Well, dear readers, I must write these here notes in a hurry because I must get a good night’s beauty sleep because I haven’t slept over four hours in three days, and I’m exhausted even more because of the day that was yesterday. I woke up at eight after four hours of sleep because my brain was alive with the sound of a funny way to start off our show. One thing I want is for us to get a big laugh or two right out of the gate and I woke up with an idea about how to do it, so I wrote it down and it still seems funny to me, so we’ll try it this evening. And then the merde hit the merde. I had an e-mail from PayPal saying one of my auto pays had been declined. Say what? Since when? My PayPal account is tied to a bank account, and it has never mattered whether there were funds in PayPal or not, because they just used the bank account funds. I’ve been on PayPal from the start and that’s the way it’s always been since day one. Well, they changed it so that the funds have to be there. Who knew? Certainly not me. I called them and got a real jerk lady who was terse, kind of a tough beans gal and when I wouldn’t let her off the hook about not knowing anything about it even though she said we all got an e-mail. I’m sure we did – we get a terms of service has changed e-mail about three times a month and I never look at them and I’m sure thousands of others don’t either. That should have had its OWN separate e-mail for a change like that and it should have been writ large on the home page. She said if I needed more answers (I did) she’d switch me, but I never got switched so I called again and got a much nicer person. She told me that thousands of people had called and were really angry about it. I suggested to her that she suggest they change this stupid change back immediately. She said I could transfer funds from the bank but that takes five days and there were three more auto pays that come in the first three days of the month. She said you can put money in instantly if you go to a Walmart, Target, or Rite-Aid. So, I went and cashed my check, which was quick and easy, then went directly to my nearby Rite-Aid and that was its own merde because the cashier didn’t really know which of the options on a long list was right for this transfer. So, I had to call PayPal and was on hold for ten minutes, then I gave the cashier my phone and she talked him through it and it finally worked. But I found the entire thing infuriating. I don’t know why these companies feel it necessary to keep changing things that work. That was two hours of my morning.

I came home and then spent another hour dealing with Hightail. Three months ago, I noticed there were two Hightail charges for my monthly service. I was assured by PayPal that one was most likely a hold and the other was the completed charge and the hold would fall off and that ten bucks would go back into the account. But I’d also called Hightail just to make sure and they assured me that only one payment had been taken. So, I forgot about it until I saw that once again the two charges were there and this time I paid attention and BOTH charges showed as completed, which means that whenever this began happening I was paying double every month. So, I got someone on the phone and told her and she opened a case and said they’d solve it as quickly as possible. I’d cut and pasted the two completed charges, so I sent that to their support e-mail so they could see. I also told her I wanted a refund of however much money they’ve been taking for however much time. About two hours later, I got eighty bucks in refunds, which I suspect is how far back they go and I’m merde out of luck for however much longer it had been going on, which I suspect is years. She also took me off autopay and off the plan I was on, and that’s the end of Hightail for me – We Transfer works just fine.

I was so irritated by that point, that I splurged and had the farfalle with roasted garlic, chicken, peas, caramelized onions, and sundried tomatoes from the Cheesecake Factory. It was very good. Then I did some prep work for tonight’s staging rehearsal. The rest of the day and most of the evening was spent dozing on and off and a one-hour stint in bed, napping. I just couldn’t keep my eyeballs open. I had a few telephonic conversations, too. There WERE good things that happened, so, grateful for that, always. And here we are.

Today, I’ll be up by eleven-thirty at the latest, then I have a Zoom with the fellow who’s doing our costumes, then I’m having a late lunch with Robert Yacko, after which I’ll come home and relax until it’s time to rehearse. I’m going to stage the opening number and then move on to the first scene. After rehearsal, I’ll come right home.

The rest of the week is rehearsals, a Zoom with David Wechter, working on the project with David Wechter, hopefully the galley of the new book will show up at some point soon – they got all the files yesterday – and I know I have a couple of meetings and meals.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eleven-thirty at the latest, have a noon-thirty Zoom, a one-thirty lunch, I’ll relax, and then we’ll have our first staging rehearsal. Today’s topic of discussion: What do you think about the endless and unnecessary changes and policy changes these big companies keep making? Facebook has been egregious in that department, but so have other companies like eBay, etc. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, hoping there’ll be no further examples of the merde hitting the merde.