Day 6: Old Square Eyes

Full view please! The details in the skin a rather lovely.

Self portrait. As promised, here is some face.

In short, today I did very little so the day became one massive internal monologue, hence the writing.

Day 6: Today I watched a twelve year old girl perform some very fine oral sex on an empty apple juice bottle whilst her parents chatted to friends. It was a true porn star performance. Terrifying! The world can be a frightening place!

I was in Watching Mode all day today. Sometimes this happens to me. As a theatre director and photographer, a massive part of my job is to watch. Sometimes I sort of forget to participate in the world because I am so busy observing. Like today.

I was in slow motion. This irritated people in the supermarket. My trolley steering skills were not up to my usual standard and there was a few near misses all played out in slow motion with thought bubbles appearing above the heads of the angry families around me. I was distracted. I went to the supermarket to buy toothpaste and came back with a toothbrush (which I didn't need but I had stopped concentrating the minute I entered the store), quite a variety of phallic shaped vegetables (there was a special on zucchini and then I developed a cucumber craving), sparkling apple juice and a distinct lack of toothpaste.

An hour later I went back to the supermarket to try once again for toothpaste. The toothpaste shelf terrifies me. Once upon a time there were multiple brands featured on this shelf but in recent years every brand save Colgate seems to have died the slow, miserable death of company smothered. Today Colgate danced alone in front of my eyes, parading in a variety of colours, flavours and packaging, each one promising to do a slightly different magical thing and make me a Better Human Being. I have this problem every time I go to buy toothpaste. I need a packet which simply says 'I will clean your teeth very nicely.' Eventually I found one tube which was not Colgate and brought it to prove a point.

I left the store wondering what the point was. Something about not flooding me with your brand.

Tired of battling with my tripod, I resolved to buy a new one today. I walked up my main street (made up of two restaurants, a real estate agent, three gymnasiums/personal training establishments and a post box) and completely failed to find a sign saying 'buy your amazing tripod here, Susannah!' I gave up and did what I usually do when lost: call =photograjph and ask what he would do. He told me to come and borrow his tripod. He always has the answers. I went to visit him and collect the tripod. He is one of my all time favourite humans. I have an endless amount of time for =photograjph.

For all my hopeless vagueness, I did a bit of writing today. Still the duologue I've been struggling with all week. It is complicated, words threading in and out, voices overlapping and all without punctuation, naturally. (One voice I've put in italics, just to give an idea of how it works. This is the start of the piece.)

I fall out the door the world takes a moment to catch up sky above me concrete below or above I can't be sure I need out I need to get out I'm running doubled over one hand pushing my hair out of my eyes and the other propping up the building lights fade music muffled a trail of vomit I follow the trail of vomit leading from the hotel door along the foot path around the corner and into the back alley there between the bins and the milk crates with their halo of cigarette butts crouches my brother puking liquid shame onto the pavement she laughs I hope not unkindly bitch I take a seat on a milk crate planning a camp out and it instantly begins imprinting its criss-cross pattern on the soft skin of my buttocks I heave.

I cooked. The wife is working again tonight so, once again, I wanted to send her off with something decent. Falafels. A Middle Eastern tomato sauce with zucchini. A salad full of cucumber. Halumi.

I shot this. Uncle Ducky, don't worry, the tears are a combination of acting and having cut onions. They were a good trigger.

A strange day. A slow motion day. A necessary day.