Mary Robinette Kowal

Broke down into hysterical crying during the Dybbuck rehearsal today. R– & I talked. Things are much better now. M– has been very good to me, & for me. Piper rehearsal went very well. We were focusing on detail, walks, hand gestures, etc. Oddly the thing that finally prompted my outburst was R– asking me

We had a run-through at 8:00 this morning. Did production work, then drove over to the church to load in at 2:00.  But there was a Pentecostal group there speaking in tongues. Recorded the chorus parts tonight

[Redacted] and I had an interesting discussion today. I don’t know if I’ll be back next season. [Redacted] finds me extremely frustrating and impossible to work with. We have agreed that we should concentrate on getting through the next couple of weeks. So we have separated to think and here’s what I think I’ll say

I’m still deeply exhausted. We’re at the beach. J– and I ran through the show. M– sliced his finger thumb open. F–‘s here. I’ve missed him[1. F– was my tour partner the previous year.]. Dad’s B-day.[2. It really is Dad’s birthday. Feel free to leave good wishes for him here. I’ll tell him to look for

I just came home from TOJ. Exhausted. J– and I figured out a good pack for the van.[1. School tours, like this one, had to fit into a cargo van. The Pied Piper was a really big show.] yay.

Yesterday I found myself crying on four separate occasions. All about rehearsal and feeling stupid and working with [redacted].  I came straight home and went to bed. Slept soundly. Rehearsal went much better today. Till I blanked on music and wanted to cry. S–, yesterday, had me do visualizations and role playing to try to

I hung out with F– today. That was great. We went to Reed College and had a picnic and played frisbee. M–, F–, and I went to see The Mask. Goofy flick. Milo the dog was great! Um… I painted the Rat King’s tail and hands. Everything is sewn. Hurray.

Part of the reason for the short entries is cause I don’t know when I’ll get another journal. Sorry, Ernie [1. I called my journal “Ernie” because I found it easier to imagine that I was writing to someone.] Today I slept in til 10:00. Cancelled an excursion with J– (I started my period yesterday.)

Signifying Monkey went well. I’m just going to say this cryptic remark that I’m caught between wanting to quit TOJ and stay in Portland for the long haul.

The Askari/Signifying Monkey rehearsal went surprisingly well. We ran through it 4 times. No problems. The Dybbuk  rehearsal was tense. J– forgot/didn’t know about the 2:30 rehearsal and didn’t show up. We got some good ground covered but M–L– was not pleased. J– came for dinner. We’re going looking at houseboats Sunday. Maybe I’ll buy

While I’m on vacation, I’ve set up “Retro Mary”  posts.  These are a series of posts taken from my journal in 1994. It will show you what life was like for me as a twenty-five year old professional puppeteer. I’m doing some minor redacting, mostly of names, but otherwise not correcting anything. — Today we

Shocking. I know. For the month of September, I’m going to take myself offline and try to remember what being not-busy is like. Granted, this includes Dragon*Con at the first of the month, but besides that, I’m going to just spend some time hanging out with Rob. A vacation. I’ve heard other people talk about