Last Wednesday I went to JawDance at Rich Mix in Shoreditch. It was a few minutes away from where I go for my internship so I met my friend, Siobhan, at the station and we stolled around Brick Lane, and ate at Cafe 1001. I arrived in good time and was about fifth on the open mic list. The other performances were good, and there was a lot of variety of styles.
I enjoyed my set, and got a couple of compliments. I got chatting to one girl, called Laila Sumpton, and I recognised her from my old dance class, Gemini Dancers and asked her name, and it was her. She also knew fellow poet, Alain English – what a small world! I also listened to the video again on the tube to see if you really could hear it, and you couldn’t really, apart from at the stops… so maybe not quite as embarrassing as I first thought.
On another note, I’ve finished Henry James, The Portait of a Lady. It’s one of those books that is so beautifully written that it’s just a pleasure to read it. It makes me feel like Henry James is reading to me as we sit by a fire in an old Victorian mansion. The characters, especially Isabel, the lady in question, captured my interest entirely, and although due to my busy schedule I was unable to keep the pace of my reading, the story drew me in each time I picked up the book. It’s wonderful when a book can truelly take you into another world and make you forget your own life for a while – that’s what this does. At over 600 pages, I’m now ready to take on Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust for the second time.
I went to Thorpe Park yesterday and had so much fun that I implusively bought a “bounce back” ticket for a tenner so hopefully will get to go with a few of the friends that didn’t get to go this time. I went to the gym for the first time in a while, maybe 2 weeks and it felt good to get some excercise done! I’m going to go again tomorrow. I weighed myself afterwards which was a mistake – 9 stone 11 pounds – which is basically my normal weight. I know it sounds stupid, but sometimes I get it into my head that I’d like to get down toe 8 stone 7 pounds. In reality, 9 stone 7 pounds would surfice, as I just want to sort out trouble areas like thighs, stomach and bingo wings, and a BMI of 22.8 would be fine (well, my current BMI is also fine) but 20.4 sounds so much better. All this is silly to say anything about anyway, because the only reason I go to the gym is so I can stuff my face with things like yummy roast dinner and dark chocolate – which is what I’ll be doing later tonight 😀
And I think I’m going to have about 5 cans of Fosters tomorrow night (and that’s me trying to be sensible!) with a friend I haven’t seen since Hop Farm festival! And I have Monday off work. Looking forward to these next few days! Next open mic will be Needle & Thread in Herne Hill, at the Half Moon Pub.
xxx
Poet on page and stage. Creator of She Grrrowls. Facilitator. Writer. 