MOOP!

It's the cold and dark of winter and I made the daily challenge on my discord be "Screaming", because it's sorta how everything has felt. In revenge, I had to have an annoying conversation with my boss about some (uncompensated, non-contract) responsibilities I hold have been slipping, and had one of my cabinets literally collapse in the middle of proctoring a serious standardized test. It was very dramatic, luckily it was just me and one student to be very badly startled.

Also luckily, my anti-Nemesis (comrade? buddy? hero?) was able to quickly swing by, and as he always does, he made my life demonstrably better. Huzzah! Now, when can we have a building that doesn't use the cheapest possible materials? We have not been present long enough for things to be literally falling apart.

Before the mild disaster, I managed to do a bunch of what my therapist yesterday called "productive avoidance". Genuinely good things! Things that need done! I checked some serious stuff off my todo list! None of it was the stuff that's the highest priority right now, which not surprisingly, is also the stuff that's stressing me out right now. Maybe tomorrow I will finally do some grading? Hahahah oh god.

I dunno man, it's the cold and dark of winter and also it's the cold and dark of fascism. I should probably be texting a lot more often with my sister who's currently in a city overrun by government thugs. I hope she's okay. I hope she stays okay. I hope we all stay okay. That's not just sisters, I hope we all stay okay.

***

I wrote all the above during the department meeting, when I was still kinda sad and frustrated, but then Geometry PLC was quite good, and Clayton and I were able to walk home together and that was _excellent_. It's always pretty good, it's so _so_ valuable to have people I genuinely like to work with, but this time was also especially fun because he was filling me in his theory that Moby Dick is just an anime. It's very charming when he gets into things like that!

This evening has been...not terrible? Not amazing. Played a lot of video games, which is sometimes very good, and sometimes very avoidant. It wanted to be the really big push for packing for Arisia, since tomorrow night is dance class and I will be less inclined to do any packing work then. I did a non-zero amount of packing! It's nowhere near complete, but it was good progress! I also, critically, did all the laundry, so I'm actually set _up_ to do more good packing tomorrow.

And I helped Rey buzz her hair short which was quite fun --I always like a chance to play with the clippers! And I washed all the dishes, which is good --I've been only an intermittent dish fairy these past few weeks, so it felt good to do it proper.

I still need to update my dailies list, which I'm trying to pay better attention to this year than last. I think I sussed out it was ~130 days that I actually logged things last year? Which is...not great. I'd like to do better this year, I'd like to see if I can at least get 2/3rds of the days gone. Using Habitica too, helps. Having the double things to log is actually quite nice, they scratch similar but not-quite-the-same itches.

I hope you are well and happy and stay that way.

~Sor
MOOP!

LB asked a few days ago, because I never did elaborate about Kale Pudding in here during the actual summer. So here is a story from Pinewoods this past July!

***

The Kale Pudding was a Pinewoods adventure, and I'm surprised about the part where I didn't give details any time this year, except of course I didn't, I have been _so shit_ at updating Dreamwidth. Oh well.

The shortlong version: At Pinewoods dance camp Scottish Sessions, we have a big auction to raise money for camp. Because we raise fucktons of $$ (like, basically always five figures, this year was a record in the ~27,000 range), the crew of Pinewoods are often willing to donate various goods and services that they don't really offer to other sessions which split their $s between camp and the parent orgs (or don't donate to camp at all). One of these services, for several years, has been "the head cook will let you choose what the dessert for the last night of camp is".

We've had creme brulee. We've had sticky toffee pudding. We've had cheesecake. It's chances for the kitchen crew to flex on the fact that food at Pinewoods is _way_ outside the league of "camp food" anywhere else. And in...let's say 2021 or so? In about 2021, when the bidding started, I made a bid just to get things going and loudly announced that I was bidding on "kale pudding" for dessert. No one knew what that would, but they recognized it for the thread it sounded like, and outbid me.

