2024-12-03 - Charity?

The glory of having been in the park since nearly the beginning is that Spencer sometimes enjoys the benefits of seniority, such as today where she's not busy practicing or performing. For the moment, at least. It does allow her to sometimes have the free time to roam around the park and poke her nose into what others are doing, watch others perform, mingle among the tourists.

Those kinds of things. Rarely does she leave the park, so most if not every second of her free time is spent wandering around.

Today this has brought her to the Lamplight for no other purpose than she wanted to be away from the circus for an hour or two, stretch her legs, let the horses rest. It does not mean, however, that she doesn't look like she'd be more comfortable among the horses with her riding boots, riding pants and a warm sweater on. The entire thing marking her as employee and not tourist.

Spencer walks by him and Wash looks up. He's tucked in a corner with a notebook about the size of a tablet and a pen, scribbling. He's in a pair of faded blue jeans and a Ramones t-shirt; rings adorn his fingers, necklaces around his neck, he's got a few bracelets. He has goosebumps on his skin but doesn't seem to feel cold and his hair is pulled back. "Hey. Horse girl." He's only been at the park three weeks, but he knows a horse girl when he sees one.

It's probably the boots. Or the smell of horses.

The sound of the voice drags her attention over, and she looks mildly startled by it, as though she were not expecting to run into anyone or to be addressed. Or maybe as addressed as 'horse girl'.

"Hello..." Spencer then pauses, frowning for a moment before she comes up with her own follow up, "Notebook boy." It doesn't quite have the same ring as horse girl, but it's the best that she can come up with it seems.

Wash raises a brow at her and smiles. "I'll take it. Maybe 'pen dude' might be better," he says, twirling his pen in his fingers. He leans back against the wall and smiles up at her wider. "Huh. I just realized I've only ever seen you from below." Cuz of the horse (and now he's on the floor). "Always with the high-ground, huh?"

"Pen dude?" Spencer glances at the pen in question before she shakes her head, "Not sure that sounds right, either."

Notebook guy and pen dude.

But it's the mention of only ever seeing her from below that catches her a little off guard, and it shows for a split second on her face, "Pardon?" She heard what he said, but her brain doesn't quite catch up with what he means for a few beats before she tries to answer in what she hopes is a correct way. "I wouldn't say that I'm always with the high-ground...Just, lucky I guess?"

Wash seems amused by Spencer being off-guard, but he doesn't press it. It's a vulnerability he doesn't want to give away! But also it'd be rude. He laughs a bit and then tucks the pen into his notebook and closes it, tilting his head back again to look at her. "I just meant you're standing, I'm sitting, and the only other time I've seen you, you've been on a horse."

In answer to the observation that he's sitting and she's standing, she starts to sit, but stops herself about halfway down with an almost awkward lurch, "Wa....is it more appropriate for me to sit or you to stand? Is sitting impolite? Should I not sit?" She straightens up, starting to look around and examine where she is in the grand architectural scheme of life right now, and if her both sitting or continuing to stand there looking like a surprised Pikachu is going to cause issues with the flow of traffic.

Wash furrows his brow and tilts his head. "What? It's neither. What?" He seems confused, and then shakes his head. "I mean, do whatever the fuck you want. Who makes those rules about sitting and standing anyway?" He sure doesn't seem inclined to stand up immediately or anything of the sort. In fact, he seems very comfortable on the ground.

"I think the Queen of England made those rules about sitting and standing." Spencer replies after a moment, then she promptly sits down, carefully folding her legs so that she's not taking up too much space and risking tripping anyone that isn't entirely unobservant. Then she reaches out a hand to offer to him, "I'm Spencer."

Just in case he never knew.

"Well, she's dead and buried, so who gives a shit. Traditions are just peer pressure from old people and the dead." Wash flashes her a smile and then reaches out to shake her hand. "Wash. I got brought on for scriptwriting and directing."

"Nice to meet you, Wash." Spencer replies, giving a return shake before retrieving her hand, "And...traditions aren't always bad though. Sometimes they are good traditions, like..."

Like? Now she's stumped, and falls silent for a moment while she tries to think of good traditions. Eventually coming up with, "Tree lighting is nice?" Very nice. "So you're directing things for the shows here?"

"Sure, some traditions are nice. And some parties your friends force you to go to can be fun in the end. Doesn't change the fact it's all peer pressure." He flashes her a grin. "Yeah. we only got here like three weeks ago so it's not like I've finished writing anything yet, but I'm handling some assistant direction for one of the other directors for now, yeah. I'm hopig to break ground on a new production by March." These things take time; there's a reason plays are seasonal.

"What are you working on?" Spencer wonders, then pauses a second before following it up with a second thought, "If it's okay to ask, I mean. Not sure if there's some kind of rule about not prying into what creative projects are being worked on." There's a quick almost apologetic smile in case she accidentally stepped over a professional writer line or something.

