What kind of f**kery is this? (if I may, Amy)

Amy Winehouse cancels a concert twice; a woman has a back operation and I get to have her ticket. Sitting in Level 3 of Shepherd’s Bush Empire up with the Gods; my friend A and I wait and wait for AW to appear. The boudoir lamps on stage wait with us.

At long last AW appears… legs thin and ready to break like tooth picks; hair propped up meter high God knows how; body jittery on black high heels and loads of wine (red it turns out when a stage hand brought another glass which was gone in two gulps) and a baby doll dress…all giving the image of imminent collapse…

Is she all an act or is she, as I suspect and as her voice and her songs leave no doubt, vulnerable to a degree that makes me feel like a voyeur watching her?

Either way, she sure is special and deserves all the praise and awards she receives.

The rythms of her songs take your body and before you know you are swaying in sync with the two gorgeous male back vocals on stage…even when you are brought to the edge of tears by the lyrics.

And her voice!...oh yes it’s the voice of yearning…no matter what she sings, it cries ‘help me’. It’s angry; it’s fighting….but with what? Mostly with AW, her creativity and the dullness of the rest I think.

Why is it that those who have the most talent suffer from it most? There is definitely that deep suffering to AW’s music and voice…I’d read somewhere once about how thin the line between genius and depression was and she seems to be threading that thin line with the help (?) of wine.

Perhaps, not her looks, but this suffering is what makes her look so vulnerable or emotionally naked on stage…or perhaps that nakedness is what makes her suffer.

Keith Johnstone (a guru of improvised theatre) says (in his book Improvisation for the Theatre) that that “…personality is a PR department for the real mind, which remains unknown”… AW seems to have sacked her PR department and has delved into a search for the unknown through her music. It’s difficult to watch her search not only because she is honest about how difficult the search is but also because we all wish we had the courage too.

...But most of us don’t have the courage…I may have got to the verge of tears listening to her songs, I may have written this note on the whole experience as soon as I got home from the concert. But I then went to bed, got up, went to work and got on with life…I have been thinking about AW and what may happen to her and her drinking…but there seems to be nothing I can do…except perhaps drink one less glass of wine next time I feel the pressure of sacking the PR department.

PS. I used to think people (me included) drink because life is hard…more and more I think it’s because life (and self), otherwise, is too dull…. This needs further thinking…more later…

Sundays

I used to hate Sunday evenings because that’s when I felt the loneliest…Then I had a general embargo on ‘hate’ because it’s self-destructing and tiring…but today at least I’ve lifted that embargo and I hate Sunday evenings again.

Sunday mornings are great for a lie-in. It’s good to be single then, no one to tell you to make breakfast, no one to fight with over the best part of newspaper, no ‘Sunday morning’ sex duty.

In the afternoons, you may go to markets, have brunch with friends, see a film but in the evening, there is no denying that you are alone…

I am fed up with being alone. At times, every fibre of my body feels lonely…lately I’ve started imagining an invisible pair of arms hugging me at the worst of times, or I shift my weight to feel as if I recline on someone…

I guess this is what happens when I get tired, don’t feel well, then go out partying till the morning…the next day is always a down time…at times like this it’s easy to understand how people can be hooked on drugs and alcohol…the down can be unbearable. I write instead. I usually don’t put entries like this here. I am fed up with being so self-indulgent when unspeakably worse things go on in the world. But today I wanted to upload this, hoping that sharing even in this impersonal way will make me feel better.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s better to be alone than feel lonely in someone else’s presence. But ideal remains that, at least from time to time, there is someone special around who cares, someone who will want to learn about your inner most fears, secrets, joys; someone who will gently hold your held (or you’re your little finger) and sit there without saying anything; someone you’d let in that close. I wish I had the courage to let someone in that close…

Well, on the positive side, hating Sunday evenings makes one look forward to Mondays…which can’t be a bad thing…

Expect to read more depressing comments like this as I approach my 37th birthday...