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Because I am a hero, I did a second night in a row of looking after my daughter. But this time she slept at least for some of the time. And I think I did too. But I have lost all touch with reality so I might not have or I might have dreamed the whole thing and I didn’t look after her at all. This afternoon I suddenly remembered showing my wife a really long eyebrow hair that I had plucked out and how impressed she had been to see it. But then I realised that she is rarely impressed when I show her anything that I have pulled out of my body. So I asked her if I had shown her the really long eyebrow hair or not. And she said I hadn’t. It had all been a crazy dream. And the worst thing about that is that my subconscious thinks that that was worth playing out. No, the worst thing is that I was really genuinely proud of my three inch long eyebrow hair. And was sad when I realised that it had all been a figment of my dulled imagination. But I am too tired even in my dreams to think of anything better than that. And yet I still mourn the eyebrow hair that never was. Unless me asking my wife about it was the dream, in which case, hooray for my long eyebrow hair.
But I was at least awake enough to get through most of my day (until about 5pm when I fell asleep on the floor) and Phoebe was in a much happier mood, laughing and waving at everyone. Her favourite game is to be told that, no she can’t do something, and then doing it anyway, really laughing as if the word “no†is a joke. Which doesn’t seem to be great work by evolution.
No, keep your fingers out of that plug Phoebe!
Ha ha ha. As if.
No, I am not joking, don’t do it.
Ha ha ha. I am going to do it. This is the game, right?
No, you will die.
It’s funny when you say no.
No, it isn’t.
Ha, you said it again.
She is so wilful and is clearly going to be the worst trouble for us in the future, but I can’t help but love her for this. Even if it’s going to be a challenge keeping her alive.
After getting some work done in the morning (only my short form stuff, like Metro columns and blogs - I have still got nowhere with the latest sitcom script) we walked to Chiswick and had some lunch. After his stressful week it was such a relief to do something normal with the family, but this is the really magical thing about being a parent. As with the burger and beer the other night, things you would have once taken for granted and got little pleasure from take on the most amazing significance and send a surge of adrenaline through your body as if you’re mainlining pick n mix (I don’t take drugs so can’t tell if it’s the same as that).
Tonight, after my impromptu sleep on a hard wooden floor I headed to Islington for my second weird venue gig in two days. This time I was part of the Islington Festival of Culture (something I was happy to reference when I mentioned “smegma coated nubbinsâ€) and the gig was in the middle of a building site. Maybe this is the state of comedy now that comedians must perform in whatever dilapidated venue they can find, but it was a weird, though fun half an hour. And somehow I have nearly got through this tricky week, even with the booby traps set by my snot-filled infant.
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