The Novelty of Routine

It’s been a couple of weeks since the last blog. Partly due to recovery after All Shook Up finishing.
It’s been a funny time of slight dislocation. Almost like the dislocation you feel after being away from home. Have you noticed that after returning home even after a short trip, it’s like the perennially familiar is, for a time, unfamiliar? Could it be that while you were away the experiences you had, the people you met have changed you – even fractionally – so that when you return home some part of your psyche knows that you are not the same person who left? And so being home begins to be an exercise akin to putting on an old uniform that’s suddenly unfamiliar.
And speaking of uniform, you know you’ve been doing a show too long when you start to continually refer to work uniform as ‘costume’!
So, yeh, I’ve been getting into the hard work of re-assuming normal life, and life has actually been super-normal. Not going out more than one night per week, routine days, hardly seeing friends, and then copping this bloomin virus that started on Wednesday, floored me on Thursday and has kept me semi-conscious until this morning.
At least I’ve had the opportunity to explore the realms of daytime telly, which I never normally watch if I’m in the house during the day. It really is pretty awful. Insubstantial froth and advertising vehicles push the latest gadget that’ll find its way to the back of the cupboard pretty quickly. Anyone sensitive would soon become paranoid after watching these shows that their skin isn’t good enough, their weight isn’t right and their hair isn’t blonde enough.
If you’re looking for diversity of presenters, don’t go to daytime commercial telly. I sometimes just put on the BBC world news to see other examples of femininity than skinny, white and blonde.
I have discovered one show that has a morbid fascination for me. The Real Housewives of New York is a bunch of rich female Manhattanites who rarely display any positive qualities. These talon-ed and extension-ed real life Bratz dolls tear each other apart on-screen with all the finesse and etiquette of the year six playground. Why do I watch this negativity? I know it’s not good for me. Maybe it’s comforting to think that all the nastiness is contained to this one group of women. As long as they’re tearing each other apart, they’re leaving the rest of us alone.
Still, I’ve got to be better for this week. There’s a chance of making some headway at work with various things, a meeting with my girls Kehau and Kate to discuss our upcoming Adelaide Fringe show, and a first lesson with my new singing teacher after the wonderful David Gauci, my first teacher, gone and got himself a gig with the musical Hairspray, opening in Melbourne soon – enjoy, David!
Anyway, enough rambling – better go get some breakfast. Take care of yourselves and each other, and have a great week.