I have more questions… &… money stuff.

Here we are on what I can only assume, based on what it feels like, is day One Million of the apocalypse, and I find myself pondering in circles again. I have to go back to work soon and it’s already feeling way too “back to normal” for my lizard brain which is still informing me forcefully that the emergency is still going despite appearances. I am not ready, and much as I love my job, I don’t know if I ever really will be. On to some questions I can’t answer!

When will it be safe for my daughters to go find jobs again? I cannot freaking imagine.
Why am I so jumpy? I’ve barely seen anyone outside my little family in about.. 400 years (?) so how am I not calmer?
How can I still not be finding time to play board games?
How come a guy can come mow the lawn, pull some weeds and chop down a few bushes and somehow the yard is double the size it was?
How did I get such an awesome husband? Seriously, he GETS me and still wants to hang out with me. Crazy.
It isn’t 5:00 yet and the leftovers of a bottle of Pinot Grigio have me tipsy, since it’s the apocalypse this is 100% ok.. or no?
What ale is best with breakfast? asking for a friend. (it’s me)
How can I have this much anxiety???
Why is my dog so stinky? I thought they cleaned themselves like cats, no?
Why does my hippie fort calm me down so much? what the hell is up with that? I walk in and in minutes I’m a happier, calmer, way more relaxed version of me. I don’t get it. It’s like 30 yards from the house!
What am I going to make for dinner tonight? Oh yeah? What about TOMORROW????? And repeat because this one never ever ends and I don’t know WTF to do anymore. *deep breath* I’ll think of something. I am shockingly resourceful.

Money: So, just before the pandemic hit our tenant told us she was pregnant and moving out. So, I think her last month was February and the apartment has been empty since then. We charge a fairly low rent for our area, made to seem even lower because it includes everything except phone, internet, cable and that. We cover heat, electricity, and hot water. The heat and hot water are oil/steam/whatever, but none of that has gone down without a tenant, really, and yet with us not going anywhere, or ordering food in much at all, we’re making slight but noticeable gains. (???) It’s weird. But then I mention it to my husband and he’s says we haven’t been spending $240/month on gas for the cars. What the hell? I never thought about how MUCH that added up to! We have cut back quite a bit on meals out, I’d say we’re at maybe 2Xs/month (delivered) down from 1 or 2 Xs/week at about $50-$100 each thoughtless time.

Shopping: I no longer shop extreme bargains as a matter of course. I don’t shop really at all, I have no number to add to this, but I will say that ordering online makes me more thoughtful, more deliberate. I feel anxious out in public and I think it makes me rush into decisions. That may mean I was more impulsive in spending, just wanting to get it over with to get back home. I am carefully curating lists for myself for things that will actually add value to my existence that I will need to shop for, find free or whatever once some level of safety from mad viruses returns. This pandemic has shown me that I can actually comfortably do a real shopping ban and I intend to do just that, I mean, I’m sort of already in one, mostly, anyway.

Yeah, so, I need to think about what kind of goal we might set, because not having one has just left us adrift doing what seems cool at the moment, and that is just Not Cool. If we don’t get clear about what it is that we want how can we ever get it? What are your goals? What are you working towards? What do you want out of life? Feel free to answer in the comments, I am also asking myself.

Another Day in the Apocalypse

Today has been a real mixed bag.

I went to the library and was only mildly anxious, just a little lightheaded getting out of my car, walking to the doors, and using my key to get in. It felt slightly surreal, I definitely found myself with my head on a swivel watching for anyone who might suddenly round a corner and be too close. That felt a bit like a zombie movie to some small corner of my brain, made me feel more anxious, but I got inside, found my boss, and had my performance review. It was, overall, pretty excellent, so that helps. I have things to work on but that will be true until I’m in my coffin pounding on the lid in frustration at all I did not get to finish. Unless I become a vampire, then I’ll just nap and get up and get back to it. Oh yes, I have a plan ready for if I become a vampire, just like I have a plan in case of zombie apocalypse. You gotta be ready.

So, the procedures in place at work look good, reassuring, lots of masks, lots of cleaning, lots of precautions in place. Lots of distance, and no rush to let patrons back into the building. The town is determined to go slowly and safely and if we can’t be open to the public safely we won’t be open. My incredible boss also said that if I need to take a sick day I can take a sick day. Everything as usual, just inform her with as much notice as possible and no need to tell her what I am sick with. She said too stressed to come in counts. Gods, she makes me want to be my best lbrarian-self. Permission to rest makes me want to try harder.

