A Thousand Thoughts

“I can feel pieces of my brain falling away like a wet cake.” (Dylan Moran as Bernard Black in Black Books.)

The first time I saw Dylan Moran perform live was in 2011. My brothers and another friend and I were crossing the road from the car park over to the performing arts centre, and directly in our path there was this guy sitting on a low brick wall drinking a glass of wine and smoking, and it was Dylan Moran. We were all totally starstruck and one my brothers managed to say something like ‘hey man!’ to which Dylan responded ‘Hi, how’re you going? in a voice that was completely Bernard Black. While behaving like embarrassing fans, the same brother choked out ‘It’s like some sort of delicious biscuit!’ before we giggled ourselves further away from our favourite theatrical misanthrope.

Twelve years later, as in yesterday, I went to see Dylan for the third or fourth time (I hope he’s okay with being on first name basis?). 

The me who went to the show last night was a different me. I have 95% more grey hair than in 2011 (given I already had some from age 25), zero makeup, and responsibility for two small humans who didn’t exist back then. Who knows how many layers of masking there may be, but twelve years ago I didn’t even know what masking was, and yesterday I knew that walking through a crowd would be loud and overwhelming, and knew I would my friend and I would choose somewhere quiet to talk, because we don’t have to force ourselves to comply with that kind of thing anymore. I knew that I’ve come to care a great deal more about what I think, and so much less about what everyone else thinks or what they think I should think. I knew that I was happy to be going to listen to a comedian whose sarcastic, insightful, rude, grumpy, happy, funny words have always been my kind of thing. 

Last night Dylan Moran walked right into the bar we were sitting in afterwards and was standing right next to our table as he looked in a drinks fridge for a while and didn’t choose anything. I so wanted to say something and didn’t have anything to say. I didn’t want to be annoying. And also, because the main thing we both wanted to say to him was ‘Hey, have you ever considered that you might be Autistic and ADHD? Cos we think you might be one of us’. But we didn’t.

And now, because I am forty, and have two small children with intense needs, I am very very tired.