I got the bright idea before bed that Scott's no-Internet Zoom problems could be solved by just dialing into meetings via phone, which is what I do at work when I have to have conversations with no microphone. Mentioned this to Robert and when I woke up, found a text that essentially said, "Tell him that." I didn't. I just said that I don't think Scott wants to hear from me or talk to me right now, and instead just posted an invite to sign up for Tempest to the Winters group, mentioning that phone call only was an option. This had exactly the effect that you'd expect.

I admit I kind of wanted more reaction out of Robert on that one, because I do want to tell already, but...nope. And really, I should shut up anyway. What is the point, there is no point, I need to move on. Literally nothing can happen now.

I spent most of my day in meetings again. Pretty much constantly from 9-1:30, having to skip my planned lunch too because Tigress runs late. Training with Tigress is rather excruciating. Too much, too much, too much and yet not enough. I was knitting while watching her doing it and I fucked it up twice and had to take out like 4 inches of knitting twice. Then I kind of had a nervous breakdown in meeting #3 pointing out how much crap I have to do between learning Tigress's job, answering emails and having no time for my own job, which is going to ramp up soon. At which point my boss took me off portal answering ("they're down to 120ish anyway") and said she'd attempt to find somebody to key the long tedious things. We'll see if that happens, because oh, they are going to be opening the phones next week! 4 hours a day! I still think this is a terrible idea and we will not be able to handle it. But we can't handle anything else so what else is new?

And just when I thought I was done with meetings for the day--I had them from 9-1:30 today--guess what, I got forced to report something to tech support and THEY wanted a meeting! Aaaaaaaagh! At least that one was easy, just verifying that yes, the notify email is broken and no, I'm not an idiot.

On a more fun note, I was emailing with Adriana and managed to figure out how to do happy birthday songs over Zoom, because there are YouTube videos that plug in people's names. One of our distinctively-named people originally didn't come up, so I attempted to see if there was a plug-in version online, which neither Adriana nor I tried. However, later it turned out I found her name, just in a Spanish version of "Feliz Cumpleanos." So I guess we're all set for that!

After work I got on the phone with Robert and Brian and we rehearsed The Tempest. Last night Robert and I (and Janene*) just focused on parts we were in, but Brian signed up to be Sebastian, so we had to read some other scenes so he could rehearse. We skipped the Caliban-Prospero-murder plot bits because none of us were in that, but otherwise still managed to get through it all before my class, so that's good.

* Janene wasn't on this call, I assume she was off picking weeds because she said she liked to do that while Robert was occupied, and she doesn't think she does Shakespeare well.

This meant that I got to read more parts, mostly Antonio the evil duke-usurper and Gonzalo the Nice Guy. I managed to differentiate between the two while reading aloud, I think Antonio felt a lot like Scar from the Lion King as he was trying to encourage Sebastian to murder Alonzo. Gonzalo, on the other hand, starts raving about how basically he wants a hippie utopia. I think I did pretty well at all of that.

At the end of the play I was all, "Wait, THIS ENTIRE PLAY IN PLAY TIME HAS BEEN THREE HOURS?!?'" Like in real life?! Miranda and Ferdinand got engaged within like, an hour?! On the other hand, I have respect for Miranda: she offers to haul logs for Ferdinand and says she'd be more into it than he is, and she's the one who proposes to him. Go, girl.

We shall rehearse again next week, hopefully.

It is REALLY NICE TO HAVE SOMETHING ELSE TO THINK ABOUT than a guy who isn't that into me in the first place, or my impending nervous breakdown at work, or the world's current meltdown and how the literal air around me is polluted by my neighbor hacking up a lung every morning.

After that, I had storytelling class, which was more people telling story #1. We had a brief discussion on how Zoom Safari could be the basis of a show, and one chick said she's a physical therapy assistant and two of her clients got it. And then one chick has a mom with dementia and “I spent the entire day trying to get to my mom to stop digging through garbage cans.”

As for actual class:
* One lady told a story about how she used to steal records as a kid when out with her sister, and then later her 5-year-old started stealing from a store (also using a raincoat like she did).
* Another one told a story about going to a charm school in Florida as a kid and looking at the manual and how freaking sexist it was, like telling a guy that you didn't understand the movie and can he explain it to you. "Apparently the origins of mansplaining." This was contrasted to her teacher, Miss Chen, who was a black belt in karate.
* A guy told "the funniest story I've had happen to me in quarantine," which in all honesty was not funny to those of us without knowledge of his industry, but that boiled down to "I got a wrong number," I think. Ah well.

* And finally, the girl who had the story about summer school was back with another school story of her school rival* who was all perfect and "her parents clearly loved her and stuff," whereas the teller had neglectful parents and she never showered or combed her hair or got to go to the mall. Then they had a book decorating contest and of course this girl's dad has a fancy printer. Our teller, on the other hand, got the jankiest beat up paper to use for hers and did nothing more than slap a big ol' Lisa Frank sticker on the front, then in class made an impassioned speech about how "I didn't work hard on this, but I deserve to win because a real kid made this" (as opposed to, I assume, Perfect Girl's parents--that reminded me of making missions in school). The class voted for her to win and she said that Perfect Girl cried and it was the one time she ever won anything--and then she mentioned after the fact that the teacher hated her and took back her win! Oy! Then she mentioned that Popular Girl was literally in a social group called the "Mean Sixteens," so don't cry for her, Argentina.

* I will tactfully not mention her name, but it was fairly generic and sounds like an obnoxious popular girl name, and let's just say several people Googled and figured out that this girl knew Lincoln from the Comedy Spot.

Not sure what I am going to do for the final week of class.

Arne and Carlos are back to weekly podcasting and Carlos said he thought he might die while ill, which is...you know. They discussed how they don't know how they got it, they had all kinds of exposures while traveling, how Arne wasn't ill all that long by comparison and I guess was more ill than just the cough--mostly fever. Porridgegate is on pause for now.

I definitely don't have concentration much these days. I kept fucking up my knitting earlier and I keep fucking up my current cross stitch, not noticing that the hand-designed ripoff Star Wars lettering is the wrong size compared to the other letters, not realizing that I didn't follow the pattern I designed and did something wrong, etc. Very annoying.

Though on the good news side, I heard back from Claire and there shall be a theater party, on the East Coast, anyway! She has games and stuff! THANK GAWD, because seriously, floating trial balloons has gotten no interest (or in Robert's case, he's busy rehearsing with some other friend I haven't met at the moment), so at least there will be SOMEBODY so I don't have to feel like a complete ass because the Winters contingent is non-responsive. THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS CLAIRE.

I've debated inviting Dawn, Loretta, Jess, Jackie, Meg, et al. of my "friends who don't typically hang out with the other friends" contingents, but I honestly don't think any of those people would find this sort of thing fun since they're the more introvert friends (and in Jackie's case, she definitely won't mingle). I feel bad about it, but also, I am talking to those folks more than most of the Winters social crowd these days, and if it's not their fun, I don't want them to feel obligated to be social with strangers online since even my ambivert ass can be ambivalent about doing it sometimes. Honest to god, if I ever got married (IF, and if weddings that involve more than the couple, officiant and 2 witnesses ever happen again), I have no idea how I'd juggle people who normally do not mingle with others and don't know each other, plus the relatives that would at least come to a wedding. Heck, I had two graduations to keep my relatives apart, though at least Dad's side having The Difficult Ones is no longer an issue :p

That said, Jess and her husband Mike are sending me several obnoxious birthday signs a day and I am LOVING THIS.

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