I was just exhausted last night.  I avoided the theatre like it was the plague, and I got pissed off when the President took up all of my channels (except UPN, and that’s some crappy prime time programmng), so I actually crawled into bed around nine-thirty.  I actually read through a journal of poetry that I started when I was 16 (and the 200 pages lasted me till I was 20), and that was a trip.  It was funny to see echoes of things that are gnawing at me now, foreshadowed in lines that I penned when I was still in high school.  Also makes you think.

So I was out by ten, easy.  And I mean, OUT.  Bryan tried to call several times throughout his dress rehearsal, but the phone did not penetrate my sleep-coccoon.  It was loverly.  I finally woke up around midnight, for his final attempt to call.  I didn’t make it in time, so he left me a voicemail.  I was groggy when I heard it, but the part I could distinctly make out:

“.. so I kicked him out of the show.”

Um, WHAT?!

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that (IMHO) Bryan is too nice to these kids.  He’s just from a different educational “school”.  He picked up his finesse from a college professor, while I had discipline and the basics beaten in to me in a middle-school setting.  So while he believes his kids to be free-willed and independent, I believe them to be child-like and untrustworthy.  I would’ve killed half his kids already.  I started to get a bit edgy on Wednesday night, yelling at kids for reasons that Bryan wouldn’t have, so I stayed away on Thursday night.  But we talked about how I thought he was too nice.  And.. I guess.. he took it to heart.

“Yep, kicked him out,” he said, as he sprawled out on my bed.  “I had a kid on stage, in my dress rehearsal, with a script in hand to finish out the show.  He’s done.”  I could not even comprehend what this man was saying to me.  He continued on, told me the straw that broke the camel’s back (and got the straw thrown out of the show, day before opening), and my head was just swimming.  You kicked one of your three leads out?  REALLY?!

Now there was no way I was going to sleep.  I was going to lie here, pitying that poor child, and worrying about what the rest of the cast now had to worry about.  Would someone be able to step in so quickly?  Seriously?!  I curled up beside him, and he wrapped me in his arms.  His pulse was oddly calm.. no matter how relaxed he is, his pulse is ALWAYS racing.  But tonight, it seemed just above 3/4 time. 

He kissed me several times on my forehead, burrowed in beside me, and sighed, “But I let him back in.”

Bastard.  He’s just too damn nice.