I mostly was meeting-free again today. We did have a "sound therapy" 15 minutes with....I guess I'll call her Penguin Girl, the one who does Reiki. She had a great trippy light show going on, but alas, I think the sound suffered a bit over Zoom. Though I was amused that my upstairs neighbor was singing "Paparazzi" off and on all day and it went along with that.

I did, however, get really cheesed off at Tigress for sending me two long lists of shit I'd barely done once and saying 'do these ASAP" with no instructions, and when I wrote back saying "could you please explain what the hell I am supposed to be doing here?" just wrote back "follow the procedures, call me, and I'm leaving early."

(a) The procedures didn't cover what I was asking, which was 'wait a minute, I'm supposed to do WHAT with 85 people by 5 p.m.?!" (b) Every time I call her, her phone doesn't work. Including today. (c) Seriously, this isn't cool to pull. Also, I was goddamned brain dead on Problem Solving by that fucking time and I wanted to watch the streaming Deconstruction video kicking off that afternoon and just not do anything hard for the last hour. Grrrrrrrr.

I did have a nice lunch chat with the spinning group--Vera (in tie-dye again!), Meg, and Kim, who I hadn't seen in a while and is dealing with working at vet school. Vera was annoyed at her boss and said that she'd gone to the grocery store at 5 p.m. on a Tuesday (note: a hippie one) and said she was able to find all the obscure things she wanted, so that's at least something. She also said about Zoom that under normal circumstances she only looks at herself in the bathroom in the morning and now, "I get to see so much of myself! It's so weird," and nobody wants to see themselves that much. I agree: why doesn't Zoom have a "turn off your own video" option? You can't avoid seeing yourself unless you have cams off.

After work I started in on The Deconstruction, which is to say, starting to write scripts as to what I am going to say in the one-woman show I am going to put on, doing storytelling/monologues on the shit that's been in thishere journal lately. They have a Discord chat channel, which I logged into but didn't pay much attention to, and then a Zoom introduction chat at 6, in which the theme was "Hey, do you have any birds in the house you can show us?" I had an Angry Bird on my bookcase right above me, so I showed that off. "We shared our birds!"

After that was over, I went back to writing, and actually recorded on Zoom my introductory monologue. Which worked. Huzzah! Now I need to figure out if I can "share screen" and do Power Points while still reading scripts or something for the next one. I wrote a monologue about the neighbors and started on a Power Point about it, but realized I needed a few shots to be taken in the morning.

And after that, I enjoyed the "Virtual Mental Health Comedy Hour" being put on by a club in Santa Cruz that I always wanted to go to but never made it to. One of the hosts, Wonder Dave, is gay but pretty cute and I have to say that I enjoyed looking at a cute guy (if obviously unavailable for many reasons) for a change, because that hasn't happened since...well, you know. He and his cohost Kristee are very open about having their issues and I am super sad I didn't get a screenshot of the sign that said "We're Not Ok," followed by another that said "And That's Ok." He also lit a Maria Bamford candle.

Quotes from the hosts:
Wonder Dave:
“When I’m not doing shows, I’m an absolute monster.”
“This is not ideal, but we’re gonna do it anyway!”
“I’m a fan of the philosophy, it’s not great, but it’ll do.”
After he mentions having murderous rage thoughts, “I seem very nice on the outside. “ Someone else said, “That’s NORMAL!”

Kristee:
“I definitely should not follow all of my thoughts.”
"I hate to be that guy. Meditation sucks, but it works."

DNA, the club owner, has a full on Unabomber beard and said to not open packages from him:
“A lot of us didn’t sign up for this six week anger management class.”
“When I talk to the therapist, I need to see the disappointment in her eyes.”
“I got tired of hearing my own voice a week into quarantine.”

I liked this guy in the chat: “Zoom really makes me look at myself, too. I can’t find an option to turn that off.”

Then they interviewed Pam the VA psych nurse and asked, “who fucked you up?” “Oh, that’s easy, my stepfather.” After saying a lot of people have childhood trauma, she said her life doesn’t really suck that much. She also showed off her dolls that she makes that are...anatomically correct. Hairy crotch was flashed at the screen briefly!

The next comedienne was Dominque Gelin, talking about going into a gay men’s chat room and finding out about choking. "Breathing is my kink. But it doesn’t matter because nobody is touching me." Her sex stories are all about how she's not having sex. Also, "How's my mental health? Not great, Bob!" 5 out of 10. I hear ya. (Dave was all, my anxiety is 8, without even thinking about it.)

Response from someone in the chat room: “my motto is if u have to zoom u dont have to groom.”

Then Wonder Dave talked about his redneck childhood, that even had an outhouse and they wiped butts with corn cobs. Anyway, he used to be an event planner and now he’s unemployed, his computer died, and someone broke his car window. “I think I should be worse than I am,” but he has pot gummies.

Kristee said she is on “a wonderful rollercoaster of hellish introspection” and “I did tattoo my face, which is maybe not a good idea, but here we are. Two stick n’ poke tattoos in six weeks.” “And yet, the self-control I’ve shown. Who’s growing?”

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