Today’s work drama:

Our exhausted call center “manager” (which is to say she’s forced to do managing without actually being technically considered a manager or have the pay boost) finally managed to get another job, which she will be leaving for in about three weeks. We shall be keeping our current temps after all, one of whom will be doing her job once she leaves while they attempt to recruit another one. At least she’s leaving after we got someone back and someone else hired, so there’s that. She will hopefully be in a less stressful position, with more money, so huzzah for her. I wouldn’t want to do that particular job, but at least it’s one on one and not avalanche on top of one like here is.

(She told me not to give up, but frankly, I have zero hope and just can’t stomach jobhunting any more and I don’t fit what others want and I did it for six years, so...there you go. Also I do literally have people in other departments begging me not to leave this week.)

Due to this job switching, Lioness is going to get her own semi-private office, as she will be moving into the first office I used to be in and the temps will move in with me. I asked if she was happy about it and uh...I think she’s still annoyed. But what can you do.

Other moments at work:

(a) I suddenly had a huge yawn erupt out of me while walking by BigBoss’s office. I don’t think she could even see me from her angle and lord knows we don’t know each other well since we’ve kind of barely had conversations once in a while and I primarily hang out with 2nd-in-command (who was also in there, as it turns out), but she was all, “Hi Jennifer.” Do I have a distinctive yawn or something? I said that yawn escaped from me like a lion from the zoo.

(b) Quote from Lioness: “I’m a celebrity in my own mind.” I said, “Me too.”

Also, at one point she was on the phone with one of her kids telling her to pick up the dog poop and Temp Girl (what’s a good nickname for her... we’re both nerds so Other Nerdy Girl?) and I were cracking up hearing this. Lioness was all, don’t laugh at me while I’m telling my kid to do chores! Then later she was talking about her dog peeing on things and there we went again. I said, “There’s nothing like saying, ‘That’s not funny!” to make me laugh.”

(c) Quote from one of our younger assistants: “Why are people so stupid?” Story of our lives, y’all.

Today’s theater drama:

First night of rehearsal for act 3 with only partial cast: This was the Duchess (formerly known as Duke Frederick--I have no idea on her actual name), Cody/Orlando, Brian/Silvius, Scott/Oliver, Jim/Touchstone, Cameron/Rosalind, Shelly/Corin, and Elizabeth/Celia. We just went on stage and did some light blocking and read through it all twice.

Apparently Laure never did cast an Oliver Martext, Sarah*/Phoebe is out of the country and who the hell knows where Phil/Jaques is but he wasn’t there either. So we ended up filling in for others. I filled in for Rosalind because Cameron arrives late on Thursdays because she’s doing something or other and I got to read the bad poetry, then I filled in for Phoebe. Scott filled in for Jaques, Brian filled in for Oliver Martext. I can’t speak for Brian but I think Scott and I were much more into the roles we were filling in for. I seriously did an excellent goddamned Phoebe if I do say so myself and am totally biased. This is not to dog on Blonde Sarah who actually got the part, mind you, I’m sure hers is excellent. But...yeah, Phoebe is the more interesting part and I can figure out how to do it, and right now I’m not sure how the fuck to do Audrey. I’m still fumbling with that one. I could figure out everyone else’s part :P

* I think at this point I just need to distinguish between the Sarahs by hair color rather than acting parts. So “Bridesmaid Sarah” shall now be Blonde Sarah/Phoebe and “Formerly Wedding Singer Sarah” shall now be Redhead Sarah.**
** I find it ironic that I have seriously taken pains over the years to not mention duplicate names in here, especially since some of my coworkers have had the same names as others previously mentioned in the journal (GQ and my former guy boss, for example) and I have made sure that isn’t confusing. Now here I am in theater and I have at least three duplicate name issues with Scotts, Sarahs and Brians and I have just given the shit up on all of this. Here’s my white flag, I surrender. Nobody’s reading this anyway so who cares, I just hope I figure out what I was talking about when I read these in my old age or whatever.

Laure said photo day was next week and I said I got a costume at the Pirate Festival (“.... not a pirate costume....”) and after describing that it is more historically accurate, she sounds cool with it. Scott asked if I saw Pyrate Matthew and I said I asked and he was working, and then he was all, “yeah, he works on weekends.” I kind of got the feeling he might have been interested in going and said, “I thought you were working” and he said “no, but I had a sore throat.” Hm. I was debating asking karaoke crew if they’d want to go (I figured Robert and Manny might have been the most into it) but never did get up the nerve, now I feel sorta bad. Ah well.

