SEATTLE TO I’M NOT SURE WHERE. TRAVEL DAY. DON’T TALK DAY. OTHERWISE A DAY OFF DAY. SEPTEMBER 24TH.

24th September 2017

I wake up too early. Panic. The voice is gone. I read back my blogs and see I said the same thing after NY. I don’t remember it feeling as bad then, but the story goes that with a bit a straw blowing and people avoidance, it improved. I am comforted by that.
Be disciplined, Mo.
Drink lots of water and speak to no one.
It’s a day off.
It’s OK. There is time to mend.

I want to speak to my old man but our hours are clashing and now another enforced silence. My neck hurts. It has for a couple of days. I think it was the short mic stand in Portland. Mic stands are my walkers. I hang on them. I centre myself on them. They hold my body up in its peculiar s-bend sing-mode. I don’t control my voice as well without one to hold between me and the darkness into which I shout. I am reminded how the backs of sofas made it easier as a kid to field the terrors of Dr Who. Maybe there’s a parallel. Maybe I just find it hard to stick to one subject. My neck. It hurts.

It is sunny again. Arriving at the airport, tinny country music emits lazily from a tannoy system. It sounds like a Zombie Mall film.

It might be this rucksack that has fucked my neck. Shut up about your neck, dullard.

At check in, my one case is found to be 10lbs overweight. On my knees I am sharing the privacy of my rolling wardrobe and all its oddnesses to Tim, who makes the appearance that he does not notice. As discreet as a gynaecologist. Heading for the gate we pass a windowless box. A caravan of sorts. The purpose of which is to give privacy to breast-feeding mothers, apparently. I don’t like the idea of my daughter-in-law being incarcerated in that with her babe. It looks penal.