Mom sent me a newspaper article in which an ex-friend of mine is quoted. This was my friend who ended up marrying a compulsive liar who basically broke up our friendship circa 2003. She's still using his last name (I assume they are still together, God help her) and she moved back to the olde hometowne, works at Target, and before the pandemic, was in roller derby. Well, at least she used to have one good thing, I suppose. She was being interviewed about taking out her rage at her job on the rink. Under beforetimes circumstances I'd have to make a note to myself not to go to Target there any more (unfortunately sometimes I do go), because God knows neither of us wants to see the other one, but at this point in life, eh.... no longer a concern. I'm sorry to hear she's still with him (he treated her well ,but hell if I know how the compulsive lying goes with that), and it's also depressing that she's stayed married all this time and meanwhile I'm still a fucking loser.

Today was full of meetings at work until like 2 today.

Morning meeting:
* One of my coworkers went ZIPLINING this weekend. Boss: "How was the air quality?" Her: "It wasn't great...." I just want to be like, SERIOUSLY?!?! I don't care whose birthday it was, that is just INSANE to do right now for SEVERAL REASONS. Like even if a pandemic wasn't going on (this one does go camping, but at least that's spread out from people), you wanna do a heavy breathing activity outside in this air?!
* Lioness was back today, saying that her older grandson broke his hand on Friday and she couldn't get into urgent care. However, Zoom decided to cut my phone off a few times and I missed all the drama and she refused to say whatall had gone on afterwards other than his hand broke. So I have no idea what happened virus-wise, if anything. GRRRRRRRR. Other news from Lioness: "I have no desire to run a quick errand. There is no such thing as a quick errand any more."
* My boss on cleaning the garage because you have nothing else you can do: "If we don't do it during a pandemic, will we ever do it?" No, we shall not. (I should say this to my mother.) She also is forced to do science with her kid again--he had to invent something--so he built a face mask drying apparatus. Well, good job there, something useful.
* We are now only going to have 2 people go into the office once a week (together) from now on, which is not going to be fun with regards to my mailing issues. This also means that anyone who wants something FedExed can only get it once a week, which Lioness objected to.

The next main meeting after that was an interoffice meeting, during which I found out that we are going to full time phones in fall (good luck with that), people using the giant org is going down, the few people who do have to go onto giant orgland will have to be outside in tents or well ventilated spaces, and another one of my coworkers is an 11:11 person because he literally said "It's 11:11, make a wish!" I suspect he learned this from Lioness?

I had meditation class during lunch, which I fell asleep during and that was a bit of a problem because I had another meeting right at 1 with the dreaded Staff Of The Special Stuff, sigh. As usual, I'm confused at all of it. I had to introduce myself and god, I was sleepy and did not care and who the fuck cares how I introduce myself anyway because all this group cares about in my job is the special stuff. I was all, "Uh, I've been here a long time and am brand new to this." My boss said that they were hiring for a third and she's had to scrap the search so many times that 'I think the HR gods are torturing me." Also, new girl had to interview FIVE times...which makes me think she was at least in one other round of scrapped hiring. "NOW it's funny," but it wasn't then....

After that, I did actual work today. This was one of the rare slow weeks around here and since the email demand wasn't too heinous today, I actually got to kinda circling the drain on stuff to get done right now. Which turns out to be just fine when working from home, at least. So I didn't end the day totally fried, at least.

Under beforetimes circumstances I would have been going on vacation right now. Either some trip with Mom or going to see Meg, I think. God, maybe I could have gotten in a play right now.

I couldn't think of what to eat as a snack. I opened the cabinets and a box of biscotti flew out and a biscotti literally flew out at me. I ate it. What else have I got to do with my life?

Tonight's entertainment: Bindlestiff Open Stage Quarantine Edition: a circus show online.

