Remedy for a succession of sleepless nights?
A big, loud, sexy exhibition
Baby Ray is not sleeping. Not sleeping much at all, but it isn’t all bad, because the weather is glorious and the laughable lack of sleep just gives me more of an excuse to mooch around with a coffee in hand, talking about how tired and crazy I feel, while laughing and looking perfectly happy. Because, I am actually perfectly happy.
Last week on Wednesday I left the house at 7.30am after a completely sleepless night. I had to step outside and just walk. Domestic settings and duties can feel quite oppressive when you are lacking essential ZZZs.
I enjoyed sitting among the commuters at Herne Hill train station. I loved watching the woman pretending to work on her laptop, but instead hush-gossiping with her friend about the hideousness of Herne Hill now, with all of its money, and unaffordable housing, and useless gift shops. I would have agreed with her, but sometimes I buy stuff in those shops.
Plus, she was drinking a very delicious coffee in a spot where you never used to be able to buy delicious anything. So, I kind of felt like saying to her… do you really want to go back to a Herne Hill where there was only one café (naming no names, but if you know, you know) that served rubbery scrambled eggs, soggy toast and watery cappuccinos?
The tables were so sticky that you risked attaching yourself to them when you stood up. A baffling stickiness, that was not so baffling when you spotted the waiter swiping the same old dirty J cloth over tables between sittings, every time you visited.
Anyway, I realised as I was sitting there eavesdropping and drinking my velvety flat white and eating my gentrified cinnamon bun that was so much nicer than rubbery scrambled eggs, that I had enough nappies under the buggy to go out for the morning with Ray.
That in fact I could be on the station platform in a minute flat, and get on the train to Blackfriars, and be at Tate Modern in 20 minutes. That Ray and I could go to the Leigh Bowery exhibition, and be surrounded by big screens, showing the late, great performance artist and his outrageously young and good-looking collaborators dressed in PVC, dancing, clubbing, frolicking, all the way through the 1980s and 1990s.
That Ray and I could, in fact, be as far away from the sanitised, straight streets of Herne Hill for a while, and I could enter a land of gayness, outrageous behaviour, big creativity and dressing up.
Anyway, it was glittery, it was golden, it was loud, it was fun. There was nakedness. There was a photo of Bowery squirting water out of his bum and onto the audience during a performance at the Fridge. I liked the photo, but I wouldn’t have liked to have been in the front row.
I wonder if Leigh Bowery ever visited Herne Hill? I doubt he would find much to entertain him now.
I loved Bowery’s postcards to his friends. This one in particular.
I also liked his lists, including this, of things he’d like to save money for. Apologies for the shadows and reflections.
It so reminded me of the lists I make, regularly. Things I want to have done, but that I don’t yet have the money for. Mine say things like:
Teeth whitening
Thread vein removal on my legs
Boob uplift
Pam Hogg catsuit
Proper blinds for our bedroom
Tuscan writing retreat
New, not monstrous looking gaming chair (for son)
Car AC fixed
New boiler
New fridge
Everything’s a scramble, there’s no particular plan. But that’s like my days with Ray at the moment. When sleep is in short supply, we just have to make it all up as we go along. Keep a decent stash of nappies, wipes and suncream under the buggy, and jump on that train to god-knows-where when the moment feels right.
