency about the internet. I’m worried that my posting to the internet is causing a lot of people to have to repeat themselves ad nauseum in the comments section below whatever it is I’ve posted. I’m really upset by this: I don’t want to be the cause of anyone’s loss of productivity and so to save people the time and resources, I just want to publish here some helpful things to save people having to tire their fingers out commenting.

Ok, here we go… here are some things you don’t need to worry about checking that I know about:

1. “I wouldn’t fuck her.”

I appreciate you need to let me know this in case I think you having watched a video of me is tacit consent and I will now turn up at your house ready to hump you silly. I will always assume that anyone watching my videos is not any more interested in fucking me than I am in them.

2. “She has an asymmetric haircut. I feel X about this.”

I think the worry here is that, seconds before I went on stage someone gave me a surprise haircut which I didn’t notice whilst editing and uploading the video. It is rare for anyone to find out their haircut via the medium of YouTube comments so I think probably don’t worry about needing to inform me. I actually chose this haircut and carry it around on my head every day, so I’m pretty knowledgeable about what it looks like.

3. “She should stick to comedy, not politics.”

I’m so sorry if my comedy video in front of a live comedy audience laughing somehow came across as a serious political broadcast. It may be that people laughing out loud at what poiticians have been saying lately has confused you as to the difference between the two roles. I have taken every step I can think of, such as billing myself as a comedian, performing at comedy clubs (often with Comedy in their names) and making sure that nearly everything I say has a set-up and punchline that appeal to the majority of the room, to ensure that I cannot be mistaken for a member of parliament. However, I may be using the subject of politics to make jokes out of - I believe this is where the confusion lies BUT just to save your tired hands: you need not worry that I have switched careers, you just may not have recognised the jokes.

4. “It’s not funny.”

Often, if you’re commenting this - it’s because you’re not really a fan of my work and the video has found it’s way to you via other people sharing it because they liked it. You will probably have chosen not to share it, and rightly so, because you did not find it funny. This is very sensible behaviour on your part - if we all spent our time only sharing videos that were not funny the world would be a terrible place and I don’t think the internet would have caught on. So, the people who did share it have probably found it funny. Just to save you the effort of writing “It’s not funny” I will assume that if you neither comment on it nor share it nor interact with me you have not enjoyed it. If you are desperate to write something to indicate your non-enjoyment you are very welcome to use the alternative phrase “I don’t find this funny” or “I do not think this is funny” as you’re very welcome to an opinion, but not to make a final judgement summary for everyone.

5. “You wouldn’t say that to/about X”

I probably would, actually - it just isn’t in this video. Across ten years of being a comedian I have mocked pretty much everything set in front of me in some way. I’ve mocked most religions, races, sexes, sexualities, jobs, political opinions and people. I haven’t usually mocked them for who or what they are, but for who or what they are has also not insulated them from being mocked for something else. If what I’m joking about in the video you’re watching is something that upsets you, switch the video off and you will find it produces this marvellous effect where the video is not happening any more and you don’t have to watch it. You needn’t worry that me mocking Brexit is the death of free speech, or the Left wing disrespecting the will of the people; somewhere in my back catalogue you can also find jokes about deforestation, jackfruit and my own mental health. Try not to think that the video happening in front of you needs to be everything - it’s ok for this video to just be this video, and for there to be another video somewhere to balance it.

6. “She doesn't look like a supermodel.”

At the risk of repeating myself, I know this. I chose my clothes and the meals and exercise combo that got me to this weight. I did not rapidly gain weight between the green room mirror and the stage - this is just what I look like all the time and I often feel ok about it. My main job in a comedy room is to say funny things and until I’m at a weight where my ability to speak is restricted I am probably not going to worry about my body fat content in relation to my video content.

7. “Women shouldn’t swear.”

If you have any medical advice as to how swearing is detrimental to a woman’s health I invite you to email me a link. If it is just your personal preference, I invite you to fuck off.

8. “Don’t give up the day job.”

Now, personally, I love this kind of praise - it gives me real confidence. Comedy is my day job, and so by telling me there is no way on earth I should quit doing it you are really giving me the moral support I need to get through another day as a professional comedian. However, oftentimes I feel like it is used a criticism as if to say “don’t believe you could be a full time comedian.” I’m so sorry that I’ve wasted your time writing this - in order for this to work, you’ll need to write your comment and fire it all the way back to May 2015 which is when I last did anything other than being funny for money. However, if you know something about the impending collapse of all forms of entertainment as a revenue stream I invite you to email me. If it is just your personal preference, I invite you not to give up your day job to become a career advisor.

