Chaos Attraction

There Needs To Be A Play About This

2021-04-10, 8:25 p.m.

recently on Chaos Attraction
Battle of Farquaad - 2021-04-15
First Day of Freedom - 2021-04-14
Group Numbers Online - 2021-04-13
Earned Respect - 2021-04-12
Run and Scream - 2021-04-11

archives

Cast list as of November 2019

I wrote Cameron a letter...I think it was Thursday night (about Shrek) and stuck it in the mail that night to go out Friday. Coincidentally she sent me a post card today. Let me quote it in its entirety: "Hello Jennifer! I owe you a much longer letter, but I wanted to say hi! How are you? I hate things as well! xo Cameron." The "I hate things" CRACKS MY SHIT UP. I can't help but think this is a coincidence since I doubt my letter showed up immediately Friday and then her postcard was immediately Saturday...not these days, right? LOL though. This is reminding me of hippie stuff about how if you try to contact someone they actually contact you right back, but that's the first time it's happened to me.

In other news, I signed up for the Dear Jack, Dear Louise Love Letters experience and got my first one today. It's a very generic letter Jack is writing because their dads said they should "get acquainted in a social way," and it is very boring. Where he was born, his siblings, his jobs, and finishes with "Now you know everything there is to know about me." Oy! From this a romance was born? One hopes it gets more interesting from here. God knows I'm more dishy when I write well, anything.

Today I am watching Stitches things and the local TEDx. (Stitches being the online version of the yarn conference series I went to in February in the beforetimes.)

Since I signed up for a Stitches class this weekend, that means I can watch whatever public presentations they have going on. Now under normal circumstances, they have "The Market," i.e. all the shopping. What they are doing virtually is having half hour presentations from the various online stores. When I dragged out of bed circa 9, I decided to watch the presentation by https://universalyarn.com/ Universal Yarn. It was a fashion show of tops and shawls, and I spent some time looking at the patterns on their website.

After that was TEDx time:

TEDx: "Excuse our cow puns." * They had a lovely large choir (in tiny boxes) singing "My Funny Valentine," beautifully. "* Owning Your Identity in the Digital Age," about feeling bad about yourself due to social media. After the talk (I didn't time it), they had a long Q&A going afterwards, which is new for TED things. * Someone in the chat: "I am in this picture and I don't like it." I really hate people talking about themselves as "brands." Barf. Especially when a host was all, "I'm a college student and I'm not sure if I should post something because it's not my brand." "Oh, I don't always keep a positive attitude. I allow myself to feel the reality of what exists," the speaker said in the Q&A afterwards. She mentioned toxic positivity and I was all YEAH BABY I TOTES AGREE.

They had an ASL interpreter, which pleased me, but sadly the promised ASL lessons were cut due to Technical Difficulties. Wah.

Next up was "Uncertainty Tolerated: The Surprising Clarity When Managing Ambiguity." I enjoyed how he was all, "let's look up definitions of this, all of these are NOT SUPER HELPFUL." Define it: set the context Tolerate it: be in a better state for clarity Action it: Then he throws his little chart into the imaginary audience. Basically, he's talking about enduring ambiguity, a lot. "If you tolerate ambiguity, clarity comes." Yeah, this would have meant more to me a few days ago.... but yeah, I'm used to sitting around in ambiguity. Probably would have been better to just fucking decide to get over it already.

Then there was a lady (https://www.sandfantasy.com/ Ilana Vahav) doing art in sand, that was fun. Gorgeous art. Then she starts talking about how she got married at 20, got pregnant immediately, and then lost her husband a few days later in war. Then a fellow widow calls saying she heard that someone saw people parachuting out of the plane.... She had signs, she said. Right before she gave birth, she saw him on the front page of the newspaper. He was locked in a cell. Then somehow the video skipped....argh. I guess he did die. Dammit. She has performed for the Pope.

They asked us to say what we want to explore in 2021. I was all "leaving my apartment without having to worry about the pandemic." Sorry, I can't say "surfing!" or "national parks!"

Next up was a guy on activism and companies. Not my thing. (Honest to God, I hear the word "CEO" and my brain is out the fucking door immediately.) Happily, they had Technical Difficulties the entire time and we never got a Q&A with him--they eventually just did meditation instead.

