What a very strange couple of days that was.

Starting with Wednesday, where I had to come in to work early (okay, 8am, which is early in my world) so that Michelle and I could fire someone. That's always pleasant. Bless her, she did most of the dirty work, I just had to sit there and look serious and concerned. And then I had to go around and tell the rest of the staff afterwards.

When all that was done, I rushed home, threw some stuff in a suitcase and T and I headed off to the airport for our 1pm flight to Montreal. The flight was only half full, so we got a row to ourselves, which always rocks, and I slept about half the way there.

We arrived in Montreal about 7pm and got settled into the conference hotel, which was the downtown Hyatt. Expensive? Oh my god. $5 for a glass of draft beer in the lobby bar. $45 dollars for a salad and a mini pizza from room service. Yikes. But a beautiful hotel, with a very nice room with a king size bed. Where I hung out a lot.

The music conference was a North American one, with deligates, including presenters, Folk Festival ADs, record reps, and artists from all over Canada and the US. 1800 of them registered at the conference. And it seemed that the majority of the 1800 people all wanted to ride the four little elevators all the time. It was insane. Each elevator could take about 12 people and at any time between 2pm and 2am, there were about 150 people trying to cram into one of them to go to the 12th floor, where a bunch of the performing rooms were set up. Ever been stuffed into an elevator with 15 slightly unwashed, patchouli oil smelling folkies schlepping instruments? All day long? Not fun.

After dinner and a couple of beers on Wednesday night, T and I retired to the room to watch RAY and get some sleep. Thursday we got up late, wandered around downtown a bit, had lunch and then T went to do his 2 hour stint at the Alberta artists table in the main conference centre, while I went back to the room to make some phone calls and do some business.

Around 1, the President of my Board called to tell me that the Executive Committee had met and reviewed my request to direct this really cool show I really wanted to do for a friend's theatre company (which I had arranged to rehearse mostly evenings and weekends) and they had voted to deny my request, feeling that I should be putting all my time into work for the theatre at this point. Which just sucks. But they have the power, so there you go. Once again, I tried to talk to her about how I feel that they have very little trust in me and my ability to do my job, and once again, I ended up feeling that she doesn't hear what I'm trying to say to her, which is very frustrating. After I got off the phone, I had another good little cry and then pulled myself together to go meet T in the lobby bar for a couple of cocktails. We ended up sitting with some friends of his who are ADs of folk festivals around the country, and I had a great conversation with them about the difficulties of dealing with boards. They assured me that it was pretty routine to have times when you end up at logger-heads with a particular board. One of them, who's been at his job for 15 years, refered to having had several "night of the lone knives" experiences. The conversation made me feel a little better, and eventually I was able to arrive at an understanding of why this upsets me so much. It's a breach of trust. My feeling that they don't trust or believe in me, and therefore, my lack of trust in them. I'm a big girl and can be responsible for my own feelings, and I know everyone doesn't have to like everyone else and be best friends to do a good job, but this situation, which has been an issue for almost a year now, does make it harder for me to do my job, and that is something they should be concerned with. Now I just have to figure out what, if anything, I can do about it.

Thursday night, T and I went out for a really good Indian dinner and then he went and played the first of his 3 show-cases while I read two plays and wrote notes on them for the playwrights. And then we spent some more time in the bar, listening to so-so music and doing the schmooze (okay, T did the schmooze, I just watched and chuckled silently). I kept thinking it was too bad Shanny hadn't been able to make it, as she would have been having a much better time than I was, running around working the scene, chatting with people, trying to land herself a slightly scruffy, slightly angsty folk boy. On the other hand, it might have been clouded for her by the fact that her ex's band were all running around there all weekend, so there you go.

Friday involved wandering around the city some more, coming back to the hotel and calling my friend to break the bad news to him that I couldn't do the show, spending an hour on the really expensive hotel internet sending play notes to my playwrights and then camping in to watch the Brigette Jones sequel while T played more showcases. I could have gone with him to hear some of the music happening on the top floor, but I just didn't have the energy or enthusiasm for it. It was actually better for my poor tiny confused and hurt mind to spend some quality time alone, thinking things through.

T didn't get back to the room until around 3:30 in the morning, so we slept late on Saturday and then went out for breakfast. Followed by more of the same - some music, some beer, T playing his last showcase and me watching another movie in the room. Aren't I just soooo fun to hang out with?

Sunday we walked around some more, went for lunch and then off to the airport and home. The flight home was packed to the rafters and half the people were Calgary and Vancouver music people heading home. I just about lost it by the time the 4 1/2 hour flight landed, not wanting to listen to one more minute of folkie conversation. The three women sitting across the aisle from me run a little folk music series in one of the small towns just outside Calgary, and they were so full of themselves and so eager to kiss ass with all the musicians and so just plain stupid and annoying. Yes, I can be a terrible, judgemental snob, but I had to listen to their inane chatter the whole way home. They talked a lot about all this cool word beat music thay had seen over the weekend and how blown away they were by it, but how they couldn't ever afford it for their concert series. Followed by one of the women going on and on about one of the most moving concerts she'd ever seen - Sarah Brightman! That's right, folks. Sarah Fucking Brightman. I was so happy to get off that plane.

And now I'm home. With 6 bags of exquisite fresh Montreal bagels. And I'm back at work, planning my next round with the Board, trying to figure out how to make things better. And life plods on as usual.