Continue the running joke for several years. Cue 2024, at which point Geoffrey, who had frequently outbid me in the past, comes up to me and says "I've got $300 for you this year, I think it would be funny if you won". And so did someone else. Oh-ho-ho, with shadowbackers, I have an actual chance! Bidding gets to just over a thousand dollars before Terry says "okay, raise your hand if you'll throw in $50 for NOT kale pudding". (he then wasted it on Pot de Creme, which is a delicious chocolate treat that I just do not like and also that the kitchen like, regularly makes at camp? So it's not like you couldn't get it at Pinewoods in general? DO SOMETHING INTERESTING WITH YOUR DESSERT CHOICE, THE CREME BRULEE YEAR THE KITCHEN CREW GOT TO BORROW BLOWTORCHES THAT WAS AWESOME!)

So now I've got a challenge, a target, and a goal. And a whole bunch of people also into The Joke. At LCFD weekend, right at the start of the summer, I warn Amanda the head cook. I'm serious. I'm going to campaign. "And part of my campaign is predicated on 'I trust Amanda to make something _good_' so, uh, good luck babe". ESCape rolls around, the session immediately before Scottish, and some friends do actual campaigning for Make The Scots Eat Kale Pudding fund¹. I don't just have shadow-backers anymore, I have straight up donation-matchers. Like, more than one of them.

So at Scottish Sessions, I go ahead and start collecting a list of people I think it would be funny to get money from. A big ol' list of collaborators, and also making it clear that anyone could bid shadow-wise, and not have anybody but me know that they were in. I will be the fall guy for this BUT ALSO if anyone can make Kale Pudding taste good it's Amanda. Believe in them, you know? Auction night rolls around. Me and Geoffrey make a plan --he'll be the face guy for the ESCape part of the fund, and bid against me to make the $$ go up if necessary. We're gonna spook people, then he's gonna hit me with the "well, ESCape wants to be on the winning team" and throw in his funds so we can crush the competition.

...except no one else wants to bid on the dessert. The joke has just about hit its limits, and I have successfully either convinced everyone that Amanda is really good at their job and it'll taste good, or have intimidated them into thinking they're not going to bother. So Geoffrey and I have a (brief) screaming match of "I bid 1000...for kale pudding" "oh yeah? Well I bid 1500....for kale pudding!!!" until we reach $2500 and agree to go in together and then we gave Pinewoods camp a $5000 donation² in exchange for making the Scots eat kale pudding for their last night dessert.

Which Amanda made as "pot de brassica", a sort of violently neon green creamy pud, served with lemon curd, tasted sharp and interesting and yes like kale and delicious. Most people enjoyed it, or at least found it "good enough". Very few people didn't like it, but honestly, I don't like pot de creme which everyone else finds The Shit, so it's all normal.

And I assured a great many people that last year was the last year of the joke anyways, so it's going to be very very funny if the new kitchen head [Amanda has retired after their triumph] offers this same auction item and I bid any amount. What, I just want some lemon meringue pie!

AND THAT IS THE TALE OF THE KALE PUDDING!

~Sor

1: "Why should you care what some people a week from now eat for dessert? First off, you shouldn't. Second off, because it would be funny. And third off, because the money goes to a good cause..."

2: It is important to note that Geoffrey works in SF with computers, and we had a _lot_ of shadowbackers and donors. I did not pay anywhere near this amount myself.

Today was a day of very many games! And playing them with various people. And that's basically it. _____@

I got to see Veronicaaaaa and play games with her, which is the Best Ever. And I saw Cameron and MaccyTu and Jonny!!!!! and Tuesday and Mom and played games with all them as well! Busy day!

We played:

Pit: I did very well in general, but I always do.

Hot Streak: Several rounds, I tended to do poorly, but had a very good time because it's very stupid fun!

Agricola: I came in first! It was a hardfought, and I never quite got my engines working the way I wanted, but I did manage to frantically make a whole bunch of fences in the last possible moment.

Kingsburg: Came in solidly fourth, c'est la vie, but I did not get killed by the demons, so that's a good start!

