A few months ago I saw a pattern and as I stared into its cute little eyes, I thought, "Making it for Scott." Sigh. A few months ago, I asked him if his store could order some stuff they don't normally keep in stock. Specifically cross stitch fabric and the particular kind of stuffed animal safety eyes for this, which are cat eyes and thus kinda weird. He said it might take a long time to come in under pandemic circumstances. Anyway, Saturday night I asked if that stuff had came in. The cross stitch fabric has but uh...doesn't sound like he actually ordered the eyes. Said he'd look into it tomorrow. I did hear back today and nope, can't get those. I have looked for these things about three times and got nowhere the first time, found them only being sold in packs of 50 the second time, and then third time was the charm because I finally found the darned things.

I'm gonna do a mini-rant here about present giving: I hate trying to figure out present giving every bleeping year. Both (a) what to give and (b) whether or not a particular person wants to do gift exchange or not. Jackie at least will give me a wish list now so that's gotten a lot easier. I took some guesses with Mom this year (I ordered her stuff from Hawaii) and well, hopefully standards are lower for her this year or something. Dawn may or may not, I'm not sure, but we did give each other stuff in the last few months, so I dunno. God bless Loretta for just saying she doesn't want to give gifts if she can't go shopping in person and she's just gonna send a card. I am delighted by your heads up and honesty, Loretta. Last year I asked Redhead Sarah if the theater friend group did gifts or not and she said no, turns out some of them DID (Scott included), so that was extremely embarrassing that I did not.

This year there's pandemic, barely being in contact with or not being in contact at all with some people, so I am assuming there will be no gifting from anyone else other than Jackie/Mom/maybe Dawn, but if someone surprises me, ARGH. I feel like a complete ass getting a gift and the other person didn't, or vice versa, and no matter how much Miss Manners or whoever says gifts aren't obligatory, we all know that's a load. However, I am not the person who keeps random generic stuff to hand out as "oops I got surprised by a present" presents just in case--it'd be a good idea, but I don't have the storage for that and I dunno, who cares if they get that stuff? It's one thing as an office gift to hand out random chocolates or bath stuff, but handing that stuff out to friends is just kinda wrong. So present giving in December is always minefield territory somewhere and this year's even weirder.

As for Scott, who the fuck knows if this is going to be A Thing this year or not given everything. (Even weirder, I gave him ah.... more stuff this year because he had the fire, which by December seems like overkill?) Also now that the pandemic is so much worse, I'm afraid to leave my house any more to go drop anything off at the store, so who knows if I'll even give him anything anyway. However, overall that is not really A Thing one can have open conversation with people about, so.... fuuuuuuuuuck.

I figure what I'll do is make the thing if/when I ever get the eyes, and if for whatever reason gift giving doesn't happen, I'll just keep it myself. I was going to make myself one as well, I can certainly have two. Which certainly beats when you've bought something for someone you normally wouldn't be into yourself and then Gift Giving Awkwardness Ensues and you end up not giving it...been there, hate that.

I wanted to talk to him more, but I am just tired of trying to make the conversation go if he's not into talking, which apparently he wasn't after that. God knows I don't want to bother anyone who doesn't want to be bothered or has nothing to say or whatever the hell it is.

This morning I found myself arguing online with people with a 10 person bubble ("I do not think that word means what you think it means" came to mind) who want to visit relatives in a location that just got shut down to visitors. I was kind of losing it over the 10 person "bubble" issue, others were all "Yeah, what happens if you get into a car accident?" and then I started freaking out about driving my car at all. Which I had to do this morning because it's been two weeks and the car needs to run at freeway speed at minimum every two weeks to keep running, in case I have an emergency because I can't call anyone to drive me if I have one. Greaaaaaaaat. And I'll note that this is just literally driving 17 miles to the next town over to leave a stuffed Pikachu in a mailbox (co-worker commission).

(The whole "bubble" argument thing led me to the thoughts that I really shouldn't go see Scott whatsoever, sigh. I could theoretically have him mail the stuff I ordered, but I don't have the current rental house address or PO box to drop off/mail stuff to him and I dunno if I feel okay with asking? Yes, that's dumb. I suppose I could just mail a card to his work though, at least. Might do that at bare minimum even if I do not physically go there.)

