Chaos Attraction

Virtual Reader's Theater: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 1

2020-03-29, 9:06 p.m.

Mom texted me today, “What was today like for you?” That seems...appropriate to ask.

Today was Act one of Virtual Readers Theater: A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“I think this is going to be great or at least deeply hilarious.” -Claire, Master of Revels/organizer.

I went in early to the pre-show chat for tech support testing. I asked Claire how the heck she gets people to actually do things, because in general when I try to be all, “Hey kids, let’s put on a show/go to the theater/whatever,” mostly I get nothing but silence. She said she wasn’t sure either, but “I am a fan of the vicious poking,” and repeated reminders on Facebook.

(Sigh...I am going to be forced to be on Facebook during quarantine sometime, aren’t I? I keep trying to avoid it, but I fear it shall be inevitable under the circumstances.)

I was having a pain in the ass time finding a blank wall, but ended up having to do it in my bedroom. I dressed up in a plaid shirt and my fedora, per being a “rude mechanical.” Robert was also in, huzzah, as the other one from the NorCal contingent. Some other folks did dress up and I was very jealous of Hermia and Helena’s flower crowns and was all, “I could do that, but I’m playing a dude.” Who’s hiding her pink hair. One guy, Garrett, as Lysander, looks oddly familiar to me but I think he’s from Florida (most of this group was) so I don’t think I know him? Maybe he was on something else online? Or reminds me of the magicians from last night? I dunno. Garrett was trying to get his name listed as “Emperor of the Known Realms,” which Claire denied, along with his other creative suggestions. The lady playing Snug/Lion had a lion costume picture up that she got off Wikipedia.

Some folks were via phone early (Claire’s mother is in the boonies with bad Internet) and Claire had it pretty well organized with regards to “put yourself on mute when not speaking” and “put your character name on Zoom” and the like. She is recording it for future showing at some point later. Robert asked if I’d sent it to our theater people since there were slots to watch and I posted it--I did see Anita in there, so we got one! (Tried inviting Meg, but she said she couldn’t.) Linda emailed me later saying she’d missed it, and I filled her in on the next shows, that I’d send her the recording, etc.

Random quote from either Hermia or Helena (I forget which): “We both fed our husbands to the tigers.”

I confess that over theater chat, I felt more likely to be chatty than I have been on various random theater show Zoom’s lately. Hmmm. Mostly answered questions about what I was knitting.

Act 1 was fun, even if I have two lines (and none in some other acts). I look forward to the recording, whenever that’s out. And the other shows, of course. I’m so acting this to my theater resume.

Briefly texted with Robert about karaoke yesterday and the potential for more. Then when I got off I tried testing my karaoke mic. The thing is designed to play music through Bluetooth off your iPod/phone/whatever. I got that part to work, and briefly got the sound to work (mostly if I had “echo” setting on full blast, which I’d rather not do...). Mostly I was afraid to test the thing and blast the neighbors, and for whatever reason the mic letting me talk through it only worked briefly and at one point, super loudly. Then it wouldn’t work soundwise. Heck if I know. Maybe I’ll monkey with it later.


Today I actually attempted to exercise, because I read a horrifying NYT article claiming that if a person who walks 10k steps a day stops exercising, they get all fucked up on insulin resistance within two weeks. Fuck. Can’t afford that with my gene pool and I’m nearly two weeks into quarantine. I don’t think I actually did much walking since about the 13th or so actually, so it’s worse than two weeks. Fuck.

Instead of trying to pace back and forth on the patio, I paced around the entirety of my apartment: living room, kitchen, hallway, bathroom, bedroom. This was reminiscent of reading “The Sherwood Ring” and Peaceable mentioning that he managed to get a surprising amount of walking in his cell when the guards weren’t looking. I guess he’s right.

I did manage to make 10,000 steps, so I did that. However, normally I’d do that in a solid 90 minutes of walking, and today it took over three hours to do in the house. I did actually start kind of sweating at one point (enough to take off all my layers of clothes down to a tank top) and I could feel it in my lungs a bit, so I guess I did something. Rather go to the gym and use a machine, mind you, but can’t do that.

Admittedly, I wasn’t walking the entire time because I decided to read Feed again* and would stop periodically to take notes on the stuff that is reminding me of the current situation. (And texting with Redhead Sarah a bit about craft rooms and that she’s playing “Catris.”) I read it on my phone while pacing back and forth and I just had to stop now when it got to 15% of battery. So I guess that answers how much I can read before I hose the phone battery, as well.

* otherwise known as, “My shrink told me not to, but I did it anyway,” I can’t get it out of my mind these days.

I liked the walking, even if I had to pay more attention to rounding the corners and whatnot, but this amount of time is rather inefficient. I know I should be doing those online classes or “7 minute workouts” or something, or throwing myself a dance party, but man, throwing a dance party is something that for once I don’t want to do. Will have to reconsider this whole thing, especially on workdays.

After that I checked my email, wrote Linda back some more about how Claire handled the show, and then saw that Linda literally invited the entire Winters theater list (I don’t even recognize some folks’s emails) to the online chat about this.

Is this true or a bunch of bullshit? Asking for a friend. Because this (a) doesn’t make sense that they fall in love when they have NO contact with you, (b) all the “men talk to women and have sex with them and then they get too much estrogen and they need to get away and build up their testosterone” made me go WTF and how the hell does any man get into a relationship “if he’s getting man-boobs” from hanging out with you, and (c) it just sounds like yet another version of “Give the man space and let him hide in his cave, bitch!” And then there was this video in which it likens men to training horses and you just leave them alone.

I also signed up for an online tarot lecture. I like the lady’s website, so I did it, but I got concerned when she was coughing. She said she was getting over a cold, but these days you wonder and worry still.... Anyway, I logged in 15 minutes late, didn’t apparently miss anything, and the one tip I liked from it was to tell a story in the cards (like all the Pick A Cards I’m doing lately), the rest was pretty generic stuff like “practice on others.” Then it turned into “buy my program,” and since I don’t want to professionally read for money really, I logged out. THEN I GOT A CREEPY EMAIL SAYING SHE NOTICED I LOGGED OUT BEFORE THE LECTURE WAS OVER, sending me Cliff’s Notes.... and that just creeped me the hell out. I’ll be fair, she then said that if you’re experiencing financial distress and do not want to hear about this you can unsubscribe... so I did.

Now, the current global situation is changing daily and has affected us in many different ways. So, if you are currently experiencing financial distress and you do not want to hear about the opportunity to become a Certified Tarot Reader, I invite you to stop receiving emails by clicking here, and know that we have an abundance of free resources available to you and that our team is here to support you along your Tarot journey.

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Jackie started texting me late last night about everyone being under quarantine until the end of April, and I said at this point I’m agoraphobic. She started getting on me to work on this in therapy and I was all, you know what, there are good reasons to be agoraphobic right now and that is NOT a priority, especially when we are probably gonna be living like this for 18 goddamned months at the minimum.


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