Tues: No Sooze

WITH ALL DUE REZPECKT TO MR P CRAWLEY It’s all material now, isn’t it? Or, even better, fodder.

Trying to ‘schedule me’, review-wise, for the Dublin Theatre Festival, Irish Theatre Magazine’s online emperor Peter Crawley came up against my Hadrian’s Wall of Tuesday Night. [I’m sure he can supply a better metaphor, in the comments, perhaps?]

Tuesday nights are inviolate. It’s not simply the fact that I have paid for thirteen weeks of Tuesdays, in advance, it is very much that I am so much better for having had my ride [snarf]. Saturdays, however, have been somewhat more flexible of late: missed one while at Mikey’s wedding in the States [but still managed to get two rides in at a stable in Jerz] , missed one when meeting a group of friends I only meet once a year, will miss one when I go to London to see Kaz this weekend. Which begs the question: what about your holidays, Sooze?

Well, they’re fucked, basically, and that’s fine with me. If I could get somewhere reasonably— and I could, you know, continental Europe, no big deal— and have a holiday between a Wednesday and Friday… not inclusive, so much, I’d have to be back by Friday night, and, yeah, I’d have to leave on Wednesday, so it’s looking like a Thursday holiday for me in Budapest… so, no. What’s the point? I don’t want to go anywhere. Throughout my whole life, I have always wanted to be somewhere, go somewhere, some of my happiest moments were spent dreaming over outdated travel guides picked up in the Salvation Army shop, or more recently, clicking peripatetically round the interwebs for hours and hours. Now? Not so much.

I have been entirely domesticated by the horses.

I did take two weeks off this year and, uh, I spent every day in a private lesson. Eye-opening, as in giving me specifics to work on [like every single thing to do with my posture] and as in, it is pretty challenging to be the unwavering focus of the instructor, and nervous-making to be the only one begin corrected [shouted at] for forty minutes. But I’ve come on leaps and bounds since, and… hmmm. Wonder if I can squeeze out another week before Christmas?

And then there’s Thursday nights, they look about to take a fall as well. I told Paul that if someone dropped out of the 7.45 on Thursdays to put me in, and he laughed. ‘Three times?’ he laughed. If a horse guy is laughing at me, I must truly be a case indeed.