Weeding

"What the hell am I doing?" She thought, looking at the mud under her finger nails and the old jeans cladding her chubby thighs.

Plants were strewn wildly around her muddy ass. She sat heavily in the red soil looking at the holes and weeds.

"Do I pull them all up? How do I know what's a proper plant and what's a shitty weed?" Reaching a muddy hand into her pocket, Ness pulled out her iPhone. It looked curiously futuristic there amongst the grass and the dirt. She looked at the phone a thousand times a day but it never looked out of place. Not in her house where it lived. But here, here in the closest to wild she could get without leaving the city it looked weird. All shiny metal and hard lines.

She tried to give the phone her thumbprint. "Gosh aren't we trusting... imagine giving a tech company access to one of the major things that could have you convicted of murder. Eugh, maybe technology is a terrible idea?"

The thumb print wouldn't scan. Too much mud in the unique crevices of the appendage. "Fucking useless technology." She thought angrily, "Why don't even the basics work?"

She thumped her four digit pin into the screen, leaving wide smudges of detritus across the glass. Pulling up the internet explorer she hammered her question into the obliging little box. "What plants are weeds and which are proper plants?"

In the millisecond before the results appeared, Ness considered scrapping the enquiry just in case the results were scolding. What if the internet got cross with her rampant stupidity? What if the only search result was "Look, if your questions are this basic you have no business being out of a house?"

The results pinged into an orderly line. The first link to her a page about CBD oil. Ness wondered if using a search term with the word "weed" in it had now put her on several lists.

The second, third, fourth and fifth results were all far too complicated for her to understand at all. The sixth link took her to Pinterest and a meme about weeds only being weeds if you chose not to love the flower it could also be perceived as. "Oh fuck off Pinterest. What a waste of the internet Pinterest has turned out to be. An idle dreaming ground for women too pinned down by babies to be able to live in the real world."

Ness didn't need Pinterest. She wasn't pinned down by a baby, much to her misery and shame, she was free in the real world to do as she pleased. The trouble was, she was finding it increasingly hard to be pleased by anything. That's how she had found herself here: on her very own allotment plot with absolutely no idea what she was doing.

Ness looked down at her phone, wiped some of the mud off it and returned it to her pocket. She would just have to pull up everything and start again. so what if she accidentally destroyed some stuff that could have been good? A clean start.. that was what this place needed.

The allotment was overwhelming for a beginner. Even her own relatively small patch was a jungle of twisting things, taller things, short squashier looking things and funny shaped mud patches that would only turn from mud into faeces when they made contact with fingers. Gross.

When she'd first arrived it had looked impenetrable. A shanty town of time-rich Green party wannabees who desperately wanted to save the planet but at a distance from their own perfectly manicured lawns. Without allotments there would be very little reason for the middle classes to own Hunter wellies and then where would appearances be? Not kept up, that's for sure.

Ness' plot was at the top of the hilly allotment patch. It had an incredible view across the city and down to the coast. On a clear day she could see the wind farm standing out at sea promising salvation. It calmed her to be here, even if the gardening portion was baffling.

She pulled herself up onto her knees and let the blood flow back into her chilled buttocks. They stung in a not unpleasant way. "I suppose this is the bum equivalent of being happy to be alive? Like the euphoria when you've held your breath for ages and then give your brain back air? You feel amazing. This is my bum feeling amazing and pumped. Ready for anything. Sorry you can't do much bum. You're cute though."

Ness leaned forward and began pulling up plant after plant from the small raised bed she was sat in. She spent hours teasing all the fine, whiskery roots from the earth and making sure that not a remnant of the plant remained.

The light began to dip and dim, and while the wind didn't pick up as it would have done had this been cheaper writing, it did feel as though the graceful warmth at the edges of the air just quietly receded. Like an introvert at a party, the warmth melted away and Ness didn't notice until the atmosphere was approaching unpleasant.

She stood up and surveyed the ground. A bare patch of tidy looking brown earth now lay where before there had been myriad leaves and grasses. It looked ready for something. It looked she felt: fertile but bare. Waiting.

