Weird weekend

It started off surreal, then went disorganised, then was brilliant and extravagant, then my dreams were complicated, I played the uke, and now I'm back at work. After a pretty good Thursday night, my expectations were for a full-on anticlimax on Friday, when Grania and I went to see Shunt's production of Money in a warehouse in Bermondsey. Control-freak that I try not to be, I'm not that good with surreal. I generally prefer to know exactly what is going on, and be able to change the course of things if necessary. I do, however, know that it is important for me to face up to the fact that I understand nothing and any concept I may have of controlling anything is an absurdist fantasy in itself. Thus, in the spirit of facing one's fears, I try to put myself in situations where I'm out of control as often as possible. Going to see Money would certainly count as one of those situations. Fortunately, when I admitted later to Grania that I spent most of the time thinking 'What the FUCK is going on?', she conceded that she'd had a similar reaction. And what was good was that it was really fun. At one point, we were clutching on to each other in the dark, wondering if we were going to be frisked by a terrifying actor dressed up as The Stig; a few minutes later, we were drinking free champagne and throwing plastic balls at other audience members across a giant perspex platform. The set, lighting and sound were absolutely phenomenal; the acting was fine; the plot was... absurd - but it was an interesting experience and I'd definitely head along to their next production with a spring in my step. Then we went to dinner at Village East which was perfect and not surreal in the least. Actually, I lie - the illustration to indicate the route the ladies' facilities was of an owl with a woman's head. That was a bit odd.

Saturday I slept a lot and spent an intense hour with Rodney Yee (via the medium of DVD) - the man really is a wonderful aberration and I still ache now. In the late afternoon, I headed into Covent Garden and met up with Luke for a New Year drink/dinner/more drink. We talked mostly about him, which is how he likes it, and it was really fun. I got home feeling very giggly and bought a new bed.

Then Sunday morning hit. I had set my alarm for 10am, and then woke up all perky at about 8am. Brilliant, I thought - what shall I do with my spare two hours? I had high hopes for organising my bathroom cabinets or something equally useful, but before the plan had solidified I had fallen back to sleep in a quasi-narcoleptic fashion, my brain desperate to avoid the task I'd identified. And, as so often happens when I'm asleep but semi-awake, I had vivid dreams, where a boy I liked was being horrible to me, and then I agreed to have all these random people back to my house for dinner, and they were all there and I was in the kitchen and Emily and Lucy were trying to help by preparing the starter but I got really really angry with them for stealing my thunder by handing out all the food, and I woke up feeling a mixture of sad about the boy, guilty about Emily and Lucy, and stressed about not having defrosted the lamb in time for the fictional dinner party. Honestly. Then I was running late for my ukulele workshop, so I went to that for two hours which was good as I learned to play Take Me Home, Country Road and Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life including the key change in the last chorus, which makes me sound so professional that perhaps my audience may forget about the fact that I can't get one of the intervals at all and have to sing extra-loudly to cover up that bit. Then I went back home and faffed, got excited about my new bed, got excited about my holiday, chatted on the phone to girls about boys and then went to bed and couldn't sleep. Now it's Monday, I'm back at work, the week stretches ahead, the weather is minging, it's too cold to go for a run and the prospect of the treadmill is not filling me with joy. Grumble grumble.