Laure wants to have a movable tree on the stage. Elizabeth was all “Birnam Wood,” and I was all yeah, a happier version of that....

I wasn’t sure if I was going to go around writing down funny lines again but...yeah, that is totally happening. We had some great lines going in which Shelly said something about how she’d make bad/awkward jokes, I said I’d bring the outfits and Scott said he’d do some asides and I asid I’d probably also make asides that I wish I’d written down better because it was priceless, dammit.

So here we go:

“I never loved my brother in my life. Y’ALL KNOW THIS.” --Scott as Oliver, also doing a fist pump during his one line in Act 3.
“You get to read bad poetry.” “That will be absolutely awesome.” -Scott and me as I go off to read Rosalind’s part temporarily.

We also had some snarking around the table as to what to do about Oliver Martext and maybe we should just have somebody dress up differently since the guy only has a few lines.
* Cameron suggested we just yank someone out of the audience and have “surprise Shakespeare audience participation.”
* Scott said that Martext should be “a little boozy” and Shelly said he should be “the party vicar” and Jim said, “what happens with the vicar stays with the vicar.” Scott also said the guy should put on a gold beard and something about “a seriously coked-up pope.”
* Laure watched some show called “Grantchester” and thinks the vicar is a hottie, which led to mentions of the “hot priest” on Fleabag.

Cody at some point walked out and was rattling the dinosaur egg machine in the hall, which led to Scott saying, “Give me eggs! I must repopulate dinosaurs! I must create Jurassic Park!”

After I brought up how root beer flavored Peeps are not good: “Root beer Peeps? That was not something the world needed.” -Shelly

Brian brought his juggling balls and Shelly said, “You are our TV now.”

“You can’t make up dialogue like that.” -Cameron (sadly, I forget overall context but this could have been about ANYTHING).

“I wanna do the bad poetry! It’s what I’m here for!” -Cameron

“Comedies are better when they are about terrible people or people behaving badly.” -Scott

“Evil brothers fistbump!” -Cameron

When Cameron arrived, I got off the stage and Cameron got on. Laure apparently didn’t notice that bit and then was all, “Oh, she’s here.” Cameron said, “Not a very remarkable entrance.” And then after I wrote that down, Scott was all, “Thank you for writing that down.”

Jim and I on Touchstone:
“I’m not a very nice guy, am I?”
”Yeah, you’re kinda skeezy.”
“Oh, that chivalry thing is so overrated.”

Cody on Jim/Touchstone: “I don’t know if I’m happy that Jim didn’t do like a heart” (acts out putting a hand on his heart) “or like a hind” (acts out touching his ass).

“You gotta watch out for those horn beasts.” -Jim

Me on Orlando: “He needs to do an “I want” song like in Disney.”

“What are palm trees doing in 17th century France?” -Scott (we also had commentary about lions and same). I also filled in Scott about the Branagh ninja Japanese movie and that cracked him up and he said he’d have to go look for it. This also turned into him talking about Mufasa and Scar again. Yeah, he might be obsessed with Jeremy Irons’s voice a little bit.

Also we both were somewhat grumbly about how all we do in the last scene is stand around and wait to get married, and he was all, “when do I fall in love with Celia again?” I was all, “I think it’s in the one scene where you meet her and you’re telling about Orlando and the lion” and he was acting out eye-popping “love at first sight.” Yeah, that’s my best guess anyway. We also debated as to whether or not Orlando and/or Oliver ever figure out that Rosalind isn’t a dude and if they’re too polite to mention it.

I also mentioned that I was considering getting (a) a stuffed goat to carry around (someone suggested I get a kids’ rocking horse and drag it around and make it look like a goat) and/or (b) breaking out my light-up fidget spinner to stare at while on stage being dumb. Scott mentioned having a 3-bladed fidget spinner from ThinkGeek and Brian said, “That’ll be our ode to the movie.”

“Name of a goat--are you kidding?” -Cody
“It’s a good thing we didn’t goat you on.” -Jim
“It would have been bleating news.” -Scott

“Somehow I don’t think Jaques has a mistress. I don’t think he gets laid.” -me
“Fuck this love shit, I’m gonna go drink in the woods and cry.” -me translating Jaques’s dialogue

“I’m in the play?” -Cameron

“If you’re happy and you know it, fight a snake.” -Cody

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