Last day of Otherworlds and clearly it was Naked Day, as several folks were at least shirtless and one girl appeared naked, wearing only a veil at one point.

"I like the rationale, "It's tradition, how could we not?"
“Permission to do what we'd LIKE to do."
"Well, I wore my best robe today.”
"I am absolutely sitting here in my underwear and a jacket."
I swear some folks are getting more naked than how they started.
"Clothes are highly overrated."
"You gotta breathe through your butt," one girl was told.

The first talk of the day was how to deal with fairies. Now, whether or not you believe in fairies for real in this world or not*, I was interested/surprised that she said that they ah, took an interest in her in real life and she had to learn about them to protect herself. “They’re kinda like cats, if i can say that without ending up dead....”

* I am not a fairy magnet person and as far as I know none have had specific interest in me, but I’ve had a few weird experiences back when I was in a coven where the leader was named Fey, I’ll put it that way. Also, sometimes “evil fairies” is literally the only explanation for some weird things, like losing a key in an empty room and it disappearing and never being able to find it.

Someone else said, "Once you're known to Themselves, you're never not known to Themselves,” and I vowed to stay under the fairy radar forever.

Next was a talk on “Navigating Unverified Personal Gnosis,” which translates into “how do you verify that some message you got from a god/dess is real? You can’t, really, because this shit is weird and everyone has their different experiences.”

More quotes toward the end
of the morning:

"My 7 year old niece has a saying: don't read the comments." (Geez, a 7-year-old knows this.)
"Don't hang out with assholes."
"It's naked lunch. We all know what time it is."

During their lunch break, I skipped out to be the stage directions again in “The Importance of Being Earnest,” which was still fun. We had another understudy come in to be Cecily after the previous Cecily’s dog just died, and this one (the girl who played Hermia before, Jessica) was very concerned about what to wear to do it. I complimented her outfit (and vice versa) and Claire said, "Your attention to detail is commendable, but we're just faking it, man." Jessica also said, "I asked my husband to make me tea in a fancy tea cup.”

After I said I cast myself in another role nobody would give me, Claire also said, "That is the joy of this, that no one can stop us.."

When asked if anyone had any news, I decided to discuss dinosaur sex, which led to the comment, "The world is a fascinating place and we should all be grateful for that.” Then that led into a romance novel that’s supposedly called “Romance at the Smithsonian Institution” that Claire’s mom saw and that Claire and I were totally unable to find online, much to our disappointment.

Notable amusing moment: the guy playing Jack had to pull out a book of military names in the script and he pulled out a gaming book for that.

There will be a down week the week after Tempest is over. Claire’s undecided between
”Major Barbara” or Aristophanes.

It only took a half hour to read Act 3, so I was back at Otherworlds in time for a lecture on quantum magic, which sadly I am not smart enough to comprehend even if the subject matter (does magic work and can you prove it) is cool.

During the break, I made a crack that people had put their clothes back on while I was gone, which got them to get naked again. The most naked of the ladies suggested that I send nudes, because hey, bad advice! I also recounted the RISK! show from last night.

Comments:
“Every time I step away from the camera, (name redacted) is talking about boobs...”
“I go away and there’s penis pumps.”
"Why do some families have access to 50 penis pumps?"

After that, there was a discussion of balancing the Divine Feminine and Masculine, which pretty much turned into a chat discussion of how most of us are quite annoyed by negative portrayals of the masculine.

More comments in the break:

"It's nice to see you with clothes on!"
"I can go back!"
"Places don't exist any more. There is only Zoom."

There were a lot of awesome stories about bad names, which sadly I can’t repeat because if you mention someone’s specific bad name, there is Google.

"I can ruin Taco Bell for you."
"Tell me Taco Bell stories and I’ll tell you strip club stories from when I worked in one. Stripper fights are awesome." He then proceeded to tell a story about a girl falling down and ending up with her shoe up her butthole. Do you want me to check that? I don’t know... “Would you feel better if I gave you a dollar first? Because you’ve been doing that all night.”

This turned into what was dubbed “Infernal Stories In Which You Go To Hell.”

“This is what you guys have paid for.”

"I'm going to hell for telling these stories."
"We're already in hell.”

“I don’t think amnesia holds up in the infernal courts, you’re going to hell.”
“He had filled my helmet with dried horse turds.”
After a guy insulted her hair, a girl threw some pubes in there. “Never mess with people who have control over your food.”

The final event was a concert, involving a story about a bard who no one could remember the name of until she had to sleep with a dragon to get over it, and also, "This is a song about true love. And the plague. And zombies."

