Good god, what am I doing up at this time?

it's 10:30 and I'm over at Jonathan Mayors house having picked him up from the train station.

It's international day vs. homophobia today and we're off to Oldham.

I reckon homophobia will win this one.

I need a cup of tea. But there's a wasp in the sink.

My head hurts.

I'm not made for mornings.

until next time I love you all xXx

When approached by a teenager with his top of exposing his pale skin an badly done home tattooes whilst his ratty looking friend in ill fitting trackie bottoms lurks nearby I feel a it intimidated, moreso when the topless youth is carrying what appears to be a petrol can, especially when he seems to think that the most appropriate way of opening a conversation is by going in loud so as not to appear intimidatng.

"Have either of you got a light?" He says looking at me and my girlfriend. I look at him and the ratty friend to check that they're not showing signs of this being a trap, it doesn't look like it. I look down at the can of petrol in his hand. I pause and consider the outcome of this request, knowing that I do have a light.

Weighing up the odds I say "Sure." (Like a Goth to a flame)and poduce it from my pocket. the ratty friend starts shouting and calling him a "Fucking cock" before taking the can off him I light his cigarettte and he hands me back the lighter "ta love." he walks off and as we carry on my girlfriend and I can hear him in the distance arguing with his friend asking him to give him back the can of petrol.

Maybe next time.

I found out what happened with my keys, in the middle of the night my ace flat mate Amber's boyfriend Bob wandered through to the kitchen and saw them, thinking they were Amber's he took them through to her room.

I'm not a secret mental drunk after all. All this came too late in the day for me to do anything about it though, I'd handed my last little bits of work after saying aquick hello to the proffessor who was sat outside the main office, it would appear getting stoned in the sunshine. Walking further round Crewe that afternoon my girlfriend and I got stared at by pretty much every passing driver, passenger and pedestrian. But like in Washington when the kid leaned over the balcony and incredulously shouted out "them two are holding hands! It's like they're poofs or something!" before pausing to think and concluding "Lady-poofs?" with a tone of unbridalled confusion in his voice.

When we finally got back to the flat to make food, my not so ace flatmate Victoria, (who I had a stand-up knock down row with a week or so ago about her opening my mail, her argument "you shouldn't take this so seriously." my argument "Stop opening my mail." Her reply "you're over reacting" my reply "Don't open my mail." Her reply "I have seen two of my brothers killed in front of me by soldiers and I left my child in Namibia to come here." My argument. "don't open my post.") was in the lounge braiding her friend's hair.

We decided to head back to Manchester, but first I got a call from a friend who's going to hospital for the same surgery as I had, she was asking a few questionsso I told her everything truthfully, whilst my girlfriend alternatedly winced and mouthed "don't tell her that you'll scare her." after an hour or so I think I'd covered all the questions. and the call ended, it was time to start thinking about going, then my mum called. I told her I'd just been talking my friend through what she can expect from her gender reassignment surgery, and my mum said "did you tell her she'll need a mum? does she have a mum?" I said "I think so." She said, "tell her if she doesn't I'll do it."

"Ok I will do."

"I'll be better at it this time." She said.

"I Don't see how, you were perfect at it last time." I said.

We chatted for ages and then the Mrs and myself jumped in the car and started driving to Manchester. I started thinking of all the stuff my mum had done for me, and how she was there for me when I was in hospital, and before, how she'd helped me in and out of the bath for weeks on end, how she'd helped with some of the most embarrassing things I'd ever been through and all the times I'd not been as good to her as I should have.

I cried a bit, and my girlfriend told me to pull over for a bit.

there was a ball of tension in my stomach as we headed back to her flat, which only got worse as we got to Manchester City Centre. the streets were flooded with Rangers fans and in the parlance of the Kriss Kristopherson movie Convoy there were several "bears in the air", along with a number of meat waggons, sirens blaring all heading down Great Ancoats street to were it looked like they'd tried to loot JD Sports.