Space Base: Came in _painfully_ last place, like, fourteen points below second last, and I ended the game with 4 (the game ends when someone crosses 40). But I had a nice time!

I think that's everything we played? I also did some rounds of knitting, and much chatting and bomping my head into my friends and occasionally eating things. Tomorrow, Tuesday and I ride a train for many many hours. I am planning to listen to music and do some knitting and maybe actually touch my day job? Grading and the like? Aaaaah!

I will have to pack up tomorrow morning, I expect. Hm. Maybe I need to actually start to get my sleep schedule back into wack, so that I can go to work on Monday. Sigh!

That's me. I hope your life is also nice and full of friends and stuff.

~Sor
MOOP!

Wednesday, December 31st, 2025!

(the one day of the year when I feel slightly weird about keeping my cron to 6am instead of midnight, but it's okay. Nevermind that it's technically already almost midnight-thirty. Congrats, we made it to '26!)

Anyways, I haven't been writing much here, and that's a shame. I'd like to change that for 2026 maybe? I think my official New Years Resolution is to update my dailies spreadsheet more often than I did this past year. (I should probably collect the data on how-many-days at some point).

2025 was bullshit nonsense on a global and USA level. It was a kinda weird year on a personal level. I coped with the fact that I'm now the age my shitty abusive boyfriend was, and that it's officially been half my life since I was last raped. I got rid of my uterus, and then was copied by my mother (except I skipped the cancer part). I started my ninth year of teaching at The Dream Job, with an adorable bright-shiny-new mentee teacher, and an endlessly-patient co-teacher.

I have the same number and arrangement of partners as I started the year with, which is pretty grand. I like it when my love life is stable! (there's one small change, but I'll make a bigger post about it sometime. It's a good thing.) I have the same roommate situation as I started the year with, which is DEFINITELY grand. I have the same job, which I'm still happy with.

Last year I was part of the bargaining team for some excellent and groundbreaking contract work. This year I'm a building rep and I'm holding my bosses feet to the fire wherever possible about actually enforcing the things we won.

A couple months ago I started a new hobby, and I think knitting is Very Good For Me. It's fun! It's a lot of counting! I get to touch things! It's hopefully eventually going to supplant some of the phone games instinct and replace it with something better?

I started the year with ADHD, and I still have ADHD. I finally _finally_ about a month ago set up the focus-mode on my phone, and now for two hours every day my phone becomes an inaccessible brick where I can't do anything distracting. Not coincidentally, it's set to start about half an hour after my work day ends, or about when I'd be getting home from bells. It's working surprisingly well! Let's hope it continues, so written so true.

Dancing is really fucking good. Having _my dance_ is so fulfilling and joyful and I'm real happy that I have established my dance pedagogy ethos: "Do Hard Things Badly". (sometimes I manage to apply this ethos to my knitting and other hobbies as well). We've had enough people to do _some_ kind of dancing, every time we've had class, although we've learned a lot of five-person dances along the way, at least two of which are marvelous and I've been bringing to the wider world as much as possible.

My own dancing hasn't been happening as much, but I'm trying to bring myself to do more of it. (It doesn't help that the yeeterus took me out of dancing for a couple months, and then it was the start of the school year and frantic). I need to run through my program dances for the night of Scottish Pinewoods I am MCing this year, and I need to sign up for ESCape (since they asked me to teach again and all, iirc).

I have friends and have sometimes been a little better about keeping in touch with them? At the very very end of last year, I got back in touch with Tho, and we email sometimes. Veronica and I have calls every other week or so. Tailsteak and I watch Taskmaster most Thursdays, except for the ones where one of us is super busy or the ones where we just spend two hours shooting the shit and chatting about our lives. My work bestie has bought a house and now somehow lives even closer to me. There are neighbors and friends I love and I'm happy to see and hang with them.

I sang in my first ever choir, my first time in my life doing formalized SATB. We did Vivaldi's Gloria, and it was the high school choir and orchestra combo, with a smattering of teachers enthusiastically invited to join. I'm a tenor! Austin and Phoebe came to see me, and then we walked around the student art show with our jaws on the floor because of how stunning and talented the kids at my school are.

