Rather Be In Bed

This is because I don't quite know how to make today work. I have lots to do and I feel it is difficult and outside my comfort zone. Even calling people up feels difficult. Email them, you cry. Yes, I could but I have been told I had better start talking on the phone to Relevant People because they like it better. Ah, I say with a canny little wink, do I like it better. You, say my advisors, don't count. They mean that I am asking for favours and so my feelings come second.

The thing I dread most is picking up the phone and having someone say something like

• Ha you Worm. Don't waste my time with your Wormy Business
• (Long silence). I have heard of you. (Long silence). I fill the silence with squeaks and apologies.
• HA HA HA HA You what?

It has never happened, maybe because I haven't called anyone yet. What I want first off, is for people to support me in everything I do. Second, I want everyone to agree with me. Thirdly I want everyone to gasp in admiration at everything I paint, and lastly (for the moment, there may be more) I want everything to be easy. Everything is NOT easy because I don't always think clearly. Or perhaps I do think clearly but am terribly handicapped by fear of not being taken seriously. So I go all woolly. Maybe. Or maybe I'm just not very good at life. Sigh, cue Tammy Wynette. Or Leonard Cohen because his songs are incomprehensible, but the music is sad. Ish.

The weekend was good. 19 Year Old Daughter who lives in Brighton came home in floods of tears on Saturday, her plans had fallen through for the evening and if that was bad, what was worse was that she had put perfect makeup on and backcombed her hair like Brigitte Bardot and spent ages getting ready and now there was nowhere to go. So I picked her up at the station at midnight, and lo. She was still looking absolutley glamorous but the black eye makeup was all cried off and there were little rivulets of black down her cheeks. But the hair was still backcombed and perfect. What a shame I thought, she really does look wonderful. And I loved how nothing, no disaster on earth, would make her take off her Outfit and have an early night. It was a teeny bit like a teenaged blonde temporary Miss Havisham. She did eventually get undressed and go to bed at about 1am, after I had made her her favourite Lapsang Tea and Cheese On Muffins and there were teddies on her bed and just to be on the safe side, to show I am in her Zone, so to speak, I put a very high heeled pair of fancy red satin shoes at the end of the bed in her line of vision so she would at no time forget who she was.

It turned out to be a lovely time with her, and 12 Year Old Son. Daughter brings with her Music. She is my Music, and when she here I love her music and we sing together and it makes us laugh. I bought her some twinkly fairy dust for her bath (Tesco do it) and so the whole Not Having A Saturday Night was forgotten. Actually, she had worked so hard and done nights recently, I think she was exhausted. I am glad she came home, she is very precious.

And now. And now. Despite everything I have no excitement about today. I am nervous and unfocussed. I am worried that everything is empty and pointless and that I am not going to make these exhibitions work. I will do my best though. Haven't even had tea this morning so I had better go and get the gallon pot out, and put that right. Maybe that is the answer. It is all down to whether or not I have had my tea. Perhaps then all will be full of light and wonder.