We all agreed that as one of the first online conferences ever (or at least the first one I’ve heard of), it was a well run great success, and someone should write a scholarly paper on it or something. It was also lovely that those who would not normally be able to go COULD go.

Sadly, after that, I had to leave my house, which I have to do every two weeks to drive the car to make sure it doesn’t die, plus take out the trash and get the mail. Apparently the book I ordered was dumped outside of my door and nobody knocked to let me no, so now it’s gone. Greaaaaaat. Well, at least my stimulus check was locked in a box. Now I have to get the damn bank app to scan it or whatever, but I don’t have the spoons for that after going outside. Also they were supposed to have gotten me my masks by the end of this week and they haven’t even shipped them yet, so I’m still resorting to a towel.

(Meanwhile, the fucking work webcam is supposed to come tomorrow. Why couldn’t THAT get stolen instead? Give that to someone who needs it and wants it.)

I hate going outside now. It's a lovely day, it's a HOT day, it's the sort of thing I'd love to be outside in, but I just can't enjoy it. Or music in the car. I can't calm down. It’s still as mostly empty as it was last time. I don’t know how everyone can be running around (without masks, I only saw one even though they said everyone has to as of Friday but they won’t “enforce” until tomorrow) or walking around enjoying themselves like everything is normal. I don’t know how anyone can breathe air like everything is normal.

I took out the trash, I got my mail, I cried at the birthday cards. I got the stimulus check and now I have to fucking figure out how to deal with that. The book is still stolen. I drove 14 miles in total to keep the car running. It was actually still pretty clean except for the windshield but who the fuck cares if it's dirty now, who's out there to hit, I guess. I drove partway to Winters again and turned around and tried not to cry while driving the car because it's not like I could stop to touch my face to wipe it off. This is too much. I didn’t even get NEAR any other people this time and I’m still losing it.

I made up birthday and Mother's Day cards for Mom and then forgot to put them out in the mailbox until I was home and decontaminated again. Too bad, I'm not doing all of that again just to go out to the box. Then Mom called and then of course tried to yell at me as to how to fix the stolen package and I kept asking her to STOP.

I basically had a nervous breakdown for an hour after being outside. I can’t deal with outside any more. I don’t know how the fuck I am going to cope with being forced to go to actual Kaiser to get my shot this week. It could kill me. Literally.

And finally, I watched “UnCabaret,” which is a mix of various celebrities and/or people I haven’t actually heard of chatting it up for 5-10 minutes apiece and/or doing stuff.

Notably, this show made the mistake of publishing their Zoom address online with the password, and my first actual Zoombomb actually happened, with some turd expressing their dislike of a certain racial group on repeat. The chat was disabled and the guy was kicked off, which seemed ironic because the hostess was all “Hey, let’s chat in the chat” around this time.

I didn't know who most of these people were (maybe NYC theater celebrities for all I know). I think the most famous one that I knew of was Julia Sweeney, who said she's quit showering for real and just wears a hat now, and her husband and daughter refuse to wash their hair. Also, she loves living in a bunker.

Alex Edelman's special skill is to describe the personality of any canned good. "This is the stupidest thing I've ever done. People email me with pictures of cans. People email my manager with pictures of cans." Sample of this: someone held up "Vegan Toona" and he said it was the goofiest guy in your office that loves April Fool's so much and knows all the lines to Anchorman. (Kinda sounds like Actor Jim.) And then was all, "I can't believe we didn't lose anybody during that."

Quotes from Judy Gold:
*I go to the Stop and Shit to go grocery shopping...."
"It's hell, and I like it."
"Why doesn't he have it? He's the most evil fucking person!"
"There's been no school shootings!"

I agree with Tim Bagley: "I don't want to look at my big fat face on a screen." Then he told a story about getting a virus on his computer and some Christian lady named Elizabeth had to go through all his files and "I didn't want to go on this journey with Elizabeth." Then she recognized him from the television. He also said, "I keep myself busy with all my figurines" and broke out two hot Hawaiian guys he'd put masks on. "I could do this all night long. And I have. This is what you do when you don't have a partner and are just alone."

Quote from Chris Jacks: "I need this to be over. It's the longest day of my life.'

I'll be honest, Un-Cabaret was not my favorite thing ever (mostly it was just celebrity ramble for 5-10 minutes, I guess....), but it's nice to sample new things.

I did design my next cross stitch, which will have the saying, “Distraction is a girl’s best friend” and has a Tangled theme because Rapunzel is the poster child for “lives in a tower, can’t go out, and has a billion hobbies.” When will my life begin, indeed. It’s very overloaded and complicated, like a real sampler would be. And right now, more fun than dredging through Baby Yodas that no one will receive, which I also worked on today, but slowly. Like I got parts of a coat made level of slowly.

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