It is the next to the last day at the Fringe so I drag my ass out of bed and make my way to the Grassmarket weekend market and enjoy posh people’s yard sales. There is a lot of breakable stuff and costume jewelry my grandmother would have loved to own but would never have put on.
I saw an incredibly expensive dream catcher and it reminded me of the one we had in the house growing up. My mother collected Native American art and there was so much of it in the house people thought we were part Native American. Looking back, I think her being an orphan, she really identified with the displacement they have experienced. The Trail of Tears played a significant theme in the decor now that I think about it. I don’t know why that’s never occurred to me before. Ugh, that’s grim. At least she was a fan of Southwest pastels which made our home look like the set of the Golden Girls if it was filmed in Nevada.
Anyway, there seem to be new people in town and they look less tired. The end is in sight but as I overheard a woman at the next table say “Edinburgh’s never really over. It just keeps going.” She’s right. It can be a hamster wheel.
The weather is unseasonably hot for this part of the world and I should have cut the show down a bit when I saw people really struggling not to pass out but I wanted to see if I could power it through and make it work anyway. I think they would have appreciated more oxygen but everyone seemed very happy with the show and the venue staff said they were hearing great comments outside the room.
I really like this point of the fringe where I have memorized the show to the point that I can just really get into it. I even added a new bit and it fits like a glove. It’s nice to “live in the show”. I don’t know how else to put it.
I see a video of myself doing stand up on the Twisted Mirror TV App and think, “I have got to get a lip brush to apply red lip stick with. I look insane.”
I see the most pierced woman in the world on the Royal Mile. Her name is Elaine which means she was born to have over 6,000 piercings or go into accounting.
I do the finale of Imaginary Porno Charades and did a pretty good “Peter Pants” and threaten to beat a team member with a stool to get them to guess “The Jeremy Kyle Cock Show” but fail with that one.
Naked people ran through the show as tends to happen at some point towards the end of the Fringe. It’s happened so often with this one streaker that I can tell they’ve been hitting the gym over the past couple of years and think, “ Good for them. It’s nice to see people taking care of themselves at the Fringe for a change.”
After eating a pound of warm cheese, I make my way to an industry bar. People are not so much starting to unwind as much as unravel. People are pushy making their way to the bar and making the most out of the last few hours of the most social time of the year. I run into Yuriko and I am so proud of the both of us for having fun this year. Yay us.
A little after three, I get a taxi home and have a lovely chat with the driver about the festival.
He doesn’t go to any shows. He is too busy but go to a sport thing to unwind ( the mixture of Edinburgh accent and unfamiliar team names make it impossible for me to decipher what sport he is actually talking about. )
When he asked me, “ What do you do for fun during the festival?” I said, “ Listen to podcasts about Jerry Epstein, the Opioid Crisis and for-profit prisons in America to remind me that in the grand scheme of things, the festival doesn’t really matter.
The taxi-driver said, “ Well, as long as you enjoy it...”
Not checked for punctuation or spelling, just like Chortle.
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