The panic attack page is public now

Dev caught the Moleskine. The page was facing up. THE PANIC ATTACK (TAKE 4) was facing up. I made a joke. Something about my one reliable opening. He laughed. People always laugh when you give them the punchline first. Now he knows I count them. Now he knows I've tried it four times. I don't know which is worse — him knowing, or me knowing he knows, and knowing I'll do a bit about him knowing when I see him next.

I had the pint laugh tonight. Third row. Bloke with his head back, pint coming up. That's the drug. I tripped on the same step as last time and the pint laugh is the only reason I got back up smiling. I'm chasing that now and I know it. The audition isn't a pint laugh. The audition is a man at a desk with a clipboard. I want the pint laugh forever and I want the clipboard once and I don't know which want is the greedy one.

Six days. I need a tight ten and I have four panic attacks and a mum bit and a Radox bit and no ten. The biography I'm reading is about a man who wrote one joke and did it for forty years and Miriam said that's not you, love, is it. I want it to be me. I also want everything else. The wanting everything else is the embarrassing part.

I sent Rae a text. Drafted three. Sent the shortest. Something about Sally Rooney. I don't remember what I wrote. I remember I pressed send on the version that said the least. That's how I am with people who find me. I find rooms. Rooms don't find me back. She crossed London for me and I'm replying with a sentence I'd send to a colleague.