(no subject)

Mum called me at 6:30 this morning. Then she immediately said she had an IM from Lucky and had to hang up, and called me back five minutes later. I just got off the phone with her.

She and Lucky are taking a family leave of work, which is some kind of legal thing in the US, and going down to Bernard's university today to make sure he doesn't bolt as soon as his finals are finished. They're also hoping their presence will keep him from quite so much contact with this girl. His finals last through the time I'm there, and the original plan was to have us go out and visit him, but because they're now staying out there I will be, too. I fly into Austin on the sixth, after which we will drive directly to this small town out in the sticks of west Texas, where -- because there's not enough room for all three of us in the university apartment Bernard has -- I will spend the week in a hotel room, with no internet, alone. When I'm not called on to help deprogram my brother, anyway.

Sounds like a great "Christmas holiday", huh?

(no subject)

I'm about to leave work and I managed to scrape together some spare time, so I thought I'd make a quick post. Work didn't suck as badly as it could have; my artistic director was impressed that I got him the scripts he wanted even though it took me two days longer than I said it would. He didn't seem to notice. Then he telephoned Rupert Everett (for serious. Left him a message and everything). I don't even know. I also got the zine done that I was assembling, and set a date to have next show's program finished.

Mum texted throughout most of the morning, and I swear to god she's hovering perilously close to breakup-letter-in-free-verse territory. I understand that she's living in a nightmare but really, that's no excuse to send three text messages, each composed of two words, when one six-word text message would accomplish the same thing and not make me jump every time the txtmsg alarm bleeped. And it's not like it's hard for her -- she has a bloody iPhone.

Then she phoned around noon and I hid out in the sekrit back entrance to the theatre and said "Yes Mum" and "No Mum" for twenty minutes while she rehashed every emotion, thought, and idea she'd had in the five hours since we spoke last.

I find it very hard to love my brother most of the time. It's supposed to be some automatic instinct, but I really have to work at it. Right now I'm working very hard just to keep from wishing that he would go off and die, and that's only because if he did it would kill my Mum, who I do love without having to work at it at least fifty percent of the time.

(no subject)

WELL. TODAY HAS BEEN A DAY.

Mum has called me on the dot every five hours, and at one point today I spent five minutes talking to our admin and came back to find I had eight text messages -- two from R, one from his ex, and five from mum. I was so glad to be leaving work today, since it meant I could phone mum and then relax a little, but when I leaned in to the Artistic Director's office to tell him I was taking off he said "Wait! Sit down. We need to talk about your internship."

I just about wept from the stress, but it turned out to be a good meeting -- I am officially going to be designated a Dramaturgical Apprentice which means I still don't get paid but it's acknowledged that dramaturgy is what I'm going to be doing. I'll be in charge of the zine we do, with full editorial control, as well as the show programs. I'll take part in season selection and research, and serve as company dramaturge to visiting directors. So that's good news, but I was so tired I'm not sure it fully registered.

I missed the bus going home, since I was trying to keep my mother from freaking out, and when I finally arrived, damp and cold, I walked in the door and R looked up at me.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

"Ready for what?" I asked, my heart sinking.

"Remember that hissing noise you said you were hearing behind the toilet? Turns out you were right, it was totally a leak. The garden apartment is flooded. So they cut a hole in one of the walls. But you can use my shower!" he added, because the strain was obviously getting to me.

While I can indeed use his shower if I wish, I can't use it until they turn the water back on.

It feels like there's very little left in my life that could fall apart, unless my celphone dies or my wallet disappears again.

So I made chocolate chip cookies.

It seemed like the only thing left to do, really.