I went to bed at 9 p.m. (ack) because I was so tired after last night's bad sleep. Then I woke up irrevocably at 4 a.m. I do not ever need to be awake this early short of plane flight. Cannot lose consciousness but don't have enough brains to do anything else early in the a.m. so I'm just watching more of the National Dog Show on YouTube again.

Also, I took my sleep mask off in the bed and now I canNOT find it. It's not like there's many places for it to go!!!! Praying to St. Anthony did nothing, so I can only assume the evil fairies stole it (seriously, what else can you think when there's literally no evidence of such in the house?) I caved in and ordered another off Amazon since buying any decent ones IRL seems to be a fool's errand, but that won't show up until Friday. Arrrrrgh. And while I was at it, I ordered all of Jackie's gifts...unfortunately I had to order for both Mom and myself, so that was a lot, sigh. Supposedly she'll reimburse me, but who knows there. She can't send money and said she'd have to give me cash...I dunno how that's going to go.

I saw an audition listed for Clue and got all excited except for two factors: (a) it's being done by a church and that raises red flags in my head, and (b) they said you're required to sell 10 tickets to the show. Hahahahahaha, I literally can't get anyone to come to my shows for free or half price, so NO.

In other news, I heard from Robert and he said the gang is going to the elf show on Friday. So...that's happening. I wonder if it's just him/Janene or who.... if anyone else is feeling flaky.

I also got asked by Steve to do the light board for Cabaret. I said I could do everything BUT Dec 26-28 (i.e. half of tech week for the gala, which could be a problem). He said "let me think," and that's all I've heard since.

I was going to go to a drop-in open rehearsal time for murder mysteries tonight (note: side job you do at parties, I did training/one event in between shows, haven't done anything since Beauty and the Beast started) and say hi and try to get back into it again, but she changed what they are doing on rehearsal to do some other show instead, AND if I end up doing Cabaret, then that puts off my doing those again for another month :P So....maybe not.

Middle of the day: we had the office party IRL in person today. I was concerned that while the lodge we were in HAS two air filter machines...both said they need their filter changed and were on "3," whatever that means. Darn it. I wanted to complain to someone but heck if I know who to...oh well? Fingers crossed? Breakfast was catered potatoes/eggs/non-crunchy bacon/sausages and fruits and pastries. I ended up stealing literally all the cream cheese containers (hey, we were told to take leftovers) because according to someone on the committee, "they're just going to throw that all out anyway." People brought desserts, I had peppermint and white chocolate cookies that were actually pretty good, and brownies.

I sat with my teammates and some folks from scheduling, which was fun. The new SuperBigBoss came for the beginning of the party to say hi and answer any questions, and I was pretty impressed with OldBoss being all "(Other Department in your jurisdiction) is much more attractive to other people because of money and popularity, whereas our office (note: business one) tends to get neglected. How would you prioritize our office?" Good one there, good response about wanting to improve things. If that ever happens. We all got lists.

As for the gift swap game, I first stole a rainbow puzzle, which was stolen from me (on the one hand, rainbow, but on the other hand, I seriously have nowhere to put up 1000 puzzle pieces, so it's ok), and then I stole my neighbor's mini bowling game, which I was happy with and I'm sure he was fine with. He became the game's buttmonkey, because there's always one person who gets stolen from a bunch. After he got a third steal, he was quite happy to be out of it. I note that his boss (a previous old boss of mine, but not the most recent one) straight up made him play, so there you go. My teammate got the stuffed toys I put in and clearly wasn't into it, sigh, but I'm happy that one of our younger employees DID steal them and was quite happy with them, yay.

I dunno..I mean, we all have our "stuff we'd be into vs. stuff we would not be into" objects. I wouldn't particularly steal a candle warmer three times like other people did (I'm not sure what the hell they are anyway?) or fight over the Starbucks gift cards, to each their own, I guess. But one guy conspicuously complained about getting a neck warmer and was rather loud about wanting someone to take it from him, which I thought was kinda rude and obnoxious to do when whoever bought it's presumably still in the room. I note his was the last one stolen, but at least he got it stolen. A few people refused to play the game because "I always end up with crap," so I thought, huh, I wonder how it would go if there was some kind of Gift Swap Corner for the people who don't like their gifts and didn't have the opportunity to steal. Maybe they can all get something they like better that way? I dunno.

