Today is the anniversary of my leaving the office due to coronavirus. It's also St. Patrick's Day, but what's the point? Can't celebrate it other than drinking home alone, same thing we do every night, Pinky. I didn't even bother to wear green because it's not like anyone can pinch me. I put on a rainbow Zoom background and that's what I got for ya.

Other randos have started calling me at work. The fuck? Why on earth do you call my office when some other office didn't send you the thing they were supposed to? Why don't you call THAT office? I mean, those weren't too bad once I figured out what the fuck it is, but still, going to the wrong person really. (Also, why me?!) I did find some "off" settings today...wonder if I can do those. Ahem. I also had to sit through another online customer service class that was extremely hypocritical. Which is to say they had these horrible pre and post tests that made no sense. Like they tell you to do X and then it's considered a wrong answer on the quiz when you put down X. The fuck? But other than that, it wasn't horrible, I pretty much got through our group email box for the day, huzzah.

In other news, Arne and Carlos are planning on dressing up "like little Norwegian garden gnomes." They have started their spring egg knitting podcast.

Random fact: I have a fairly uncommon last name. Like, I know my parents, and I met one other person in my town (used to own the bead store) that had it/married into it, and that's IT. 600+ fourth cousins on AncestryDNA and only one of my last name turned up. I presume this is because the men in the family all died out early, I'm the only woman who would refuse to take a husband's last name, etc.
However, weirdly enough, my last name is starting to turn up everywhere:
(a) Character on a TV show awhile back. (Okay, so another TV show had another one with my last name in it, but that was years ago and lord knows that girl wasn't popular on it.)
(b) Two other storytellers in the last few festivals I saw.
(c) I saw someone else with the last name interviewed in some news article yesterday.
(d) Someone with my last name came up at work yesterday too.
(e) Just read another article that mentions the town with my last name in it today.
(f) Oh yeah, and an upcoming TV show has my last name in it (and at least one other. That last one is VERY weird to me. Like, if this show's a hit, am I going to be hearing about this all of the time? How weird is that gonna be to be hearing myself a lot? I have no idea if it'll be a hit or not. On the one hand, it's a famously good showrunner who makes shows I like, so odds are fairly good I'd like it and won't be ashamed of the namesake. On the other hand, it's not quite network, it's going to be on a extra streaming channel that I do not think has taken off in popularity so far and doesn't really have any major "stars" in it, I recognize the lead/namesake guy and that's about it. So...lowers the odds of it being a hit, I would bet,.

I did Story Studio after work and told the "how I got into Tony n' Tina" bit to try that out here. This did not go terribly well. I explained that this is more of a 15 minute story, but I can't ever do a 15 minute story as a noob, so I was seeing if this could work as a 5 minute one. The teachers' verdict was "We'd rather hear that audition story," politely. Sigh, but about what I figured.

As for everyone else, there were a fair number of super dirty stories, which pleased me no end.

David: little kid, age 7, immigrant parents, just wants to go see Porky's! (Sounds like Bambi and Pinocchio, right?) Dad won't let him, of course. "I just can't stop thinking about asses and titties." "Daddy, I really want to see asses and titties. It's the Year of the Pig." "It was obvious that we did not know what asses and titties were." LOVE this. Amy: "Mostly I just have tons of smiley faces."

Jenice in 1977: "This guy has all his teeth and a job," and "I need to expand my dating." "Would you like to go to a swingers pool party?" I thought it was so romantic that he wanted to put me on a swing." Table is full of drugs. "I was sitting more titties and ass and pussy and dick...." "The only sex ed I had at the time was my cousin's porno collection." She grabs all the drugs, rusn to the bathroom and waits it out for 2 hours. Two men try to get in, she yells she doesn't have sex with men. Then two women come for her wanting to have sex...."I'm looking for the swing and I don't see it." She acted out Annie Sprinkle and watched women doing things, said "I like to watch" and then left. She just took all of the knowledge from her cousin's porn and "I was glorious." "Would you facilitate my next orgy?" "I had actually created a job opportunity."

Allyson: "I'm sorry, but you're going to have to get over the snakes. Why don't you start with the python?" Snake bites her, she stashes in a pillow, she won't take it out again.

Charles: "If you've got Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and PornHub in the same story, you've got me." (Note: mostly about NYC and Times Square when he was a kid.)

Michael: "I had just finished step 4 where you write down all your crap."

Joe: New Orleans, thinks he got cursed by Marie Laveau mask in a botanica, then his rental car gets hit by a car...was he cursed?

(fill in mine later)

After that there was another Story Swap with people in my area, so I watched that one. Myths and Fables tonight. One lady talked about Coyote causing butterflies to fly crooked and in all honesty, I was all "Um, butterflies fly crooked?" Another Indian lady did what she called "paper drama" (having not seen the word written out in Indian, I won't attempt to guess at the spelling), in which she set up a little screen with drawings to accompany her story. Kamishibai, I think? Someone just put it in the chat. Anyway, I didn't really take notes during this because I decided to do some more color work on the sleeves of my sweater. I will just say that one story featured someone called "Feet In The Ashes." The fuck? Also, when will men ever learn to NOT STEAL SELKIE SKINS?!?!? Just saying, folktales! That never ends well for you! I'm so sick of "shitty dude steals a selkie's skin, forces her to be his wife and bear his children and then 15-20 years later she finally gets it back and abandons his ass, POOR SHITTY MAN, he lost the wife that he forced into slavery! And then the poor innocent kids are abandoned!" stories. (No offense meant to the teller, just...I don't like that shit.) Honestly, I think sometimes I am just Not That Into Folk Tales. Sometimes I'm into them, but not consistently.

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