I loved the TV show when I watched it, but the stage show is a masterpiece. It’s such a funny, moving, comforting piece of writing. A masterful performance. The smallest of facial expressions that can carry 30 seconds of complete silence and somehow make you laugh more than any of the space that’s filled with sound. Part of it is the familiar use of language that I miss, I’m sure.

I’d love to perform something like this someday. I’d love to write something this good. This weird mix of words that works on the page and works on the stage. Part novel, part poem, part screenplay. I’ve got Max Porter’s Shy on the coffee table in front of me, and I’ve been opening it all day to read a part aloud. It’s got those same qualities. I’m similarly inspired, and envious.

Do you ever feel like you’ve got a performer trapped in you? That everyone has, maybe? I really want to see everyone perform something. It could be something loud or quiet; fast or slow. I’ve had conversations with people that I wish had been caught on tape. Seen movement that should live forever on film. Occasionally, I’ll even write something myself that feels that way.

This is the kind of work that I can never get off my mind. That, left to my own devices, I think I’d make over and over again until I’d landed on something perfect; some perfect things. It all starts with writing, as almost anything should, but finding the right voice—literally—for what you write is a whole separate, wonderful thing. Finding the right pitch and tone and cadence for it.

Writing something to speak aloud is so much harder than it sounds though. Writing poetry to be performed. Writing something for screen, or stage, or whatever. The only way you can do it is by actually performing the thing in some way, over and over again until you nudge it into the right place, which might mean rewriting it and it might not. You can perform the same thing many ways.

I used to think that I didn’t like dancing, but it turns out I just didn’t like clubs. I mean, my pathetic shuffle is barely dancing, but you know what I mean. Going to clubs in the UK usually meant lots of super drunk people, and lots of blokes being a bit creepy. Californian forest parties are pretty much the exact opposite. If only I’d known that I was supposed to party in the forest.

An easy day today, mostly chores while I listen to an audiobook and hopefully a little time to work on side projects. Reading, writing, building, whatever. I’m listening back to the audio I recorded whilst hiking with Cacio yesterday and surprised at how lovely it is to go a walk with past-me. The things I didn’t really hear yesterday I get to hear now, and it feels a bit like modest time travel.

Hit the trails after with Cacio and recorded a trial of a goofy podcast I’m thinking about starting, which is really meant for an audience of one (me) but I figure why not put it on the internet. It’ll be sort of like this journal in some ways, but in audio. Me rambling (with my mouth) whilst I ramble (with my feet). A spoken journal, or memoir, or something like that. Low stakes, just for fun.

The projects I’m gravitating towards lately are ones that I can fit into my life, and that don’t require a schedule. They don’t really need to end, but if they did end that would be just fine and might even seem natural. Could be one story or many. A one-off or a series. I like the idea of something that’s just a bit more organic, a little less structured. We have so much structure already, don’t we?

I’ve never written a perfect essay and I never will, because who calls their work perfect? I’m sure the authors of the perfect essays I’ve read can spot all of the things that aren’t working. It’s a shame that we don’t get to relate to our own work in the way that others might, but maybe it’s necessary to keep doing that work. What do you do if you feel as though you have nothing to chase?

I’m trying to write an essay right now. One about being an amateur. About doing something for the love of it. It’s hard to write about the things that you love, actually, not least because you don’t always know why you love it. I love anything to do with audio, and I couldn’t really tell you why, it just makes my brain feel good. Maybe I should write about that? I’ll probably write about that.

One of the best ways to keep a conversational pace is to have a conversation, and the second best way is talking… to yourself. I’ve been talking to myself a lot lately, but it’s extra useful on runs. If I ever wonder whether I could have a conversation without huffing and puffing, I can just start talking, and not stop talking, and see how that feels. At some point (when you stop talking about running) the introspective think-speaking even gets kind of good.

Tonight I talked about publishing and recounted a few memories. I coached myself on my run out loud, reminding myself why I was running at that pace, where I wanted to get to, and how this was going to help. I’ve done that in my head before, but there’s something about the words hitting your ear that feels qualitatively different. It’s like the placebo of coaching—you know the words are coming from your mouth, but you hear them all the same.

Anyway, a proudly pathetic run. The first of many I’ll do, slowly building up to where I want to be. I love running, and I want to continue to love running, and I’m out of practice. The long roads are the best ones, even if they don’t always feel like it. I should just enjoy the fact that I’m here, and be thankful that I’m able-bodied.

Today Aneesah made me coffee, I had a lot of meetings, I spoke to my psychiatrist, I forgot about a blood test, I got completely lost in some databases (a strangely hyper-focus activity), I cooked dinner for Aneesah, and I drove her to the airport. I need to tidy up, I just about put the bins out, I didn’t go for the run I wanted to, and now I’m sat in bed, way after I should have fallen asleep, writing this. A day that got away from me. My favorite bit was the car ride, and the 23 minutes that I really got to spend with Aneesah.

At some point, it struck me how rare this must be, for people to speak out loud to themselves. Even for me, a person who loves spoken word and writes morning pages and introspects a lot, talking out loud to myself isn’t something I’ve done very often. At some point, about 30 minutes into the walk and talk maybe, it started to feel really great. My mind slowed to the pace of my speech, when usually it’s thinking 10 things at once. Instead, I thought one thing and said it out loud.

Much ink has been spilled (ironically) on the great oral traditions of the past, but they usually involved other people. So much self-talk happens on the page, because seeing someone writing alone doesn’t feel unusual, but seeing someone speaking aloud to themselves at your local coffee shop might raise an eyebrow. Same act, different medium—how strange that it’s treated so differently, when a phone call wouldn’t be.

For better or worse, this is now a thing I’m going to become a bit obsessed by for a while. What benefits are there to speaking your thoughts out loud to yourself? Which nerves can you shake by accepting that people are going to think you’re a bit strange once they realize you’re not on the phone? Might you bore yourself, and is that useful? Or perhaps, simply, might it be fun to just try something weird from time to time, for the craic.