She glanced robotically down the hill to the hoarding. To the reason she couldn't stop coming here. Down at the bottom of the hill the shiny, plasticated boards loomed across the allotment. 8 feet high and many, many feet wide the developers had installed the hoardings to try and make their plans look more human.

"Let us have the land" said the hoardings, "and we will put families in here. In safe, warm, well-lit buildings that protect babies. You like babies, don't you? Here are some pictures of babies for you to look and realise we should be building here. These babies have parents of two different races, isn't that good? So really, if you don't let us build here you not only hate babies and want them to die outside in the cold but you also are racist. Do you want to be a racist baby hater or should you just let us build our cardboard houses on this plot?"

The breeze lifted Ness' greasy fringe off her shiny forehead. She stared at the enormous photos of the happy couple and their baby on the glossy boards and felt tears gnawing at the sides of her eyes.

"I do love babies," she thought, "I promise I like babies. I really love babies."

"Then why not give us the land?" said the hoardings.

"I need a nursery painted with jungle animals." said the baby. Enormous brown eyes now barely visible through the insufficient November evening light. The baby and its family were melting into the gloaming but Ness could feel them judging her from their homeless cuddle.

"I know you do, but does it have to be here? We need a place too."

"Who are you?" Asked the perfect Dad dismissively.

"Oh, we're the weirdos." Ness whispered, the tears having nibbled their way free and now skating cold races down her cheeks. "We're the weirdos who didn't get to be you. We empathise too much with hedghogs to get any work done, and couldn't switch off fear of the floods long enough to trust a future for our not-babies. We would be you if we could, but you did it first and made it look too perfect for us to risk ruining it by copying. We need a space too."

Standing there, frozen. Completely stuck. Ness could now only see the white of the board around the family. She shook herself to loosen her legs and began to move back towards the gate; careful not to look at the board again.

She wiped the tears dry; more to warm her face than to stop anyone knowing she'd been crying. She'd pretty much always been crying so what difference did today make to strangers?

Itself Gone Down

I can be utterly ruined by fear. Paralysed by it. Fear turns my shit to waterfalls, my skin to ants and my personality to a wrecking ball.

I am not a bitch unless I'm afraid. I'm never snappy and rude when I feel safe. When I don't see many choices I feel afraid - when I feel too late or too far down a path to stop or move, when I feel cornered.

I'm scared of so much. I always have been. I think fear is the single most dominating feeling I recognise from my life. Fear of failing and letting people down feeds deep depression, fear of the future and uncertainty throws anxious vomit into the fan powering my life, fear of breaking the rules made me meek, boring and obedient for so long, fear of not being good enough makes me jealous, bitter and resentful.

Fear must have its upsides - fear must make me a bit nicer sometimes because I am scared of hurting people and having them feel like I do. Fear must make me safer crossing roads. I see the point of fear - fear is what drives a species to seek survival. But what to do with this excess of it now I have a lock on my door and a freshwater tap.

I was a gullible, easily-led child. If someone told me a rule you could safely bet your house I was going to follow that rule. I let fear of negative consequences drive me completely. I succeeded at school because I couldn't break the rules by failing, I went to university because that was the best idea apparently, I got jobs to pay the bills and I got on with being diligent. Diligent is such a great fucking word to describe me. A little autobot whose primary response is to say, "Yes, ok - I believe you."

I was so naturally well-behaved and compliant that I never found out how ok it is when you do behave "wrong". I thought the world would stop if I got detention. A "D" on a test was unimaginable:  it couldn't happen because I literally couldn't imagine the consequences of not getting things right. I got right into my twenties before I found out that the consequence of not complying was just another human having an opinion on what you'd done.

Now I am a comedian. I feel like I shouldn't be though... other comedians seem to be these wild, rebellious characters who were born to be anarchic and fight the system. I feel like comedian-by-numbers... the PA who accidentally found a place in comedy. I don't take drugs (young me was told they are bad), I am not late to things or forgetful (that's rude and I mustn't be rude), I follow the golden laws of the industry. I work hard because you're supposed to.

I am a good girl. I look at the rebels and I simultaneously wish I could be like them and they could be more like me. Every time I saw someone succeed because they changed the rules and forged their own path I was gobsmacked and enthralled and enraged because yet again it didn't occur to me that rules weren't real things.