I don't know. Probably other good things happened this year. Kale pudding! Some weddings! Thanksgiving with two families! Absolutely no peal attempts and I don't even think I tried any quarters!

(And as Vicki looks over and says "what are you typing anyways?" I am reminded that in 2025, I wrote my words on 365 days. I have a streak that is 1,227 days long. I have missed 0.15% of the days since November 25th, 2018. That's pretty fucking cool, honestly.)

I love you. I end a lot of posts with that phrase --I think I started the habit in 2020, when we were all re-adapting how we related to the world, and then I decided I liked it. It's true though, I love people and humanity and beings and the spark and interesting things inside us all. I love _you_.

Happy new year. As I've been telling people, may your 2026 be better than your 2025 was. I'm starting the year curled up on the floor next to some lovely people from different eras of my life, playing board games and happily bickering. It's _delightful_.

<3
~Sor
MOOP!

It's landing on a weekend this year, and it makes sense to do it tonight, so here we go, I'm doing a proper solstice.

(That means not sleeping until the sun returns. Ideally also having a candle burning while I do --giving the sun a beacon to look for!)

My day had bells and then hanging out with Tuesday for the afternoon, since ke was briefly in town. When ker parents came to pick kem up, we had a lovely 15-20 minutes chatting at and about my bookshelf. It felt very good, to get that kind of approval (even if it's not something I would need).

In the evening, after I fed the cat, I slunk around the block to verdantry's house for their and Greg's solstice party. It was small and cozy and chill. I drank mulled cider, and ate plum pudding, and had a really lovely quiet time laughing and joking and enjoying listening to the inside-baseball talk of SCD adventures. Sometimes when it's not your circus it's really enjoyable to just watch the monkeys!

Around midnight, Greg gave, in essence, a toast. It boiled down to "Community Is Good", my political stance these past some years. Community _is_ good. People are the thing that make all the rest of this worthwhile.

I hope you have people to hold you up until the sun returns. I love you! <3

~Sor
MOOP!

I survived MCing a party!

My program was a little too hard, which was partially my fault for being...challenging, and partly my fault for not being totally up on what dances are actually currently in the Cambridge Class repertoire. I thought Bampton Strathspey was going to be an easier one, sorry y'all!

But I got several compliments from various people, and I genuinely think I did a very good job briefing. I made a couple of stumbles, but I think I redeemed myself out of them nicely, and I think I was quite clear overall. I'm happy about it! Next priority: well, okay, figure out what I'm teaching on Thursday for my class, and THEN my next priority is writing my Pinewoods program. Which is due on the 22nd, so gotta get on it, yipes!

The past weekend with SamSam was lovely! We had mostly very lazy days (which is to say, huddling inside and avoiding the cold) but also walked four miles round trip in the softly falling snow to visit Gather Here. Did you know there's a big lovely (kinda bougie) crafts store in Inman Square? It had so much beautiful fabric! It was nice to be able to show off cool things about my city to Sam, and also to discover them for myself.

Work today was...a lot. I mostly managed to do the things? Which is good --it's like, the first day since September where I actually had all my lessons prepped before I left the building. And I did a little grading. And I am very very tired and all the students are both tired and off the wall and we have five and a half more school days to get through before I can just get on a train and gooooo.

Of course, getting on a train and gooooing will be made more complicated by the fact that there is exactly one weekend left before chrimbo, so if I'm gonna manage to go shopping for any presents, I need to do it like _now_. Maybe it would be nice to buy my mother a chrimbo present? I think they would enjoy that??

(note to self, actually go to bells at least once this weekend so you can a) return your BPL library books and b) go to Q's nuts in the Boston Public Market and buy a bunch of those for stocking stuffers).

