i can be really nice

i can also be really bitter and mean and sarcastic.

anyone who knows me well has experienced this. i know it makes you feel awkward  and i am really sorry about that. i get mean when i am jealous and i get jealous when i am tired or i haven’t washed my hair for a couple of days.

these are the things that make me bitter and mean: (it’s nothing personal)

people who speak french and slip french words in to everyday conversations

people who really enjoy baking and like to talk about it on the internet

people who do their hair in the morning

people who have fake tans that actually make them look really good and they don’t even smell that bad when you are near them

people who are really fun all the time and are never in a mood

logic

elves

long plays with too much nudity and poo in them

plays I don’t understand

there. these are, unfortunately, not all but some of the things that are perfectly fine- in fact some of them are quite impressive- that make me bitter and occasionally  a little bit mean. in a very non confrontational passive aggressive kind of way.

it is only human to be jealous. the more i can identify these things as things i am jealous of the better i’ll be at avoiding the pass-aggrrrrasshole that lives in my brain.

reminds me of a play i directed two years ago about jealousy and being human and ultimately just about wanting to be close to the people around you and feel that they want to be close to you too.

‘come on humans. let’s human each other. or sniff cracks i don’t care’- Mark Ravenhill

this is stephen. stephen is a friend i made two years ago at drama school.

he is a very good friend actually and i love the shit outa him.

stephen likes madonna and sailors.

he likes glitter, white wine, vinyl, closing his eyes and dancing, lying down and dancing and taking his pants off at midnight. 

don’t change the song. don’t give your opinion on the song. just fuckin dance or get the fuck out because i am THIS CLOSE….to killing you.

those are some of the little reasons i love stephen.

but these are the really big reasons i love him and always will.

when stephen talks about art, people or places he makes them sound more beautiful than they could ever be in real life. he makes the things he love sound perfect, i think because to him- the things that he loves ARE perfect.

unfortunately this means he is often let down. and stephen feels his sadness as strongly as he feels his happiness. with all his body- which i think is made up entirely of his heart.

stephen truly feels every moment of his life and when you are around him your heart comes to life as well. 

when i am around stephen i laugh and i cry and i dance with my eyes closed my arms up and my legs wherever the fuck they wanna go.

my life wouldn’t be the same without this beautiful man

Wayne Bremser (flickr / tumblr), Paris

At the moment my job is pretty good. I get to go to the homes of old people and talk to them for a few hours. 

I have had some wonderful experiences. I have danced around the room with a 92 year old Cockney and have had heard about London in the 1920s/30s.

One of my clients is an 83 year old woman with dementia. She sees beauty and finds joy in almost absolutely EVERYTHING we walk past on that same street every day. She also tells me the same stories every day with unrivaled enthusiasm. She loves animals and babies and just today she told me in a very matter-of-fact manner that ‘you can’t be absent minded around a rabbit’. Whenever we go shopping we always get two carrots and a lettuce to feed the ‘bun bun’ that lives next door.

I have learnt a lot from the amazing people I have met so far. Most importantly I have learnt that, even though we are constantly hearing the phrase ‘life is short’, it can actually in fact also be quite long.

Nearing the end of their long lives there is something I have learnt from every single one of my clients. That is that the only thing worth remembering at the end of a very long life is the people that have meant something to you.

No one talks about their job, the amount of money they had or their hair styles evolved through the decades. I mostly hear stories about a lost spouse, the grandchildren or the family dog in the 1950s.

I don’t know what I’m going to do in ten years or one but I do know I don’t ever want to be alone and that no matter where I am I only want to be surrounded by people I love