It's strange how my fears have changed since I broke down. In some ways I'm more fearful than ever before and in other ways the sound has been turned down on the peripheral ones. I'm petrified I've made the wrong choice about not having children - will I regret this forever? Have I ruined my life? Will I ever not think about what ifs? Is anyone going to properly step up and solve the climate breakdown? If they do, will I regret not having children even more? If they don't, what is the future going to look like? What am I living for?

Some of the biggest fears I think I could have. Fears that make my ribs icy. Fears that make me need to rub my neck to check for a guillotine. Fears that make me instinctively move about and want to touch someone's skin for comfort.

In other ways, I'm less fearful completely because I just don't give a fuck any more if I'm doing things "right". All that naive, small world girl belief in some intelligence and organisation from the people in charge has died a snivelling little bit part death. The adults have stopped being gods. The teachers and the kings and the parents have turned into just other people with no better idea of what they're doing than I have.

I'm no longer chasing the exceptional ones at the top of the slide. We've all gone down it and here we are in the pond behind the curtain splashing about making it up as we go along.

There isn't a "right". How exciting and terrifying?

I always had this "drive" for my career that I thought was a drive to get somewhere. My eyes firmly pinned on the horizon for this unknown location. That's where I'm driving to. The point of my career is to get over there. Never mind how smooth the driving is on the way - I've got to get to there.

And I think, and maybe it's a blip and a phase and only this week's emotion, but I think... I think now I just want to drive. I was so busy looking at the goal I forgot that I started doing this just for the pleasure of the drive. Because of the wind in my hair. My half a head of hair.

The last year gave me a taste of something nicer than a destination... I got a little flavour of my own ability to create my own style of comedy. I like things when they're nice, and safe and come from a kind place. I found a way to make softness part of what I do and I love that. Instead of aiming for a place, I'm aiming for a style of driving. Because... why not? I can buy back out of the idea of striving somewhere. It was only ever someone's idea. It wasn't definitely the right way to do something.

Work really hard.
Why?
To succeed.
Why?
You need to be financially responsible.
I am financially responsible.
You could have more...
I have what I want.
I guess you can settle.

And settle is a bad word?

 To settle is beautiful. To settle is restful. Settle an argument. Settle down with a cup of tea and a good book. Settlement.

Can I settle now, not because I've stopped dreaming, but because I dream better when I'm settled?

Last night I dreamed my frightened dreams; my husband caught me texting an ex and a pigeon got in my house and turned into a seagull which chased me and when I caught it by the beak it turned into a baby. Those are the dreams that fear induces... when fear drives me I look to all the other comedians to see what they're doing and why I'm not them. I write panicked jokes in the wrong voice, searching for the message I thought I saw in someone else's nomination.

That's why I write best on stage. On stage, I am settled... that's when the games break out and the voices and my "scenes" and the things I'm proudest of in my work. That's when I find my voice - when I'm settled. Not when I'm afraid.

My favourite thing about comedy is that is has a sell-by-date. No matter how big a star someone was, at some point in the future, the comedy will need explaining. Nothing is bulletproof for eternity as appetites, references, timings and tastes change. How marvellous. By all means have a legacy - but know its overall irrelevancy before you chase it to the exclusion of all else.

There's something so delicious about this stage of comedy - to be the anonymous highlight of someone's weekend as they laugh themselves to choking at you and then you slip away back home to put some washing on and they go and forget who you were. No expectations of you, no mantel to carry about. Whether they love or hate you, 99% of the room have forgotten you tomorrow.

That removes the fear, then. When people say "I couldn't do what you do - I'd be too scared." I think... scared of what? Only a very few remember you anyway so why do you care. Eat the best meal of your life and you only remember a vague outline of the flavours on your tongue and the textures through your teeth. It's the same with most comedy... you're left with the ghost of enjoying yourself instead of the details. It's delicious. It stops me being scared.

For My Mum

My mum isn’t 60. There are some children at school who have old mums, but not my mum.

My mum is young, and beautiful and I don’t really know how old adults are but she’s younger than Dad but older than her sister Kate, I think.

My mum has a long denim skirt, she has cool short hair and she loves Chanel Number 5.

My mum isn’t a bloody taxi service.

My mum sings along to M People and Curtis Stigers in the kitchen.

My mum always does our birthday parties at home and plans homemade games.

My mum is sick of telling us to tidy up our rooms.

