Chaos Attraction

Love Story Night

2020-02-22, 9:50 p.m.

Whoever was knocking on the door didn’t leave any notes, thank God.

It was another GTL day: gym, tooling around (grocery store, drug store), library day. I read some hippie books while at the gym and reading “Anatomy of a Calling” is both very informative and exhausting.

I have been emailing Meg saying I wanted to talk to her over the phone (yeah, occasionally I will do this for longer/mouthier topics like Pcon). She responded by saying (a) she’d just gotten home and wanted a day to recuperate, followed by (b) she has people visiting for the weekend so she couldn’t go to Stitches this year and (c) her brother in law just died and she wants to go be with her sister. To which I interpreted that as “well, she’s not gonna be free for THAT for awhile” and said as much, politely, i.e. “okay, try me in a few weeks.’

Turns out she did not like that :) and called me while her houseguests were out at a museum. I was at Joann’s picking up more supplies and ended up having the conversation at Joann’s in public for an hour. I feel sorry for the poor bastards listening in on that one!

After that I went to the Woodland Storyteller’s Cafe. I wasn’t invited to perform for this one (it had a love story theme, so understandable), but was delighted to see that Gloria Jones was the featured teller tonight. She was a blast, doing three character monologues.

Stories this evening:

* Ed Lewis did one about his grandmother telling him not to put his parents “in a deathtrap like this” (I hear ya, grandma), so when his father got Alzheimer’s, he had him move in and get a dog named Susie, like his previous dog. There was more to it than this, but my notes are fast and sketchy.

* Gloria’s first story was from the point of view of a teacher who couldn’t quite retire yet, having had a crap work day on her birthday and ranting about awful students and what they did to a hamster (I will spare you the details of that). Gloria’s actual husband played a bit of a role in this, saying a few lines as the character’s husband and offering her a gift. I also enjoyed her cracks about how the husband works in demolition.

* Eric Hunt (previous winner of the Liar’s Contest) did a story about a love triangle gone wrong when the winning groom was murdered on his wedding day and the bride’s presumed revenge. Did she kill the other man? Or not? Both sides, you’re right.

* Andy Laufer did an actual love story about starting to date his wife. How do you know when it’s love? When she started defending him to his family when his sisters were razzing him. Awww.

* Dave Tarvin told the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, from Hades’s POV.

* Chris Henessey read from his book about his daughter being born prematurely and even brought in a giant picture of her as a baby. (Clearly she’s fine and in attendance tonight.) He did have one moment where he said “man, I’m glad I’m not a woman,” and ah, there was a certain vibe from the women in the room on that line.

* Tracy from CASA said that we’ve finally donated enough money to hire one CASA ($2500, and later “an anonymous donor” offered to double what was donated tonight) and told the story about a “difficult” girl who’d been in tons of foster care placements and then got a CASA who specialized in “difficult” ones, and finally got adopted too. Awwww.

* Gloria’s second story was memorable to some of us for different reasons. It was from the point of view of a fancy designer jacket bought for a rich man’s wife, but the rich man’s wife didn’t really appreciate it--the coat is a snob and bitched that it wasn’t worn with the right purse, that the wife cheated on her husband and threw the coat to the floor, and then burned it with a cigarette and then abandoned it to Goodwill. It was bought by a lady who didn’t like it that much except for the designer label, then it went back to Goodwill for a kid’s Halloween costume, got stained and thrown in a Dumpster. However, the homeless lady who found it used to be a seamstress and appreciated the craftsmanship, and the coat actually feels seen even though by now it’s rather beaten up, and it doesn’t mind trying to keep a homeless lady warm.

This was touching to those who had been in foster care such as Cherie the MC. As for me, I felt guilty about all the clothes I gave to the SPCA and told Gloria this later, she was all “don’t worry, they’re fine.” I am a shallow person.

* Another lady from Auburn (guessing on spelling), Kristine Homan, specializes in “poetic justice” folk tales and told one about how a vengeful older sister murdered her younger sister, the remains of the sister were turned into a harp by a traveling bard, and then they made their way to the palace where the dead sister-harp sung her story one last time. So, fun times!

* Eric retutned to tell his story about the guy who lost his gold stash when all the trees were cut down again (also from Auburn).

* Gloria’s final story was a lady at the bus stop who’s happily chatting to her neighbor about all the love stories in the neighborhood: the prostitutes on the corner with their COD love so they can “see her pedigree,” the flower shop owners banging in the window (“in my day, we did that at the movies or in a car, because we were classy”), and then the forbidden teen romance between a Catholic schoolgirl and a Jewish boy. Then she finds out that her seat neighbor is blind and has REALLY been enjoying the show.

It was fun!


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