So I am just about on course to get through the weekend without complete melt down. My whirring brain didn't let me sleep too well, which is all I really needed, but I managed to get through the Collins and Herring show on 6Music, so that's one radio performance down, and then get home and do a good solid three hours of work on the Objective script, which although it needs some tightening and some tinkering will be fine. With that done it feels almost like the normal mad rush to get AIOTM written, but with the slight inconveniences of an early start to go and sit in for the newly wed Dave Gorman on Absolute (if I am honest when he asked me to deputise for him, I had assumed I was taking over the honeymoon duties, so it's a slight disappointment to just be on the radio) - 10-12 Sunday morning if you want to tune in (podcast also available) and then the rehearsal and performance of the Objective script. But there's a solid window between 1 and 4 to get on with some writing and then 9-12 at night for some more. And then all of Monday. This should be the greatest AIOTM ever.
To make things a little more complicated my girlfriend was having her birthday party tonight, which was probably not the best timing from my point of view and I did manage to stay awake for a meal and the first 90 minutes of the party, but the event was in the tiniest room imaginable (not much bigger than a cupboard and I am not even exaggerating or de-xaggerating for comic effect) and packed with thirty plus people and had a massive speaker loudly blaring into the space. Even had I been full of beans with nothing to do I would have found this environment hard to cope with and I had to make my excuses. Last night I had also had to bail out of a poker night I had been really looking forward to. I think my girlfriend suspects that I enjoy the drama of all this and deliberately put myself into these last minute panics so I can play the put upon martyr. I think she might have a point. Though it is hard to see how I could have avoided it this time round. And I would really like to have partied and pokered (that's playing poker, not what you're thinking). But whatever, I am the main victim of this prickery.
I spoke to mum on the phone this afternoon, who was of course concerned by how much I am doing and asked me to promise I wouldn't do any more AIOTMs after these ones. I didn't promise it, but she might have a point. It may be time to pass that baton on to younger men and women who can cope with this kind of strain. If this weekend has taught me anything (and it's not over yet so there may be more to come) it is that I have to make some time for myself and those who I love and that I can't keep pushing myself to the edge of exhaustion and madness and illness. And you should always listen to your mum, right?
But maybe once the pressure is off and the shows are done I will feel differently. It would be a shame to end AIOTM, but maybe 22 is enough and maybe I am better off using my time for more considered projects. If you want to catch it live, you may only have three more opportunities. Though if it started selling out then I could maybe justify writing at a more restrained and considered pace. We will see. This is a message to the future Rich, from Tuesday 12th October 2010 who will be feeling happy with himself and thinking this wasn't too bad a thing to have put himself through. "You are wrong, future Rich. This was too much to put yourself through. Don't do it again. And make sure you enjoy your freedom and don't just stay inside all day watching telly. God I hate you, you're such a predictable twat."
I don't know why I am wasting valuable sleeping time writing this shit. Night night.