I did find out today that there's a third Apple Family Play: Incidental Moments Of The Day: They claim this is the third and last in a pandemic trilogy, but come on. If I were the playwright and actors and had nothing the fuck else to do, I'd be writing another one of these every two months and it's not like this is going to end. I confess I was wondering what was going to happen now that Tim was being forced to take custody of two teenage girls when his girlfriend wasn't real thrilled with that for safety reasons.

This time the family is all spread out: Rhinebeck and Albany, and Amherst, and someone managed to make it to France?!

* "I go places, I have an interesting life!" -Barbara. Really?!?!
* Sounds like Richard is moving (I guess they are in Albany) and got a girlfriend, Yvonne? He's even considering acting, which cracks his sisters up so hard.
* "What role was Yvonne playing in the diaphragm play?"
* Jane and Tim (in Amherst) continue to be apart plot-wise, and I'm guessing Jane's not living with them, as there was some kind of fight. Tim is quite cranky about being in his childhood bedroom ("the girls ignore me, my mom's in a home") and Jane says the girls don't want to hear from her.
* "The students are all here but they don't go to class." "Why?" "So they can make money." "So they're like resorts now?"
* The missing sister Marian briefly came inside Jane's house without a mask on her way over to a date. "She's really looking forward to having a meal with him because she'll finally see his face! She's never seen his face!" Later: "She says he has cute eyebrows. That's all we know."
* How Richard and Yvonne met: "Richard was at a party in Albany. This was long ago when you could go to people's homes. Remember those times?" Yvonne was in plays with their uncle.
* "You don't look like a redneck, Tim." "You went shopping?" "Yes, I do that, I have to eat." snaps Jane, forced to hold her breath every time a maskless man came around her. Barbara said she saw a guy sneeze into a freezer, which freaks Jane out.
* The teenage girls are never home, Tim says. Jane admits she's depressed and pondering doing crisis counseling. "I do some of the things you're supposed to watch out for!" Jane also suggests joke telling, which leads to a joke about a lady with a glass guy only dating those who "catch her eye" (literally).
* Richard: "Yvonne told us a story today." "Which story? She has so many. They're all interesting," Barbara says, and then goes and "gets water" while insisting that Richard not wait for her. The way she delivers "interesting" cracks me up.
* "I thought when I got older, the world would get bigger, not smaller. I really believed that." -Barbara
* "I'll manage. I can wait. As long as I know there's something to wait for." -Jane. Tim says he's coming back, Jane says, "I don't know that." Ouch. "I can't stay here," Tim says. Jane: "That's good to know."
* Marian (absent for most of this) is offering to take in the teenage girls, and has a yard! and games!
* Someone named Lucy--I guess she's the one in France?--comes onto the call after having been asleep. One of Barbara's students, we're eventually told.
* "This is Tim, Jane's boyfriend-" Jane: "Is that who he is?" OY.
* Lucy is....a dancer? A random dancer? Up at 3 a.m. in France. Doing a dance number.
* "Do you see my mom, Barbara?" "No. She stays inside. She has to."
* Lucy does a .... ragtime ballet in her bare room in France. This is random. "I needed that. I need a little heart in my day," Tim said.
* When Barbara goes out for a drink, everyone asks Richard what Barbara REALLY thinks about Yvonne. He says she gets really quiet and Yvonne keeps telling these stories to try to get her to open up.
* Tim: "What Karen said to you? She knows that was wrong." "I'm not sure I believe you," Jane says.
* "I hope Marian's having a good time on her date." "I hope he has a nose."
* On Yvonne: Jane: "He said he wants to bring her into the family." Barbara: "Well, we'll drag her in."
* "We are bad sisters. We need to snoop better." -Jane
* "We only visit each other to bitch about how hard it is for us to live." -quoting from Uncle Benjamin's play.
* Marian finally shows up for only a few minutes at the end. "He has a nose! But the chin's not so great." The date: "You basically eat in the parking lot. It was different." Then she gets off to go to Jane's.
* "You wear a mask, she just had dinner with a stranger." Jane has nothing else to do. They self-hug and I cry again.

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