It has been a slow start to the week.
I have gigs tonight and tomorrow. August is pretty dead unless you’re doing Edinburgh. I’ve been fighting the fatigue today and only now am I getting around to really rehearsing. I didn’t do anything or see anyone at the weekend, which is par for the course for me if I am not gigging. It is very unhealthy, I know that.
I’ve got 2 to 3 new minutes of material to test tonight. I have been writing a lot of new stuff and yet, I don’t seem to acknowledge that when it comes to looking at my lack of creativity, but that is probably down to me always making a strict distinction between my writing and doing stand up. The latter doesn’t require the focus of the former, and the focus for the former has been lacking for several years now because of Long Covid. It should be an easy thing to sit down and write and push back on that, but it just seems beyond me.
I am conscious that I just seem to be squandering my time really. I did this afternoon email the Free Fringe which goes against much of what I believe in when it comes to being a creator. I’ve said it before, my heart has never been in doing Edinburgh or even returning there as a Punter. It’s not my thing. I live in one of the world’s greatest cities but I think I am typical native Londoner in that I do not engage with events, museums, galleries. I just walk past these things and pay them little attention. I’m minded that any Edinburgh is unlikely to move the dial for most comics. There is my fear of flying to add to that - I haven’t been on a plane since Christmas 2007. There is the cost too of going up there for a few days. But against all that is I do feel I am throwing my life away while I fight this illness. The rehab is going well. I am relishing being in the gym and the pool but the early signs are that it won’t necessarily counter the specific fatigue, mental and physical that Long Covid has bestowed on me. While the rehab work is likely to help me recover strength, my hunch right now is it won’t necessarily help with the worst of the fatigue.
I should add though that mentally the rehab is really helping me counter a lot of the pain, not LC in this case, but the pain that comes from the stress and pressure I am under, so if I can, I would like to find a way to maintain that rehab work beyond the six months I have on this program. That won’t come cheap.
Again, I have lost my thread. My point is, there are more reasons not to do Edinburgh than there are to do it. Brighton Fringe was a mixed bag, a brilliant start followed by a disastrous end. That was on me though because I just wasn’t able to manage the project, and more worryingly, wasn’t inclined to. I can’t see myself doing something like this again unless it’s a spur of the moment thing, which runs completely counter to who I am. Perhaps though it is the only way I do something like this now, whereby I confine the stress of it all to just a few bad days.
Of course there is the cost too. I have a couple of very serious situations going on right now and like many am not in a position to throw away money, but against all that, again, and most importantly of all, maybe I just need to do something different, you know? Something so out of my comfort zone. A guy that doesn’t like travelling, or hanging around with comedians, and above all, doesn’t like flying, actually goes and does all of that, and accomplishes another thing this year, which given the range of obstacles I am up against with my health and housing, is quite something, even if it falls way below my former levels of creativity. I am so disengaged with things, I think it’s a real possibility. Maybe that is one of the positives to come out of this post-2022 world I live in now.
The Free Fringe people have been in touch with a slightly confusing message, I have to say, but it’s something I will look at later. Again, I am slow to move things on, but there is no time really left to deal with this. It’s now or never, or at least, not this summer.
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