Busy day today.

Set construction: did some more set/wall painting, mostly painted a giant ticket (there's a line in the opening song, "Your ticket should say Urinetown! No refunds here at Urinetown! We'll keep that dough") that will look like the one sold at the show. Steve (and I) are infinitely amused at this idea even though he says it'll be out for four seconds. I left others to do the bar code on it (don't think that got finished) but I did replicate all the text on it well. I will sadly have to fix a few paint typos though, sigh. I ran out of time on that. Clocky bought me lunch and I had about seven minutes to choke it down before I had to leave, so sad!

Steve called the secret hideout sign my "very sick vision" and I said, "yours too!"

Sofia was there today to put on the graffiti, including a "Killroy was Here" over the pipe and other slogans. "Who Watches The Watchmen?" "You could save 5% or more on Rio by recalling Fipp" (with a silhouette of a Geico lizard), "Cladwell Lied, People Died," "#occupyugc," "Down With Cladwell" with an unhappy face, "Defund Lockstock and Barrel." Steve also uneveiled the picture that will be the "Bobby Strong Memorial Toilet Authority," with Bobby saluting and carrying a plunger. (Now I know why he was going on about wanting pics.)

The carpets are getting done and the fumes in there are mighty (so I'm told, I didn't go in). And also, THE TOILET BRIGADE IS HERE, as it's various nasty dirty parts of toilets (mostly seats) and sinks and whatall. This is going to go on a small platform that briefly gets rolled out, apparently.

Re: mask wearing: Gary (Molly's dad) asked if he had to wear a mask and Steve said he'd prefer if he did. I note that Clocky had his off today, but since he recently had covid, well....

Quotes:

Steve: "Urinetown needs a director with a very sick mind."
"I have a hole in my schmekel, all the time."
"This is the most disgusting set I have ever designed in my life."
"This is the most disgusting thing I've ever done and I've done a lot of disgusting things."

Clocky: Steve was talking about writing grants and Clocky made a joke about him writing to other presidents, like Harrison. "I just ordered a chicken and an egg on Facebook. I'll let you know." To me: "You're waiting on paint to dry, favorite game."

I left early to do our "Time and Coconuts" online festival. While that was having some rehearsal notes, Cameron asked where to meet up and I said "how about the gazebo area, everyone knows where that is," and then Scott was all "we were actually thinking of meeting in your town" and I'm all O RLY in my head, followed by "welp, makes it easy for me if the show runs late" (note: it did not!). so the new meeting location was Central Park.

I also got an email from Linda saying the auditions for the play festival are March 7 and 9th. I didn't see certain friends listed on the email and emailed her to ask if all were invited and could I tell people or not, but found out later that I guess she just emailed people in groups and yes, everyone knows about it.

Anyway, here's a brief rundown of the show (note: kinda occupied so I didn't take too many notes):

"Self-Talk" by Dana Hall: a monologue on deep thoughts inspired by having covid, with visions of coconuts and beaches (she did a video ahead of time).

"Bibbidy Bobbidy Boos," by Allison Framkin, a gay twist on Cinderella's fairy godmother with a ton of wordplay, sass, and alliteration. Impressive piece of writing, really fun actors, and good use of animal filters on the faces that cracked me up.

"The Time is Ripe," by Pamela Morgan: King Arthur needs coconuts, as inspired by Monty Python. Horse has on a travel pack, fanny pack, gets up and acts out her motions, it's adorable. Merlin blabs, "SHE'S SLEEPING WITH LANCELOT!" Oops. The horse in particular cracked me up because she did a bunch of drawings as a slide show, acted out various horse movements, and "now she's just mocking us with the slow clap." They finished with dancing to the "lime and the coconut" song.

"The Temporality of Coco the Coconut," Shanna's play about a coconut conversing with the ocean and a dragonfly (me) regarding how we all travel through time naturally.

"Remember the Times" by Jackie Youm: a combination of having a fun hangout with a friend AND asking her about when the friend used to steal things. I'm impressed she meshed those two topics together so well.

