Houston Day 269

"Americans are a very modern people, of course.  They are a very open people too.  They wear their hearts on their sleeves.  They don't stand on ceremony.  They take people as they are. They make no distinction about a man's background, his parentage, his education.  They say what they mean and there is a vivid muscularity about the way they say it.  They admire everything about them without reserve or pretence of scholarship.  They are always the first to put their hands in their pockets.  They press you to visit them in their own home the moment they meet you, and are irrepressibly goodhumoured, ambitious, and brimming with self-confidence in any company.  Apart from all that I've got nothing against them."  (New-Found-Land by Tom Stoppard)

Play-by-play of the last few days:

• Saturday: Wake up, have a "reading breakfast" at the Down House with Lucas (a breakfast where we take our books and read, stopping to read the fun bits to each other.  Lucas I think brought Dostoyevsky [I seriously just made about eight attempts at spelling that] or maybe John Eldredge and I brought Tom Stoppard).
• Regular Saturday show at Express, with three people again as Derrick is still interstate.  (I'm not mad at him, I'm not mad at him, I'm not mad at him...)
• Fly to Idaho via Phoenix with Lucas.  Arrive 11.10pm.  Go to bed while Lucas takes a smoke and a walk with his brother Scott.
• Sunday: Go to church with Lucas' dad & his (now) wife Barbara.  Feel slightly uncomfortable in the kind of church I haven't been to in a while.
• Attend Mark & Barbara's wedding in Mark's backyard.
• Have a celebratory lunch with Mark & Barbara and family.
• Go back to Mark's place & enjoy a drink with Carol.
• Go with Lucas and Carol to Dave & Shannon's place.
• Hang out and eat pizza.
• Sleep.
• Monday: get picked up by Robin (Lucas' mom) and go to the airport.
• Say goodbye to Robin.
• Forget I left a full bottle of water in my bag.  Get escorted out of security, enjoy about five minutes of "girl-time" with Robin, empty my bottle, say goodbye to Robin again and go through security (again).
• Fly to Houston via Denver.  Enjoy lunch and a beverage at Denver.  Very respectable airport.
• Arrive back in Houston, go straight to my last Shakespeare class.  Take big risks with my Ophelia monologue and show all kinds of crazy hysterical feminine vulnerability.  Feel pleased with self.
• Go out for drinks with Shakespeare teacher & students.
• Tuesday: Leave house on little sleep and no organisation and running late.  Traces of tornado behind me.  Question wisdom of driving all the way to Austin and back in one day.
• Drive to Austin.
• Audition for an industrial video, somewhat mediocrely.
• Catch up with Morgan, a friend from Houston City Dance summer school, who goes to UT in Austin.
• Check out Mozart's, an excellent coffee house on a lake.
• Drive back to Houston.
• Freak out at phone's having no battery.  (Phone is only source of map.)
• Question wisdom of driving all the way to Austin and back in one day.
• Get home just in time to check email and find out voice-over recording has been rescheduled to Wednesday.
• Clean up traces of tornado left by the morning's disorganised exit.
• Enjoy episode of "Firefly" with a cup of tea and husband.
• Continue current obsession with Tom Stoppard and take Jumpers to read in bed.
• Wednesday: Freedom Train performance with Miss Shirley filling in for Derrick (the powers that be have decided this is better than the three-person version).
• Come home, enjoy episode of "Scrubs" while blogging, take afternoon off.

Love to all who read.  xo

(I mean, who read my blog.  Although, if you read Tom Stoppard, love to you too.)