A seething mass of turgid drama.

This week's Resolution Recipe: Panzanella.
"This Tuscan bread salad is exactly the thing to make at the height of tomato season, when there are a couple of overripe heirlooms oozing all over your countertop and it's just too hot to cook."
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Saturday, we dressed up and went out for dinner (again!) to a Moroccan restaurant, mostly because it was close to the theatre where we were seeing Much Ado. Because we were dressed up (the wife was in heels and a white fake fur, looking tres elegant) we rolled the dice and drove. We scored easy parking close by; my usual parking karma was thankfully not in effect.
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This early morning's dream tried very hard.

I walked into the classroom as a grad student to an exam that I apparently hadn't studied for. I sat down and started working on it as best I could.
The dream then switched to me being onstage in a play. I had thought it was improv, but it wasn't - so I didn't know any of my lines or cues. I decided to pay attention to the other actors onstage and attempt to muddle through.
The dream then switched back to grad school. I was wandering the halls trying to find my classroom. I couldn't, so I kept walking around the halls.

My dream really wanted me to feel unprepared and anxious. Sleeping me just kept rolling with it. If only I was that calm in real life...

Yesterday we performed Galathea, a 1583 English play, for a small group of people. In person - no one wanted to do a Hollywood Squares Zoom production. Both the audience and the actors wore COVID masks. That made it harder for the actors, of course, but such is life. We may try to perform again when we can either be outdoors (and so unmasked/unmuffled) or perhaps for Twelfth Night (whenever that happens again).

This has been in the works for a while. It was what we had planned to do for Twelfth Night 2021; we had cast back in July 2019 and read through once, but not gotten any farther before Things Got Cancelled.

I have quite a few thoughts on this, but they are jumbled and I don't want to spend a lot of time getting them out and editing. So I will just say that I am glad we did it. It wouldn't call it one of our top three productions, but a fine performance and the audience enjoyed it. It was much better than our last in-person production. No serious line drops, awkward pauses, or anything else of the like. (I completely spaced on one line at the end of a monologue, but I dropped something else in that worked okay.)

Summary: kind of strange.

That's mainly because for the first time in about five years, I wasn't working the event. Also, for the first time in over 25 years, there was no GSP play. This meant that I had no responsibilities and could simply be social. And check out the arts display. And go to peerage meetings (which I had said I wouldn't, but I ended up caving to a vague sense of duty... and they were fine; we didn't have the ritual flogging. Which is good, but also a number of us were prepared to publicly walk out if it had started. And that would have made its own important point.)

It was good to see people, most of whom I hadn't seen in at least six months as we'd been on a break since I stepped down in June. I avoided all the courts, not out of any personal animus but because I Didn't Have To Be There. With no responsibilities, I felt free to retreat to our room on one occasion - partly to have a cup of coffee because I was flagging, but also because I needed a break from socializing. Along those lines, the wife and I went out to dinner Friday and Saturday without anyone else. (We might have gone with other people had we been invited, but being on our own was nice too.) We had an adequate Turkish/Mediterranean Friday and a very interesting (in a good way, but pricey) modernist Indian Saturday.

I did go to the exchequer meeting Sunday AM. I am still the emergency deputy so it seemed like a good idea. I only interjected once; it's his show to run and I am trying to reinforce that to myself if nothing else.

The cat missed us and has told us so in no uncertain terms. I am sleepy.

Twelfth Night: I didn't feel like I experienced the event much. I spent a fair amount of time/effort trying not to be That Plague Vector Guy - I started coming down with a cold on Wednesday, but there really wasn't any way to not show up given the play obligations. So I spent some of Saturday in the room, snoozing. I did go to court but it was basically because I needed to sit down Right Then.

We got bumped and bumped for our play starting time. Not surprising as court will almost always go long. Disappointing though; every half hour later loses a significant portion of our audience. Our performance of Twelfth Night... it was a bit slow to start, but I was happy with it. I have yet to see the video but there were good laughs and reactions. Even part of a standing o at the end. Valgard, the Drama Doctor, made a point of telling us how much he enjoyed our performance.

Dinner was delivery Thai food in a room and chattage for several hours. Then I went to bed. I didn't feel that well Sunday; I'm not really sure why but it certainly wasn't a hangover. The wife drove back which helped, since I didn't have to concentrate on driving and could just veg out. Today I called in sick. I've run a few errands, but mainly I'm trying to get rest and recovery. Back to normal work tomorrow regardless.

I will most likely look like a ridiculous buffoon for my role in Twelfth Night. I am okay with this. In fact most of it was my idea.

There are people who conflate "audience laughing at your character" with "audience laughing at the actor", but I am generally not one of those.

"I don't always lead from my pelvis. I just take the dick jokes the text gives me."