Today I went to my day job and tonight I'm working with Christina, whose show "Semi Rural" is on at the Comedy Festival at the exact same time as ours. I'm helping her out in the next few weeks at the same time as directing "For We Are Young And Free" for Standing There Productions and organising the brilliantly-timed Law Week for Victoria Law Foundation, where I work.

Sometimes I wonder whether I'd be able to survive without nineteen concurrent deadlines. That's a theory I doubt I'm going to test any time soon.

Meanwhile, trips on public transport become the only moments I get to myself.

Melbourne has one of those daily rags that you can get at train stations for free. Ours is called MX. When I worked in commercial radio, I used to read MX from cover to cover with the frenzied excitement of an addict, searching desperately for some material.

And doesn't it deliver?

Today, it actually uses the phrase "paleolithic hottie" to describe the reconstructed face of a 14,000 year old skull.

Other highlights include:

The story of a zoo worker who dressed in an unconvincing orangutan costume in order to stage a fake escape scenario. Needless to say that when he was shot by another zoo keeper with a fake gun, the kiddies were horrified and fled from the scene.

The description of Richard Griffiths attempting to escape the Harry Potter crowds through a tiny box office window is pretty hilarious if you know how big Richard Griffiths is.

And finally, I enjoyed the following passage:

Children on a youth club trip in Northern Ireland ignored repeated warnings to behave as bedtime approached last Wednesday. So their leaders decided to teach them a lesson. they packed the youngsters into a minibus, drove them into the middle of nowhere and told them to find their own way back to base. The punishment backfired badly when the youngsters, aged 12 to 14, became hopelessly lost and the leaders were unable to go back to find them because the minbus broke down.

(Description of furious parents follows). Got to love MX.

Is there anyone rich out there who wants to give us a rehearsal space?

I was rehearsing with Michael yesterday in what is quite possibly the smallest room in the world. We had to tuck our elbows in.

The stage we are going to perform on is cavernous and enormous. It's like an aircraft carrier. It's like a set from that Howard Hughes movie.

I am quite an imaginative person, but I'm not that good.

In other news, Standing There Productions: snubbed again at the Oscars this year. What a disgrace. Shame on the Academy. I'm sending the showbag back in the mail.

Rita has a walking stick and a pet parrot on her shoulder.

Just kidding about the parrot.

I feel I should somehow become more interesting as a result.

Maybe I'll take up mandolin, or cigars.

Meanwhile, rehearsals are starting tonight and I only finished the script on the weekend. Taking off the writer's hat and finding the director's hat somewhere down the back of the couch is the new challenge. I know it's here somewhere.

Five weeks to go, everyone.

Guess what...?

I finished the script!

I am so happy I could celebrate by going to Rita's birthday party and seeing her before she later cuts her foot open and spends the morning getting three stitches and attempting to rehydrate.

Yes, really.

Poor Rits. She came to the cast read-through tonight and she managed to remain vertical throughout most of it.

As they say, tomorrow is another day. Another set of deadlines, another packet of painkillers. We'll get there. If we'd both stop breaking ourselves.

(By the way, I also saw Under Milk Wood in the city on Friday night. It is such a beautifully written piece of theatre. I heart Dylan Thomas. Go and see it if you can - special mention to Mr Pugh.)

You may have noticed a lot of talk about the State Library and not much talk about auditions here in recent days. That's because auditions were still happening and we were still thinking about various casting decisions and having long and detailed conversations over the phone about the requirements of various characters in the script.

Well guess what. We have a cast.

It's always a great feeling to cast actors in a show that you've been writing solo for so long. Really clever performers can bring a new dimension to something that you didn't even see yourself. It's going to be heaps of fun playing around with it in the next month or so.

However... it is always devastating for us to have to cull people from the pool of performers who have kept us entertained in auditions over recent weeks. I think this probably says more about me than it does about... you know... reality. Probably the reality is that people turn up, do an audition, forget about it, go home, hear back from us later and get on with their lives like the professionals they are. But for me, I imagine the worst case scenario: people might be disappointed, people might be annoyed, people might sit at home sticking pins in a director-shaped voodoo doll.

See, I can't help feeling in some small way like I'm breaking up with a whole lot of people, all at once (even though I still really like them). What's more, I feel like maybe they feel a bit jibbed because of course it's not like a normal break up; they don't get to scream at me down the phone and publically pash someone else just to make me feel bad.

I mean, they can, they're welcome to, obviously, but so far nobody has.

Of course, as I say, the facts are different. In fact, people have been lovely. People have written back to wish us luck and send their best wishes. People have said lovely things and signed up to our mailing list and promised to come to the show.

People are ace.

People don't feel like we're breaking up with them at all. Or maybe they do but maybe they're those mature kinds of people who manage to be friends with their exes and move on to more meaningful relationships elsewhere. I don't know, all I know is that I'm relieved and grateful and I would like to thank the people who auditioned for this show. It was a pleasure meeting everyone and seeing everyone perform. It's also good to know that people don't take these things as seriously as I do. I guess that means I should take my Telstra-employee-shaped voodoo dolls and put them out with the hard rubbish. Oh well.

Also, welcome aboard to our cast and crew. This is going to be fun.

Spent the entire day in the State Library.

Have now become the particular type of obsessive who does things like this:

- Refuses to break except for lunch including having phone turned off, rather than on silent

- Does not go to the bathroom unless completely necessary, on account of not wanting to lose a desk to some infuriating student/genealogist/crazy man with shopping bags, who clearly does not deserve the desk because he/she has not earned the desk by becoming known by all library staff and making friends with the regulars (of whom there are about half a dozen - we roll our eyes at each other during the busy times).

- Considers the use of one's fountain pen instead of one's computer screen a "treat".

- Enjoys the company of security guards. Polite, quiet, desperate for whispered niceties but expecting nothing more, these are princes among men.

I wonder what parties are like these days.

I just met the world's first loud librarian.

No kidding.

She's a real squawker. Laughs like a stuck pig.

She just told a group of people on the fifteen minute computers that their time was up and two of them nearly passed out from laughing.

A loud librarian. Fantastic.