National Geographic | September 1971
I was going to get an ‘impromptu’ tattoo today, because I’ve always wanted to do it on an insignificant day, and solo. I’d decided what to get, but then bumped into my dad and didn’t want to say I was getting tatted up, on my own (which is kind of sad). So we went for coffee. When I got home this evening, I changed the ink cartridge on our printer, and cried when it stained my fingers. Thank god I met my dad.
I am writing at my old computer for the first time in around six months. Windows feels so simple and easy. I’m *privileged* enough to use a wireless keyboard with my *Mac* for *work* but sometimes I find myself using it not only on my desk, but on books, my lunchbox, and my head, so it’s nice to be rooted to this spot with a very-much-wired platform on which to write.
I haven’t posted on here in forever, which is not unlike me, so don’t act all pissed off. I’ve been keeping busy and although not totally burnt-out or exhausted, am a little heart-heavy. Heavy-hearted.
Once again, ‘life things’ are happening to me (i.e things that happen to people, all day, every day, all over the world, since the dawn of time) and yet I’m still in despair like ‘WHY ME?!’, ‘How can I cope with such misfortune!’, before realising that this is why every single song was written and every film was made: to help long-faced teenage girls get over long-term no-longer-teenage boys. So I’ve got that for a few weeks. Taylor Swift suddenly makes sense.
Anyway. In relation to other familial ‘life things’ that makes me mutter ‘woe is me’ (I am a sour puss tonight), I saw the NT Live/Barbican production o’ Hamlet with B. Cumberbatch last Thursday.
It was really brilliant, and although preferring David Tennant’s crazy, spitty, (sexier) Hamlet – I’ve never watched Sherlock but was a Dr Who fan circa D.T – it was a cracking production.
What I did like about Benedict’s version was that although his ‘madness’ was a little tame, his angsty, stompy ‘being really pissed at his family’ was SO on point. One minute crying, then going crazy, then ruining everyone’s night by being a bit of a prick at the dinner table, and everyone telling you to get over it although it happened ONLY a month after his father’s death? I feel ya, bro! (Circumstances are admittedly slightly different. I ain’t got a juicy cup o’ poison brewing to have before bed, among other things.)
(aside) Can I just say I was trying to search my huge, vacant warehouse of a brain for an adjective to describe Hamlet (it’s still on the tip of my tongue – or fingertips) so asked my mother and she came up with OBSTREPEROUS?! That wasn’t the word I was looking for, but meaning ‘to resist control in an unruly manner’ and being an all-round fantastic word, she deserves a credit right here in this post for being amazing, and not at all obstreperous (apart from when she occasionally is).
In other news, my first play Fitting Room is being performed as a rehearsed play reading for Eastern Angles’ Engine Room on 16-17 November. I started writing it around three months ago. Although a little nervous about seeing it up on its feet, with a mixed-gender cast (the written parts are for four teenage girls) it’s all very exciting, and I cannot wait to watch other people watching something I’ve written. Although in the same way that watching somebody scroll through my blog whilst I’m present is pretty much the definition of hell on earth, I hope this will be more enjoyable, especially as somebody else will be taking the reins now to direct it (which makes me feel like a big shot). It may not even be all that bad, either. We’ll have to wait and see.
I’ve got lots more to say but I’ll save you the eye strain. There’s much more to see on this internet thing, such as this, and this.
On the second this note, I recently read Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions, and it absolutely blew my nut off. I gave it back to the library today, just in the hope to bestow it onto some other lucky reader. I have since bought it on Amazon.
Write soon.
T.A.L x
Tara Lepore 