Chaos Attraction

Everything's Coming Up Milhouse?

2020-07-24, 9:42 p.m.

Why are they repainting the hallway AGAIN? I woke up again to paper being put over my door, and today they were occasionally thunking on it or making some kind of drilling noise on it. I thought, "Am I supposed to answer it? I can't, they taped me in here." Didn't seem like it. I think they're done again, but how often do they have to do this? And really, would we have gotten any notice if COVID wasn't going on, because in the old world, I would have literally been taped into my damn apartment and not been able to go to work.

I did have to fill out my review today. I have no accomplishments, just a list of what I work on, how I didn't fulfill any of my goals because they were for my old job that I got transferred out of it (it smarts that they have literally hired other people to do the stuff I put down that I wanted to do), and here are the new goals. Whatever. It doesn't matter, I'll never get any advancement and I'll just be put down as "totally sucks" anyway, so let's just get the dumb thing over with.

From the conversation at lunch today: Yemi was all, "I don't wear deodorant any more either." Not much point when you're always alone. I really need a shower, but fuck it, why bother for most of this week?

I didn't end the work day fried today, so that's nice, albeit I was a little annoyed at a bunch of shit coming up in the last 45 minutes at once. I think at this point Lioness is in the clear on COVID? Or at least, still no symptoms and seems fine. I am told the new coworker was having computer problems so she wasn't involved in anything today, but is supposed to have private meetings with other people/offices for some reason. No point in that with me though because lord knows we will be conjoined twins starting next week. Oh! BigBoss said we got permission to hire a third person for the team after all!!!! I about wanted to faint.

I also managed to talk another office into petitioning The Gods Of The Giant Org to give someone permission for something, because they were all "ask Jennifer's office" and I sent multiple emails saying, "I did it already, their org rejected it because they are international and therefore horrible and refuse to accept anything from us unless we jump through their hoops, which I literally can't do." So, woot. I also had a moment where Lioness called me out for doing something wrong (which she admitted she didn't know how to do) and then realized later I had done it right.

Is everything coming up Milhouse?!?!


Got a call from Mom today:

She apparently told--or thought she told--Roger she was going to walk to her house/go to a friend's house or something and then was late about it, causing him to freak out about where she was. He said, "If anything happened to you, I'd die. I couldn't handle that." Me; "AWWWWWWWWWWWW! Nobody's ever said that about me!" (Well, except Mom.) Her: "No offense, but I don't think your father would ever have done that for me." Me: "I agree. Not that I didn't love Dad, but he was kind of a jerk."

She said she also said to Roger, "You and Jennifer are the only ones who ever cared about buying me something." I think this was another intended slam on Dad (legit), but I did think "What about Jackie?" Then thought 'No, that's not what she means. Specifically, she was thinking of Drama Pat, who "bought me what I thought I should have."

Mom got an email from her old boss, Ken. I gather she hadn't gotten around to writing him back and he got concerned. She read me the email she wrote back to him, saying that her whole life was about helping people and now she has to adjust what it's like to be a person. She loved helping and it made her feel valued. She also joked to Ken, "I would have done anything for you. Well, not anything that would have been sexual harassment." Also, "I'm sorry I drove you crazy. That was never my intention." She started crying while reading this to me. Ken's response (among other nicer, politer things): "Hey, I tried to get harassed for years!"

And...guess what, whether or not Evan comes to visit Roger is coming up AGAIN. Which means Mom bailing out of there and heading to see me is coming up AGAIN. I think at this point she has just decided she is coming here "to drop off stuff" regardless of my point of view about it.


Today's Comic-Con, well, I am still on 12 noon and beyond from Thursday even though I had a mostly uninterrupted day to listen to videos while working. Obviously some of these I paid more attention to than others.

* All the Starfleet Ladies: Then and Now: I don't remember much about this. It was 8 a.m.

* Comics during Clampdown: Creativity in The Time of COVID. This was a very good one, actually, about trying to keep one's sanity during it.

