Yesterday was about the worst Valentine's Day ever.

We had a six hour rehearsal. Yes, a six hour rehearsal for a twenty-five page play, but it did make sense because there are three characters who come into the shop one after the other, and Omar and I are in the whole show, so it was two hours for each actor, each section of the play.

We started out with one of the actors, who, when given a rather gentle direction absolutely flew off the handle. The only thing that I can figure out to rationalize this behaviour was that this actor is extremely unsure of his/herself, because he/she was being intensely confrontational in a way that I have never seen before.

The whole thing was very startling and came out of nowhere, and the only explanation is that he/she was scared out of his/her mind, because the reaction was as though Moira was attacking him/her, when she was doing nothing of the sort.

After that, though, was when it really got bad. The three of us, Moira, Omar and I were together eating our lunches, when I made a suggestion about the book that has to be in a case that Omar dismissed in an extremely off-hand manner. And I became furious.

I absolutely shut down, as I do when I am really mad. The thing was, I stayed mad for the next four and a half hours. Now, I was working on under five hours of sleep and was hormonal in a way that anything could set me off, but that was extreme even for me. And then I realized why I was really mad, it was because of his bio.

I am doing the programme for the show, and he had given me his bio the day before, which thanked Le, me, Moira, Lee, Jim and Michael "for letting his neurosis take flight, and begs forgiveness for the countless rewrites."

And why was I so mad? Why, because this is our show, his and mine together. The reason it is being produced is because of me, the reason that the script is in the particular form that it is, is because I worked on the script with him (not that it would have been bad without my input, but it would have been vastly different) and because we are artistic partners, as he has said on numerous occasions. And he put in his bio the equivalent to "Thanks to Moira and the cast," as though I were only as important to this show as Jim.

So, I was mad and wouldn't speak to him or anyone for four and a half hours, and let me tell you, this is the first time where I have had to kiss someone about fifty times while being so mad at him, I would have preferred to bite his lips off. I had to slap him at one point, and I really gave it to him, feeling pretty guilty afterwards. It's not as though I hit him really hard on purpose, but I should have thought before I let go, "You're really mad, be careful."

Also, later on I have to jerk him by the arm and drag him offstage, and I accidentally slammed him into a large cabinet. That, however, was a complete accident, it wasn't even me being passive-aggressive (or should that be aggressive-aggressive?), I just misjudged where he was standing in regards to said cabinet, and I was trying to miss the chair. I apologized profusely, but could tell that he was furious and thought that I had done it on purpose.

He left and I did the box office, then came home to a very angry email from him. He said that I was unprofessional and had sabotaged the rehearsal, but the real thing was that he completely misjudged what had originally set me off. He thought that it was because of something he said about my calling him motherfucker. And in mentioning that, he called me vulgar.

He. Called. Me. Vulgar. I don't think that there is a worse insult that you can call a person, and it set me off again. I sent him an email back about what I was really mad about, the bio. But I was really mad about that vulgar comment.

I had to get up at 10a this morning to see Cynthia's matinee out in Ocean Grove, but I couldn't sleep. I went to bed after 3.30p, then was awake from 5a to 8a absolutely ranting about vulgar. I just lay in bed, talking out loud, saying about the same seven things over and over again.

Vulgar means foul, no-class, ugly, stupid, and graceless. Vulgar means trashy and oblivious. Vulgar means not as good as you. And frankly, it's pretty rich of him to call me vulgar when he was the one who wrote this play.

So that was my Valentine's Day. Moira said, after I told her about his email, "We have to find you another man." And I answered that I don't want another man. That I don't particularly want this one just now, but neither do I want anyone else.

Today's horoscope:
You see the human face of someone that you previously regarded as a statistic. What other subtleties have you been missing lately? Open the drapes and study a landscape that was once so familiar.

One year ago today:
The one thing that is making me crazy is people telling me how brave I am. I swan, if one more person comes up to me after the show with liquid eyes and trembling hands and tells me all intensely how brave my performance is, I'll have them for breakfast.

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Last Updated Thurs 19 February 22:14:09 2004