Nine Swans a-Drumming
Or something like that, I can’t remember the lyrics. Ok, this was a comic distortion of my memory on the song. But The point is, I can’t remember what nine is. Lords a-Leaping? Ladies Dancing? Send me a message if you know the answer. Look! My very first interactive post - I feel like a grandparent discovering a touchscreen in 2009. But we are nearing Christmas and I thought I would give other songs airtime, that have become so squished by Mariah Carey in recent years. Power to the people! And to the ladies and lords and swans singing and dancing and laying their way to a happy new year.
Whilst it feels like that section is a sentence too much, I like it, so I’ll keep it. I’m coming to you at the end of a strange week - it’s been one where I’ve felt wholly dissatisfied all week despite the week actually going really well. I was panicked about being underprepared all week, and actually ended up at least prepared enough, if not, over-prepared. The week has ended in a good way - I just went to Soho House in Weho (West Hollywood, dontcha know?) with some new chums, and had a single eye watering glass of wine whilst looking out over the city. It was delightful. And it was made even more delightful by a very friendly woman who asked us if they might have our seats when we leave and could she possibly buy us a drink. I usually feel obliged to say something like, “Oh no, thank you so much; I was just getting another one anyway”. But now, more than ever, the necessity of free beer absolutely trumps the obligation to be British, so we had a beer. It was a Peroni. It was also the bottle, despite a pint being on the menu too. I don’t feel slighted, but all I will say on the matter is that I think a pint would have been nice.
I’m worried that that came across in a very arrogant and ungrateful manner. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough of a command of English grammar to fully convey the gentle humour that I was attempting. An exclamation mark feels too brash, an ellipsis too wistful. If I were to say it to you face to face, I would say something along the lines of “It was also the bottle, despite a pint being on the menu too. I don’t feel slighted, but I all will say on the matter is that I think a pint would have been nice.” No, that didn’t sound right. Maybe more: “It was also the bottle, despite a pint being on the menu too. I don’t feel slighted, but all I will say on the matter is that I think a pint would have been nice.” Also, whilst we’re on grammar, I would like to take this time and space to admit that I still don’t honestly know the difference between the usage of a semi-colon and a colon. I mean - I get they each have a distinctive vibe , and I tend to just feel it out in the moment, and put my trust in the heart of the keyboard. It hasn’t steered me too wrong so far, because I haven’t had anyone comment on it. And that’s something only your best mucker will tell you.
I think I was talking about my week before I veered off. I suddenly felt like Noel Coward; sorry. But yes - the week has been fine! In terms of school it’s been slow in terms of progress, but I have got everything laid down for progress to happen, I’m just at one of those stages you get to in any training where you’re at a plateau and need to upgrade to the next level, so I’m just in the process of doing that. Not sure how but I’m trying. I think one of the things holding me back in my sensory work is my focus: I find it difficult to focus on anything for longer than a minute or so. I think that is largely down to me watching TV as I fall asleep and scrolling (honestly, for shameful lengths of time) on TikTok and the like. And other stuff about how the media that we’re fed in society is ruining our brains and our attention span by trying to cram as much information into our brains in as short-a time as possible. But mainly the TikTok thing. They’re really one and the same but I can’t purely blame society when I willingly downloaded it. So, by means of trying to improve my focus, I started a meditative focus course on Headspace and stopped watching TV as I fall asleep. I think it’s working, you know? I found my focus has definitely improved by at least 10% already. And I think that’s a pretty reasonable return for 4 days’ of work. I have also decided that my final frontier is letting go. Not of anything, just letting go. You can understand, I hope, why I might find it difficult to let go, given that I’m not sure that I’m holding anything. It’s all very frustrating to be honest - I think that’s largely why this week has had some strange juju: I’ve had the first real sense of a barrier. To combat this, I have been listening to actors’ podcasts all week, and also combing through Alan Watts’ back-catalogue to unearth any Zen wisdom in those lectures. I’ve learned a lot, but I’m not sure that I’ve let go of anything yet. The closest I’ve got is finding out that to let go, one must be in a state whereby they forget that they need to let go of anything, so the something that they don’t know that they’re holding on to falls off without them knowing. Yup. If there are any monks out there who can help out, please reach out with some wisdom. I’m willing to pay the price of admission up to, but not including ritual sacrifice. I will, however, parlé if that sacrifice is something small, like a child.
I’m typing this next bit because, although I don’t really have anything else to say, I don’t think that I can end on a joke about ritual child sacrifice. I guess I’m old fashioned. A fun story to round off the evening: I went to a bar called Barney’s Beanery on Tuesday night and entered into a trivia contest (pub quiz if you’re nasty) against a team including Louis from One Direction. We came second. I don’t know where Louis came. When we left he was smoking a cigarette outside and we drove past playing One Direction super loud. It was between that and shouting “Bus wanker” but I don’t think he was waiting for a bus, so it probably wouldn’t have worked. There you go, amusing anecdote to round off the evening. And how much better was this blog, now I wrote it when i had an impulse to write something, rather than feeling like I had to?! Admittedly, it is also a lot longer and has a lot of waffle, but it’s got good energy. Peace.