So today has been a good/busy day:

9:30-11: met with Kelly and Shanna to (a) watch part of the "Dear Mrs. Kennedy" episode of The Crown and then read the first scene of her new play about that. Except Shanna was about 45 minutes late (something to do with the IRS) so mostly Kelly and I shot the shit until she got there. We had fun. I am riveted by Claire Foy's voice, face, and accent (I plan on copying one of those) and Shanna is likewise hypnotized by playing Jackie. So that will be fun.

11-1:30: our reading of Kelly's 70's feminist/suffragist play, Act 2, which went really well. We added a few new cast members and that went well. I was particularly loving the chick playing my girlfriend, we only did one scene together and I've only seen her in one thing before (the Omniscient Magnifcat one awhile back, playing the cat) and wow, did we have chemistry as our characters fought! Oooh, it was good. Yes, one can have chemistry via Zoom and I look forward to us reading Act 1 sometime as well, i.e. in a few weeks. Everyone is loving it. Kelly wants to do an online reading/show in the future, so I guess that's "my play" these days. Yay. Love this.

2-3:30: I am taking a one-person show class through Dynasty Typewriter. I'm not sure what to make of the class so far? It's four weeks, 1.5 hours a week. There are two levels of class, the 12 "pupil's delight" people who paid extra to have Drew read their work, and the "silent majority" rest of us who did not go for one of those slots. This is fine by me, I don't have much pre-written and I'm a noob anyway. I assumed this meant something like "those people get a critique later."

However, it kinda seems like the class is more of a "only the 12 get to do participation at all and the rest can just hang out on Facebook" sort of thing? Only the 12 actually have to do the class homework (create a 4 minute pitch) and be checked on it, stuff like that. (The other homework is to watch a one-person show, see below.) The entirety of the class was people doing introductions--there was a bit of lecture about Drew's doing solo shows and solo shows he's liked, but it was almost entirely intros. First the PD 12 and then the rest of us since there was time. Which is fine, I just tend to hate "let's all introduce ourselves!" classes because I don't think it works well with 30+ people enrolled.

That said, I certainly heard some interesting things here: * "When I was a teenager, I was part of a Biblical doomsday cult." * "I have a real dramatic life" (did not elaborate) * "I'm also a psychic/astrologer....I spent the last year being a medium, I think my spirit guides have been helping me write this show." (Note: I looked this lady up later and found nothing about her psychic career online, just her acting. Darn it, I was curious.) * One lady did a show called "Craft Services Table, A One Woman Show," "in which I played 25 foods." * "This show I did for 12 minutes, I want to turn into an hour. I have no problem talking."

Actual class notes: "I'm the asshole in my own story." -show your warts, that will connect people to you. Only do a solo show if that's the only way you can do it.

Anyway: I didn't plan on Facebooking or looking for a writing buddy or what the hell ever--or sharing my work at all really--but hopefully this will motivate me to write some stuff. Maybe not today though, today seems busy.

In other news:

Bad news: Jackie's grandmother is in the hospital with a temperature of 107 and is being unresponsive. :(
Good news: Mom has signed up for her first Covid shot next Wednesday at the RiteAid since our HMO won't be able to provide for a long time. Her friend Tom let her know RiteAid was doing it and he got his done. Yay, that's about 4-5 more people I know with shots.
Politics went exactly as one would have figured, but with 7 more Republican votes than I was expecting. So there's that.
Tonight's viewing:

Speak Up Storytelling: another Matthew and Elysha Dicks production, "Love Is A Battlefield." She just got over Covid and looks like she's doing well. They continue to harp on wanting people to put their cameras on. "If your camera's on, we don't even know you EXIST. That just got rid of a third." You know what, I think I'm fine with that. I don't want to watch myself watching a show. I do not enjoy that. I don't care on showing myself on Zoom if I am actually doing something or talking to people, but if I'm not, why should I bother?

Anne Perky: "You mean I didn't go over with you that a time change might set off a manic episode?" "I think that doctor should pay for your trip!" "Your mother-in-law sounds like a lot. That amount of perkiness might send anyone into a manic episode." -Elysha

Matthew: "This is my 435th wedding. Wedding DJS are the swiss army knife at things like this." "It's kind of hard to lose a bride at a wedding." The bride has realized that she has hidden her smoking from him the entire relationship and now she can't quit. "This kind of thing happens all the time," he says to her. He gives her a game plan for breaking the news tomorrow morning and asking for help. He doesn't know if it worked out or not, but she went back to the wedding. (Elysha: "I'd have been like, honey, you're screwed! I am not a wedding DJ.")

