Work remains quiet. Finished big project, sent it in for signoff. Did tedious things the rest of the day. During Yarn Club, I heard "Yemi and Jennifer are the badasses of the Yarn Club." -Other Jennifer. Other Jennifer was also "looking forward to seeing all of your faces in person!" and Yemi was all "not if I can help it" and I was all "Well, I'll be forced to come back in person, but I have no idea if we can even get the room we used to borrow back when I haven't heard from Mary in a year."

I did hear back from Redhead Sarah today, saying no to the Burning Man car thing but would do some other hangout. (No idea what, though.)

I don't know what to make of the CDC being all "No masks any more!!!!!" I know, supposedly only for the vaccinated, but.....sigh.

After work I did the following:

(a) Watched an online book tour webinar with Meg Bashwiner and Joseph Fink, as I finished their book yesterday. They were on with Symphony Sanders (also on Night Vale), as they have been vaccinated and hugging recently. Apparently they're all in the same location and "found a spine on the side of the road" while walking. Joseph has almost shoulder length hair now and 70's sideburns and Meg has blonde ends and is redheaded again otherwise. (She mentions bleaching her hair blonde in one of the later chapters of the book and now I'm thinking, is that pandemic hair?)

Meg talked about writing her own performance pieces and said she is a nonfiction person and is into true storytelling--me too, girl. Joseph is usually fiction. Symphony asked how they remembered all that stuff and Meg was all social media, and I have all my old monologues and stuff like that. It's mentioned that she liked all of his Facebook posts and Symphony asked if Meg still does that and she said, "I still like for the most part what you do in real life." Joseph mentions that he had no idea that Meg wanted to break up with him while he was freaking out about a hurricane states away. "I loved how you described me as Cecil's cool friend who had weed. I most definitely am," Symphony said. Both of them though the other was SO COOL. 'I generally have weed, and I'm always fun!"

"Our lives have been through sheer luck, mostly amazing." -Joseph on the luck of Night Vale hitting it big. "Getting to perform in the Sydney Opera House together was a lot more fun." "We have the jobs that we wanted our whole lives," said Meg. But running your own business isn't easy, traveling isn't, etc.

Baby is due next month. Joseph is trying to get Meg to write another book--she said it's a book of essays and about a third done. Joseph said this book works because they're doing different things with their voices--Meg writes to getting audience reaction and he is more inward (I would concur) and "trying to spin stuff up that seems pretty to me." The styles counterbalance each other well. Meg says she looks for punchlines and buttons.

Meg said 2014 was her favorite to write, on how to propose marriage. I admit that one and 2009 are my favorites. Joseph said he liked how 2011 came out, even though it was hard for him to cover since that's the year his father died. Meg JOYFULLY pulled out the taxidermied squirrels in a canoe that are on the cover of the book.

Someone asked if they could get something tattooed on them from the book and Meg was all "Just be sure you spell it right." I like the one Joseph mentions in the book: "All tattoos are temporary." He also has the Night Vale logo tattooed on him from a fan for free, and he displayed both. Symphony has a Night Vale stack of books tattoo on her hip, which she did not display. Meg says she has the eye as well.

Joseph said she "monkey pawed this pandemic into existence" for wanting to take a break and see him circa the end of 2019. He says they turned in the book in 2019 before this year started, and he did make a comment in the book about "the next bad year" coming.... "We're told it's a girl child," Meg says, and Joseph says, "We'll see what she thinks about that later." Both insist that the child shall be a Goth no matter what.

When asked about their favorite romantic quote, the "fuck hole" one (see my review) came up....hahahah!

(b) Watched an online one-woman play called "The Shot," about Katharine Graham of the Washington Post, done by Sharon Lawrence. She starts out saying, "You didn't see anything!" and then next shot of her is with a giant rifle. "My father gave my husband the paper....He ran it, he ran himself into the ground, too." Why, yes, nepotism was a concern.... She channels her drunk husband demanding more alcohol. "He had endless ways of telling me how wonderful I was," she said upon meeting him. "He touched my breasts like they were Faberge eggs." Oh my. And then he suddenly bites her nipple....oy. Other than that...it gets kinda unpleasant and she refers to herself as being "taken" when she wasn't quite ready yet...oy. Then he yelled at her and called her a cunt and....OH DEAR GOD. It's really upsetting. "Soon after that day, I had the most elegant engagement party."

Dear god, Sharon Lawrence deserves an acting award for going through all this "I adore this guy and am totally frightened and disturbed" going on at the same time.

Katharine notes that she did own 50% of the paper. Her high school thought she'd be big in the newspaper racket after working for them, and her parents bought the Post when she was in high school. How did the world go so opposite of what she expected, everything being shaped by Phil's moods and whims? "Who could I tell about my husband sobbing in a bathtub?" "I should have gone along. Why did I argue?" "You think you understand my job better than I do? You're just a stupid, ignorant cow!" Good god. "Father gave HIM the paper, not me." No room for a career in the wife-and-mother box she's shoved into. He pointed a gun at her and "it was all a joke to him." "I had Phil confined to a very fine institution."

Then she goes to the place where he shot himself. She beats herself up for forgetting the literal Chekhov's gun on the wall that'd been there for years and she forgot was even there. She recounts the time he pushed her down the stairs. "I could go on and on, but these aren't the point, aren't they? Why didn't I leave?" She's free after the shot, right? To lead the paper she always wanted to run, to do all those accomplishments? Was she his prisoner?

Cut to her talking to the board three days after the shot, announcing that she won't sell the paper and will run it herself. "I WILL BE PUBLISHER," she ends, with a glow around her head.

Talkback afterwards has JR in it (good lord, his beard has grown LONG, it has its own ponytail now), the director, playwright, producer, people from the local domestic violence organization, and Sharon Lawrence. The author, https://www.montecitojournal.net/2021/02/12/the-shot-premieres/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-shot-premieres Robin Gerber, kept thinking about the shot, even after she wrote a book about Katharine Graham, and realized she'd gotten it quite wrong that Katharine was "free" after his death, and then wrote a play about that. "She is alone with her life, until the end," Sharon Lawrence said, after recounting filming in her home alone, doing it as a reading, etc. The director said they rewrote it a lot for six months and tore it apart and reworked it. They shortened it and kept her in the moment rather than 2 different time period.

"You can wrap a story in bacon," Mindy Cooper said, about watching a subject that might be taboo to bring up in public, but it might bring up discussion.

After that, Shrek rehearsal.

Lauren apparently has some kind of shoe issues and is coming in on the day Jean (costumes) isn't in. I think she's slightly snitty about this. "Actually, I want you to go out and buy bear slippers." -Jean to Carter, mostly kidding. "Can I be a glamorous witch?" -Hannah, this is ok'd. "You only have powers when you're ugly," Carter suggests. "You're beautiful, but you're NOT NICE." -Jan "I've got big ol' ugly green hands." -Jean to Morgan. "I sure miss tech week, I tell ya." -Jean "No one will notice" that Baby Bear doesn't have a hat. 'I think the swamp mud has gotten to you."

Tonight we went through Story Of My Life and Freak Flag Fly....one person at a time, the entire song, sitting through the dead parts and all. I got a lot of crossword puzzles done.

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