Stella's Street.

It is important to stick to your word.

I arranged to meet Stella Duffy yesterday. Stella is someone who has directed real plays for real theatres and has now somehow found herself directing me in what will eventually be my debut show. Anyway, our last meeting was weeks ago and since then I have written....nothing. Well, very nearly nothing. When I woke up yesterday I decided that I'd cancel the meeting. I'd be wasting Stella's time and, much more importantly, I'd be embarrassed telling her that I haven't done any work. Yeah, calling Stella on the day and cancelling is definitely the thing to do. Even though she's a very busy novelist, director, etc and I'm lucky to have any of her time at all, phoning Stella up a couple of hours before we're due to meet and telling her that I can't make it because I'm auditioning for the new Bond film is definitely the best thing to do. And so believable. Even better would be to text her and tell her I'm not coming. Yes. Good old texting. The coward's faithful friend.

So, I sent her a text and pressed send. The only thing was that my text was as spineless as I was. It gave Stella a choice. I told her it was up to her if we met today. I could go to her house with nothing and we could talk about other things or I could stay at home and "work" on the show. Pathetic. Why didn't I just say I'm not coming round. Why am I so scared of both work and Stella?

Stella's reply was "Up to you".

The fucking bitch. What am I supposed to do with that? She can clearly see that I'm trying to wriggle out of work and forwarding my career in some way by being a wimp who can't make his mind up and then she threw me right back to square one. The choice was supposed to be hers not mine. In fact, although I gave her a choice, there wasn't really a choice, was there? Surely she could have read between the emoticons and clearly see that I am useless, had done no work and didn't want to do any work. Surely she could see that the only answer to my choice was "Fair enough. Work hard on the show today. We'll rearrange for another time". That would save my embarrassment and, like every single thing in my life, could be put off until later. But no. She had to make ME choose. ME! The person with no spine. Oh, fuck it. We'll meet. That'll fucking show her.

And I'm really glad we did. Otherwise I wouldn't see how lovely Stella's house is and I wouldn't have drunk Chili Tea. I don't recommend Chili Tea but I'm glad I tried it. It tastes a bit like really sweet yet spicy urine. I take it back. I do recommend it. Plus if I hadn't gone round I wouldn't have got off the bus at the wrong stop about 20 minutes away from Stella's house and if I hadn't done that then I wouldn't have seen a grown man skipping. It was lovely to watch. Not enough of us skip anymore. There he was, I'd say in his early 40's, happily skipping down the street and smiling away to himself. He looked blissfully happy. If I had his confidence I would have skipped myself. If you feel like it, have a skip today. It looked like a lot of fun. Let me know how you get on.

If I hadn't have gone to see Stella I would have missed out on being freaked by the woman I was freaking. That's not a Sugababes lyric, that really happened.

After the joy of watching a middle aged man in the throws of merry skipping, I found myself walking behind a woman. I was maybe 30 feet behind this woman so, to be honest, I didn't really register her at first. In fact, I wouldn't have noticed her at all if it wasn't for her constantly looking over her shoulder. It became pretty obvious pretty quickly that she was looking at me. I didn't know why but she was. I wasn't skipping so I don't think that I deserved all the attention. After a while I could see that she looked stressed. Am I stressing her? I mean I'm just walking. Does she think I'm following her? Does she think I'm stalking her? Oh my God, does she think that I'm going to leap on her or something? She starts walking really fast. Right. Fine. I'm not doing anything but I'm obviously freaking her so I'll slow down while she speeds up.

Well that's not fucking fair. My slow walking is faster than her fast walking. Oh God, she keeps looking round. She's going to fall over and when she falls over I'll have to run over and help her up and if I run over to her while she's on the ground she'll start screaming. Why is this happening? I'm going to a meeting where I will reveal nothing to someone who will kick me out of her house and somehow on my way I've accidentally raped someone. I bet that fucking happens. She's looking at me with such fear and she's speeding up so much that she's bound to fall. Well, if she does, I'm not helping her. If I run over to help she'll start screaming and I'll panic and cover her mouth and say something like "Ssh. Ssh. I'm your friend" and she'll just be so scared that she'll want to get it over with now and quickly get my penis out and, while I'm telling her that it's all good, she'll put it inside her and I'll have accidentally raped her. Well, I'm not doing it, do you hear me? I'm not going to be my own rape victim.

Why is she scaring me so much? This isn't fair. Eventually she stops walking and I walk past her. She stares at me as I pass. Thank God she didn't do anything. I felt really vulnerable there for a while and there was no-one else around to help me. Sure, I could go to the police and tell them that a woman made me rape her but they never believe you. Like no amount of men before me, I'll just let it happen and keep it inside forever. You're really not safe on the street anymore.

All that took about 20 seconds and felt like a month but when I got to Stella's house and drank my weird, weird tea it was all forgotten about. I think after something like that you really do just need your friends around you. And that's why I'm glad I went to Stella's house yesterday. I arranged to meet her and I stuck to my word and I'm glad.

Oh, and we got lots of work done and that shocked me and made me happy. That's nice, eh? Thanks, Stella!

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk