Kelly and I were up early watching Prince Philip's funeral. It was boring. At least I "naturally" (har) woke up before and it happened to be on--I thought when they said 7 a.m. that was East Coast time. I will note that I spotted Harry actually within the vicinity of Wills and Kate at the end, SHOCKER!

Watching yet another Pick A Card. This #2 is dead on, but she thinks he'll eventually speak up again. She doesn't think it's totally dead. Too bad I've been told it'll never happen and he'll never have the emotional anything--nothing about the potential to in the future either, SIGH. Otherwise "someday" is what I would have wanted to hear. "I'm hearing three months," she said. We'll see. I would bet large amounts of money that nothing will happen though. I would like to be wrong.

We read the suffragist play again today, with a few substitutions. * Marc, who plays Jon, originally was supposed to work today, so Kelly asked another playwright she knows, Jeff, to fill in. Then Marc had the day off after all but it seemed rude to uninvite, so he just watched the show. And Jeff, who is also a trained actor (I guess Marc hasn't done much), was fantastic at it. Kelly was hoping this would inspire Marc to do more emoting, but instead this inspired Marc to kind of want to quit the show. I....well, I would feel same. I think Kelly has negotiated it to have him do some individual work with us and THEN make a decision there, but, y'know, awkward. * Claire, who plays Maggie, has Covid (for three weeks now...uh-oh), so Shanna read her part as Maggie and clearly got a kick out of it--flirting and giving birth, specifically. It'd be a great role for her to double if both characters weren't onstage at the same time. * The guy subbing in as Sam, Shawn, also did a great job of the snarking. So it was a very enjoyable performance all around. I think both acts come out to about an hour 15 JUST reading aloud...without physical actions and the like, so.... I think we're at the point where Kelly is reluctant to cut stuff, but up to her there. That long of plays may not be as long of an issue while showing things on Zoom when you can get up and pee and snack without anyone noticing anyway. Jeff was all "are you sure this shouldn't be a film?" which I agree it would probably work great as, or the plot would anyway (would have to be rewritten as such). I don't think Kelly has film contacts though, but I guess Jeff and Jackie do. Hm. I figure if the play's a big hit it would get a movie anyway ;)

I did hear from Loretta via text today--she's hit her all clear but is still afraid to go into stores, go indoors at all or eat even outside. I feel ya. However, I may need to start working on getting over that stuff...

I got my second letter from the "Dear Jack, Dear Louise" letter experience. Louise is clearly a MUCH better writer than Jack, she's full of personality. It starts out like this:

"You're a doctor? And you didn't tell me until the end of the letter? You are either the most modest human being that ever was or this is a trick. Don't you know that every girl in the world wants to go out with a doctor? Except me. It's too obvious....Does "meet and get acquainted in a social way mean go out on a date? If so, the answer is yes." LOL, y'all. She is quite a snarker, saying that meeting in NYC would be more convenient--"I suppose we could meet halfway, in Bismarck, North Dakota, but then we'd both need snowshoes." She talks about auditioning for performing arts school and singing a B-flat, "which in my case sounded like a chain saw trying to cut through aluminum, but that apparently stunned the professors so much that they marked the wrong box on their evaluation sheets and I still got in." She notes that she was very convincing in her role as a "lady of the night" in one show. She was blown away by watching Oklahoma! and said, "Sometimes I want to be in a show so badly that I want to cry about it. I shouldn't have told you that. Now you'll think I'm crazy."

Well, I love Louise now, she's awesome. I hope Jack is worthy of her awesome in the future.

Later: I broke bad today, y'all. I walked around for an hour in the nearest park, which had a bunch of people doing...I guess some kind of party, but they all had masks on. Then I went home and waited to hear if Redhead Sarah was up to seeing me and yes, she was. She asked where I wanted to go and I was all hell if I know, I haven't been out at a year....but I miss the bar....and I wanted their fried rice at the bar.... so we went to the karaoke bar.

We didn't think that one through.

As I drove through Winters, it seriously looked the same as any other time I've been there in the warm season except one of the streets was blocked off. Tons of people parked there, people eating at all the fancy restaurants downtown, a few masks on but otherwise, well, people eating. They now have a giant parking lot down the hill at the bar and there was a lot of cars....specifically large BIG PENIS TRUCKS (you know what I mean). I got there like 30-40 minutes before Sarah turned up, so I sat in the car texting Kelly and Shanna, and watching as larger and larger trucks with macho license plates and "Blue Lives Matter" stickers on them... (oh yeah, and one car had a sticker on it saying "Your Daughter Is In Good Hands." I would have taken a photo of this had it not been dark, but Sarah and I scorned this) and then was all "Oh, fuck, I didn't remember that redneck clientele sometimes comes here." Indeed, probably well, ALL OF THEM WERE AT THIS BAR. Sarah hadn't been there for several months and ah...things had changed. Other than things being outside (except for food pickup, which was done inside at the original bar and you were not to grab your own food) and touchless money stuff and a few staff members with masks on, it was TOTAL FREE FOR ALL REDNECK PARTY. Kids running around in a sandpit, lots of games of cornhole, a DJ playing tunes, dogs, pretty much nobody wearing masks.