The streets were teaming with idiots draped in Union Flags stepping in front of my fast moving car./ I thought ot Bill Hicks suggestion "just speed up and switch your windscreen wipers on."

I swerved a number of times to get past various rangers fans and finally made it to the flat, as I held the fob up to the security lock the Mrs said "Are you Ok?" "no." was all I could answer. as we got down to 73, my space. I reversed in and had to open the door. I was nearly sick. I hate driving a little bit more every day. in between worrying about getting speeding tickets (even though I don't speed, and only do 56 on the motorway", the cost of fuel, and the fact my car will probably break down soon, I can't deal with that sort of situation.

It took a while but I calmed down, and teh evening was salvaged by dying my hair black again.

within seconds I suddenly felt a lot better. I love my black hair, I'm never trying to grow it out again.

anyway time to go, but until tomorrow I love you all.

BB xXx

it'd been a bit stressful and we were both tired

I've lost my feckin' keys, I had them last night, but I can't find them. Plus one of my rings has disappeared, it was on my thumb last night and now it's gone. Normally you have to be some kind of drunk for things like that to happen.

I've never felt quite as useless in my life, and in front of my mrs, she says she loves me anyway, but I can't be so sure.

anyway we were walking down to uni today to drop off some books and get some more David Lynch movies to watch and walking down the street she put her arm round me and I round her, and within three seconds three mouth breathing bottom feders had leaned out of their cars to either stare or shout "Queers!" at us.

people tell me that homophobia doesn't exist anymore. It does, clearly and it's nice to live in the little protective bubble that Manchester and the Gay village provides, but it's also good to remember that outside the cities people are still as backward as ever.

Down the road from m Stonewall had one of those billboards "SOME PEOPLE ARE GAY, GET OVER IT." and this being Crewe, someone had written underneath it "Yeah, puffs." this is the level we're dealing with, people who don't even know that the correct spelling is "Poofs" As Wil Hodgeson said "Have some pride in your insults."

Anyway, big congratulations go to one of my biggest heroes in comedy, the man who took me under his wing when I started and who has been a constant halp and who persuaded me to do my edinburgh show this year, Jason Cook, who won the award for best international act at the New Zealand comedy festival.

I'm so proud of him and glad to know him, both he and Toby Hadoke have made a big difference to me.

Also congratulations to Toby Hadoke for his Sony nomination. It seems like everything creative is alligning correctly His show was fantastic and it is well deserved.

And now back to me, as this is my blog and perhaps the most self indulgent of all artforms even beyond comedy.

It's good to be surrounded with creative people, and in a few weeks I'm moving back to manchester in with Dug Shelmerdine and Jonathan Mayor and I can't wait. On top of that I'm working with Michael J Dolan on my show for edinburgh. I got a Best Debut show nomination at Leicester and I'm hoping to capitalise on that success and make this show the best I can and remember 2008 is my year.

It's a weird number thing that I have, where I give things certain significance based on coincidental repetitions of numbers.

I was born at 20:08 on 24th December 1978.

20:08, so 2008. 24th December= Nearly Jesus, (Jesus was 30 when he made it big with his stand-up, highly underrated in his day and lots of people missed the point of his Kaufmanesque commitment to his art combined with a Peter Kay level of accessibility and observational stuff "How blessed are the meek?" etc.) on top of that, like Russell Brand I was born dead having strangled myself with the umbilical chord. so I've already done the ressurrection trick. Along with the Lazarus rebirth thing (hence the name Bethany)

I'm 30 this year, in the year of 20:08 which corresponds with the time I was born.

so in the 12 hour clock that's 8:08pm. the Edinburgh festival is in August, the eighth month, the first proper Friday of the festival is 8/08/08 So I'm reckoning I'll sell out on that date, and get my first good reviews.

Fuck you Dan Brown!!! this is better than the DaVinci code!!!

I'm fully aware that the above makes me look mental. But it's some more of that hippy dippy positive thinking and "stepping into the future that you've created" stuff that makes this life a lot easier than being defeatist.