"Tits LaRue and the Cast of The Time Traveling Coconut" by Kelly and Trish--two Bambino goombahs want the LaRue family time machine (or the inventor, or the instructions, whatever) so they can go back in time and investigate Al Capone's claim as to who made their grandma's secret sauce. The time travel machine is a coconut bra. I think you get the picture ;)

It went really well, people were happy, now we're discussing "fractured fairy tales" or "fairy tales in 2022" or "twisted tales" or "twisted history" or some kind of thing like that for the next one.

And after that...I got together for (very late Christmas) gift exchange with Scott, Cameron, Robert and Janene. I walked over there (realizing "huh, I seriously have not walked around in the streets in the dark since pre-pandemic, this is very weird and I can't see all the things") and Cameron arrived first, so we talked about how she was doing with her dad's death. About as good as can be expected there, though his birthday and anniversary were recent, so....They had planned to go to NYC at Christmas, but guess what happened there so they were forced to be home. Awww. Poor girl. Other than that, she liked the yarn I got her and her boss has a 1-year-old baby, so she's taking precautions there and they aren't seeing people IRL.

Then Scott came over and...yeah, two years since we've all been together and I'd say the same old dynamic is going on again when it's me, him and her. He goes back and forth between the two of us. I sat next to him at dinner, she went with him to get dinner (we ended up getting food from 2 different restaurants) but he did touch my shoulder on the way out and give me a ride home (nothing terribly much going on there).

I will note that he gave her TWO Christmas cards, one very large Star Wars one (drool) and then a smaller one that he actually wrote personal things on. No, I don't know what, obviously. But seriously....words cannot express my GRRRRRRRRRRR on THAT one. She's still clearly The Favorite there, of course. Wouldn't do that for me (and didn't) but does for her? Figures.

Anyway, stuff received: a pack of rainbow sampler yarn from Cameron (perfect), a very fancy copy of The Neverending Story and Van Gogh socks from Robert and Janene (rainbow bag for one of those, love it), a bag of knitting supplies (rainbow scissors, even, which I busted out to help with present opening) and another gift certificate to the store.

I admit I'm still curious about a few things, since he brought up that he didn't think he was working at the store and was off doing last minute Christmas things (he mentioned the ornament but still didn't mention the hat, I think he hated it :P Oh well...) and then was all "oh, I worked later" and I was all "yeah, I don't think you're usually in if I come in right when it opens, you show up later."

Audition news from Woodland: they're not checking vax status over there and...y'know, not sounding too safe. Robert said that one of their actors died of it, so you'd think they'd be more cautious. I said now I really don't know if I'm going to or not. Scott actually said he might audition for it as Al since he's around the right age. I said I'd only go for ensemble since I've learned that I'm not good enough for actual parts after Urinetown. (He made a sad face when I said that one, but...well, it's true, and he knows I'm not that good.) I dunno if I think he suits Al or vice versa (I'm watching it on YouTube right now), but he actually can go for parts, so who knows.

(I admit timingwise it would work out to do both shows--10 minute and Bye Bye Birdie, as they don't overlap.)

Actual activities: after opening gifts in the park, we headed to Woodstock's since Scott can eat there and it's outside, and while they were all debating what to order, I went and ordered a salad. Scott went in after me and tried to order a pizza and they said they were so overloaded it would take an hour and a half to get a pizza, so the rest of them hit up the nearest Asian restaurant for takeout while I ate salad there :P Good thing they don't check that stuff outside. Robert fetched the food and I hung out and talked to Janene, who says they may go to Urinetown if things aren't too bad, but he had been nervous about going. She wants to audition for shows again but is still doing speech competitions on a lot of weekends. I actually asked how she and Robert met (always wondered) and she said he took her class back in the day and she ended up missing him after it was over. I had kind of figured as much and said "of course you waited until you were no longer teaching him," because she's sensible like that. I was amused that she said she remembered how he was dressed because he had on jeans, a T-shirt and a tie ("very 90's").

After that, we bummed around the comic book store for awhile, as Robert knew the guy in there (apparently he's filming skits for a show and Scott gave camera advice), then went to get frozen yogurt and hung out some more, and then everyone went home.

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