* Comics Satire and The New Political Cartoon: Had some pithy lines:
"My rage is very deep and wide." -Dwayne Booth
"I feel like all I do every day is stand up on top of my desk and scream through my work, just trying to get someone's attention to what's going on. I don't know if it's working. I want to make sure that I'm on record as pointing this stuff out." -Ann Telnaes.
Dwayne talked about watching The Book of Mormon musical and referred to (without spelling it out) "Hasa Diga Eebowai," and said that everyone loved it. "They were able to engage with the material using the most extreme language."
I was amused that there was one guy on the show named Ben Passmore--the name of a favorite character in a favorite series I read as a teenager. When a weird noise happened somewhere, he said, "I thought that was a sign from God that I was boring."
The moderator, Jacob Brogan, asked if their work was changing anyone's mind, and does it have to. Ann said "I don't think editorial cartoonists change people's minds," but they are a historical record of what's going on. Also, "I feel like I'm just holding on until something happens, and that's all I can do." A fellow going by the name R. Silkoryak quoted someone else saying "the choir needs reinforcement."

* His Dark Materials: I haven't seen the show and probably won't, just watched for LMM. I was amused that the lady playing Mrs. Coulter had a little gold monkey in a plant behind her, and LMM said that he and his wife fell in love while reading the series. D'awwwww.

* How Every Epic Fantasy Can Be....Epically Different: I didn't write down much from it, but it made some good points about people developing.

* Terry Moore Is Still Drawing Comics: This was very sweet and cute. At one point thunder happened and he added the caption, "That rumble is thunder. Thor has arrived in Houston." He has amazing Art Nouveau/tarot-ish drawings of Francine and Katchoo going on, still to this day. I just love how he draws.

* The Future of Entertainment: I feel like this one should be a giant "hell if we know, other than a lot more virtual stuff," which certainly came up, with one CEO (Travis Cloyd) using some animated avatar of himself off and on. It certainly resembled him as a cartoon character, anyway.
One lady--Leslie Shannon--said she's seen her sons using female avatars and, "I love watching my big hulking 15-year-old being represented by a woman on the screen! And for him it's normal!" That's adorable.
I confess that the guy who had a very realistic dancing avatar (Ted Schilowitz) had a really cool one, though. "And I do NOT know how to dance!" Then Leslie said she should get scanned for her avatar now while she's still young and gorgeous!
Ted said we're going to have "screenless screens" that I guess get us into the action, and we've gone from being on screens 11 hours a day and now it's 14 hours a day. Hell, I am on screens literally all day and night except for bedtime and maybe when I'm cooking or showering.
Another guy, James Pearse Connelly, was all, "This is the most exciting time EVER! And we didn't even want it! I mean, we were doing fine, and all of a sudden we had to be wearing masks, and we should be so excited about what's ahead!"

* Not the Apocalypse You're Looking For: Real Life Disasters, Fictional Recovery: WHY IS SEANAN MCGUIRE NOT IN THIS ONE????? Just saying. Mostly this is professionals, but her Newsflesh series is a great example of this sort of thing. Also, they have some amazing framing of the panel, with people coming in on broken monitors? Interesting...I don't feel like I can recap it or just sum it up in a few lines. JUST WATCH IT. THIS IS THE KIND OF THING EVERYONE NEEDS TO WATCH NOW. IT WAS WHAT I NEEDED TO HEAR.

* Wonder Women: Superstars of Paranormal: I did not know that the Travel Channel had so many psychics/ghost/ghost hunting/whatever shows, but here they are. If anyone had known they'd go into that business, nobody would have signed off on their student loans! "Paranormal found us first." Look, I doubt I'm ever gonna go ghost hunter myself, but....yeah, that's why I'm a witch right there.

* Artist Bootcamp: Self-explanatory? Dudes drawing comics as warmups.


Tonight I also watched Capital Storytelling's first virtual show. Turns out I know everybody in the show (though I am confused that I think Lisa said they were going to do six performers and they only had four)? and I had classes with 3 out of the 4 of them.

1. Lindsey Nicole, who I had my first Capital Storytelling class with, telling the story about leaving her husband and how she was psychically told 'He's not for you" and as it went bad, she thought "if he's gentle with the tomatoes, why can't he be gentle with me?"

2. Justine Lopez from the Comedy Spot, talking about how she was bad at school and everything else until she took up acting. She also mentioned starting an improv troupe on her own, which I guess explains why everyone thought she was so good even in improv. She said she took notes in there and I'm thinking, "I don't remember that, I was doing that..." Well, she did better than me, she got a career there and I never could, so.

3. Abby Rotstein from my most recent storytelling class, telling about her OCD and trying to get over it in SF.

4. Angela James, who I have had no classes with but see around at storytelling events. She told my favorite story about going to the rodeo and being picked up (with her broken leg) by a possible white supremacist.


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