January

Still playing catch up here, bear with. January: the greyest of months, I love Christmas more than your average 43-year-old man without children should, so when it's over I always feel particularly deflated. Yet, like most, I see it as a time for setting massive, mostly unachievable goals, which make us all feel artificially motivated until the middle of the month when we realise a lot of them simply aren't going to happen, and you then have a good eleven and a half months of feeling unsatisfied with yourself. 

Mine, however, have to be achieved, because, like an idiot, I started the year by not only applying to every festival going, with 5 DIFFERENT SHOWS, which means I have to write them now. I also took the potentially financially flawed decision of letting six of my drum students go, just to clear up a bit of time. It's never nice having to send that email out, it's like dumping someone* in a "it's not you, it's me...you've been the perfect student but I just don't have time to have a life outside of work" kind of way. Luckily, my decision coincided with an email from a fellow drum teacher pal, who is taking on more private pupils, so handing them directly over softens the blow a little. I mean, they may even prefer him, who knows? He's a lovely chap, after all. 

Either way, with a little more leeway in my schedule, now that I'm down to a tame 92 students a week, I started plotting shows, what I want from them, which will be solo, which will have a cast, and I bashed out surprisingly good 40-word descriptions for each of them...surprising, because these shows don't exist yet. One thing I insist on this year is that all of these many shows have to be very different from each other. I remember a few years back at the fringe I was performing 5 solo shows a day, and at least three of them felt a bit too similar and I often forgot which one I was doing. Awkward-man-being-awkward can only really stretch so far. Offers came in much quicker than I expected, so it was time to start writing, fully utilising all of those new six hours I had gained. Other goals weren't achieved, of course (you know, exercise, drink water, stop swearing at my fancy coffee machine because it's nowhere near as fancy as advertised, etc), but that was always going to be the case. 

*I've only ever dumped someone once, by the way, and she rejected it, and then dumped me an hour later. 

***

With lessons back on, shows being booked, writing till 3am happening most nights (in a dark room, often with a small glass of duty free scotch), I also ticked the socialising box by going out for dinner with Andrea, Edd and Lester (occasional bandmates, but above all - friends), and then Matt, Rohan, Marcus and Adam (lads!), plus a few times with Aggie (wife!) and then Esther (dear friend from a long time ago who I've reconnected with, and we've decided to do a show together). Played the first gig of the year with the blues band (hotel bar gig, first half rusty, second half we hit our stride) and met up with creative chums Izzy, Alex, Nicole and Alan over beers to discuss many theatrical outings, and then separately director supremo (but, again, above all - mate) Cara to shout ideas at her for 2 hours on a Monday evening. Poor girl must be knackered.

And, because it's January, I then went and picked up the lurgy and was out of action for three days. Like most of the country. Having slept for the entirety of those, I ended the month refreshed and raring to go, which is a relief because February was a crazy one. And that's where the blog posts will begin properly...