I’m in a five star apartment hotel in Budapest.  My apartment has the  kingsize bed with the  large sitting room,   bathroom and a kitchenette. My windows,   the kind that open at the side and swing open,  look out onto a manicured courtyard filled with singing birds – it’s a sun trap.  

And if I look through my window to my right on the ground floor I can see the indoor swimming pool and  large glass  doors that open up to the courtyard.  It’s where the sauna is and the dry steam room and the Jaccuzzi.  I am in heaven. 

I am here for two reasons. Firstly I am learning  lines for my play  which will be performed in
South Africa  in the two weeks time  and secondly I am having various adjustments
to my teeth at a  dentists called Vitalpoint. 

Yesterday my teeth were in so much pain after  the treatment when the  numbness wore off that I felt like punching myself in the mouth as a distraction.  Though this was an appealing thought it was ultimately a bad idea so  stood like a boxer in the mirror I convinced myself not to do it.

The tooth fairy is an interesting analogy.  Parents  make it all possible –   the exchange
of tooth and money. My teeth have been my little way of telling myself that no one has been there:  My little self destruct button:  My succeeding quest for anti-success.  In short,  bollocks.

Funny how one lugs baggage – clumsy ideas from ones past – long after anything inside it is of any use to anyone least of all oneself.   So here I am in the sunshine getting my
teeth done and learning my lines.   There are no dental appointments today.

Punching myself as a distraction. There was a point in my life where that made sense as a sort of survival technique.  I did it with alcohol. Drank so much I couldn’t remember how much I had belittled myself.  And there it was the day after – the tales of my self destruction; the proof that I didn’t matter. What a waste.

There’s a line in the play  where a friend says to me “families are a  pain in the arse” and I reply “ yeah and at least if I felt pain I would know  I was alive”.  Self destruction is a bit like that.  On a tangential matter yesterday I felt pain and jesus I knew I was alive  today as
the sun belts down and the pain has receded  believe me, I feel alive too. It’s all good. I’m my own family and so is anyone who knows me.  I am going for a swim!