Of pussycats, parrots and counting beans

Lately, I've taken to interacting with imaginary cats. Sorry Smoke, let me rephrase that: with cats that aren't there. (Don't be put off by the image of the parrot. I'll come back to that.)

It started a few weeks back at an audition where I had to mime a cat. (As in miming my interaction with an imaginary cat as opposed to pretending to be a cat which is - in some ways - easier but has no place in a commercial's casting.) The casting breakdown called for a woman in her forties to play a  nurse arriving home at 3am after a long shift. Other than the fact that I have no nursing experience (I don't believe being a fan of Nurse Jackie counts for anything?), have never worked a 12 hour shift and am usually in bed by 11 o'clock at the latest, I figured I had as a good a chance as any of getting the part. The script required the character to make a cup of tea (at 3 in the morning?) and make a telephone call and - here's the acting bit - go from looking forlorn and exhausted to happy and satisfied. No scripted dialogue. Personally, I think it would have made a fantastic commercial for the tea manufacturer (it was for something else) but when you're an actor no one listens. Anyway, there I was, ready and willing.

Eight Point Nine

After a night of disturbed dreams in which I kept losing track of time and arriving late at the exam centre (I had those same dreams last week) I indulged myself and my study guide (the book, not a person) with a nice soak in the bath (chapter 1 - it's a long one) and then shifted to the red couch (chapters 2 and 3). I only paused this morning's last minute revisions for my Financial Regulation exam (chapters 4, 5 and 6)  to have some breakfast. We turned on the television for the morning news. And there it was, that terrible apocalyptic footage from Japan. Him: "I think maybe we shouldn't watch this. If you think it's going to distract you..." Me: "No no, it's fine, leave it on."

It wasn't really. Fine I mean. What a terrible thing to have happen, those poor people, and me eating my Dukan galette like everything was perfectly normal. Because in my life here in London things were normal - other than my sudden awareness that something had gone terribly wrong on the other side of the world, in a country I have never visited. Such large scale appalling destruction. And no one to blame. No hate figure. No tyrant, no terrorist mastermind. No one to claim the horror as their own. It is what it is: humanity caught in the giant machinery of our planet's inner workings. Like Chaplin's character in Modern Times except not funny. Not funny at all. A tragedy of Biblical proportions in the second decade of the 21st century.