Sometimes We Even Have Drama On Stage

In the main, I really like Wednesday. They’re when the Tribe goes out for lunch, and wanders aimlessly around town, popping into boutiques and antique shops and that sort of thing. It’s low stress, it’s good food, and good people, and these are the days that make me the happiest.

This has not, thus far, been one of those days. It started out all right- Adrienne is in Scotland for a poetry festival, so James I and I ran some errands, including getting my rail card renewed, which is a grey area, really, since technically I’m not a student right now, but my advisors took pity on me and signed off on it anyway. Then we went back into town, where James used his tax refund to buy a lovely 1920’s dinner jacket he’s been eyeing for months. We then met up with James II, Charlotte, and Kate for our end of term luncheon at Little Betty’s. (This has been a tradition of the G&SS- the first outing of the term is at Paolo’s, the last is at Betty’s. We’re probably going to change that, though, because James II works at Betty’s and he finds it creepy to eat where he works.)

Lunch was pretty normal. I got the full story of last night’s fight call for Lords, which I did not have to attend- I’d got the highlight reel last night via phone, which mostly involved trying to pull James II off the ceiling, since Strasz apparently sat through the first half of it, without mentioning that he had to leave or anything, and took off as soon as they were ready for his part. Pleading for five minutes of his time didn’t work. Needless to say, James is livid, and I am having a hard time getting my head around the idea of someone who is this poor at time management and responsibility directing. It makes me want to direct all the more, simply because I can’t bear the though of watching Lords flounder through yet another flaky, messy production process. Strasz is the other person putting in a proposal, to do Richard III. I don’t entirely disagree with the show choice, but I have a very big problem with trusting him as a director.

Somewhere in the middle of this, I remembered to ask Charlotte if Mammon had surfaced at C’tine yet. Mammon is a demon, made of two planks of wood, which Lords (me, in my capacity as unofficial closet bitch) loaned to C’tine for the Halloween party. My vague hints that perhaps he should go home reached purposely deaf ears, which I found rather frustrating, since the agreement was that he could be borrowed for the week of Halloween and that was all. He was torched- literally- for Guy Fawke’s Day, which really bothered me, given that it was on a loan with a promise from Jaclyn that everything would come home in good shape. When, just before moving out Constantine, I mentioned that I should get him home to the Lords closet, he disapeared. This freaked me out, thinking the cleaners had thrown it out, and I started asking around. He eventually resurfaced for one afternoon, and then vanished again as soon as I mentioned how delighted I was that he had turned up.

It turns out that C’tine has been having several discussions about how to keep me from returning him to the Lords closet, and it finally culminated in (I’m really not kidding about this) people bike chaining him to a chair in the Common Room. We discovered this when we got to Constatine to pick him up, since Charlotte said he was back.

I was furious. You borrow something and then hide it and chain it up so its legitimate owners can’t have it back? In my world, this is referred to as theft and it’s something rather frowned upon. Charlotte kept saying she had to stay out of it, because it was a problem everyone had with me, and she didn’t want it to reflect on her. This did not help my mood, needless to say. I’m not sure what it is about me that puts people off, but there it is, and always has been: in high school, there were an awful lot of people in colourgaurd and Odyssey of the Mind who were not my biggest fans, probably because, I suppose, I actually took it seriously and wanted to see it do well, which meant being responsible, organised, and other ugly words like that.

So Charlotte’s flipping out, I’m severely angry, James II is following suit (he takes Lords as seriously as I do, and we’re sort of stress barometers for one another), and pretty soon we’re trying to find pliers and screwdrivers to pull off the bolts, which they have screwed into the damn thing, thereby further damaging it. James I very calmly goes upstairs to have a little talk with Jaclyn, while James II runs off to go find proper pliers at Poundland. Charlotte runs off to hide in her room. And I’m standing there, fuming, when, of all people, Strasz comes in.

Normally, I am a very calm, exceedingly diplomatic person. I don’t get angry with anything. Except. I get really, really defensive of the people and groups I care about, and I have had it with Constantine House using Lords of Misrule as their private party-supply house. We work out asses off for our shows, spend what little money the shows rake in to put on new ones, and we can’t afford to be seen as a glorified thrift shop. So when he made some casual comment about Mammon, yes, I asked what the fuck had happened. And I probably did so in less than diplomatic terms. I did have the good grace to apologise for being snappish, and to say that I knew he hadn’t locked it up personally, but I was not as smiling and cheerful and circumspect as I should have been. I wasn’t helped by his comment that they had decided to lock it up specifically because of me, and my desire to return it to the closet.