Next was a fitness instructor that I guess enough people knew and were psyched by, about "Resilience: How to Emerge From Your Tragedies Stronger." She talked about being shot, and her brother had to have the plug pulled on him. Never give up! Never give up! Never give up!

After that, I went to FedEx and photocopied the parts of the script that I am or may be in--which came to $30, GOD I MISS HAVING A PRINTER, and printed a pattern, and photocopied my vax card. Then I drove partway to Winters and turned around just to exercise the car, washed the car and got gas.

I saw four signs while I was out: * License plate that said "(heart)2BNONT" (love to be naughty?!) * License plate that said "LOVEBYP" * Hearts on my neighbor Linda's license plate frame, I think. (Note: this is the longtime SO of the neighbor who died a few days ago--I saw her taking out the trash and then later getting in the car with the dog, both at a distance. I never got close enough to her to say anything, but what would you say?) * And...I will note that while I was doing my pointless driving exercise today--I had planned on going to Krispy Kreme, but that's in his town and FUCK THAT right now--I was screaming and cussing out the universe in the car for leading me on and lying to me about all of this shit. (The car's response to this was to start playing "Bad Day" at me. I think my car is magic in some respects when it does shenanigans like that. Or at least the radio is.) Anyway, as I was a few blocks from home, continuing to cuss the universe out--a big ol' bus parked by with a giant ad saying something about "These doctors restarted her heart."

THE FUCK, UNIVERSE?!? I FEEL LIKE IT IS TAUNTING ME WITH ASSHOLERY.

I forced myself to go outside and exercise for a few hours--Reggie briefly came out but was occupied--and then I proceeded to watch the JoCo Online Cruise Concert. I love that they're doing that.

I went to the Stitches "Pajama Party" at night, a thing I've never done IRL, but what the heck. I may be the only one in pajamas, but one lady was in bed. Oh, wait, I just spotted another one! It was fun yarn gossip time, where I heard of something called "Dorset Buttons" that is apparently all the rage, and one lady said someone asked her why she makes socks when "you can just buy them at the Dollar Store." "I'm not making her anything," she said. Another lady said, "I don't even wear most of my stuff, i just stare at it when it's done." There was also discussion of the new Zoom live caption option and how the hearing impaired like it, the vision impaired lady was all "it's ants at the bottom of my screen." One older lady was all "please keep the online events" and the show staff lady was all "Oh, we plan to," and she hates travel anyway! They have international "visitors" and even teachers now. Later, it turned into "I can't wear any knits or bring any knitting to the doctor's any more because I get requests." Especially this one: "I had a heart attack. I almost died. I want some socks." One lady felt really awkward when the gynecologist commented on her socks. Spinning with a mask "requires too much concentration. I can't talk to myself while doing it." They talked about Minnesotan and English accents, particularly making fun of their own Minnesotan ones: One lady said that between the English accent from her husband and her living in both Minnesota and CA, her kid "sounds like a very posh little kid" most of the time like saying rubbish, but then he says Costco like a Minnesotan.... Then it went on to using canes and baseball bats for getting 6 feet of space, and the lady with the 2 year old saying that her kid was shaming an adult for chin diapering. "They speak the truth, unless you ask about who ate the cookie." The two year old's birthday party: "The theme is Baby Shark Vacuums." "We're going to do a Zoom party, and everyone's going to bring their vacuums...." (I note that I'm telling Kelly this stuff and she's like, totally baffled.) I also won some raffle prize for hanging around long enough--something from "kimonomomo," some kind of "world kit?" I'm guessing from her Etsy it's an embroidery kit? And finally, here's 70-year-old Beverly: "I have watched every episode of CSI and Forensic Files. "I can kill you and never get caught." She also says "I've got a tarpulin and a shovel" about a friend's husband. Someone else: "This was not what I was expecting." Beverly to the kid's mom: "you have totally ruined Ben's life tonight."

Kelly must have been bored because she was texting me what I was up to, so of course I told her. And of course by the end she's all "You know what I'm thinking....there needs to be a play written about this!" Me: "What a coincidence, I was thinking same!"


previous entry - next entry
archives - current entry
hosted by DiaryLand.com