My mum loves taking us to buy books before we go on holiday.

My mum loves croissants and wine and swimming pools and us. Most of all my mum loves us.

And suddenly, I turn around and she’s all grown up.

It seems like only yesterday she was letting me stay up late to watch Due South with her

It seems like only yesterday she was letting us think her whole life revolved around us…

Although that seems like only yesterday, I think my mum’s gone and grown up.

Here she is at 60.

And I wonder what she’s going to do next. Now we need her in less time consuming ways, I wonder what she’s going to do next.

I can’t wait to see what she does next.

This woman who raised the three people I love most in the world, if she can do that, what else is she going to do?

My mum is going to carry on being that teacher children hug in the playground.

My mum will be Grandma, whether her Grandsons like it or not.

My mum might find herself a dog…

My mum will keep being an anchor for people at her church.

My mum’s going to be in love.

My mum’s going to come with us to see plays, and musicals.

My mum might find another house to make our home…

My mum will keep making friends with checkout assistants, and shop-girls and, basically, anyone to whom she can chat.

My mum will carry keep making her badminton team a lighter, sillier more inviting place to be.

My mum might learn a new sport…

My mum’s going to play loads more stupid games on her computer.

My mum is going to travel the world… See Sri Lanka and the Caribbean and the sea and the sky.

My mum is all the ages she’s been, while she scraped us off all the walls and floors we fell on. Please don't retire that scraper too soon though, mum, we're going to need that some more.

However old she’s been, she’s been funny and frightened and brave and practical and kind.

And now she is 60.

Thank you for everything you’ve been, mum. We’re so grateful, but mainly, we just can’t wait to see what you do next.

Me and my Donkey

The nature of comedy friendships is tight, short bursts of intensity which spring up like flowers every few months and then return to dormant seeds. We are friends and allies for a night - sharing stories and a microphone before disappearing off to very separate lives and reuniting again in a different theatre somewhere else months down the line.

Most of my green rooms are filled with men, what with comedy still dragging its heels towards anything even close to equal representation. This green room is no different… there’s Chris -Canadian raconteur, Richard - cheeky Brummy live-wire and Ben - a regular JK47. I enter the room and exchange hugs and hellos all round. We sit and wait for the show to begin.

Richard catches my eye across the room just as Ben heads out in search of water and Chris checks his phone for road closures on the route home.

“How’s your baby?” Asks Richard.

I freeze - my smile buffering awkwardly across my cheeks.

In the freeze-frame moment, this is what my imagination has done… it’s very quickly mocked up an image of me holding a newborn - the newborn Richard is asking about - to test whether that is something familiar. A quick fact check suggests I have not had a baby and I am reminded that; I have not had a baby. I have not had a baby and so the Getty Image newborn fades from my grey matter along with it’s fluffy white blanket and the graceful crooked arm of my invented maternal self. I have not had a baby.

“I don’t have a baby.” I say, willing the smile to stay Gentle™ not Manic™. I’m trying to adjust my face so that it’s Quizzical™ without being Defensive™. Trying to remember what Danny Champion of the World’s Dad said about being an Eye Smiler. Are my eyes smiling? I’ve not had a baby.

“Yes you do! Your baby?” For reasons best known to himself, Richard is ploughing on! Baby means Baby. I must have a baby. My mind looks at the facsimile again, and we are forced to conclude that this is not a memory - this is a baby and a life I don’t currently have.

Richard looks so confused - waiting for it to dawn on me, I suppose. He’s waiting for me to slap my forehead and exclaim “Oh, bloody hell! Yeah! That baby! Silly me. Yeah, my baby is fine thanks.”

For a second I wonder whether I should do this… I remember once at primary school when a dinner lady misunderstood a story I was telling her about things I saw on the drive home. Long story short I spent the rest of my primary school years pretending I lived on a farm and keeping her updated on my favourite donkey. I’ve felt guilty about lying to that dinner lady ever since, but really, if you hate confrontation it’s the only choice. A baby is much harder to invent than a donkey though, I reckon. Also, social media didn’t exist back then so there was no need for me to mock up pictures of Donkey and Me having a great time. I look Richard in the eye and decide to take the Awkward™ route.

“Oh, Richard, I really don’t have a baby.” I am firmer, but still Danny’s Dad Eye Smiling. Perhaps I should suggest he has confused me with someone else? Kate Middleton perhaps? She’s extremely fertile. Maybe if I did more charity work or used more expensive shampoo it would happen for me? I bet Kate Middleton never had to pretend she had a donkey.

