Strange Day

Today has been a tad strange. Surprisingly, I mean that as a good strange, an unexpected strange. After the night’s sleep I had, I think the level of productivity I actually achieved is what has thrown me off. For numerous reasons last night (noise, dogs barking, the heat, drunken singing from downstairs, etc.) I got very little sleep. However, the main culprit, who kept me up from 4 in the morning until roughly half 6, was a fly.

There comes a point, when you are after laying in bed for 4 hours, battling to sleep, and you hear something small and innocuous, that you can make one of two choices. Either ignore the buzzing noise that is slightly bothering you, wade through it, keep your eyes shut and doze off. Or, as I did, open them slightly, focus fully on that little buzzing sound, and ruin all your good work. For far too long last night/this morning, I chased a fly around my room. Up the walls, out one window and in the other, running around in circles like a mad man in my boxers, chasing a noise (I only saw the fly a few times). It was all quite… nay, extremely stupid. However, the previous disturbances had me at my wits end so I was determined not to be beaten by a fly.

In the end, all the chasing around tired me out and I dosed off, not sure what time, after 6.30, it was bright outside, and I could hear people pottering around. This was a sober night too, which made it all the worse! I had forgotten that I set my alarm for 10 the next day, so when it piped up, I oddly sprung out of bed at first go, as if my body clock thought I was late for an exam or something along those lines. Standing there, again, like a mad man in a crunched position, in just my boxers, wondering why I had just jumped out of bed at first go, and why was I not so tired after such little sleep, a little buzz in my ear reminded me of the disastrous sleep I had just experienced.

The fly was back in the morning and he was taunting me, darting around my head, buzzing in my ear, whispering insults and ridiculing me, I felt like I was being bullied. When it landed on my right shoulder, I swung blindly for it, missed it, obviously (the fly was far more clever than I could possibly be at that hour) and ended up hitting myself in the shoulder. Again, the fly taunts me by staying close, moving to my lower left back, where once again, like a dumb fool, I swing, miss, and wallop myself in the back, like a slap to the kidneys. At this stage, my lack of sleep is kicking in, I think I am close to losing my mind, let it go, it is a fly, and close my eyes, lifting my head towards the ceiling and taking deep breaths to calm down. Buzz, buzzzz and I feel it brush off my nose. I swing inwards with both hands, flailing wildly, thankfully missing my own face but ending up slumped back on my bed, beaten, distraught, and close to tears.

As I open my eyes and look up, I see the fly across the other side of the room, buzz buzzing at me from a distance, as if he was able to throw his voice, ventriloquist style, just to make me looker stupider. He wins, I leave the room, and let him celebrate, leaving me a broken man, and not yet even had breakfast. As you might tell, as I was eating my porridge, and staring down the barrel of a gun, I did really not expect today to go well, the start alone indicated it would be disastrous.

Strangely, by the time lunch swung around, I was after confirming a meeting this week with the head of the Irish Film Board here in L.A, applied for a website idea competition malarky thing, and managed to be given a successful template which I could use for my sitcom pitch, if and when the time comes around to do so. The template is brilliant, allows me to condense all I want to say, clearly and simply into a 60 second spiel, with the right buzz words, comparisons etc. all laid out. 

After lunch, a wave of stand-up material came to me, the material was flowing! I also realized that my opening line, which has actually worked twice, is not as good as it should be. Something in the context like “Oh, this is my first time doing stand-up and I think I might be crap because I’m not funny and no one laughs at my jokes” is not a great thing to tell the audience, at the start of a stand-up. I thought reverse psychology would be good, but thinking about it, those laughs were not as hearty as I would’ve liked them to be. It is kind of like telling a girl, just as ye are about to, ahem, that, oh, I should warn you, it’s my first time, I will not be that good, but look, we’ll give it a go, and who knows, we might at least get a laugh at how bad I actually am at doing it! Same for all walks of life, who wants a plumber who tells them it is her first time doing this job, or a mechanic who warns you that he is crap, but we’ll plough on! (I hope you appreciated my his and her equality statuses!).

Finished the day off by going to the gym, strangely a couple (guy and girl, could be brother and sister too I suppose) randomly came up to me and asked me why I don’t DJ at night in there. I told them I wasn’t too sure, just had been asked to do days, I suppose evenings would be more fun, busier and all. They nodded and left. They then must’ve went to the manager and came back to tell me they got me Thursday and Friday evenings when it would be busier if I wanted to do them – DJ on Thursday and Friday evenings, not the couple, obviously – the manager had said it was cool. Ok… cheers, thanks for that? See, I found that strange, at the time at least, but maybe thats just me?

And, in case you are wondering, the fly was not hurt. We are now friends, and he is curled up next to me in bed. The strange part is, he is almost finished reading my book before me!!! Wahey boss! Oh Jesus, brutal, I should’ve finished up with the last paragraph.

Song of this strange day is this mighty mash-up… Shut Up And Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand – Ting Tings – DJ Y Alias JY

Tags: DJ, DJ Y Alias JY, Franz Ferdinand, gym, IFB, Shut Up And Take Me Out, Stand-Up, Ting Tings, Writing