In the middle, they did story improv based on audience suggestions: The words Matthew got were vacuum cleaner, toothpick, frog--he picked frog, which led to him writing a snitty letter to Steven Spielberg offering him advice in moving making.

I actually have two of the three: Vacuum: my friend Monica, when she moved, had to leave her vacuum behind. The one time she came back here since she moved, did her best to dismantle her vacuum, shove it into a giant bag and took it back via Greyhound bus, because "it was a REALLY GOOD vacuum." Frog: I bought a little gold frog statue while at the state home ec conference, kissed it and made a wish, and got a prom date.

The second was butter, bumper sticker, and nail polish. I guess the closest I would have to that would be bumper sticker, because I saw a car in a parking lot on campus with a lot of hippie bumper stickers and thought, "I would like that person if I met them," and later I did and she taught me how to drive. (Short one.) Anne Perky took this one: seeing a MAGA bumper sticker: "Should I hit her for a moment?" She did not.

Lori got pineapple, microwave, scissors. (Me: when my last microwave broke, I stalled around on buying another for a few weeks and then apartment management decided to buy everyone microwaves. Convenient!) "Don't go past the pineapple when you need to give someone their space." (It was about Disney World.)

Ronna Levy: "I LIKE her....just not the romance part."

Lori Petersen: "I have the ring in my hand and it is UG-LY." "I really want to chuck this thing into Lake Michigan, but it's not mine to do that with." Her husband ordered a ring...not her size...not going to her.... "Who's Stephanie? Don't you know opals are bad luck?"

The one-woman show I watched tonight was "45 Coffee Dates." Antonia Kasper...title's self-explanatory, I think, though she seems to be using the name "Rachel" instead of her own here. "I dare you to meet 50 men in 90 days." She stacks her dates at Starbucks, 30 minutes apiece, a few per day.

She does some things like imitate her dog, her dates, uses the camera to pretend to be putting on lipstick in the mirror while hiding in the bathroom, waves a Starbucks cup at the camera.

Her dad once told her that nobody gave her on Valentine's Day because "you're just not that pretty." He also locked her in a closet when she was three. Eventually her mom just fled him with all the kids. Dad wrote letters to all the relatives threatening to kill them, so they had to change their names for years. Her mother had a massive heart attack when she was 22. Later she tells her dad he was a failure as a father, but she forgives him, even if he still says horrible shit.

She has a date with "PhilanthroJock," who turns out to be 5'1 (she's 5'8, he said he was same, she says she feels like a giant) and goes for her crotch. I feel both bad for the guy for all the dwarf jokes she's making and her rage about his "lying" and how she feels too big...but at the same time, HE WENT FOR HER CROTCH. DUDE. She literally runs away. #3 has a bad toupee, #4 talks about his ex-wife, #5 wants a threesome. Later: "At this point I would have been thankful for a triple nipple." The dates continue to be bad: too old, too young, not speaking English, bringing his mother along. One guy is nervous, gets high, and vomits everywhere...and then he pees his pants. "Oh, this has happened before? He'll be okay?!"

Then this finally gets into her coworker Greg, who is, of course, so great that he must be gay, right?! He's not gay. Meanwhile, her dad has fatal lung cancer without ever smoking, and her dog's sick. Rachel turns up pregnant and Greg's losing his job...and doesn't actually have an ex-wife. "Everyone thought something was wrong with me because I was 42 and never been married." The dog dies, her dad dies, she miscarries and starts to lose her mind. This somehow changes into her cheering "Let's Go Mets" and I'm all...that's not the best segue.... then Greg proposes at the ballgame! "Happily ever afters are different for everyone," she says, even though she had a traditional one.

I'm a little disappointed that her show didn't go like she mentioned on the livestream a few days ago: I wanted to hear about her making a list, darn it!

Then I watched more of the New Orleans Mardi Gras specials: "I don't think we realized he was going to ride in on a toilet."

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