Regarding the driving this morning: the drive was uneventful, except for when I didn't find the mailbox, I went to her door (at the back of the house, I think it' a duplex), was all "huh, I don't see it," put it down on the step, headed away, THEN saw the mailbox, then went back to move it--and then her husband opened the door, I got startled and screamed, the dog started barking, I babbled an incoherent explanation and ran away. At least I had a mask on for that special moment. So embarrassing.

Then I went home, dealt with the mail, did my handwash laundry, remade the bed with my fuzziest sheets, took a shower, and then frankly felt like I was Done For The Day and started hitting the vodka....and to be fair, I actually made myself a "nice breakfast" of bacon and my kr8tiv omelet making so that wasn't on an empty stomach. The longer I'm alone, the more random foods I throw into them...still good, though.

I was supposed to watch an online podcast recording at noon. However, they advertised it as a Zoom seminar and then once I signed up was all "No, we're going to use this kewl new house party watching app that you need to sign up for!" I signed up for the damn thing even though I don't want it and will never use it because I have no "posse" (their terminology) to watch things with, and it said you had to send a request to be invited to the party. I never actually got my invite to the "party" and the thing was starting at 3 p.m. East Coast time which meant noon mine, but I never got an invite...and they probably got pissed at me because I kept clicking around trying to find some way into the darn thing or how to check if you got invited and then it just sent more requests and....welp, that was pointless and I never got to see it.

I found an awesome article (relevant bits copied here since it's NYT) about what it's like to do green screen acting. Clearly Melissa Errico is a fancy professional and they had a much more complicated setup than I had, though.

Later in the day I attended "Suffrage in Stitches: Celebrating Women's Fight for Political Voice through Crochet."
"How have you celebrated the 2020 women's vote centennial? This talk suggests that needle arts -- crochet, knitting, sewing -- are ideal for marking the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment. Speaker and scholar Katherine Durack artfully combines storytelling with original crochet designs inspired by the history and heroes of the women’s suffrage movement. Durack reveals the unexpected connection between crochet and women’s rights, and encourages audience members to participate in creative remembering and storytelling themselves by making their own crocheted, knitted, and home-sewn projects."
The emcee lady was all, "I see people knitting in the audience!" I held mine up.

Anyway, the presenter mostly talked about suffrage--"I Googled the word suffrage with the word crochet," sounds like something I'd do. She talked about how people used crochet to ridicule women--both for wanting equal rights and not wanting equal rights (???), and that crochet was considered frivolous conpared to knitting "Model mothers knit," rebellious daughters crochet. Crochet can't be mechanized, so that might have been why it wasn't considered useful. She talked about various women and well, has designed various crochet projects based on them, which I thought was cool, at Suffrage in Stitches.
"I hope a lot of you got progress done on your projects too!" the leader lady said at the end.

After that I walked around outside for an hour and a half. I listened to Tobolowsky Files: Ep. 93 - "The Persistence of Vision Part 1: My Top 10. This is the funniest damn podcast I think he's ever done. It is essentially all about how Stephen loves the movie "Taken," says it's his favorite movie, and that this movie is his life because just like Liam Neeson, he has "a particular set of skills." This podcast actually has his wife, Ann, on it, recreating the conversations they had about this. He got her to watch the movie and well, I don't think she was as into it due to all the murder, and then it turns into this whole thing where they compare it to a movie she likes, "Babette's Feast," and he's all "Those movies are totally alike, Babette also has a particular set of skills, especially with a knife, except she's cutting fish," and Ann is all "Actually, Babette's Feast is like 20 years older than Taken, so Taken takes after Babette's Feast...." It was hilarious.

Then I listened to an old playlist of mine I haven't listened to since the beforetimes, and it made me sad for summer 2019, missing the warmth of being outside in front of the bar, wearing a sundress instead of three layers of sweats, actually having possibilities in and hope for life. Sigh.

I also watched a ton of Christmas movies in the last 12 hours, but at this point the entry is long enough. Maybe I'll post them later, I dunno.

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