I started this exercise as a way of overcoming writer's block. To get my mind into gear for the writing day, because I was having difficulty getting into writing my film script. This has worked quite well, but some days, like today, I find that I can't think of anything interesting to write here, whilst ironically I am chomping at the bit to get on with the film. I've been sitting here for fifteen minutes and started a few things, then discounted them. So does the diary thing become a hindrance rather than a help in this situation?
Probably not. It is good to stretch myself mentally and to go over the events of yesterday (I write the dated entry on the morning of the next day, so it is actually the 11th today) and try and think of something amusing or noteworthy. Of course when you are writing all day, there often isn't much to say "I wrote my script!". But that's not the point of this exercise. The point is to find something entertaining in the minutia of the day and believe me, even when I'm writing extremely efficiently there are plenty of minutes and hours where I am doing other stuff.
The beauty of this is that I can not really get completely blocked as I just have to write about something that has actually happened.
Ironically yesterday was quite eventful as I had a couple of meetings and went out with friends at night. But as another incite into my clearly declining mental state, the thing that sticks in my mind is my losing my travel card.
I have very rarely done this, and on the occasions it has happened I have almost always thought at some point in the day, "I hope I don't lose my travel card today", which isn't something I generally think.
I had bought a travelcard to go to Victoria for a meeting about a TV version of Talking Cock in the morning and had gone home again afterwards. Then in the afternoon I was going to Ladbroke Grove for a meeting about my film. As I crossed Sainsbury's car park to the tube I thought, "Oh God, I hope I haven't left my travelcard at home". After some thorough checking I found it in the back pocket of my jeans, which is where I generally keep it and was also somewhere I had checked three times in the previous minute.
When I got to Notting Hill, I was going to get a bus to Ladbroke Grove (don't tell me I should have gone on the Hammersmith and City line - it's very inefficient and it takes longer. I call it the Hammersmith and Shitty line. That's quite a clever joke.). Again at the bus stop I checked all my pockets for my ticket. Again it was in the back pocket of my jeans. Again I had already checked there.
It was cold and there was no bus, so I decided to walk, thinking I could maybe jump on a bus when it came. I got all the way to Ladbroke Grove tube before a bus came, I thought I could jump on it to go the extra 500 yards or so that I had to travel. But when I looked for my ticket it was gone. I checked all my pockets and even my back pocket, but no, it had vanished. I checked my back pocket again, after all it wouldn't be the first time it had miraculously re-appeared. But this time the ticket wasn't playing ball. I had a feeling that on my walk I had absent-mindedly thought that I mustn't lose the ticket, so would put it somewhere special and safe. So I checked inside books and all my pockets again. Then in my back pocket again. Still nothing.
So I walked and had to buy a tube ticket home (I went from Ladbroke Grove tube, on the Hammersmith and Shitty - see what I did there- line. It was slow)
I suspect that in a couple of weeks time I will find the ticket, tucked inside the turn-up of my jeans or something, but it was just one of those days where tube ticket loss was inevitable. Perhaps it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, perhaps my sub-conscious decided to teach me a lesson for my foolishness. Or perhaps that travelcard just had to be free. It was its destiny to blow along the streets of Notting Hill, to be its own travelcard and not be used.
