Diary of a Black Woman At Edinburgh Fringe — Entry #19

I’m an American Black woman performing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland for the first time

Photo by Osama Saeed on Unsplash

Performer’s Log — Stardate 08182025.01

Performance 17 of 23

There is construction happening in the flat we’re renting and I’m hearing the sound of something loud and buzzing above me. The noise is maddening. Please keep in mind that my father is a woodworker and cabinet maker so I grew up hearing table saws and hammers all throughout my childhood. So my tolerance level for tools is very very high. And still the noise I am hearing at this moment is killing me.

It’s a “reasonable” hour. It’s not like it’s 7am or something. It’s almost noon. Nonetheless, it’s really distracting and hard on the ears. Add on to that the luxury problem that my man and I are trying to print out the 4 and 5 star reviews to add to my posters. I’m at the flat on my laptop, he’s at the printers and we’re alternating between texting and calling to figure out should we print the stars and reviews on paper size that is A3 or A4. And somehow A3 size paper, even thought it’s a smaller number, is larger than A4 size paper which seems to vex my man. It’s a lot. So the ban-saw, or whatever it is whirring above me, is really challenging at the…