"There's no rule. Right now I'm trying to work on a sort of Easter-themed thing, for when the next season is done. January-March is a weird one because Christmas is over and there's nothing really there in the summer, but also these places get the most visitors, so it's real awkward." Wash shrug. "I'm sure we'll get something going, though. I kind of wanna do like an Easter-zombie thing. Should be fun."

The idea of an Easter-zombie thing makes her tilt her head just a fraction, looking both intrigued and uncertain all at the same time, "Like...some kind of horror themed riff off the whole He Hath Risen thing?"

There's a brief pause, but then Spencer simply continues with her stream of thought, "I know the boardwalk has taken a bit of a more occulty gothic Victorian spin on their Christmas decorations. So I don't see why a more horror like Easter thing couldn't work just as well, if not like...maybe better? I guess it depends on how you approach it and if it'll scare all the kids."

"It's a bit horror, a bit comedy, you know? Like a horror-comedy vibe. More of a Munsters or Addams Family than Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey or Five Nights at Freddy's." He props his elbows on his knees and then his chin on his hands. "So what brings the Horse Girl over to the theater, anyway? You bored?"

"I'm not sure I've seen any of that other than the Addams Family movies." Spencer replies after a moment, shaking her head, "But I think I get what you mean about the vibe. Sort of...kitschy and silly, not like...horror and gross." Which seems to suffice as a concept to her enough that she doesn't keep rolling it around in her head trying to pick it apart for understanding. "Bored? No. Just curious about some of the other things going on in the park."

"And so naturally you came to the theater when there wasn't any play on," Wash teases, laughing. "Really maximizing that entertainment factor, there." He grabs his bookbag and opens it, pulling out a pair of Snickers bars. He tosses her one and peels the other. "So how long've you been at the park?"

"In my defense, I don't know the schedules of the plays...so..." Spencer shrugs a bit, a slightly crooked smile flashing across her face for a moment before she catches the tossed Snickers bar, "I've been in the park since....well, almost since it opened. So, a long time now it feels like. When we joined, I wasn't entirely sure that we'd stay....but...here we are. Still performing, still here. It's a nice change, honestly, a solid steady place to be."

"Uh huh." Wash chews on his Snickers, and then he waves it a bit. "We? You got family? Husband? What's the sitch?"

Spencer shakes her head at that question, "Oh...no. We is me and my horses." She holds up one hand, four fingers up, "Sorry, it's just me and them. But they are like family, I guess? Big giant fur babies."

"Jesus you have FOUR horses?" Even if she is one of the fingers, that's still THREE horses for one person. That's a lot. "Aren't horses fucking like, expensive and shit?"

"Four horses." Spencer confirms with a nod, "And yes..." She adds a little more slowly, considering the question with a bit more thought than really needed for a 'aren't they expensive' kind of question. "They are, but they are also an investment? Without them, I wouldn't have a job, so they kind of repay themselves."

Kind of. Not really.

"That sounds like bullshit," Wash says with a laugh. "It sounds like they cost an arm and a leg to maintain and if you're not constantly working your ass clean off, they go hungry." He grins at her. "That about sum it up?"

There's a very slight curve upwards to the corner of her mouth at that, before she shrugs her shoulders, "I suppose so, yeah. But...Isn't that kind of true with just about everything? I bet you spend a lot of money on paper and pencils, right?"

"Mmmm, I'm not sure it's comparable. Kind of an apples-and-brisket, isn't it?" He grins. "Unless you're implying that my failing at writing something successful will lead to the starvation of my notebooks and pencils." He tsks, lifting his notebook and shaking it a bit from the spine. "Look at it, so squallid."

It's spoken with a very deep sense of gravity for the situation, complete with a very serious nod, "Very squallid. Much squall like it is..." But then she quickly follows it up with a shake of her head, "I can't speak to your success or failure at writing, so I'll just have to take your word for it that you're not doing a very good job of crafting a zombie-Easter play."

"What!? I'm doing a GREAT job of crafting this Zombie-Easter play!" Wash flails his notebook a little and then tosses it aside. "... but I write it mostly on my computer, when I get home." That explains it. "Which is still cheaper than a horse, I bet, by a lot."

"A computer? Yes. Usually." Spencer replies after a second of thought, like she's actually weighing out the differences in the cost of a computer and a horse. One time purchase vs never ending money sink. "But if you mostly write it on the computer, when you get home, why do you have a notebook with you?"

"Well, I do a lot of outlining, note taking, brainstorming, and that sort of thing on notebooks. Then when I get on the computer I work out the ideas I had into something that's actually coherent." He picks up his notebook and flips to a random page. It looks like a lunatic took a pen and scribbled on it endlessly and with zero pause. "See?"

He had her....right up until he flips to that random page, but as soon as that page and it's chaos is seen the doubt comes roaring back. "Oh...sure..." Spencer replies, visibly trying to make some kind of coherent sense out of what she's seeing on the page, but horribly failing. She at least makes a small attempt at not showing how much chaos it looks like to her, which also happens to be something of a failure on her part as it is far too easily read on her face, even if someone were perceptionally a brick. "That...that makes total sense."

