FaceTiming the Weekend
I had a fairly social weekend—all virtual. Shobhit worked until 9 p.m. on Friday so that evening I actually spent entirely on my own; it was then that I went ahead and watched and reviewed Pieces of a Woman on Netflix, which was good but flawed.
On Saturday afternoon, I walked down to the Central Library for my curbside pickup of the DVD Enchanted, which I found myself wanting to watch about a month ago and it's not on any of the major streaming platforms. I also walked to Target to pick up Shower Spray refill. I wound up catching a bus far part of the way back.
Laney's friend Hayley, who moved with her husband Thayer (one of Laney's exes and still close friend) to Michigan a couple of years ago to be closer to Hayley's family, did a collaboration video on which both Laney and I participated, about being in covid-quarantine, back in May. That song was called "Connection," and she asked us as participants to sing acapella along with the track in ear buds, so she could combine all of our voices for the final product.
She recently decided to do another one, slightly parodying the Katy Perry song "Never Really Over," which it sounds like she will convert slightly to make it about the difficulty of purging ourselves of President Fuckwit. Anyway, I agreed to participate again, even though I had such a hard time with the videos I submitted to her for the first song. I don't usually mind listening to myself, but hearing myself singing to no accompaniment on the video I recorded of myself singing along to my AirPods—it was truly, deeply mortifying.
And the same happened with "Never Really Over," even though I listened to the song on repeat as I walked to the library, singing along most of the way, and on the way back, and while I did laundry. I got it pretty well memorized, and when I was just casually practicing, I felt like I was able to sing it pretty well. The problem is when you're trying to sing along to all the lyrics, some of which are actually overlayed a bit, there's far less opportunity for breathing. It's a lot harder, so I would run out of breath faster. In the end, after setting it up to record myself, I had three separate video clips without ever singing all the way through. I actually thought I would edit the clips together so that the clip I sent Hayley would be of me singing through the whole track, but then I decided just to put that editing task in her hands as well, and sent her all the separate video clips I had recorded. I wash my hands of it! I listened to three seconds of myself singing and seriously could not take it. Hayley isn't inside my head so I'm sure she doesn't care at all. Besides, just like with the first song, once she blends my voice in with a bunch of others, I know it will sound fine. Also one of my clips has a funny bit where Guru gets in my lap and shoves his face into the camera. I hope that makes it into her final product.
Anyway! That walk and the singing cut well into my afternoon on Saturday, and then I had my virtual Happy Hour with Tracy P from work scheduled for 5 p.m.—our first social get-together with just the two of us since we last met up at a park to hang out socially distanced, back in the early fall. We wound up chatting over FaceTime for a good three hours, and I did not hang up until about 8:00 or so. We talked about all sorts of things, much of it work related (but gossipy) of course, but nothing worth sharing here really. It was just nice to have a new person just to sit and hang out with for a while, even if it had to be done over video chat.
And then, late yesterday afternoon, I got on FaceTime again, this time with Gabriel and Lea, for our 1970s (as in, the full decade) Movie Draft. This had originally been intended for last weekend but had to be postponed because they got busy at the last minute. We all stayed on the call longer than I quite anticipated as well; a good two hours. It was really nice to see them too, even if, again, it had to be over video chat.
I did switch up my "judge" who would rank our three movie lists from best to worst, and it was Gabriel who suggested I send mine to Barbara. Barbara had long been largely off Facebook because she just couldn't take all the awful President Fuckwit news happening all the time, and that was basically still the case when Gabriel and Lea and I started doing these "Movie Drafts" several months ago. (We each choose a movie for six different categories, like Drama, Blockbuster, Comedy or Horror, etc.) But, she has since returned and is now posting like a maniac on Facebook, and I had already largely re-established regular contact via text as well, at Beth's suggestion after I had one of my "CoronaQuarantines" during my Birth Week with her over FaceTime. In any case, I was kind of surprised Barbara had not yet occurred to me already before Gabriel suggested it. And then he was kicking himself for making the suggestion, because he was so convinced the major 1970s movies he chose would help him win, particularly The Godfather for Drama and The Godfather Part II for Sequel—movies Barbara noted she was never all that excited about.
Gabriel switched his judge from his brother to Mandy this time around, and Mandy was seriously enthusiastic about her participation. At one point last night, a while after the call, I was watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show with Shobhit, and when I glanced at my phone again there were 64 new texts! About 60 of those had been from Mandy. Both Mandy and Barbara chose Lea's list as #1, and since we ascribe three points to the #1 position, 2 points for #2 and 1 point for #3, Lea won the draft. As she has by far the most of these "Movie Drafts" we've done.
We all agreed that next time we'll do 2020, which should be interesting, since so many lines were blurred with "cinema" during the pandemic. As Gabriel noted, we're going to have to get flexible with certain things as far as what qualifies as a "movie." But that's okay, I'm still looking forward to it—as I do all "Movie Drafts" we do. This was actually Gabriel's idea originally, taken from the podcast The Big Picture which we both listen to. And I really appreciate it, as it's resulted in far more social interaction with him than I'd have otherwise, and it's due to his own suggestion! What's more, it seems to be really fun for all three of us, so it's a win all around—even though I never, ever win the damned thing. Oh well!
[posted 12:37 pm]