I didn't sleep too well last night. Went to sleep around 12:45, woke up around 3 feeling too hot (I go to bed cold, 3 hours later I'm too hot), didn't fall back to sleep again until 5, Rae starts texting at 8:30, the Lawn Guys start up at 10...you get the drift. Anyway, I did eventually get up, put on a KN95 and meet Ashley and Rae for lunch at the Farmers Market briefly, said hi to Jim and told him about the shows and why I haven't done karaoke lately (he may be interested in seeing The Producers, said he'd ask Ashley), and said happy birthday because it's his birthday. Hopefully I don't catch anything since Ashley and Rae are negative (the latter says she tested this morning and everyone at her house is fine now) and it was outside and whatnot.

Then I went home for the (online again) Auburn Storytelling Festival. I was still really sleepy even though I was drinking Pepsi all afternoon, and frankly I can't even tell you what any of the stories were. My brain was not in the game and I could not focus on the talking for shit. I didn't turn the camera on and they didn't seem to know I was there, thank god. They did a workshop midafternoon and were all "We want to put everyone in breakout rooms, but we can't do that if you don't turn your camera on," so I didn't and I was happy to not have to talk with my partner in a group or any of that crap.

That said, I wanted to do the workshop since it was on story development. Notes from that:

What meaning do you want to get across? That's the difference between that and anecdotes.
Your story has to have some point to it.
What's the purpose of this story?
Anecdotes have the power to persuade, but stories make a better point. Anecdotes are something that happened, but a story has structure.
The protagonist has to change and learn something, there has to be some conflict.
Later, one lady told a story that boiled down to "I wanted to go visit my relatives, but Covid, so I didn't," and I guess it was inspired by the workshop, but um...you know, more anecdote?

I feel like that's my issue these days: I'm having things happen to me but I don't exactly have meaning and a story or a structure working for me in pandemic life. Like what are my stories now? "I thought the crush was mutual, but it wasn't and now I feel sad and confused," and "Welp, apparently I had the worst singing audition ever and I still got in, not sure how that happened?" and "Just waiting around to see who gets covid." Not really "stories" these days, so I got nothing.

Saturday night show:

"Your dressing room is much more interesting than ours." -Jean to Isaiah (I wish I'd heard what was so interesting!)

Jean and Other Jennifer sang about snap crotch.

Things Evan said:
"the ethereal ledgers"
"I just do what Steve tells me."
"You know when people do something on the last night of the show? I wanna say...." I won't repeat it! He said he was kidding.

Mic check:

Arthur sang "I Wanna Be A Producer."

Andy sang "For The First Time In Forever." Michael: "I don't remember that part of the show..."

Jean won mic check for complimenting my knitting and Roger's dress, telling Nate off for texting, and dancing around a lot.

While the orchestra rehearsed the end, Scott and Isaiah sang Leo and Max's parts while Jean danced along. "So you guys are the understudy?"

"Come on, Boris, get that fat paycheck!" -Isaiah (I found out later Boris is the only one who actually gets paid.)

Tessa fake-died upstairs, with her hand sticking up as she sunk down.

Backstage:

Jean claims she wears her sequinned jacket to Target. Other Jennifer reported finding one of the sequins in her bed, somehow. (I note that she's on the same side as Jean and Sherilyn, who wear these things.)

"They're not looking at the tattoos." -Sabrina
"They're looking at the swastikas." -Elizabeth
"Or the giant chicken" (meaning her eagle headdress) -Sabrina

"I have six layers on, 4 of which are over the snap crotch." -Jean

Sabrina and Alexis think there is a ghost in the ladies' room. Me: yeah, I heard one of the theater ghosts is female. Dannette verified that one is Marie, the former props master. Me: Was Marie the type to go into the bathroom like that? Dannette: Yes.... She also told the story of how Paul (the other ghost) freaked her out one night, I think I've mentioned that one in here before though. Jean: "If I hear a toilet flush underneath me, I'm going to scream."

"I like watching surgery." -Sherilyn (a nurse) "God, you're so weird." -Jean

"That's not a covid cough, it's an allergy sniffle." -Alexis

"You were really rocking out tonight!"- Other Jennifer to me after "I Wanna Be A Producer."

Dannette told a story about some students who keep wandering around campus instead of going to class, and they offered to bring her water and then did. While they were doing this, she looked up what class they were supposed to be in and said ,"Aren't you supposed to be in Mr. X's class?" When they were all "How did you know that?" she gave them an evil laugh in reply.

I have continued to write dirty/bad Producers jokes on the papers I am handing out. Isaiah has written a few notes back:

Me: "I know you're going to jump on meeeeeee after work later!" Him: "Yes!"

Me: "Why are you looking up little old ladies' dresses?" Him: "Yes. No regrets." Me: "Good for you! Be honest about your sleaze!"

Me: "Is that a big visor or are you just happy to see me?" Him: "Both." Me: "Yay!" and a bunch of hearts.

Yes, my secretary character is totally hooking up with someone or someones after work, that's my thinking.

Incidents tonight: something went wrong on my armband and it flipped out, I had to get Other Jennifer to fix it after the middle section of Springtime. (Jean (costumes) had some commentary on that when I had her fix it later.) I also ended up on the outside of the curtain after the closing, oops.

Scott's parents came tonight. She had on a poncho that doubled as a blanket that survived the fires. His dad (who was all "hey stranger!" to me) said he hadn't bothered to buy nice clothes since. He said he's doing well, will be back to full time regular activities in around ten days, hugged me, and said he's a12-year-old inside. "Me too," I said. (I like his parents soooo much.) His dad hugged me too.

Scott and I did go to Woodstock's afterwards, which had both cast members and other people's friends/family around. Nate and Sherilyn's kids came again with some new friends, and we found out that her daughter is Miss Teen California, and Sherilyn is "Mrs. California" or something like that and they're going to do pageants in Florida (good luck there).

Me on Leo and Ulla: "If they are supposedly only doing hugs and kisses, what are they doing behind the couch?!" Sherilyn thinks same.

Nate was wearing a shirt that said "Jesus Saves, All Others Roll D20." Later he said something or other and Scott clarified it was a malaprop, and Nate was all, "Thank you, nerd!" to this. I ended up standing up, pointing at his shirt, and yelling, "Look at your shirt! Nerd, nerd, nerd, nerd!" (Seriously, I'm amused at Nate razzing Scott for being one because ahem, look at yourself...)

Had some conversations about the joys of finding tests and covid and crap like that afterwards, Scott mentioned he had thought he was coming down with something and got tested Wednesday--well, presumably he's fine, I guess. (I also ended up hearing that apparently Clocky caught it this weekend...sigh. Do I have to worry about this when everyone was masked and the guy was far behind me and I barely saw him?)

After we left the pizza joint, we went back to our cars and were talking outside (mostly about Robin Williams and Christopher Reeve, me telling him about the movie Noises Off, and the game he was up until 3 a.m. playing). At some point someone rode their motorcycle AS LOUDLY AND OBNOXIOUSLY AS THEY COULD POSSIBLY DO down the street, drowning out everything else. After he passed by, Scott yelled, "NICE COMPENSATION!" and I busted out laughing and said I was thinking same, followed by "YOU TOTALLY HAVE A BIG PENIS AND I WOULD TOTALLY BANG YOU!" Yes, this is the kind of shit I say whenever someone drives with their dick in my vicinity. We were at that until 1:40 in the morning, according to him. Suffice it to say nobody was super well rested the next day, though he was worse about it than I was.

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