AliceFraser
patreon
Back! Back in London, back on deck! Thoughts on Botox, upcoming salons, workshops and BOOK CLUB
🕑 Added 2023-05-27 19:05:13 +0000 UTCPatreon Post
People tend towards efficiency. By which I do not mean effectiveness. By efficiency I mean the reduction of effort and thought. You forget whether you brushed your teeth this morning but you think you probably did, because you usually do. You don’t let your brain waste time noticing things that you do by habit. Efficiency. It’s a good thing, mostly. You can read words with the inside letters jumbled because you can assume their meaning from the bare outlines.
Until it means you spend your life guessing at what things are or who people are by their outlines. By their signifiers, by their signals. It’s easier to assume than to find out and OF COURSE we can’t move through a busy city; a crowded internet trying to engage with every passer by as a fully actualised person. We would be hypnotised by the blades of grass in a field. We grow out of that kind of focus as the world enlarges itself dizzyingly and we realise we can’t cope with all of it. Sometimes the answer to that feels like coping with none of it.
People trend towards the unexamined life because it would be crippling to have to think about *everything* all the time. That’s correct and reasonable and survival and all that. It’s also less terrifying. People want to make their choices set-and-forget, sometimes regret, but at least not having to make the same choice again and again and again.
I’ve been thinking about this in the context of having a small person who I take around with me; a life where every single day I have to negotiate how much “work-work” I’ll be doing and how much parenting work. It’s so much harder, but I prefer this version of the hard than waking up in ten years realising that I did life on rails.
It might seem unrelated but this week there was a story about that billionaire who takes youthful blood plasma to stay young. Also I heard a lady joking that all mothers should get free Botox and a friend’s mother is freaking out about turning 70, and it sent me into a spiral about the pursuit of the smooth-faced life. It feels like the other face (ha) of the frictionless, optimised hacked slippery-slide to the grave.
So I wrote a poem. As you do.
I’m back from Japan, by the way. Back from holidays. The gig I did in Japan was lovely and weird and had two gentlemen in the front-middle who would not stop talking to me THE WHOLE SHOW. Hard work.
I’m now in London, and it’s summer and beautiful and london and horrible and magnificent. I’m jet lagged, the baby’s jet lagged. We go at 4.30am to the park to see the squirrels and it’s incredible. Last night I had a gig in Essex that didn’t get me home til midnight. If you live a life that allows the luxury of discretionary naps, do take one for me.
The incredible Sam spent my break trying to figure out if this will work; an accessible Calendar so you can see the upcoming Patreonite Events in your timezone using Google calendar, I think even if you don’t have Google calendar.
Can you tell me if this works for youse?
For those wanting to subscribe to the calendar (Google Account required)
https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0?cid=YWxpY2VmcmFzZXJwYXRyZW9uQGdtYWlsLmNvbQ
For ye that don’t want to subscribe:
https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=alicefraserpatreon%40gmail.com&ctz=Europe%2FLondon
Alright. It’s 8pm. Bedtime. My brain’s shutting down sectors like a spaceship conserving oxygen. See you tomorrow at the writers meeting, or on Monday for the salons or on Friday for the BOOOK CLUUB LAUUNCHHHH
Xx
A
Comments
It's great to hear what your up too 👍 yeah parenting is one of the big experiential shifts for sure. Have a great UK trip. 💚
Jeff Watts
Not sure why I can't add the calendar, I'll have to try on a laptop instead of my phone but I love the idea.
Book Club, you say? Colour me intrigued.
Paul Lyon
Anything to prepare for the book club launch?
Paul Lyon
Amazingly wonderful poem. The first five words is the title of my autobiography... if I may steal it.... or the title of my solo show... or my first tatoo... I haven't really decided, but what an awesom brand.
Paul Lyon
Calendar works great! I'm just late to the party... as usual. Sorry I missed the writer's meeting today.
Calendar works for me as well! Thanks for the poem <3
(*slaps table 4 times and snaps fingers with both hands*) Write those true lines, Sister-Acquaintance! No plastic surgery for me! Fake boobs though, well…there was a guy so beguiling… I downloaded the Google calendar and it has the Writers Meeting at 6:30 a.m. New York time. I can make that, but it will be interesting to see how I show up that early on a Sunday, as I am on my way to a Brazilian steakhouse in Manhattan for a goodbye party even as I type. 🍹I hope it is though, because if it’s after 10:00 am on a Sunday for me, I cannot make the lovely meetings because I have a standing Sunday date with my 26 year old daughter. By the time she drops me off in the evening, I am usually quite Prossecified. You will enjoy your adult daughter’s company richly, I think, if my experience is consistent among happy mothers. You made the right choice. Hope to see you tomorrow morning/afternoon!
That poem is rather good, And… yes…
Poem and both google calndars work great for me!
