Well, the scales may be telling me that "I is fat man" but I'm not so sure what I want to believe. I may have the stature of a Silverback gorilla, but I do feel relatively sprightly at the moment. Let's pretend that I've gained muscle mass from all the labouring I've been doing. This is, of course, total horse doody, but it's a convenient pile of steaming horse doody.

I don't really see myself in a positive light at the moment. Something that's the cross between the Phantom of the Opera, the Beast of "Beauty and the" fame and maybe an RAC operative. Well, there's got to be some sort of up side to being me, and the ability to turn up and fix problems has definitely got to be an up side. Having said that, despite the self-criticism, I can see that I'm improving various things. My stand-up is of disproportionate importance to me. Or maybe it's the only thing in proportion and everything else is a distraction. I don't know. Given my success in the comedy industry, it feels like it's the first, but maybe I'm on the brink of the next growth spurt. We'll see.

Feedback from last night has been good, so I can't complain too much about the whole thing. Last night's post was "I'm feeling a bit precious cos I'm tired", which is fair enough. I knew that at the time and I still know it now. I still had fun last night, and I managed to get some thinking time together today to review the newest joke and how to make it more effective. This is really the whole purpose of doing gigs like that - i.e. for no money and with no expectations as such. If you can learn from the gig and recognise that, perhaps, there would have been a time when you couldn't have done that and now you can. Well, there's something to learn.

I was quite harsh about another act on the bill last night. I'm afraid I have an aversion to anger-comedy. Anger has to have a twist for it also to be funny. Ranting can be funny. Maybe some of my newer spoken material has a ranting aspect to it... it's certainly got pressure points in it... but just talking about bad things is not inherently amusing.

There. I've said it.

I'm going to work until the point when I feel like I've completed something appropriately worth starting the weekend on. I think I know the task which is the head of the to-do pile. So, that should be a laugh.

There hasn't been much talk of the house in the last few posts. The builder has installed a hole in the side of the house where a door will go. He's filled the hole with a door, though the door is not a functional item yet - it's held closed with battens. Next week it should be functional. It's a nice door. I'm pleased.

I've been a lot less pre-organised this time than I was. As a result the builder has a few points where he can go off an multi-task. This is not necessarily bad for the job, though it requires more organising that if he's working linearly for me. So, I must get off his critical path. This will mean some burst of work or other - probably next weekend.

Despite being stood up by the plasterer the other night - well, he rang to cancel - I'm going to get my plastering sorted out. The chap will be coming on Tuesday to discuss it all and then I'll have some sort of plan for the walls of the house. That's good. Maybe a burst of activity in the house in May will make June seem clearer for me. Lots of decorating if things have gone to plan. There is the small issue of only having a single sink in the house - the bathroom sink - at the moment. This makes a lot of things difficult. I suspect I'll have to install a temporary sink solution.

Yes, another blog post where I think out loud. At least I'm not sharing every single thought that's crossing my mind. There's all sorts of stuff going on up here that I don't think I want to commit to posterity. Some of it is very cheeky indeed.

My mood today is generally lighter than it was. Listening to the recording of last night's gig, which I did on the way in, made me smile a lot. I should have pointed out the main reason the gig worked. The audience. They were good people. They wanted to have a laugh. I spotted "friends" in the crowd and they were very spontaneous laughers. Crowd "friends" are, in fact, strangers. They're just obviously paying attention and laughing at your stuff. So you can sort of play to them. Except you shouldn't focus on them. However, if the rest of the room is looking uncertain, you sort of acknowledge your "friends" with a quick glance, and they seed the laugh and set the room off. It's how I feel about it, at least.

Indeed, one of my "friends" had the look of a particular comedian about her. A comedy looky-likey that only I would probably have understood. Still, it was a pseudo-familiar face in the room.

So, the generous nature of the audience, who were happy to play along if I looked like I know what I was doing. I can fake these things.

I don't know now whether the tension across my back and shoulders is physical or stress related. I know that I could seriously use a back massage. There's even a lady who comes to the office, but that seems a bit weird. Personal services at work. No thank you.

So, I'll hope that it's stress related and that a car journey with Michael Bublé is what I need. I mean that I'll be singing along to his CD - lustily. Ah. Lust. Well, it is spring.

Enough of this bumbling. I'm feeling optimistic today. So what if life is a bucket of shit - my bucket is half full!