Right I'm off now do watch The Lost highway and eat Ice lollies.

until next time, I love you all.

BB xXx

Well it never really egets any easier.

I'm into week two of my being a full time comedian and I'm now trying to book gigs in to fill up my diary enough that I don't have to live off whatever food gets thrown out into the bins outside McDonald's. Which now that I'm vegetarian again would be even worse than last time!

after an initially good start, phoning round all afternoon one day last week, my efforts are faltering this week. yesterday I didn't really do anything and today I'm realising that having phoned everyone last Thursday, there are few people left to phone, and so I'm now drawing a blank.

on the upside my Mrs has just passed her second year in her fine art degree and I'm sat next to her, and we've got a fantastic afternoon and evening ahead of us. Plus as it's very warm I'm wandering round wearing a stetson and a vest top with my skinny fit jeans with turn ups. I look like I've escaped from a John Waters or David Lynch Movie set in the 1950's.

I've also discovered I've got a talent for poker this week. This is a bad thing. I've got an addictive personality, I've managed to make myself sick from eating an entire gatteaux or a couple of pints of Ben And Jerry's on at least 3 occasions in the last month.

It's strange thinking that after getting Alcohol and other drugs (except nicotine and caffine, and occasionally poppers) out of my life that my addictice tendancies are still on the rampage!

I'm now convinced that if I actually try poker in the real world there's a good chance I'll end up losing my car, or the house I rent. So for now I'm just sticking to world poker series on the DS.

My Edinburgh Preview that was supposed to be this Thursday in London has been cancelled too.

Anyway, my Mrs has just asked if we can go soon, though she says that she is enjoying watching my sexy typing. I don't understand that fully. But who am I to argue?

Anyway until next time, when I hope my life's been a bit more interesting, I love you all

BB xXx

Essentially the University Library doesn't open on a sunday, and I've to get a short piece of work in for tomorrow that I really needed to look at stuff in the Library for.

It's sad really, as on Wednesday I handed in my final piece of work.

10 years it took to get this degree, and I mentioned that earlier, but it was really strange at 6am on Wednesday, sat in my room in my flat. Books strewn across the floor along with dirty clothes and bags of shoes and oither detritus. the warm summer sun cascading through the windows and hitting the back of my neck as I finished off a 4000 word essay on Freud's notion of the uncanny and the German notion of Heimat in relation to the German TV series of the same name.

New Dawn Fades by Joy division finds itself starting up on my itunes, and I sit back and light a cigarette and watch the smoke spiral round in the air and early morning shafts of light.

I've finished. Done. Finito.

Did I think ten years ago that I'd be here?

No. I was going to be a rockstar by 22, fucked up and addicted to Heroin and crack by 25, going crazy in hotel rooms in Japan and LA by 26 before dying of heart failure in the Chelsea Hotel in New York at the age of 27, emaciated, drawn and still 7 and a half stone.

I'm two years older than I ever expected to be, which I already consider a win. but it's not the only one.

Handing in that Assignment at 3:30 that afternoon and talking to my coursemates who'd also just finished their degrees, they were asking "so what do we do now?"

I already knew the answer to this. I've spent my time here trying to sort it all out.

As of three thirty on Wednesday 7th May 2008 I'd handed in the final piece of work of this kind that I was ever going to have to do. aged 29 years-old and with a beautiful girlfriend who I know is the one, and who loves me the same, I now have no other work or income than comedy. I'm happy, fulfilled, sober, clean and looking forward to spending the rest of my life doing the job I love.

I was saying about not having much money or enough gigs booked in to live off and my Mrs gave me the reason that I love her and the reason that she's the one for me in the form of the sentance "Day jobs are death. You can't do them and you know you can't, you just get working and book as much in as you can. Don't worry about the money side of things, we can sort that, you just get on with youir career."

So here I am. Bethany Black, Professional Stand-up comedian.

That night we'd gone out for some food to celebrate and on the way back to the car I got a call from Captain Tassles at the Frog, Jason Cook is in New Zealand and it's his show, The Asylum, tonight and they need acts. I'm about 20 minutes away so I head down there and it's a great night, I'm supposed to be doing ten minutes form my Show, Beth Becomes Her.