"The modus does. This?" He gestures at the page. "Only makes sense to me. Or my brother, I guess, but we got that twinpathy thing going on most of the time, you know?" He shrugs, snapping the notebook closed and tossing it to the side.

"Now you're looking at me like I'm a psycho weirdo. I," he says, lifting a finger and pointing with a laugh, "am not the one that rides animals that could kick my skull in half because they had a bad day."

"No, no...you're not." Spencer shakes her head quickly, trying to dispel any such expression on her face that he's a psycho weirdo. It only partially works, really. She still doubts the level of sanity after seeing that piece of paper.

However, when he points out that she could get her skull kicked in if one of the horses has a bad day, she pauses and thinks for a moment, "Well...that's true. But horses aren't typically hard to read. They've got some pretty major ways to tell if they are having a bad day, and if you're oblivious to that...then you probably did something to deserve to be kicked. I've never heard of anyone being kicked in the head just...standing there. But, yeah...for such big animals they are still prey animals, and that can really influence some of their reactions to things."

"Yeah. I saw a video not long ago of a guy getting kicked in the face by an angry cow. I didn't know they had that kind of height on their hind legs. Shit was wild. And of course there was that cheap death at the end of Yellowstone." Wash seems annoyed at it, but he doesn't elaborate. "So what do you do when you're not training or wandering the park?"

"Cheap death in Yellowstone?" Clearly she either has not ever seen the show, or hasn't realized that he was talking about the show and not the park. There's a bit of confusion, but it clears up when he asks her what she does when not training or wandering the park, her shoulders lifting a fraction in a shrug, "Work? But...I'm going to assume you mean when not working, too. Mostly I just do whatever to keep myself busy. I don't really have a lot of off time, simply because the horses don't feed or exercise themselves..."

It's all very demanding of her time, clearly.

"Yeah. Sorry. It's a TV show. Yellowstone. A character gets trampled by a horse late into the last season and it was really unnecessary and it was one of the only characters of color in the cast, so." Wash waves his hand dismissively. "Pissed me off. I'm not surprised you don't watch it, though. I bet someone who actually does that shit would be frustrated watching the way it's depicted on a show like that." He grins at her. "My legs are falling asleep." He rises, offering her a hand. "Let's take a walk."

"Oh. A show." Spencer replies with an almost embarrassed look on her face, like she failed some form of test by not recognizing the show. The offered hand is accepted, and she gets to her feet with a shake of her head, "I like shows about horses....but most glamorize the wrong things. And, if it's a cowboy Western type show, I've never developed a taste for those I'm afraid. Where are we going?"

"It's supposed to be a Western sort of salt-of-the-earth ranchers and cowboys in today's world tryna save Montana from the impending apocalyptic city dwellers from the dreaded California," Wash explains, as he starts walking. "But it really just ends up being a show about a crime family that murders, backstabs, and plots their way through protecting their wealth, land, and investments. Very entertaining, but also exceedingly dishonest about itself."

Her question gets a shrug. "S'it matter?"

"The dreaded California."

That gets repeated. Twice. Because it seems to amuse Spencer to no end that city dwellers from California seem to be something to dread according to this show. But there's another shrug for his question, "It doesn't, just curious. So do you often watch wanna-be Western crime dramas who have a strange fear of individuals from the West Coast?"

"Naw, just the one. I tried the prequel series but I didn't really get into them," he admits. "And the writer's new show with Billy-Bob Thorton is shit." He glances at her. "What do you watch?"

"I like comedies." Spencer replies after a moment, crossing her arms over her chest for a moment before she drops her hands back down to her side, "And reality TV, I guess. Competition shows? Like the ones with the baking, those are usually really adorable."

"Oh, man, not reality TV," Wash says, holding his hands to his head and laughing. "You can do so much better than reality TV, babe." He shakes his head, but he's clearly teasing.

"But the baking shows are adorable! They are so nice to each other in that tent...always helping out. It's so...like, wholesome." Spencer points out, not sounding like she's bothered by the judgement. More like she's used to her love of British baking shows being a polarizing subject.

"I don't know. I just like my reality to be in reality, not on TV," Wash says with a shrug. He turns to walk backwards a bit, as they talk. "So what kind of comedies do you like? Musical comedies? Romantic comedies? Cartoons?"

That's a difficult thing to answer! Or so it seems by the rather serious, hard-thinking, expression that crosses over her face, "I like romantic comedies, although they are really predictable. And certain cartoons are good, but not all. Not sure I've actually seen a musical comedy....Give me an example?"

"Hairspray, Little Shop of Horrors, Grease, for values of comedy, Cry Baby, Rocky Horror Picture Show..."

Wash twirls a finger in the air and shrugs, smiling at her. "I'm gonna have to like, curate some media for you to watch, aren't I?"

"I've never ever seen those .. But I've heard of that last one. It's that one that they always show at Halloween, isn't it?" Spencer wonders, her brows furrowing a bit as she tries to think about if she's ever heard of the others.

Then she blinks, the rest of what he said catching up, "Why are you going to have to do that?"

"I don't know," Wash says, shrugging with a smile. "Charity?"