Dunno what else there is to say. [CW: gun violence] I am fucking livid at the parts of the universe that are contrasting my lovely weekend at home with, like, multiple major shooting incidents. Can we fucking not? (says only country where this regularly happens). [/CW]

hope you have love and wholeness in your heart and that you are taking care of everyone you meet as much as you can handle doing so.

~Sor
MOOP!

Okay, well, it's not _done_ but my room is a damn sight _better_ and that's pretty cool.

And by "damn sight better" I actually mean "I got rid of two of the boxen that've just been sitting around taking up space all over my room since I moved in in 2020". Which is...fantastic. I'm not remotely done cleaning, either up or out, but progress is happening! That's quite grand! Someday maybe I will have everything tucked away in a place it belongs, having gotten rid of all the things that shouldn't actually be in here. What a good fantasy.

(I am being sharp and salty to cover up the fact that I am actually quite happy to have regained a little bit of space, and irritated at how long it takes me sometimes.)

I am nowhere near finished, of course. My desk is the biggest disaster area (although I've definitely made progress on it, we're like, eight inches deep of shit instead of sixteen). And there's an endless number of papers that want sorting, but that's like, a longterm plan. Not something I expect to get done anytime soon, not even if I'm procrastinating on my grading real good!

That being said, I had a point somewhere in the span of time I've lived in this room where I was trying to sort papers for about twenty minutes a day. Do that for two months and I'd have everything done, I expect. Just....you know. Consistency is hard.

The surface reason I am cleaning is that SamSam is visiting this weekend, but the real weekend is that having my room be a catastrophe is a pretty strong Blues Clue¹, and also _definitely_ one of the ones that chickeneggs² me. So, having latched onto the slight mania of "you have no idea how badly I do not want to do my grading" means actually trying to get my roomspace tolerable?

We're through the long dark November. I made a note in my calendar for November first, next year and all subsequents, telling me that my brain's about to turn into shit and I might want to do something about it. What should I do? No one knows the answer to that.

I mucked with my phone so that it goes into "focus mode" for two hours each afternoon. No games, no internet. Chat is okay, because I almost never am _mindless_ and stuck about chat. So far I haven't broken it, which means that it ~cannot be broken~. Unlike, say, the timers on my various phone games that theoretically say I can only play like 15 minutes unless I go make it longer which is very easy to do. Sigh.

And I'm trying to crawl myself out of the work hellhole --the above is theoretically helpful for this. Man though, I'm looking forward to it being solstice real bad. Arise fair sun, and slay the envious moon³

I hope you are finding the ability to do the things that bring you comfort and joy. I love you!

~Sor
MOOP!

<sup>1: "what idiot called them depression symptoms instead of..."

2: Did you know that you can just say things? It's ridiculous that language works in any capacity whatsoever! I say so much entirely impenetrable nonsense, and yes, lots of the time it's partly that I'm quoting things, but sometimes it's that, like, I'm just making up weird things that maybe only make sense to me.

So, instead of finding the term "negative feedback loop" my brain decided to hand me "chickenegg", as in "which came first". Am I depressed because my room is a catastrophe or is my room a catastrophe because yadda yadda

3: Case in point, this is a reference! It's a Kate Nyx song lyric.</sup>

Trigger Warning: Sexual and emotional abuse.

I don't know that milk is supposed to be a thing you put on your altar --probably it's not a great choice, what with the fact that it spoils and stuff.

But it's eighteen years tonight and tomorrow, and I wasn't gonna _not_. I'll clean it up tomorrow. The room can live with milk in it for twelve hours.

I think I get ice cream tomorrow. I don't know what else my plans are, but I think ice cream is an absolutely pivotal part of it. Drink the thing that poisons those who would hurt you. Be stronger than they are. Have a thing that brings you joy that will keep them away, keep them from being able to touch you.

Eighteen years ago was the last time I was raped. I have now lived half my life in "after". Well. Tomorrow morning. Tonight and then. Approaching midnight means still at the Hoff theatre. I think the part where he tried to fuck me without any kind of protection was the Friday night, would've been last night. Now is the Saturday night, and the very last of all of it, the very last time we are still on good terms.