Good news/Bad news: On top of my locker I found a bunch of paystubs. I arranged for direct deposit before the shutdown so it’s just a bunch of papers for my records… or so I thought. It seems my direct deposit didn’t go through, they are all actual checks! So, neato, we have more money than we thought we did because we can deposit all these, but bummer because totalling them up has revealed to me how little I actually bring home every quarter. Yeah, I am not contributing as much as it felt like I was, not monetarily anyway. *sigh*

I went to hang out in my art studio/hippie fort and finally made the call that I am wildly uncomfortable with the height of the huge inflatable mattress in the loft so now I have to return it. It’s so high it’s made the loft claustrophobic for me and the cord doesn’t reach the outlet once it’s inflated. Highly inconvenient and makes me not want to hang about out there and write/paint/etc. Very sad. Now we can’t sleep out there until we can get a replacement…. again. I’m finding less mice in the traps, yay, but the one’s I’m finding have been partially eaten by ants and other mice: Disgusting. So so icky. Also, I didn’t know there were ants out there so bummer on that. On a happier note I brought some audiobooks and more music out there so when it feels more hospitable again I am going to be loving it out there. ^_^ Another plus is that a replacement inflatable mattress will be cheaper than the crazy-sized one we have now. YAY! I love spending less on what I actually want!

It’s cooler now, I should make dinner.

Black Lives Matter

There’s so much swimming through my head now, my own tiny little life, the pandemic, police brutality and the resulting protests, voter suppression, economic and environmental justice, and on and on. It’s hard to focus on anything, I can’t seem to get any work done today. I need to because I really want to take the whole weekend off for my birthday, but it just isn’t happening. How have we not fixed our shitty, broken system before now? Because I am white and therefore not subjected to the harsh reality that POC have to live with every day I seriously thought things were “better” in a lot of ways. I saw some of what was going on, and I worked on educating myself about racism, but I was still somehow blind to the actual situation. Part of it was maybe the fact that I try not to consume too much news and the bias implicit in what my new sources choose to show me but it is still on me.

People of color are understandably mystified that most of white America seems to have finally noticed with the case of the murder of George Floyd that racism is still a real and deadly problem. I have been aware for some time, I’m not sure how long, I think it was some time around the murder of Tamir Rice by police that something clicked. I think there was another, similar incident, maybe more than one, either before or after that sweet child was killed, and all of a sudden I could see it: the incidents were all the same, all boys of color, all shot by police for just playing or sitting there, or standing. The incidents lined up like beads slipped on a string and then I could see it was so much more. Video evidence of these murders have destroyed the smokescreen of “well I wasn’t there and I don’t know what happened.” Video evidence has taken away my naive and privileged idea that police officers are naturally to be trusted and that they act professionally and leave their bigotry at home because their job requires them to serve and protect Everyone. But that is a tangent, sorry. POC wonder why the hell it took George Floyd’s murder to wake more of us white people up. I don’t know, I can’t speak for anyone but myself really, but that poor man. I didn’t watch the video of his murder, but I have seen others and I saw stills of the nonchalant officer just casually kneeling his full weight on a helpless citizen’s neck. Absolutely sickening. But when I saw a transcript of Mr. Floyd’s last words, sent to me in an email, something broke in me. He called for his mother, he called for his mother as he was being murdered, and as a mother my gods…. I feel for every mother, everywhere, I feel like a mother to everyone who calls for one. His words shattered my heart for him, for his mother, for all the mothers who have had to find out their child was killed by those meant to protect them.