Other objects that were popular was a Harry Potter puzzle (my teammate went for that), a Star Wars advent calendar, which I totally would have stolen had I not already owned it, a burrito throwing game (something else I considered), and the best one, which I probably would have considered stealing had it come up, was a shirt that said, I shit you not, "Oh shit, I picked the wrong white elephant gift." LOLOLOLOL YOU ARE A GENIUS, MY SILENT COWORKER.

And finally, some random set of large bells that has made it into the stealing game for several years on end now was the last gift picked. It came with a note saying "here are the bells again, be sure to bring them back next year!", but also had a Starbucks card attached, so they actually got stolen by somebody!

Mom called during the work party, and then again while I was occupied with something, and then started texting that she'd been freaking out that I wasn't okay because I didn't text last night. I was all "I went to bed, and also you owe me (kaching) for half of Jackie's stuff," and she said she'd have to do cash in person. And that she's...a little fragile right now because she can't control things and is at the mercy of others. (That week in a hotel room is...not gonna be fun, is it? Can I cut it short after she paid money?) She said she's not herself these days and sometimes she just wants to cry. Uh-oh.

In the afternoon I had more Zoom meetings. I note I'm wearing my Christmas tree dress still (dug it out again for the party) and the background I put on went with it exactly, which was hilarious to me and NewBoss. Anyway, she wanted to do the dreaded Monthly Goals talk based off my shitty performance review, which suffice it to say I don't particularly want to do, especially the mandatory "work front counter" shifts. At least once a month only was put down by OldBoss instead of worse. The rest of it was fine, Old Boss had put down something like "look at Jennifer's collection templates and see what others can use too," which is fine, I got like 100+ I've come up with over the years, depending on different situations, some of which have changed over the years. I emailed New Boss about five of them with notes. Otherwise I'm supposed to proofread procedures, which is also fine, so, whew.

Also walked one of my teammates through one of those pain-in-the-butt situations at work, which at least I knew how to handle. I will just say that people don't know where they live, nor do they know when they have finished their work at Giant Org, and in this case, the girl is gonna have to go to another office and complain about what she thinks happened vs. how they actually handle deadlines. It shall be Drama, but it's the other offices' to handle instead of mine unless they make some exceptions to the rules.

After work I recorded two monologues for the next Shiny Unicorn Production--Winter Wonderland Virtual Monologue Festival. (For those of you new to The Jennifer Show, I have an online theater company with online friends I made during the pandemic, currently mostly doing short plays and monologues.)

"Dry" features an English lady--I got the vibe from reading it that she's got one of those ah, less classy accents--who's hiding in the kitchen and secretly drinking (I broke out my "Forget the Elf, I'd Rather Have Wine On The Shelf" glass for this, OF COURSE) because they're all being forced to have a dry Christmas because her sister-in-law Carrie, who she hates, has just gotten out of rehab AGAIN and so far Carrie's refusing to leave. Nor will she let Stacy (the narrator) cook with alcohol, which super annoys her. It was a delight to do. I just did it as I was dressed today, in my Christmas tree dress (which alas, didn't super come across as such on Zoom, but oh well) and blingy Santa hat.

"Fear of Falling" features a New Yorker who wears Chanel and has shiny hair, which was... a stretch for me, eh? I got out my lone designer dress and my lone designer blazer...and then put a puffy coat over that because the character's wearing Chanel at an ice skating rink. I dug out a long layered brown (shiny) wig and put on all kinds of makeup and my New Yorker eye shadow kit (which took forever to clean off, btw). Very weird for me. But a fun monologue to do--the lady is lonely in NYC, wants to meet friends, goes on a date with a guy from yoga and he wants to go ice skating, which she fumbles so badly she ghosts and runs out on the date and won't return his texts...BUT she's going to figure out this skating thing on her own and then contact him again and apologize. And good for her, there.

Dana's edited them with lovely beginnings and endings--I felt fancy. Premieres of these start around next week or so, probably doing one a week, depending on when they get finished. I assume "Dry" better play around the holidays but "Fear of Falling" probably works just fine for January. I'll try to remember to post the links when they go public.

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