(I think it's the time I didn't get to kiss August, but maybe that was earlier in the fall. Because it is only okay to kiss women, because in addition to every other insecurity, doesn't actually believe in bisexuality or recognize it as a real threat. My queerness is an additional fuck you.)

Half my life since we broke up. Half my life since after.

I did it.

I made it to 36 without fucking up someone half my age. I made it to 36 with relationships that are good, with partners that love who _I_ am and not just what I can do for them. I made it to 36 and can have sex that is joyful and funny and weird and hot and kinky and consensual and consensual and consensual and consensual.

"And it isn't my fault that the barbarian raped me"

I made it to 36, and in less than twelve hours I'll be more than half my life since him. Not just without him --from first meeting to last was only ever five years, we've done that over and over-- but _since_ him. Half my life _since_ I was raped. Half my life _since_ I was abused.

Half my life since I tried to set myself on fire to keep someone else warm. I am already full of warmth, I will share that with joy. I don't need to burn to provide it.

I'm just going in circles with this, but I'm okay with that, because I've been going in circles for eighteen years. Cycles of healing and hurting, of getting better and suddenly worse. It's part of being human, not leaving things totally behind. And I wouldn't dream of trying to write of what my life was like in the before. Too much of it is here in after.

Almost the majority, in fact.

Happy Anniversary, kSatyr Wulfsohn. You lost and it is entirely your own fault. I hope you figure that out someday, and I hope that it chokes you into actually becoming a better person.

None worked the ways to break me you contrived.
Fuck you I'm not a victim: I survived.

~R.
MOOP!

On dreamwidth, trigger warnings go both ways. Sexual and emotional abuse allusions.

Some things I managed to do this afternoon and evening:

Small breakdown after school. Missed a bunch of the all-district department meeting. I am _assured_ by my work bestie that I missed absolutely nothing, which is at least a little reassuring.

(It's been a hard couple weeks at work. I would like it if I felt that my bosses were on my team and trying to support me and mine. I would settle if they were at least able to proactively say "I recognize how hard this latest bullshit is to deal with, and appreciate that you're doing so")

Talked to work bestie for an hour. That was nice. Good discussion of art, of dreams, of movie-making of the value of the act of doing things as different from the value of those things existing later. Clayton is really fucking smart and I'm very happy to be friends with him and get to consume his perspective on things.

When he went off to make copies, I managed to persuade my brain that things would be better if I just did a bare-minimum todo list and fucked off home. Managed to leave the building by like 5:45, which is pretty damn good for "didn't start prep until after 5". Meant I biked home before the sun went down which was good.

Got home and had a Power Hour. Ate dinner. Had a more different second power hour. Forest successfully gamified me by being all "~ooo~ look at the special tree that you can only earn if you do 300 minutes of focused time between now and like five days from now" and having it actually be a very pretty tree. So I'm gonna try for that, which means lots of Power Hours in the next few days. That is...that is not a bad thing.

Some stuff I managed during POWER HOURS:

*Desk is cleaned off, like fully, which I think has not been true since like...well? before my surgery? I could actually _use the computer at my desk_ which is astonishing. We'll see how long it lasts.

*Unpacked from MD trip, got all the laundry downstairs, third load is in the washer now, first load is put away *and* it was the one that had the most hangy-laundry, jegus fuck, I'm proud of myself for that.

*Dishfairy. Nothing special there.

*Went out to the garage and learned I don't seem to own a protractor, which, uh, is throwing a wrench into at least one project I should be working on right now. That's fine, I'll swipe one from work, but also what the fuck.

*Also found a thing in the garage and did a thing in my room and am feeling quite a lot of feelings about it, so we're not gonna talk about that one more until I actually decide what to do with them. Practice being bad at things, probably. Engage with the act of doing things for the sake of the act rather than the sake of the things. All of that is fine, but I wish it didn't come with a side of a very particular insecurity/inadequacy that I fully recognize and I *think* is the same thing that made me write the shittiest LJ post I ever wrote on purpose (like sixteen years ago, apparently. It's less bad than it could be but also jegus _fuck_ Sor, you were goin' through it weren't you?)

