Last night a museum saved my life

While everyone else is excited about the pubs, for me lockdown only ends when I can get back into a museum.

Even thinking about them lowers my blood pressure; the muffled sounds, the gentle lights, the ritual of leaving your phone, bag and the real world at the cloakroom. Just follow the signs, your mind absorbed, your body entombed until it’s time for the gift shop and a cup of coffee in the café.

A good museum is an ejector seat from reality. 

“I need to go to Hampton Court” I’ll sigh, “I’m really fascinated by the role of women in the Tudor legal system” 

But really, I’m just waiting until I have a room to myself and then BOOM I can flounce about pretending I’m a princess locked in a turret for falling in love with a stable boy - “what will PAPA do?”

And don’t get me started on those interactive videos, sepia images that spring to life when you walk by and explain what life was like in the past - I DIE. The money I would give to be one of those cloth-capped scullery maids, frozen mid milk churn that suddenly looks down the camera lens and explains “Oh sorry I didn’t see you there, I’m Maisie, I’ve worked in the kitchens since I was 4 years old!” DREAM GIG.

I love museums because when I’m there I feel like I’m being productive. I find it difficult to relax, being self-employed I feel like I never really have time off, just time I should be working. I vacillate from panicking that I should be pounding the keyboards like Jerry Seinfeld or paranoid that I’m a joyless hack who should instead be wandering through meadows waiting for inspiration to ignite. 

My sweet spot is that moment where you’re too tired to work but not so exhausted you can’t stop crying. You can take the day off guiltfree and enjoy it, not spend it sobbing for no reason in the park. 

Looking for healthier solutions, I once went to a work addiction meeting. There were about ten of us in a circle and we all took a few moments to share about the unrealistic expectations we put on ourselves; someone couldn’t turn down overtime, someone else was recovering from a heart attack.

When it came to me, I closed my eyes and blurted “I’m worried that I get all my self-worth from comedy and it’s become a negative clawing thing in my life, That trying to be seen as good has replaced any joy I have in just doing it and I feel like it’s weeds in a pond dragging me down so I can’t breathe and I’m always terrified I’m not doing enough.”

And I swear, a woman patted me on the arm, handed me a tissue and whispered, “have you thought of starting a YouTube Channel?”

So that’s why I feel safer with museums. The Mecca of course being The Smithsonian, a village of museums around The Mall in Washington DC. I was there for a weekend by myself, on a short mini-holiday from my actual holiday visiting my friend in New York.

The African American history museum is easily the best, though I did start to get distracted by one odd thing. In the rooms dedicated to the history of slavery about three-quarters of the artefacts had been donated by Oprah Winfrey. I tried to lose myself in the narrative, but a question kept distracting me - how did Oprah Winfrey end up with all this slave stuff? Did people just keep giving it to her? Did she say once “I’m quite interested in the civil war” and that was it, every Christmas from Tom Hanks another slave whip. What do you get the woman that has everything - Confederacy manacles? Was she having a clear out, rang up the museum and said “get a van here by tomorrow afternoon and you can have all the 19th century shackles you want, otherwise they’re going in the tip”? 

Then I saw the actual hat Abraham Lincoln was wearing when he was shot. It’s funny how seeing actual objects from the past changes your view of history. Before I saw this hat, the size of it, the height of the crown, the width of the brim, I thought John Wilkes Booth had shot him for helping end slavery. But afterwards I thought, maybe he was just sitting behind him in Ford’s Theatre and had had enough. Who wears a hat that big to a PLAY??!!

I was also distracted because I was waiting to hear back from a stand-up TV show I’d recorded. It was a big deal because at the time I had no agent, hadn’t been considered for any stand up TV stuff for years and was feeling really insecure and anxious about my career. Lads, I needed a win. 

So even though I was only offered it three days before the filming started, I was determined through graft and grit to do well. “Can you believe she was only a last-minute choice” I imagined the producers whispering, as I returned for my second standing ovation. “I guess hard work does pay off! Cause SHE READY!”.

Immediately, however, it was obvious something was up. I was the only act whose set wasn’t in the autocue and it was pretty obvious that the production crew had not read my routine. So while the other acts got detailed notes, feedback, direction and multiple takes, I got a thumbs up. It's Ok, I thought, I had seen enough reality TV shows to know that in this situation I was most definitely the underdog and everyone knows they always triumph. I went out there, I had a great set, I left everything on the field and I was so relieved it had gone well. God loves a trier and if that’s all it takes, along with will power and a high threshold for rejection, child please, you ain’t seen nothing yet. 

I was just about to get to the Native American museum when I checked my phone.

An email from the producer to say unfortunately I wasn’t making the broadcast. They wouldn’t need anything more from me. She also noted that she saw I had the show listed in the credits in my email signature and could I remove it please?

The one advantage to having your heart broken in a museum dedicated to the history of Native Americans is that it’s perfectly acceptable to sob in public.

Hiccupping and puffy faced, I read about a people nearly wiped out, but who were still here. Every hope crushed, every treaty broken, every promise smashed and all by lying WHITE MEN. Were we really so different?

And look at them now, the Native American people, on TV all the time...if they can make it, I hiccupped, so can I.

Things that have annoyed me this week: PEOPLE WHO BRAG ABOUT BEING FOODIES

I have bad news if you’ve turned being a “foodie” into a cornerstone of your personality – everybody eats food and 99% tastes about the same level of good and the other 1% you just put hot sauce on.

No one really likes fancy food. No one comfort eats marinated charcoal tofu. No one gets drunk and absolutely has to have kelp jerky. People only order it to impress other people or because they feel pressured by the waiter. It’s the food version of doing shots. And at least vodka makes you feel good about yourself before making you vomit.

And why do we have to hear longwinded explanations from the waiter about where it came from, its complicated upbringing and what to expect when it arrives? That’s how my friends introduce boyfriends they know I’m going to hate - now I can’t relax because I don’t know what’s going to arrive, a fancy salad or Scott Disick?

Everyone knows the best thing about visiting a fancy restaurant is seeing what the toilets are like, so when the most popular cake on your menu is in the urinal, you’re in trouble.

You know what tastes better than food painstakingly prepared for hours with ingredients that take weeks to source? Anything with lots of cheese.

Do you know what makes any food the most delicious thing you’ve eaten in your life? Alcohol.

You know what tastes better than a dish that took hours of simmering to make? Anything you eat, while you sit watching Netflix instead.

That clip you put online about the cheese you paid £30 for didn’t go viral because people were impressed; it’s now a recruitment video for Isis about the decadence of the West.

Give up, everybody knows the fanciest food you will ever eat is the Viennetta you had at your granny’s house when you were nine and the only foodie that people truly love and actually respect is Ronald McDonald. Why? Because we don’t want a meal that looks good, we want one that makes us happy.