The Northern One

The bloke in the Black Cab fleece said "good luck with the Northern one, mate" and I didn't correct him. I could've said "it's Edinburgh, actually, the show's at Edinburgh" but that would've meant admitting I'd been thinking about it all morning, which would've meant admitting I'm thinking about it too much, which it turns out I am. Jules still hasn't replied to the email and I've checked three times since I woke up and it's not even noon. I know she's busy. I know these things take time. But my brain has decided that no reply is the reply and now every minute is a small funeral.

The open mic was a mess. Not disastrous — I've had disastrous, I know what it looks like when a room goes dark and you can hear someone checking their phone. This was worse in a way because there were beats. Individual beats that worked, that got the laugh, and then the structure fell apart and I lost the thread and ended on a tag that was three seconds too long and I could see the room deciding they'd laughed enough for this bit. I took notes in the dark like a fucking journalist. "Line 4 — find the beat before tag." "Tag too long." "Tag too long" is in my notes twice. I know the problem. Knowing the problem is the whole problem.