Solace

Where should I find it? In my own creativity. My auditions are tomorrow and I am terrified. The first and the second, the first and the second.

I want this so badly, this mark of approval that my head heats and beats blood about the space above my ears. I feel full of it.

So I shall write about little bird instead.

I hope she is not sad; all I want to do is to bond her to my shoulder and clean her tears. I do not care that she cuckolded her last boyfriend; she never loved him. One of my friends commented that she sells herself to the wrong audience; that is right. She goes to crap nightclubs and meets men there; she should at least aim for a more intelligent audience that's suited to her. I don't think I would be perfect for her; I am aware that this is all fantasy. But I do want her to be happy, and I don't think that happiness comes from associating with people that play, "fat or pregnant" about her behind her back. Oh Little Bird, I adore you fat or thin. You prefer yourself thin; I prefer you happy, that is all. I'd not let you wait till you were thin. I'd stroke your stomach and your soft thighs and kiss them, which would not make you worry less, but would show you that you are worthy of adoration.

Eating so far.

Half a bowl of salad-200
two almond biscuits-100
a smoothie-120

I could eat something else now. I think I will.

Ho Hum.

food today:

2.5 slices of pizza and salad-300
half a pint of bitter-90
some crisps and nuts-100
ice cream-200
chocolate-200
apricots-200
vegetable stew-300

1400. and walking. I suppose it could be more.

I need to do some work today. I won't probably unless it's creative writing. I wanted today to dance with him and then nestle into him; though he can be cruel. I just remember that he's let me and only me under his jacket, so he trusts me; and I adore that about him, though there's so much that irritates and angers me with him too. He feels so safe, but really he isn't.

I thought of her today driving home. She wouldn't feel so safe to collapse into; she's the sort that I'd want to cover with soft warm things and to hold close. To stroke her hair and tell her I'll always be here. She's such a pretty carved elfin beauty.

Goneril

Is she scared? Is that why she loves Edmund?

I think she is bullied; she's seen her father love the others more, and she knows that the only way she gets attention from him is to fulfil her role as eldest, a sort-of second best male heir. She gets recognition when she takes control, when she shields her emotions; and here, she is doing that. She isn't being faithful to Lear as he is now, but rather to what he taught her as a child, that to be strong the throne should be preserved. She's built up her own family in her court (and that's why she's defending it from these infiltrators) and in Oswald; her real family have rarely been that to her. She is scared; but she wouldn't show it. She's sad about the decline of her ruler father, but not in a fatherly way. She's cut off from the others.

Not only this, sir, your all licensed fool but other of your insolent retinue do hourly carp and quarrel, breaking forth in rank and not to be endured riots.

Ok, so the fool is causing trouble; but this isn't anything I am unused to. I have to talk over him. I am disappointed; this is merely an example. I'm frustrated; I shouldn't be, but this acts as a reiteration of childhood neglect; the fool is more important than you.

Sir, I had thought by making this well known unto you to have found a safe redress; but now grow feared by what you yourself too late have spoke and done, that you protect this course, and put it on by your allowance, which if you should the fault would not scape censure, nor the redresses sleep, which in the tender of a wholesome wheal might in their bidding do you that offence which else were shame, that then necessity must call discreet proceeding.

He always used to listen, at least a little to me. He was a great ruler; he should know that allowances are being made that should not be tolerated. At sir, I think he moves away from me; which gives me course to command the imperative, "Sir!". I stay on the spot; I would not move to him.

Come sir, I would you would make use of that good wisdom whereof I know you are fraught, and put away these dispositions, which of late transport you from what you rightly are.

More kindly in tone. I am remembering that I do admire in him qualities of wisdom; am I maybe even scared for myself? That I'll go the same way? I want him to recover some of his sense to make this easier for me.

This admiration, sir, is so much the savour of other your new pranks, I do beseech you to understand my purposes aright, as you are old and reverend should be wise.

He isn't biting, so I reiterate the first point forcefully yet strongly.

Yet here you do keep a hundred knights and squires, men so disorderd, so debauched and bold that this, our court, infected with their manners shows like a riotous inn.

It's OUR court; not my court. Interesting. Trying to bring him into rulership, it's an issue of purity; an issue of what is making my space unclean.

Epicurism and lust make it more like a brothel or a tavern than a graced palace. The shame itself doth speak for instant remedy.

These two sins are what I cannot abide. They must be fixed; there cannot be shame, we must be strong. Note the we. It isn't his shame; it's ours. Our house- Goneril is loyal. Especially to Edmund.

Be then desired by her, who else may take the thing she begs; a little to disquantity your train, and the remainder, that shall still be left to be such men as may besort your age who know themselves and you.

I turn to leave at this point; the unspoken threat hangs in the air. I am worried about having made the threat, but glad that I have said it, and glad that there is honesty now after the speech I gave in the first act.

You strike my people, and your disordered rabble make servants of their betters.

I could turn back round and say this to Lear, but I stand and look off. He merely must know that I mean this. I am a lioness.

Fat fat fat.

How I always feel at home. I have ate so much food, just perpetually snacked. I don't know how to get the train tickets either. Argh. I'll sort them out tomorrow I think.

I am watching Judi Dench be utterly inspirational. I wish I was that good. Well, the more I watch excellence, the more I shall be able to attain ultimately.

Old lady on a bus.

I sat next to a woman with a purple sagging lip on the bus today. At first I wondered if she was haughty, because I was occupying a seat demarcated for the use of the elderly/invalid (and indeed, she was in posession of a fine set of black wheels attatched to a bag). But there were no invalid elderly to occupy said space, and I realised that it's merely bus protocol; you don't need to sit and chat anymore. So then I thought I should tell her how lovely her hat was; it was one of those Russian-type fur ones, in a beige, classic beige. Then I decided that a conversation would be warranted; and I wasn't in the mood for talking. What would we discuss? I detest langourous small talk. Yet, I still wanted to comment on the aforementioned hat. So I would thus tell her a few stops before disembarking, to avoid the prospect of chitchat. Just as the point came, that I had decided on, I glanced at her ear and saw she was wearing a hearing aid. So, most likely, she wouldn't hear the compliment; she'd think I was insulting her, I might scare her, we might be forced to have a screamed altercation for the entire bus to hear. She might even actually be Russian, and hence most unlikely to understand what I was saying and more likely to conceive that I was about to mug her.

The hat went uncommented on; but she asked me if I could move so she could get off the bus at exactly my stop. She seemed really lovely. I should have done it.

The motto of this meandering narrative is probably carpe diem, or don't be scared.

Bird again.

If I could, darling, I'd metamorphose to become you. I'd shed my blunt features and lack of stamina; I'd put on that layer that's seperating you and the world at the moment. We'd create our own ovoid space together, yolk and white. I don't know which I'd be.

I am watching Judi Dench at the moment; I wish I could act like that. Not act exactly as she does, but to have the sort of confidence and innovation in my performance that's so evident in hers. I should just pick one way, make it my own and make it right. She's so very believable. I watch films and I'm aware, they aren't real life; they're like a beautiful version of it that makes sense, where everyone's emotions are set out and played perfectly, so that they look beautiful, not the people but rather the emotions themselves. People in real life aren't a jot like they are in films.