It is very funny how "not gonna talk about that one" actually manifests, isn't it? ANYways, I think this might be the first time I've ever specifically tagged _exactly that feeling_ as _oh it goes with those moments_.

*Also I apparently have three separate versions of Vienna Teng's "The Tower", one of which I'd never listened to before (to be fair, it's from her live concert album Moment Always Vanishing, and I only quite recently obtained that one). The 2001 version showed up in shuffle and I said "yeah, that seems good to listen to" and _really_ liked some of the differences in musicality. And then I did the live Vienna/Alex Wong version and _holy shit_.

I got not quite halfway through before Gabriel _grabbed_ me and pushed me onto the dance floor. There are advantages to actually cleaning my room, having space to dance is one of the biggest. He and I danced to that one, and then I wrapped with the regular version and let Alis take her turn with me. It was really fucking good for me. Dancing is _really_ fucking good for me.

It's a good reminder that sometimes we can be our own love with intuition.

Hopefully tomorrow will also be good? That would be nice.

~Sor
MOOP!

Had a _really_ lovely weekend with SamSam's family. Highlights:

*Nine of us biked to the beach together, me taking the tail with my giant ass-cargo bike. The roads were mostly dirt, sand, and gravel, it was a terrible choice, I had a wonderful time. Seeing the ocean was real good and I liked also watching the hermit crabs run around in the tide pool --there were so many!

*Later four of us biked to the cranberry bog to pick berries. This would've worked better had we not gradually realized that every batch of berries was comorbid with a small little section of poison ivy. We rinsed our hands and managed to all avoid getting rashes, but then we had to decide what to do with the berries we had already gathered. Sam was first to get rid of theirs, and tossed them into the pond. YES GOOD SUCH GREAT NOISES, the rest of us immediately followed.

*Ben and I managed to drag four total beginners through ringing Erin on bodies. Ringing on bodies is _the best_ and I had forgotten how much easier it is to do with dancers, and that's so good. I took some notes about how to do it, so hopefully that will go better in the future. I still have not yet internalized what direction to set up/start plain hunt though (we walked the wrong way to begin and had to switch the orientation of the set)

*Elanor and different-Ben wrote a little fifteen minute play for us all to perform. I believe there was only one person who was consistently in the audience, the rest of us all kept running up and down to/from the stage for our parts. There was one table-read and zero rehearsals. My script got caught in the curtain while it was opening so I had to awkwardly lean behind me to look at my scene-partner's. It was very stupid and delightful! It felt _excessively_ Melendy (honestly, a lot of the weekend did, and now I'm craving rereading a bunch of those).

*After, Steve taught us a game at a pool table that involved trying to roll the cue ball (by hand) to hit the single other ball before that other one stopped moving. Once you got them to hit, it was the next person's turn to grab the cue ball from wherever it was, and send it off. We played largely non-competitive and got eight of us going in a little cycle for a while. Extremely satisfying game!

*I played Crokinole yesterday morning with Sam. I'm _rubbish_ at it, but it's a very tactilely satisfying game so now I want to play more. I wonder if I can become a secret crokinole sharp using common household items?

*Thom and Liz bundled me and Laurel off after dinner on Saturday to Plan Their Wedding Dance. It was very cute to be in that space with people I love and doing something I have a lot of expertise in *and* bouncing that expertise off someone else with a lot of expertise. I think it'll be a nice little dance! There's gonna be a small group of Scottish dances for people who know what they're doing first, and it was _extremely_ funny for Thom to name dances, me or Laurel to go "wait how's that one go?" and Liz to immediately start singing the tune, which is not...*not* how they go, but is absolutely not what either of the callers were requesting.

There's probably more, but that's the big things I can remember this morning. Now it's time to head to work and do some of the grading I completely neglected.

~Sor
MOOP!