Today's work meeting: isn't it nice to get 2 weeks off guilt-free? Even though my office is still pursuing "can we get an excuse to have people work anyway?" they are only going to ask for two people and Grandboss and my boss volunteered to take that particular bullet.

Comment from my boss: her mother in SoCal mentioned that another giant org is going "all viral" in the spring.... Uh....let's hope not! Later she was all "when we went viral in the spring....

Work continued to be nice and chill. Stuff got done. We got another work puzzle for Halloween today and it was a Sudoku, but with letters instead of numbers, and I actually managed to figure the whole thing out! GO FIGURE!

I also had a nice long conversation today with Christine, who is feeling pandemic/full moon angst, and we had a fun conversation talking about witchy stuff, tattoos, and how she would also like some Baby Yodas and an "axel wattle" for her daughter. To which I was all, a what....oh, axolotl? Yup. So I found a pattern and went to it tonight during rehearsal! I offered to drive toys by her house at some point. That was fun.

Rehearsal had some technical difficulties. I duly attempted to get into the Google Meet room, which of course promptly didn't work, and then all my computers weren't wanting to get into the Zoom room for fifteen minutes. Oh well, I at least emailed them to say I was trying.

The tech guy (he goes by...Spadoni? Last name, I guess) was there again at the start and we spent the first hour of rehearsal having to show full bodies again with the laptop sideways again, and just stand there while he went from person to person asking them technical questions. I got so bored and grabbed a chair and started making an axolotl....

Quotes from that:
Spadoni: "I don't think you're going to have your arms out much on a farm...."
Mac: "My computer is on 4 Harry Potter books at all times."
Spadoni upon seeing Riley's wall decor: "...the wall with all the road signs on it, which I'm sure you obtained legally."
Jake is "Spider-Man 2."

Spadoni thought I had more room and I pointed out that if I get far back enough to see my feet, I start running into the counter and don't have six feet of space for the green screen. He was all, that's all right, we can use it as a prop and we are going to build frames for these things anyway. He had me demonstrate bowing spacewise, and then was all, "I just need you to keep bowing for the rest of the meeting" as I started imitating one of those pecking bird toys.

Tomorrow; the costume people shall be watching.

More quotes: After Paige says she may need to flip the computer back to charge it: "How dare you Paige, how dare you!" -Sean

Sean said he saw something that said that Zoom meetings are the modern-day seances: "Illy, are you there, can you speak to us?"

Sean said there is a thing called "Costume Brain" in which once costumes go on, everyone forgets what they've been doing for weeks. "Today everyone probably has Zoom Brain." Today is supposed to be "soft off book" (i.e. it's okay to ask for a line), but he declared it "Charmin Ultra Soft off book" under the circumstances. "I feel like everyone's blood pressure went up when we did that last section." He said that we will take care of your blocking for you.

He also had Kallie (volunteered) read off numbers and alphabet--one is a, two is b, etc. and he noticed that "h, q, s, and w is where everyone trainwrecks" on because that's where the musical phrases break. Don't build a gaffe in your brain--stay in the moment and just say "line." "Do not build any alphabet breaks in your brain."

"This is the scene where Avery and I are annoying?" -Illy
"Yup." -me
"Avery is annoying. Jett is not annoying." -Sean.

We got through almost the entire play in the last two hours. We were not required to have all laptops sideways after Spadoni left, and I took advantage of that. I was pretty good with my lines, I slightly bobbled one but I generally got it all and remembered who I was supposed to go after, huzzah. That's the part I am working on right now since I can't run lines with people other than here. He did assign us a couple more lines in the crowds-babbling scenes, so I have two more to memorize.

I made the axolotl in three hours, more or less, which is the first time I've really stuck with timing a project--which is to say, two hours of rehearsal when I wasn't "onstage" and then an hour after that.

I texted Scott last night--wanted to ask about ordering more safety eyes if I get more commissions--and he never responded. I am feeling slightly snitty about this. Sure, he could be in an Amy Coney Barrett funk, or his phone could be misbehaving like mine did on Monday, who knows. Most likely it's just "eh, I want to ignore this" though. Sigh. Sometimes I just feel so stupid saying anything or trying. It's easier to feel positive about things when they are going well and not so much when reality kicks in.

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