Note: if this post makes no sense, it is probably because you have not read Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday's posts.*
If you would like to understand it, you should probably read those first. Otherwise, enjoy the surrealism, I guess. Thursday
The plan for Thursday was unusually simple 1: Get up 2: Go into town and meet Colette (a writer-friend) 3: Sit in coffee shop and write 4: Go home, get takeaway, eat 5: Go to bed.
Naturally I expected it to go horribly, horrendously wrong.
What actually happened was something like this
1: Wake up stupidly early.**
Look at weather report.
Look again.
Blink.
Oh, that is very hot, isn't it?
And sunny.
Oh dear.
2: Get up, trip blearily over cat and stumble into kitchen.
Feed cats, make tea, attempt to handle dishwasher with eyes half-closed because it is, did I mention, stupidly early.
Attempt hampered somewhat by the fact that I am drinking tea, and so doing everything else one handed.
Somehow manage not to pour tea on self, floor, or either cat.
3: Embalm self in sunblock.
Practice various statuesque poses while waiting for sunblock to soak in enough to put on clothes.
Winged Victory Of Samothrace (with head) pretty convincing, but my Venus De Milo isn't fooling anyone.
Put on loosest, lightest, floatiest dress.
Note that loosest, lightest, floatiest dress does not have sleeves.
Put on more sunblock, just in case.
4: Put on powder and eyeshadow because frankly, on a day like this I need all the help I can get.
Add sunglasses.
Eyeshadow now invisible to outsiders, but I know it's there and that's what counts.
Add facemask to protect fellow passengers from my cold.***
I am now cosplaying the Invisible Man.
In a fetching purple sundress.
5: Step out of house.
Lock door.
Turn round, unlock door, go and get laptop, put laptop in bag, go to step outside again, stop and pick up umbrella because wow, that is quite appallingly sunny and I am, at heart, a morlock.
Escape from house.
Walk to station, attempting not to brain anyone with an unexpected umbrella.
Walk quite fast though, because that took longer than intended and I'm going to miss my train.
6: Get to station. Train delayed.
Wait.
Get on train.
7: Arrive at destination.
Manoeuvre outsize handbag/laptop bag, umbrella and self through turnstile and hurry to escape to the cooler air outside of the station.
Air outside of station at least ten degrees hotter than air inside.
8: Walk to coffee shop, meet Colette, decide to order largest iced mocha they have ever made and also a waffle because I have a voucher for a free waffle.
Ordering system is automated.
Ordering system does not like me, my card, or my waffle-voucher.
Shuffle over to counter to ask for help.
Kind barista takes order by hand but now my waffle-voucher has disappeared.
Get waffle anyway.
And an iced chocolate for Colette.
9: Sit down to write.
Expectation of actual writing: low.
Previous experience has shown that when two or more writers are gathered together, they will spend the whole rotten time talking about their problems and not actually doing any work.
Unless unravelling half a dozen plot/characterisation/deadline problems counts as work, that is.
It probably does.
Nevertheless, open laptop.
10: Discuss books.
Drink coffee.
Attempt to type with one hand while eating waffle with the other.
Alas, miraculous one-handed dishwasher-stacking definitely a fluke.
Wonder where the napkins are.
11: Actually successfully write quite a lot.
12: Listen as Colette explains her character troubles.
In return explain The Nutmeg Conspiracy (coming soon**** to a novella near you).
Colette cannot offer a usable alternative for "fuck".
13: Get more drinks.
Write more.
14: Touch up sunblock in loo, make farewells, head back to station.
15: Catch train.
Get off train.
Start to walk home.
Observe that sunblock appears to be melting.
16: Walk home, becoming increasingly aware with every step that yes, umbrella or no umbrella, I am definitely burning.
Maintain furious dialogue on subject of badly-directed vampire films.*****
But only in my head, to avoid funny looks.
17: Get home. Discover that funny looks only partly prevented because
A: I use different sunblocks for my face and body,
B: there was a layer of powder on my face, which may have helped to keep the sunblock from melting, and
C: What shade the umbrella provided was mostly concentrated on my head.
Arms, shoulders, and chest are all burned, face and neck are not.
I look as though I am very bad at buying makeup.
In fact I am pretty good at buying makeup.
Which is why the effect gets worse when I wash my face.
18: Re-embalm self, this time with aftersun.
Try to find pyjamas that will not touch my skin.
Fail, possibly because those don't exist.
Give up and order takeaway.
19: Feed cats.
Eat takeaway.
Make notes.
Watch Glass Onion.
Nobody there seems to be worrying about sunblock at least.
20: Go to bed, doing my best not to make contact with the sheet, the duvet, or the pillow in the process.
Fail once again, for predictable reasons.
21: Wonder whether my sunburn will have gone down by Friday?
*Or it's because when I wrote it my brain was almost literally fried.
That's possible too.
**This is my fault for planning a nice, easy meet-up at eleven o'clock, in a place that takes over an hour to get to *after* I've walked to the train station, after doing everything else that needs doing.
Possibly it would not have seemed stupidly early to anybody else, but it has to be said that I am not a morning person.
***Technically my temperature has gone down and I am probably fine but I can't tell because the entire world appears to be running a blistering fever.
****For increasingly ludicrous values of "soon."
*****This is a longstanding gripe.
Look: if you've said that vampires will burn in sunlight they will burn in sunlight.
It doesn't matter if they're indoors, or under a tree, or standing with their tiny, satin- slippered toes butting up against the creeping line of deadly gold. If there's enough natural light to see them by, they are in the sun.
What I'm saying here is that Claudia would have been toast.******
And Spike.
******Even earlier than she was in the story.
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