James I returned from his apparently very productive chat with Jaclyn. He’s never lived at C’tine and he’s not really one of the Faces of Lords, so to speak, and he also has a genius for pointing out the absolute diculousness of the situation: “They’ve chained two planks of wood to a chair.” He pretty much told her that he didn’t care who’d done it, but really, it’s gotten a little absurd, and we would very much appreciate it if Mammon could be silently returned to the Manor by Friday or there could potentially be complaints further up the food chain. For whatever reason, where people don’t, apparently, take me seriously at all, she listened to that.

Unfortunately, this was about five minutes too late for my lack of silence and diplomacy where Strasz was concerned. I have no idea what he’ll say to the rest of the house. It’s not that I give a damn if Constantine House wants to hate me- I’d think it rather petty, but I don’t live there anymore, and caring what anyone thinks is not high on my life’s agenda; never has been. It’s what occurred to me as we were walking down Bootham: that Adrienne and I are the faces of “Macbeth”. We desperately want that show, and the vote is coming up, and I don’t want us to lose it simply because I stepped on the toes of the Constantine crew, who were in the wrong in the first place.

James II came running up with the pliers, ready for liberate Mammon, and we passed on the news of what had happened. Honestly, I think it was better than just hijacking him, which would be even less politically wise. Never the less, James was not happy about my momentary lapse of judgement. He wants to do Macbeth as much as Adrienne and I, maybe more, in a way, since he’s been the most impacted by Strasz’s lack of responsibility re. Lords. In truth, he’s in a better position to do some of the politicking than I am, since he’s not the one wanting to direct. Simply unscrewing the bolts and taking Mammon back to the Manor would have avoided the obvious pitfall (although in calm retrospection I think it would have opened up a different can of shit), and it would have, at least in theory, kept me well out of it. But knowing all this probably would not have mattered, even if I had proccessed all of this before opening my mouth. I’m not used to having the luxury of having someone else to fight my battles for me; I’m accustomed to handling all issues, all the time, on my own. Twenty-eight years of conditioning goes a long way, although I suspect the tongue-lashing I got for it will also go a long way- I hate being yelled at, and I recongise that what James says is true: I will be wise to keep my head down, smile and nod and be pleasant, at least until we have the show, and let other people be pushy in my place.

Honestly, you’d think all of this mattered, that we were planning to invade a small duchy or something, rather than just do a play. But it does matter, it matters terribly to me. And not because of my own ego, but because I genuinely want Lords to be all of the wonderful things it’s capable of being. I would happily say, go for it, with the summer show, if someone competent proposed a show. Yes, I miss directing and I love it and want to do it, but the most important thing to me is that we have a good production, not that I have a good production. I know I care too much about something that’s “just for fun”, but what’s the point of doing anything if you’re not going to care about it? And if you’re going to do it, why half-ass it?

We have until April to get things settled, calmed, and I have to hope that people don’t look at this as a me-versus-them issue. It’s not meant to be, it never was. Is it so much to ask for people to just be basically responsible in the first place? We’re all in grad school, for god’s sake. As James I says, “they’ve chained two planks of wood to a chair.” Yes, it is absurd. And it’s equally absurd for me to be upset about it. I am so angry with myself for being less than calm, rational, diplomatic, perfect. I hope I haven’t screwed us all over in that one moment’s ill-judgement.

So much for my lovely Wednesday. I spent most of the remainder of the afternoon halfway wanting to throw up. We ran some errands and ended up having a good wallow in the local antique shop, which is a favourite of mine- it’s a random heap of stuff, and the proprietor’s very nice, in a talk-your-ear-off sort of way. I needed to just sort of play in York, and try not to think about Lords. I didn’t quite succeed, but we did have fun in spite of myself. Now we’re home for a brief respite, and then out to the pub on North Street to meet up with James II again for one of his twice-a-week folk nights. (James is an excellent folk-violinist, and I dearly love live music, so Wednesdays and Fridays out have become a frequent occasion. He keeps trying to convince me to bring my violin, but I know how badly I suck.) Normally I have a shit-ton of fun at these things, but given the way today is going, I’m dubious.

I’m just hoping all of this is not portending things to come. I’ve had the queer, unsettled, pre-spring-holiday feeling, and we all know how last spring hols blew open the lid of hell, so I’m desperately wishing to be wrong. Lords is really the only thing in my life that has the capacity to go pear-shaped (oh, please, let that be true!), but I have learned not to trust fate: it’s very good at finding shit to drop in your lap.