What I’m saying is I think hearing him calling for his mother, begging for his life, and so many more people are at home, locked away from the pandemic, reading the news, paying more attention… It is heartbreaking that it took this long, and I have been waking up for a while now, but this one feels different somehow, even though it is the same thing that has happened to black men over and over again. I don’t know, I don’t know why it took so long, but we have to rise in this moment and refuse to accept that officers trained to deal with all this are to be excused for murder because they were supposedly afraid of unarmed black men, women, or children. We have to stop training police like they are going to war when what they should be doing is serving and protecting. And we have to listen to everything People of color are saying. The video in the link below breaks my heart, infuriates me, and makes me cheer.

https://youtu.be/xLDmB0ve62s

We all need to stand together and demand true equality for all Americans. POC color deserve everything white people take for granted. They deserve good schools, safe, well maintained neighborhoods, community-minded respectful police officers who want to Help, excellent and equal medical care, health insurance, good jobs, human freaking dignity, access to good, fresh, healthy food, peace of mind, neighborhoods free of toxic factories and pollution, EVERYTHING that we all deserve.

Returning to Work & Escapism

I will be heading back to work next week and I am full of the most mixed of feelings. On the one hand; Yay! I miss the library, I miss my coworkers, I am tired of webinars, and working in a vacuum. On the other hand; I can wait to see the library, I will only be seeing one of my coworkers at all for an unknown period of time, I will still be taking webinars, and I don’t want to be the reason that this horrible virus gets into my house and threatens our lives, especially my husband who is vulnerable to it.

My game starts Friday, I hope, haven’t heard back from everyone yet, and it will be my birthday. ^_^ Quarantine Birthday, didn’t even take the sign down from my son’s party yet. I think I will make my favorite box cake: Yellow w/ Chocolate frosting. Yum! My Instacart shopper managed to score me some little bitty Breyer’s ice cream cups, Oreo flavor, so this will be an epic event. I expect my husband has ordered me a book or two and I intend to spend the day prepping for my game and painting. I am very much looking forward to it.

Tonight we launch a game called “Hell’s Rebels” in Pathfinder 2e (adapted) and I am very excited about it. I’ve made an urban druid who lives in the undercity and looks after strays and orphans. I guess things are going to get pretty crazy but hopefully I can protect my charges. I know we will essentially be up against the Thrice Damned House of Thrune so I assume we will all die in the end. We’ll be in good company anyway.

Birthday in Quarantine

Today our youngest turns 18. Wow. We’re here. This is where we are. We’ll have cake, ice cream, root beer, and pizza brought from far away since it must be Special Pizza. My husband will drive about 90 minutes round trip to have a Chicago Fire pizza popped in the trunk for our lad. We have a handful of small presents, a sweatshirt, a couple of books, and some expansions for a card game he has. The plan is to game tonight with our one virtual guest, a friend to all the kids who we include in our family games. I feel really bad that he won’t get any of the cake and pizza and such. That just seems monumentally lame.

We’ll be running Pathfinder Age of Ashes and I think we’re finishing the second module tonight, with any luck. It’ll be fun but it’s a weird birthday with no one coming over. I’m sure my mother will be upset that she can’t come, it’s one of the things she does, she shows up to important events with food and gifts. Normally, this kid would invite a few friends from school and they would play games and goof around. This year, and such a big year, he’s stuck with an immediate family party. I want so much more for him. But this is what we have.

He chuckled when I said I was afraid his birthday might be a bit lackluster. He said something like; “Gee, I don’t know why you can’t get me everything I could want in a GLOBAL PANDEMIC. It’ll be fine! ” I might have previously had moments where I was afraid we might have spoiled the lad, not anymore, he’s so incredibly kind. Happy Birthday to my sweet, sweet son. I wish for you a happy, healthy, wonderful life in a peaceful, healing world.

Bunnies

I am getting really stressed out with the whole world falling apart lately so I am going to try to focus on bunnies today.

We have some gorgeous wild rabbits living in our yard. Yesterday I caught them eating plants by the bird feeder and got a few pictures. Elusive little critters normally but I managed to get a shot from inside the house that wasn’t too bad. ^_^ There may also be a groundhog living under my hippie fort. I’ve seen one disappear beneath it twice now. Cheeky bugger. I must also note that there seem to be an infinite number of mice out there. The traps in my shed are busy! It’s kind of insane but apparently mice are not good at learning what a trap is. I really thought they might be cleverer than this but no. There’s a hawk that sometimes waits for me to dump the traps. OOO, Free Mice!

