TnT2 rehearsal: Carpool today was Gail, Denise, Jean and me. Jean was admittedly not in the best mood, between having to wear a giant boot to lug around for at least another 1-3 more weeks and her former sister-in-law has a horrible case of breast cancer (which Jean has gone through herself, but not that bad, as FSIL has a rare super bad version). I hope the later activities of the day lightened things up, but the car ride was probably a good transitional phase. I did kind of boggle at Gail and Denise saying that Nancy's house had a lot of junk and they had some kind of food/weed hangover going on and Denise said she gained 2.5 pounds. This seems bizarre to me, but scales never worked consistently with me (Mom's frequently won't work at all if I try it) and I wouldn't weigh myself daily because why make yourself nuts? Did hear amusing stories of everyone else's various college experiences in the car, though.

Lunch: Linda ordered pizza and Nancy brought salad and someone (Linda?) brought a delicious apple baked something-or-other I ate four pieces of.

Today we went from the receiving line to...well, more of the show. Blocking parts a few times, moving on. Food was gotten, songs were done, shots were done, toasts were done, international dancing was done. The pianists (Emily and her backup Debi) came in around 1, so we had to skip to the songs. Jean and the Vitales/most of the dudes did "Santa Lucia," now with Uncle Lui threatening to tinkle on the ivories....possibly literally, followed by another dramatic fall.

What I did today: Donna goes to Vinnie asking if she can sing some songs, Vinnie's fine with that, Dominic objects to this and we get into a fight (me: "He's married! I'm just trying to work on my career here! You don't support my career!" Vinnie: "My wife Loretta will kick your ass!" LOVE it), Father Mark, before he's too stinko drunk, tries to chill us both out, then we get to dancing again...off and on, indeed.

Then came the Dollar Dance, i.e. when Donna sings. It's around 2-3-4 songs of this in the script, I note we had two last time, with Cameron-as-Donna doing the Titanic song, followed by watching her boyfriend make out with the nun, followed by "Hot n' Cold." You might notice there's some issues with this, i.e. "at the moment I'm only doing one song," followed by "no nun, so who's Dominic gonna cheat with for her to get mad at?"

I was saying last night at the party that most people just plain don't believe me or listen to me, at least a good chunk of which I chalk up to being a woman (I note that the best results I ever got of people doing stuff in my life was when my last guy boss asked for them for me. Tall white dude with a deep voice has a lot of leverage.). Well, today was a pretty good example of this because I kept noting that:

(a) all of the action that's supposed to be going on during the Dollar Dance really is a LOT to cram into ONE song even if it's like 4 minutes. (Note: Tina's ex Michael recurs again, Father Mark gets too drunk and people have to deal with him, the nun kiss, random people sticking money on people, cast members have to hand them tape to stick money on people, Nunzio misbehaving, Uncle Lui doing a bit of same.)

Linda kept saying "we have no time, we can cram it into one," I was all "we managed with two last time, and also it's gonna take a lot longer with random people lining up to dance," which it does. Rodney chimed in with "the first Dollar Dance song shouldn't be that fast" (also good point), and I tried to get him to argue for me on the rest of it, which to some degree happened. I think enough people chimed in on these issues enough that Linda asked me, "Can you do Right Here Waiting?" and I said yes, and Emily the pianist conveniently (?!) had the music for this. I was all "sure, I'll wing it," and I think I was better singing it than the previous time I did that in the first TnT audition. Emily's mom thankfully pulled up the lyrics as I was kind of distracted (see below) to get them all in the right order.

(b) The other issue going on here is a lack of nun, and I pointed out that we gotta have Dominic get up to SOME shit to piss her off. Rose/Denise offered to get up to something with him, great. The one issue with that (I told her this on the car ride home, then had to email her and Rodney) is that they started Getting Up To Shit--getting sexy cozy and the like--around the beginning of "Right Here Waiting," did it the whole time, while yelling "HEY DONNA WE LOVE YOU" type stuff and Rodney throwing in polyamory. (I note he gave me a fist bump later for all of this.) Very flattering, but also like, I need some buildup time here? Maybe perhaps do that shit at the end of the song so then I can snap and change songs? Well, hopefully we work on that later.

I did a lot of loud, enthusiastic song-belting, which is perhaps an interesting thing to do before a lesson (will do same next week). At least I was loud.

Singing lesson: SURPRISE, I HAVE TO LEARN ANOTHER SONG IN TWO WEEKS!...I feel sorry to have to have sprung that on Morgan, who at first wasn't even sure what song this was. (I played the video, of course she knew it.) Mostly her one objection was me having to sing like a tenor male and asked if I could get it transposed to G major. I have no clue what this means actually, but it's doable off the musicnotes website. (I got Emily the pianist's email, sent her the music, she said she could do it. Very nice of her.) I'm not sure what this means for me actually learning the thing--I did find a few G major versions of the song on YouTube but am not sure if I can imitate them. I'm not kidding when I say Morgan suggested I practice it with my nose plugged because I have "leaky nose" and I guess sound isn't supposed to be coming out of there :P Beyond that, did "Hot n' Cold" a bit more, she said more talky, less pretty.

In between things, I emailed various people, finished doing 6000 steps, knit, tried to find other versions of these songs in piano on YouTube.

Instead of going to Young Frankenstein, I went to my dance studio for "Shift Happens, II." I enjoyed it very much. It was about an hour long and had Pamela narrating the various world issues going on, and delicate descriptions of the bodily function that "shift happens" comes from, commentary that we even have a poop emoji for that, that she googled "shift happens" for ideas, etc. She did point out that people have gotten crazier due to the isolation for a year and not being able to have others monitor their behavior. Some of the dancers had their own narration about stuff they were going through (I note one dancer, Allegra, is 92!). And the immortal line I will always remember out of Pamela: "What can I say? Poop emoji, poop emoji, poop emoji, poop emoji, poop emoji." LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL, so much. I enjoyed that it started out with "It's The End Of The World As We Know It," and ending in a more cheerful "It's Times Like These" by Foo Fighters. Very good show.

After that, I went out to karaoke with Ashley and Jim. Notable moments:
(a) Jim dropped us off and then headed in the direction of Taco Bell, saying he was going to park. Ashley was vaguely freaked he'd just left us there, I was all, "He's probably getting tacos," and I was not wrong.
(b) I had two creamsicles. Which is to say, Ashley tried one, thought it tasted like mint (????) and thus I had hers as well, she got a rum and Coke.
(c) We made friends with a dog who sneakily jumped into my lap to get to Jim's burrito. We found this hilarious (I note Jim gets like, a ton of food, so he didn't care, said he would have given it to the dog anyway), the owner, possibly not so much because he got the dog out of there.
(d) I had Rance reconfigure "Right Here Waiting," tried that out, texted Morgan about it.
(e) Met two new friends of Rance's, Nathan and Ray (I believe that was the spelling from what I saw on her phone), happily married, two kids who she teaches karaoke to. "I used to be a slut, he tamed me," and he imitated roping a bronco. She was very flirty and fun with well, all singers, and once she found out we both love "Total Eclipse of the Heart," I had to duet it with her. That was very hot. She also found Jim singing "Somebody to Love" hot, and Rance dueted a song with her...I'm forgetting which, it wasn't "Me and Mrs. Jones" but something like that. Her husband was totally cool with that. It was all adorable. (e) I ran into my coworker, who came in as I was leaving. Said hi/bye and then left around 11.

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