“No… you did have a baby, didn’t you?” I am full of admiration for Richard’s surety that I am the Duchess of Cambridge. He’s doubling down on his efforts to work out what’s going on, but his mode of discovery is a bulldozer going straight through me. I am definitely not swift enough to avoid the juggernaut. Danny’s Dad’s advice is slipping off my crow’s feet. The front page of Heat magazine is the Duchess of Cambridge’s mud splattered tiara posing with a hired donkey.

“I definitely didn’t Richard. I’ve spent 2 and a half years trying for a baby and not had one.”

There it is. There’s that deluxe multipack of cold awkwardness we ordered. The dump track empties it’s load all over the floor and it’s suddenly very quiet in the room. Only the donkey is vocal, braying from the corner “You twonk - why didn’t you use me? I was wide open!” 

Chris is staring hard at his phone, he must have worked out the status of the A3 by now so I assume he’s moved on to the task of downloading an app for blackhole getaways from awkward situations. I think I can hear Ben’s footsteps outside the room, wondering how long he can stretch the water retrieval task before having to return.

Richard is immediately apologetic… “Oh god, Laura… I’m so sorry.” And other such sentences come tripping out over his immensely sincere lips.

“It’s fine Richard, honestly - obviously just a mix-up somehow. I just did a show about trying for a baby so maybe you saw the poster and got confused.” I’m genuine in my consolations to the poor man… I’ve got quite used to people pushing hard questions on me that have left me making it up to them when they get the answer they didn’t want.

“How long have you been married now… do you ever think about having a family?”

“Gosh, your little sister’s child is 1 now… does it not make you think about having one?”

“You can’t focus on your career forever… so do you just not want kids?”

It’s their small talk and my huge conversation.

I’ve left donkeys up and down the country where I’ve not had the strength that day to tell them what’s really going on. I’ve put on the two piece by Expensive Designer™ and done the royal wave from my tinted windows just to keep the charade going. I’ve done this because wherever I haven’t, it’s been me left apologising. Me making them feel better for having opened my wound.

“I haven’t found out how to have a baby yet because first I ended up close to suicidal over the psychological impact of creating life and then when I got out of therapy and off medication and ready to try, we spent two years with my body not co-operating even though my mind was now on board.”

Silence.

They incessantly ask about the donkey’s eyes, how it’s feeding, how much it’s grown but when I finally stop dodging the question and tell them the damn donkey’s dead they look at me like I dragged the carcass in the room of my own volition. 

I’m left scraping, telling them it’s ok and how could they have possibly known? Why wouldn’t they think it’s ok to continue asking questions about the single most important process a living thing can go through. I pat the back of their hands and smile for the camera - glossing it all over with a squeeze of Pantene.

Ben returns and the conversation steers away into waters much calmer… how are the audience looking, are we going to start on time, are we all feeling match fit? The surface waters of the intermittent comedy friendships are still once again. Frost hasn’t killed these friends-eeds this time. Ben does his set, says his goodbyes and leaves. Chris does his, waves farewell and departs. Richard finishes up, I close the show and we both head out the door… as we leave the theatre he catches my elbow gently and looks at me with absolute regret on his face.

“Laura, I am so sorry.”

“I know, Richard. Please don’t worry. Honestly - it was absolutely fine.”

He smiles and nods sadly, walking away. He’s a lovely guy.

As I drive home with Laura_and_Baby.jpg splashed across the windscreen I make a vow to myself that from now on I can own as many donkeys as I want.

Box of Thumbs and Hearts

The theme of my week has been “social media” - from an unexpected spat with a decade-long-forgotten ex-boyfriend, to a tweet that landed me a front row chair for the “women aren’t funny” parade, to a desperate plea to instagram to refill the little rectangular box of self esteem that is my phone. 

I call it a phone, but really I never phone anyone… I communicate solely by the written word so I can prepare my utterances. I don’t know when voice to voice communication first started to make me feel so boxed in to a corner; I often see text as my saviour, but perhaps the causality is reversed and it’s actually my captor.