I love living here for all the wildlife we get to see from our windows. I still can’t quite believe my son and I saw a fisher-cat crossing the yard back in… February? (whatever, there was snow on the ground) We see turtles, all manner of birds, a pine marten once, SO CUTE! Garter snakes, possums, deer, I think they might be mule deer? Pheasants, turkeys, and a partridge. (at the bird feeder) Maybe 90 seconds down Rte.2 we saw 3 wild cats crossing the road, I think they were like bob cats? or lynx? It’s hard to remember now.

Part of the reason we see so much wildlife is that we are indoorsy and terrible at yard maintenance. The lawn is unkempt most of the time, the plantings are overgrown and, since we can’t tell the weeds from the deliberately planted things for the most part, the weeds run riot just everywhere. All of this makes excellent habitat for all sorts of creatures, including damn ticks. I hate those damn things so much. I wish there was a way to rid the world of ticks without hurting anything else. Alas, I must encourage the sticking ticks along with all the other much nicer and more lovely creatures.

I am dreading going back to work.

Before I angst about this, I need to say: I love my job. Being a teen librarian is amazing. I feel overwhelmed most of the time, of course, keeping track of so very many things is insane, but I love that I get to work with teens & books and I get to create and run programming for them. I get to pick books for the collection, create displays, show movies, run craft programs like making Galaxy T-shirts, Harry Potter holiday tree ornaments, mug painting, etc. It really is a perfect job for me. But I am not ready to go back.

I don’t trust every member of the public to comply with health and safety protocols. I try to stay away from the news because it’s awful but I have still heard about all the protesters without masks screaming to get back to normal, the customers in stores who spit on or assault workers who ask them to please use a mask, and the people who get screamed at in public for wearing masks. It makes me wonder what will happen when we start allowing patrons in to use the computers by appointment, it makes me wonder even more how patrons will take being told they need to wait because there are already 20 people in the building and we’re only allowing that many in at a time. It makes me nervous. People can be so entitled sometimes. “I just need to….”

A long time ago, before the sickness came, people would sometimes pop in at about 5 minutes to closing and turn on one of the computers we’d shut down 10 minutes before, and tell us they just needed to print out a few pages. The problem of course is that it takes time to get the computer running, online, etc, and the printer takes time to wake back up etc, and we shut them down 15 minutes ahead of closing so we can leave at closing time. Of course when we explain that, and inform them of our hours etc, most people are apologetic, they were just in a rush. Sometimes they have rushed to us straight after work and absolutely need what they are printing for their employer, the courts, to submit for a benefit or some other important reason, and they are crestfallen at both not being able to do what they need to and for bothering us. I tend to find it in my heart to print those documents and go home a little late and happily I have my boss’s support on that. Then there are the people who are outraged that library policies have become inconvenient to them. They are rare, and maybe they are having a really bad day, I don’t know, but they decide in that moment to take it out on us. So far this has been muttering, storming out, little things.

My worry is that 2-3 months of being restricted to their homes and essential trips has probably not sweetened anyone’s temper. They are frustrated, they want things to be the way they were, they need what they need. Maybe they have somehow been lucky enough not to be close to anyone who has become seriously ill from this virus and they think it’s no big deal, maybe they think their robust immune system would kick its ass, maybe they believe we just need to accept thousands of deaths a day from this horror as the price of doing business. I don’t know where their hostility springs from but I do know there is a subset of the population that views any inconvenience to them to be a violation of some imagined civil right and I am not excited about having to ask those people to wait for the health and safety of their neighbors, or to wear a mask and maintain social distance, I worry that it won’t go well.

My director is back to work full time as of today. The rest of us will be asked to resume a slightly altered schedule as soon as next week. The library will be locked at first, for some indeterminate time, and we will be doing curbside pickup and possibly drop off as well. The next phase we will allow patrons to make appointments to come inside to use the computers. The library doors will still be locked and we will be cleaning everything like maniacs. We have phases after that, none with any time frame yet, of 25%, 50%, 75%, and finally back to normal levels, unlocked doors, etc. Not that I think we’ll get there. I think we are going to see the infection rate start climbing before we get to the phase of letting patrons in for computer use. I think we’re all going to be forced to rush back into isolation with more of us sick, and people will continue to die of this thing. I am not going to bring this virus home to my family. Everyone else here is off the hook about making a call on getting back out there until fall. I’m scrambling to make a decision possibly within this very week.

