I'm in a strange place right now. Home life is good, so let's put that out of the equation for the purposes of this discussion. Life with kittens and domestic bliss is just that, homely happiness. However, in the other worlds I inhabit, office and comedy, I'm in a waiting pattern.

Office - WHY!?
I do an office job because it's an essential way for me to earn a living and make all the other things I do, and want to do in my life, possible. Simple as. I'm not motivated by the money - it's a life I've subscribed to. I feel a sense of loyalty to the commitments I've taken on, and the people I work with. The office is a sort of a community, and it's one of whose outcome I am invested in.

That said, the office is in a strange shape at the moment, figuratively and literally. I've just moved desk. As such I'm feeling a bit displaced. It's been a growing sense of displacement, really. The world was simpler back in November. Back in November, there were three of us sitting in the UK, backed up by a further six in Budapest. We set in a group in the UK and kept closely in touch with the Budapest people. Then things changed. The work didn't, but the responsibilities moved around. One of our UK three stopped working on our specific stuff, and we all stopped sitting together.

Desk move one had me sitting with some people who do something similar to me, but aren't working on the same stuff as I am. I'm still in touch with the other people in the team working on things, but we're not co-located. This breaks community. It's just one of those things.

I've just gone through desk move two. I'm only a few feet away from where I was. But now, I'm surrounded either by empty desks, or people doing stuff that's quite unrelated to what I'm doing. There are still similarities and areas of overlap. I will work with these people from time to time. What's the problem? There are two problems.

Firstly, I can't help but feel like I'm as far away from my community of like-minded people as I could possibly be. Secondly, I can't help but feel like the people in this part of the office consider talking loudly to be a higher priority than working. There's a lot of chatter and playing music loudly through headphones will not obscure it. I'm probably going to end up quite angry. I'm already rather pissed off, and I've only been at this desk for a few minutes today so far.

So, these will be interesting times. I've half a mind to invite the more loud-mouthed of the people to meetings in remote parts of the office, and then not turn up to those meetings myself, to at least buy myself occasional 10 minutes-es of quiet. Grrrr.

Comedically
I'm in a real down at the moment relating to my show. It's periods like this which sap your confidence. A part of me knows that I'll not improve any flaws in the show by using excuses to take away from the fact that the end hasn't worked for the last couple of performances. By the end, I mean the last 15 minutes. That's not good.

The official excuses are that I've done an hour-long set in a comedy club not used to such a length of performance, starting after 10.15pm in both cases, with a relatively small audience. However, why am I expecting the show to suddenly start working again just because the time may be earlier? Should I be guaranteed a larger audience in Edinburgh? Will I possibly be able to drum up a large audience if I'm currently worrying about the quality of the show?

Well, of course, there's plenty of time to fix things and rehearse it all a bit better and generally tighten it up. I'll be making running repairs to the show in Edinburgh too. Plus, it's really brimming over with ideas and invention, so why shouldn't I consider it good.

Tomorrow night's my next gig. A local MCing role in Cirencester. It should be a great night of comedy and I should aim to get some enthusiasm out of it. That should fix that.

So, if I recharge my comedy batteries and stick some batteries into the loudmouths I'm now lumbered with sitting with, then life should be back up to over 75% joyous in next to no time.