If you're not familiar with my work, or my show or me, then the quick run down is that Beth Becomes Her is the show about the last 8 years or so of my life, about me realising I was transsexual, coming out to family and friends and going through transition and surgery and eventually coming out the other end realising that I'm now a lot happier than I've ever been. It's a show that starts with Suicide attempts, abortions and nervous breakdowns and ends with me finding true love.

Anyway the act before me was doing a character who was quite bigotted, and the main crux of his rant was about going to see the Ladyboys of Bangkok. it's the sort of thing that doesn't challenge and prejudices but essentially reinforces them. This all adds to make it a little more difficult for me, so I decided not to do any of the stuff from my show.

Dave Longley who was compereing for the night then went on to introduce me and told them that I was doing 10 minutes from my show, and that I'd been nominated for an award, and how great it was and how there's some media interest in the show.

Suddenly I've got no choice. But I go on and do the first ten minutes and it flies by, and for the first time ever I've got a crowd begging me to stay and finish off telling the story. But I've only got 10 minutes, and the full story's 6 times longer than that.

Afterwards a number of the audience and quite a few of the comics and people who work at the Frog ask when I'm doing a full Edinburgh Preview as they want to come and see it. People really are starting to take an interest in this show. and I'm not entirely sure how to deal with that.

Thursday is day two of being a full time comedian, and I'm looking at my virtually empty diary (as a result of spending the last 3 months working on making sure I'd got my degree work done) and so I start phoning round.

Not having a landline or contract phone makes this more difficult, as just to do one quick sweep of the numbers in my phone costs £16 in credit and the result is that I've got 4 open spots or tryouts depending on your point of view for some bigger clubs, and nothing else. It's annoying, but it's a start, and 4 gigs booked in one day is more than enough, especially as the majority of gigs I do are paid it's rare that I'll get an unpaid spot, but there you go.

I call Silky who's looking for an act for his gig in Clwyd that evening so I jump in the car and head down there. It's an arts centre gig, which are lovely, but occasionally not ones for the darker stuff. I'm on with Gary Delaney and Tony Law.

I love working with Gary and Tony's my favourite comedian on the circuit, who I've only ever gigged with once, and he was doubling up so only turned up after I'd been on.

Tonight though he was there from the start, and Silky had given me some good advice about easing them into the stuff I was going to do, and so I did, but the stuff that was in my show made me nervous. It's something that I'm trying to get over, I know it's good stuff, but it really requires an audience to go with it.

I lose confidence, the audience loses confidence. At one point I'm building up a silence for a pay off in one of my suicide stories when someone behind the bar, with perfect rhythmical timing manages to drop a full tray of glasses.

It's ruined the punchline and the rhythm of the piece but it's at such a place that I can't just drop out of the joke.

Anyway I finish and I've done alright, no where near as good as I'd have liked but certainly not death. and the more I go with the stuff that I want to do the more I avoid mediocre gigs. They're all or nothing, and that's the way I like it, sometimes members of the crowd and members of the same table hating and loving it in equal measure.

I'm not for everyone. And that's just how I like it.

Both Tony and Silky give me the same advice. That they thought it was excellent, but "you just need to have the courage of your convictions" said Silky "that's the most nervous I've seen you in 4 years."

Tony said the same thing, I asked him if he'd any more advice and he said "don't listen to anyone else's advice unless you agree with it."

So it's Sunday afternoon, the sund's shining, and I've spent the weekend with my Mrs. We watched Dr Who and The L word, and talked about stuff to do with Edinburgh and her current exhibition and had a great time.

I just got my proof for the "Edinburgh Comedy Festival Brochure" through. It looks good, I think, I hope it'll have the desired effect. It should do, I've just spent £972.90 on my adverts for both brochures.

But more about that for next time.

I'm going to go and eat ice-cream.

until next time I love you all

xXx