....No, I did not have a screaming fit and run out, or put mine on. Within the next few weeks, for all I know I may regret this. I will note that the one person I got close to was Sarah, as we did hug for a long time at the start and end. First hug of 2021 with her. Everywhere else I tried to keep my distance. Several folks wanted to be friendly towards Sarah's new dog, who was not reacting so well to other dogs. I suppose we will find out for sure within the next few weeks if those vaccines work, y'all. I forget exactly how Sarah phrased it, but it was pretty much frying pan to fire, wasn't it?

I gave her the unicorn "Not today, virus, I'm vaccinated" pin, she gave me the face-changing unicorn toy she promised a while back.

I got bacon fried rice, but I kept on talking so I didn't eat much of it. I had my first Coke in a year. It was delicious

Sarah said she spent a lot of the pandemic crying, then went off birth control and felt better. Her roommate Sarajean has somehow managed to acquire a new boyfriend during the pandemic by meeting him at a BLM protest. Their landlord wants to sell the house but hopefully she can't be evicted for a few months at least. She has seen Robert off and on and gone places with him (said he was part of her pandemic pod), says Janene is vaccinated and Robert is trying to. Oh, and "they all" went on some kind of mystery walk thing in Sacramento, Scott included. I wanted to say something like I was hella jealous and wanted to go, and then well, I wouldn't have gone anyway at the time. I didn't comment, or grumble that Scott was somehow allowed to do something that wasn't working every single day.

I told her about my plays and the whole year of trying to connect with Scott and it going intermittently, and what the psychic said. She said "I think he's autistic" (note: Sarah also thinks she is autistic but said that when she tried to get diagnosed, she "mirrored" enough to not get diagnosed....I have no idea on this topic) and he comes off as a little boy/asexual/probably doesn't know how to do relationships. I will note that she said this before I said anything about how the psychic thought he was. (I felt a bit like saying "things that could have been brought to my attention yesterday...." because that is not stuff that was coming up the last time we talked about the prospect of him.)

She asked if I wanted to just shoot my shot and ask him out, and I said (a) the whole thing about how he pre-emptively rejected me, (b) I have straight up told him I'll ask someone out if I think they want to go, (c) I don't think he wants to or I would have asked by now, (d) pandemic so I can't ask anyway. She asked how clear (b) was because he may have to have things spelled out for him and I said it was pretty clear. She said she didn't think he'd figure out the Morse code stuffed animals without me spelling it out and I was all "whatever, I give up there." Anyway, she figured he wouldn't notice if I never spoke to him again, thinks he does care about me, but... yeah. Did not seem utterly shocked at any of it. Now I feel really stupid about the whole thing, but it's nice to get confirmation and finally talk to someone about it who knows him. I was all "how did he manage to have relationships before, because it sure sounded like he's managed it, I didn't think he was incapable/asexual," and she said maybe they were just weird enough together that it worked or something with the last one.

Well, hope I meet the other guy sometime. She tried to think of who it might be...she suggested Theater Jim and said she found out on Tinder he's straight and I was all wait, whaaat? to this, but since the psychic said it's not someone I already know, that would rule him out anyway. "I want someone else who wants to talk to you too!" she said. "Someone who wants to talk to you so much that you want them to stop!" Hah.

I will hopefully try to see her again sometime. We'll see when. Not sure if I can sneak off to see her after Mom leaves, but maybe sometime in the next few weekends.

Seriously, the whole experience of going to this now large outdoor bar was....like going back in time. It was like NORMAL, so NORMAL, except I had to keep reminding myself not to fall into that trap, keeping my distance from other people, etc. It was a party. It was fun. It was probably dangerous as fuck to the unvaccinated and I totally did that to myself. I broke bad, y'all. I went from 0-100 in one night. Good god. I don't know what to make of myself. And I guess I'll be watching myself the next two weeks....and not telling Loretta what I just did.

Here's the thing about doing something "normal" that you haven't done in a year: it somehow doesn't quite feel abnormal, it's like you put on comfy slippers again. Like the last year didn't exist. It's so weird. It's SO weird.

previous entry - next entry
archives - current entry