My phone is an innocent looking box that when opened can turn out to be jammed full of thumping pink hearts and weird blue thumbs. I open it when I need a glowing rectangle to connect me via lurid icons to the people I am avoiding meeting in flesh and blood. I know it’s vacant and shallow, but damn, sometimes in the sickly orange light of the M25 I look forward to popping it open when I reach my drive way so I can bathe in the apathetic love from these vapidly cultivated symbols.

How easy it is for us to gently scroll our thumb over the “offer positivity” icon and increase someones validation-in-a-circle-number™ for something we will never think of again. For my part as a generator, I’ve significantly contributed to thumb up inflation in my small circle by liberally sprinkling my approval across a large number of posts. I don’t suppose many of them are as addicted to the pixelated thrill of a notification as I am, but in my own way I feel like being generous online is a useless yet nice thing to do.

Generally speaking, I like social media; I am very averse to being alone and have chosen a career that has me riding solo most of the time. I’m the agoraphobic shepherd, the vertiginous window cleaner, the coeliac baker and the unionised CEO.

Social media is a way to constantly have low level company that doesn’t involve me buying a walkie talkie for my husband. He’s very grateful for its existence. I can test jokes, publicise live shows and just… chat… with whoever else is bored at the same time as me. Anywhere in the world. From my uniform hotel room with a million low light lamps and zero illumination I can crowd-source a playlist of upbeat music or chat about a TV show I’m watching as though someone is sat on the bed beside me with popcorn. The icons and symbols I’m sneering at above have all come from real people, with real interaction to offer and to write it off as meaningless because it comes via technology would be to disregard all epistolary novels because they are also simply the product of the best available remote communication at the time.

Just in the time I’ve been writing and rewriting this my phone has been constantly in and out of my hand: I’ve agreed with someone on a book about law I just finished and been able to tell the author how much I liked it, I’ve found video of an American gymnastics meet and welled up watching it, I’ve extolled the virtues of a National Trust membership with an old friend from school. There’s such a glut of the world to find and augment your day with.

I’m too reliant on my phone, and I know that; I take it all too personally. Just this week I politely asked a stranger to be less over-familiar with me when they tweeted me; the winky faces and comments on my appearance with suggestive overtones were just a bit too intrusive time after time. I could have muted or blocked but I thought a reasonable appeal to common sense might work - after all, I was unlikely to be the only one on the receiving end. I was immediately blocked from this person, and whilst, overall, it is going to make no negative impact on my life, for a few minutes afterwards I sat in shame wondering if I was at fault. I wasn’t, and reasonable Laura knows that - but when you allow the meaningless to be your boundless uplift, it follows you’ll allocate it an unreasonable downward pull.

I tweeted something this week about jobs for women in comedy and was immediately confronted with varying levels of disagreement from the predictable usual suspects. Easy to ignore were the simple “women aren’t funny”, harder to walk away from were the blatant misinterpretations of my point dressed up as straightforward explanations. The number of times this week my thumbs have raced over the glass explaining the difference between a “female” and a “female comedian”. When the anger first started trotting in I hovered over deleting the tweet just to cease the vitriol that was now swirling in my living room. I still stood by my tweet, but quite honestly I was physically shaking and not sure I wanted the fight. I sat for a bit and determined that the shaking was stupid. I looked at the likes and retweets in agreement with myself and imagined the reaction as a room full of people: an audience of 150 agreeing politely and about 20 men booing loudly. I kept the tweet up. Muted the moronic and persevered with the debate. Probably overall it was a total waste of my time, but since we developed agriculture what do we have but time, eh? Is this thing on?

On Saturday I went for a day’s shopping in Bluewater to try and find a dress… across 6 or 7 hours I was in and out of fitting rooms and clothes trying on dress after dress. Whilst I appreciate it is the first worldiest of all problems to claim that a day in a sumptuous palace of capitalist hedonism is “exhausting”, there is something curiously draining about repeatedly trying on clothes.The sight of my arse peering out through strained tights as I bent down to pick up a dress - it was a quip to my friends at the beginning of the day. By 6pm I was wondering how this trussed ham had made its way onto the back of body - stowing away like one of Theresa May’s crises and causing irreparable harm to my self-esteem. The constant temperature changes, the impairments to sight and sound as dresses are wriggled over sensory organs, the strip lighting and curtains that aren’t quite wide enough to give you privacy - it’s all a recipe for insecurity and instability.

