It’s My Birthday!

And I’ll cry if I want to… It’s okay, there’s no cause for tears. I’m only turning 35, so it’s just half of my likely 70 years over now. Phew. It is however a good reason to have a week off work, so I’m just beginning to enjoy that as well. It was a fairly manic three day week and I’ve been using the break to do almost nothing so far. Happiness is a relief from activity. I am now of course getting twitchy with too few planned activities and things to do. Not that I have nothing to do, far from it, but the lack of schedule is potentially going to make me crazy.

Being an organised sort I’ve already had my birthday party. It’s an excellent occasion to make a pile of people I like and make them talk to each other. Birthday parties seem to be the times we get to see a number of folks whose daily lives no longer intersect well with ours. I suppose we’d best keep getting older.

Delightingly, this weekend was also the 15 year anniversary for myself and Marilyn – no mean feat eh? As she’s fond of pointing out, she would have gotten less for murdering me. Sweet. There’s no escaping me now. In five years time we’ll have been together for a full half of my existence. That’s either a scary or thrilling thought – possibly both. Either way I feel lucky and happy. I never really thought I would be all settled and contented with another’s proximity and life. Now it’s hard to imagine us as separate beings.

♥ This week’s scribbles

Tuesday Autofiction: Growth and Confusion Is there really value to the introspective babble a new year gives rise to?

Wednesday Lego Blog: Demolition I only have so much space – when I build a new thing something else must go...

Thursday The Desert Crystals Part 16 “Look But Don’t Touch” Switching story lines on you – we’re aboard The Viper’s Eye.

Friday Book Review: Cages (Book One) by Chris Pasley  An excellent YA horror story.

Updates on my thrilling life

Writing

Victory! Targets achieved and with it an enormous sense of well being. Last week was work mental, with running and answering questions, solutions, problems – a really hyperactive and stimulating few days that completely turned my mind on and made writing possible. I was actually ahead of the game so I was able to swap Weds and Thurs around when Flickr uploader failed me. That was cheering! I think I’ve established enough story threads in The Desert Crystals  to keep bouncing between them without introducing anything new just yet. I am finding the few weeks where I didn’t have time to write full episodes to have been most helpful in expanding my ideas about the world of the Northern Continent and it’s all beginning to feed back into itself very pleasingly.

I went to Pub Poetry in Burton on Friday. It’s one of my favourite nights out ever, and since we’ve failed to sort any out in Nottingham so far this year, was a much needed evening of relaxation and laughter. As ever the array of talent was varied and bizarre, with readers offering their own work and favourites by others. I always feel very welcome and delighted in retelling Captain Pigheart’s The Booty Adventure and The Eldritch Entertainment.

Last week’s scribbles

Tuesday Shankistine: Pure Poetry Rage If you can’t say it in prose, use verse.

Wednesday The Desert Crystals Part 15 “Blood’s The Thing” Our heroic explorers get lucky, sort of…

Thursday Lego Blog: Steampunk Squad Progress of sorts with my dapper gents.

Friday Film Review Round Up: Monsters University, The World’s End (2013) Two good, but not amazing films.

Lego

Wow, I have great friends – even though it’s not my birthday yet properly, I did receive a number of charming gifts on Saturday, many of which were Lego! It’s partly for that reason I have to dismantle a whole load of things, just to have the space to permit further building. It’s thrown me into a mild panic actually, as I also have Jabba’s Palace to build this week. Where the fuck am I going to put that?! Aaaagh, anxiety ought not to come from Lego. I also have some great beers from the Isle of Wight and Irish whiskey to enjoy while building and destroying so it looks to be an ace week. I’m still basking in the warmth of the steampunk Lego I built last week and I have some pretty cool ideas about steampunk mechs…

Improv Comedy

Just the ole jam last week and though I was suffering terribly from the heat had a very fun time. We sang and played scenes which ended in song thanks to Lloydie and the musical talents of Calum Hems (who I first met when we performed at The Maze last night – he being the banjoist for the band In The North Wood). Excellent fun and a new thing to try for some of our newest recruits, all of whom leaped into it with aplomb.

This week we have the incessant joys of Gorilla Burger. We’ll have a number of teams filling the performance slots, including The Fallen Angels and hopefully Atomic Budgerigar and the return of Segway.

Media Intake

Books

I have myself a new Kindle, smaller and shinier than the old one which now contains only my pirate stories and stuff for performance. It feels like a nice extravagance to have a Kindle just for shows. Of course, that didn’t stop it breaking down on Friday! I took it apart, slapped it, threw away a handful of tiny screws that fell out and plugged it into my Prime. Then it worked again. Obviously.

Anyway, with typical enthusiasm for a fresh device I’ve been downloading and shuffling books from my Kindle caches, rediscovering oddments I’d forgotten about such as Jim Butcher’s Side Jobs – a collection of short stories mostly set between the novels of the Dresden Files. Some are a bit rough but I enjoyed returning to the world. I then went and bought Changes, thinking it was the next in the series only to open it and discover that I’ve already got it on Kindle. Arsebadgers. Not to worry, I’ve acquired Ghost Story now, which almost certainly the one I wanted to buy. We’ll see.

I got Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test for Christmas for my Dad having heard the guy talk about his book on several podcasts (including The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe and Little Atoms). Then I found it cheap on Kindle (always a powerful motivator for me to try new things) and I’ve devoured it in a few days. It was brilliant – a weird journey through the judgement of madness by way of peculiar characters with ambiguous stories. It certainly reinforces that old fear of psychiatrists as well as how difficult it really is to make sweeping judgements of others.

Events and Excitement

Gorilla Burger – Thursday 8th August

7.30pm at The Corner, Nottingham.
Live improvised lunacy from anyone willing to get up on the stage. Bring your own booze!

Knickerbocker Glorious – Saturday 17th August

11-3 at The Fountain, Market Place, Derby.
MissImp will be appearing three times performing the unique excitements of Unspeakable Acts.

MissImp in Action – Friday 30th August

8.30pm at The Glee Club, Nottingham.
High energy improvised comedy show.