Having a couple of my friends infected is not making this easy. I hope they will be ok. They seem to be improving a bit so I’m hopeful. My husband’s auntie seems to be recovering really well so far, so that’s good. I’m just nervous for them and for us. We have been so careful. We isolated early and completely. We haven’t had in person contact with anyone since early March so we should be clear of this thing. But the number of infected is still rising in this country, in my state, and we should not be heading back yet. I’m scared I may have to quit the job I love. It seems insane, I’ll never be able to replace it, I know this, but I am considering quitting. I’m ok with going back to a locked building with no contact with the public, masks and social distancing with my coworkers, etc. Maybe the numbers will spike before we open the doors and I can run home and hide again, I don’t know. It seems like a horrible thing to hope for but if we as a state/country/world are really going to go ahead and start reopening, well, it’s the only realistic thing I can hope for to keep my family safe. I’d rather everything stayed shut and that the government would help those who need help in every way they truly should until it is actually safe to go back out there. I wish that no new infections would happen at all, and that those infected would all recover and be ok again, but apparently it doesn’t matter what I wish, alas.

More Bad News

So, we played games with our ailing friend’s girlfriend online last night, in an attempt to cheer and/or distract her, and found out she is ill with Covid-19 too. She’s barely eating, sleeping a ton, and “is fine” unless she stands up. If she stands up she gets short of breath. She insists she’s fine, nowhere near as bad as our friend, and she laughed when we said we were going to text her more often to make sure she’s still alright. She said other people are already doing that, like her mother, she laughed and said; “I’m afraid one morning I’ll sleep till 11:00 and wake up to paramedics breaking the door down.” We said we’ll try not to be too jumpy about it but we will be checking on her.

Also yesterday, I got an email from my boss that said in part that we might be returning to work as early as June 8th. I don’t like that at all. I think we’re going to see a spike in Covid cases shortly after that date and I don’t want to break isolation just so I can get exposed and bring this thing home to my family. This thing was scary enough before when our immediate connection to it was confined to a few elderly relatives (our relatives and friend’s relatives). Now it has actually put a friend of ours in the hospital and made another friend (his GF) ill enough to be concerning. She’s alone with their cats, under quarantine, unable to see the man she loves while he is very ill and hospitalized. All we can do is try to spend time with her online and check in and try to make sure she’s hydrating and eating. I wish I could do more to help. Gods, I hope they will both be ok.

At least the view is nice…

I will not let the troubles all around me crush me. Not yet. Not today. Today I will focus on things I can control and just be me. I’m just going to do my things, be who I am right now.

I am the wonky lamp and I have to learn to love me.

Yeah, so, we will order a new air mattress for the fort, my little sanctuary and I can stop fussing about that. I’ll cook meals, do laundry, clean, declutter, etc. and the house will be a pleasant place to be. I’ll keep painting and drawing and all that happy stuff. I’ll enjoy what I have, listen to music, dream of less stressful times, play games and keep on going.

I’m still excited to start running my upcoming game. I have 5 players and they all have at least vague character concepts. I think it will be a lot of fun. I’d like to get started soon. I think we all need something fun and distracting and I know my sweet hubby would like to play rather than GM all the time. The only game he’s in is a D&D 5E and we both just hate that system. Way oversimplified and just awful. I play a bard and the class is so utterly gimped I might as well be a non-player class like a peasant or something. It’s so broken. I don’t know what happened to them, D&D used to be so much fun, now Pathfinder is the best and it isn’t even close. Eh, I suppose it’s just the way of things. As long as I have Pathfinder to play I have nothing to complain about.

No word on our friend yet today. I hope he’s doing better. His girlfriend is stuck home alone, in isolation and she’s having a hard time. Of course. We’re going to hang out with her online tonight. Hopefully distract her for a bit with some games and such. Hopefully we’ll hear about our friend today, get a positive update that he’s kicking Covid’s ass and that he’ll be able to go home soon so he can start kicking cancer’s ass. I can’t believe he’s had all this happen in one week. WTF.

when nowhere seems safe

On Sunday morning we found out someone we love has cancer. Yesterday I reached out to see how they were doing and found out they hadn’t kept down anything, even water, since the biopsy and were now in the ER. A couple of hours later we got a message they had tested positive for Covid-19 and been admitted into the hospital. Fuck.