When I pick up a dress that’s priced over £50 my brain starts a little story for me, it says “Laura, this dress was designed by geniuses and woven out of fabrics invented to compliment the human body. You are going to put this on and the invisible panels constructed by Karen Millen and NASA will whisk the parts of your body you dislike off to another dimension. While you are in this dress you will be 5’10” and won’t have all those fears about owning 2/3s of the world’s eyebrows while some people have none. Your collar bone will naturally pop to a sexy 50s level, and you will have knees made of “firm” instead of “gelatinous”. You will look, not merely “beautiful”, because that could mean any thing, you will look how you imagine you have the capability to look if only you had the money. This dress knows your aims and is made of how to get you there. This dress is rocket fuel.”

I carry the dress lovingly to the fitting room all the time marvelling at the science that must go into making these dresses worth the money. My t shirt comes off over my head causing a flurry of static electricity and ruffle to muss my hair. My skirt comes down leaving the various restrictions of my tights and underwear exposed. There’s an angry red line where my bra rubs my ribs and the mini fold under there is waving happily. Never mind, I think, rubbing distractedly at the strap welts on my shoulders, this dress is designed for these challenges. I am the snow and this dress is the tyre chains.

The dress goes back over my head pulling my fringe into a greasy curtain and smearing the remaining oily sheen of foundation towards my chin where it has gathered in a little orange huddle right by the too-dark hairs on my top lip that this light is determined to celebrate. I locate the under skirt, the second lining, the fluffy bit and the over beading and try to get them all to lie calmly before focusing on the zip. I am not double jointed, an escapologist or a jelly fish so the zip is difficult to get my hands on.

I push the curtain to one side and back out asking a free friend to get the zip for me and she begins. It’s not happening. “It’s not you,” she says, soothingly, “the fit is fine - it’s where the zip crosses the dress pattern. Hang on.” Another friend is called over to hold the material together while another one channels the force and determination of Dwayne Johnson to raise the obtuse zip to its final resting place. My friend is right of course; the dress fits fine and it is the chunky material that’s causing the problem but that doesn’t make the feeling of being a swollen joint any less real. Are other people in the fitting room looking at me and wondering why I am so deluded as to thinking this dress is the right size, how can it need two people to do a zip? But then it is on and it is indeed the right fit; it’s for another blog post to discuss why the right fit is this overtly tight one, but for now; it’s the right fit.

I stand, finally in, breathing awkwardly - feeling ashamed and embarrassed trying to assess the dress in the various mirrors around me. Bizarrely I am still only 5’1” and the science hasn’t worked so a foot of the dress is lying in a puddle around my feet, and the magical panel has done nothing to disguise the downward droop of my gaping tummy button in the stretch of the fabric. My friends have their heads cocked to one side and we are all debating the nicest way to say “not this one darling” and get me back into my clothes. The price tag has meant nothing about the dress; the dress is still only designed for one body, the magazine body, the rare body, not my body. It is not expensive because they have worked tirelessly on how to make it the best it can be for the majority, it is expensive because if you have the body for this dress you will buy it regardless just to show that off. How could you not?

The layers of dress are going back over my head, my old clothes go back on but they don’t feel pristine and carefully chosen like they did this morning when they went on - they feel stretched and crumpled and tired. So do I. We move on to the next shop where the tags will tell me the same lies. And I’ll believe them. How could I not?

In desperation as my sugar levels drop to unacceptable levels and we stop for a coffee and an affirmation of our friendships, I look back at the photo of the nice dress I found. The picture I quite like. The one dress in twenty that I looked back at the photo and felt proud of my lumps.I prepare it for instagram - one quick heroin hit of mood booster. I write something attempting humour in a bubble over the photo to lessen my attention grab’s humiliation and I carefully pose the text down one side of my body to minimise the real estate my hips take up on the screen. Post. A slow dribble of yellow faces with heart eyes, and the lovely beautiful comments from my friends about how great I look are gratefully and sociopathically consumed. I needed that. It’s fructose in place of nutrition but I know it’s not terminal. It’s not the end of days. I’ll have a lovely boost from lovely people right now, and then I’ll probably go away and stew on why I needed such a shallow reaction which will result in a lengthy, verbose blog post that I’ll then post on social media and wait for the appearance or absence of iconised reaction to that before closing my laptop and going to a job where I base my self worth on the binary reaction options of a comedy gig and wonder why approval means so much to me. C’est la vie.