A reminder of why it's going to be hard to write a book at the same time as touring the country. Even though I had no driving to do yesterday, I didn't get to sleep til the early hours and woke up still very tired.
And I really got nowhere with anything workwise.
I decided to walk into town this evening to at least get some exercise and made it to Marble Arch before I realised I was in danger of being late so jumped on the tube. It really helped get my head together to have the walk though, as well as burning off a few calories. My recent diet hasn't being going too well, but I realised why today. I had set my daily limit at 2000 calories in the hope I would lose weight quickly, but the problem with that it is easy to go over one's allowance, feel like a failure and lose heart. By setting it at 2500, which will make for a much more gradual weight loss, I can end up eating 2200 calories, which would have felt like a negative last week, and it suddenly has become a big positive. It's the same limit I had last year when I lost 2 stone. It's all very psychological that the same amount of food can make you feel like a winner or a loser depending on your goals. Impatience to lose weight too quickly can be a killer. By attempting to lose 2 pounds a week and failing, you can be the same weight or even heavier after a month. But if you go more gradually and only aim for one pound a week, then you can get to the end of the month four pounds lighter. It's an interesting balance.
No scratch that, it's a boring balance.
But the walk paid for the Dime Bar (I'm not calling it a Daim Bar) and burned off an additional 100 calories. And cleared my fuggy, headachy brain, making me ready for the show.
Though last night was fine in the end, tonight was on another level. Everything went perfectly technically and I just took the advice of my pompous email correspondent and acted confident. In fact I didn't need to. I was confident and right back on top of the material and there were very nearly 300 people in the room and they were laughing right from the start. It felt amazing, maybe the best show yet and still I know that it can and should get better. I am really looking forward to touring it. It's a very special feeling when you get an audience's focus in the way I did tonight. And such a relief that there are bums on seats. It takes all the pressure and fear of financial loss away.
In the show I discuss my adolescent fantasies about Janet Ellis - gleefully describing her as obviously a dirty little slut for getting pregnant when she wasn't married as a Blue Peter presenter. Later I describe my confusion at now being friends with her and the fact I would be prepared to have sex with her simply to make the teenage me happy (though I comment that I am now more interested in her daughter - who unsportingly has just had a second baby boy, putting my plan to fall in love with the next generation of Ellis girls in twenty years on hold).
I only found out afterwards that Janet and her husband were in tonight. It's the sort of stuff that they have witnessed before I suppose, but it was mildly embarrassing to have to see her "in real life" after saying such bold things on stage. It provided a nice extra bit of fun for the few members of the audience who witnessed my mild contrition.
Despite all this Janet and her husband declared that the show was "lovely", which is a common reaction. Given how much I talk about wanking off paedophiles during the show this is quite an achievement.
I thought about walking home, but just walked to Oxford Circus instead. I completed the kakuro on the way back. Life doesn't get much better than this. Just hope I am in a fit state to get some writing done tomorrow.
