I am Not OK Right Now

Well, it looks like we have a date to start allowing patrons into the library. It isn’t 100% firm but it’s the first time a date has been floated. August 1st, just a few weeks away. My only hope is that the rising tide of cases, and they are already on the rise, will kill this horrible plan.

My son’s school is saying they will be open in some hybrid fashion, having half the students attend at a time. What an utterly FUBAR situation. It will a hellscape of chaos for working parents for sure and I’ve been to the school, seen their narrow halls and small classrooms, there is no way, even with half the kids, that they can maintain social distance. And who is doing all the endless extra sanitizing? The overworked teachers? With what money will they pay for extra janitorial hours? Oh, or will they task the kids with cleaning? That will go well! Again, my only hope, for not having to switch my son to a virtual school, is that they come to their damn senses because of the increasing cases.

This was in my feed yesterday from a poster called Zac Bears “Massachusetts is approaching an “R” of 1 for the coronavirus, meaning exponential community spread will restart! Wear a mask, stay within your bubble, and take all precautions. We aren’t immune from irresponsibility in other states!” And here is a link to what that means: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/covid-19-what-is-the-r-number/ My MIL is in Florida and the hospitals are just about at capacity with this nightmare. We joke with her; “don’t get sick! don’t get hurt!” But it isn’t a joke at all. The worst thing that could happen to her is anything that would cause her to need to go to a hospital.

My work is asking us to self-monitor for Covid symptoms and not come in if we have any… completely ignoring the vast numbers of asymptomatic carriers who can spread this thing. I am disheartened, I am depressed, I am stressed out as much as I can stand to be. And I am being asked: “What concrete steps can we take that would make you feel safe at work?” I don’t have an answer that keeps the library open. I think we should all be in lockdown, at home except for essential trips for food, medicine and the like. I think that is the only way we contain this. I think it is the only path to safety. I don’t want to go out in public, too many people refuse to wear masks, it isn’t safe. And now we have the CDC changing their guidelines because of the temper tantrums coming out of the WH. So we can’t even trust the CDC… at a time when we desperately need trustworthy information.

I am not okay right now.

It’s a Weird Week

It’s a weird week so far. My son dropped out of my Pathfinder game, for many reasons, including the fact that he’s in so many games he can’t keep his characters straight anymore, makes me sad.My Director let us know the library is opening in some capacity on August 1st which I find greatly disquieting. A coworker then questioned the need for all of us to stay 6 feet apart all the time, terrifying. On the plus side, I have 2 new players joining my game and that should be a lot of fun.

Side note: I woke up with no inspiration or motivation to bake this morning so there are no muffins. Alas. Perhaps, if it stays cool long enough, I will bake cookies or something later. It’s probably ok to take a day off now and then. Though there is value in habit and inertia is definitely a thing. If I don’t bake today will it be weeks or months until I get back to it? I hate to lose the momentum but I’m tired and stressed today. Probably partly the Benedryl, it does a number on me.

I’m reading Among the Fallen; by N. S. Dolkart now. I’ve barely started and it’s already lovely. I want to sink into it but I can’t seem to focus. My TBR (to be read) pile is just ridiculous and I’m expecting more books any day now. I’ve been watching movies more than I’ve been reading lately, I blame the Benedryl, thank you So Much, Allergies… I watched Rocketman, The Color out of Space, and Doctor Sleep. I actually enjoyed them all. Rocketman started out very surreal and continued to occasionally stray into a dreamlike quality, but it was compelling and the music was great. I thought all the acting was excellent and the story, at times, heartbreaking. The Color out of Space, a Nick Cage movie so my hopes were not high, but it ended up being quite a solid movie. There were odd moments, odd patches of dialog, typical “humans don’t talk like that” moments that happen in almost every horror film, but overall it was creepy and became atmospheric and deeply disturbing. I did get the feeling that there was probably a fair bit of film on the cutting room floor that would have brought the movie up to a higher level though. The hydrologist could have been a more fully-fleshed character if given a little more screen time and I feel like they cut some stuff they thought wouldn’t fly because of how people feel about certain animals. Definitely one of the best depictions of actual Lovecraftian horror I’ve seen and one of Nick Cages better movies. Doctor Sleep was my favorite of the 3 and a great film just flat out. Great acting, cool bad guys, I’d say it’s Stephen King at his best but I haven’t read the book yet so I’m not sure how true the rendition is. A great movie, see it, see all of them, they are all worth at least a few hours of your time.

The morning is slipping away from me. I should probably be cleaning something, or planning something, or, at the very least, be painting something or creating something. I need more time out in my fort to destress and unwind. Now that I work 2 nights a week and we’re still gaming 4xs/week, I feel like we’re always so busy. If I could drop a game I would but it isn’t looking like a very good option. I’ll have to find some other way to loosen up my schedule.

Daily Slice of Dystopia

May you live in interesting times. That statement is allegedly a Chinese curse and I have to say that times have gotten well past “interesting.” The Covid-19 pandemic is coming under control in many places but it is still raging across the US. A few states seem to currently be experiencing less new case but others are seeing rates skyrocket. Things are supposedly getting better in my state so the governor is saying certain places can open up in certain ways but these phases of reopening are much too short. We aren’t giving each phase enough time to see the actual impact on number of cases before starting the next phase. I think we are headed for disaster. We may get there more slowly than some places, but disaster is the destination.

I have 3 grown children living at home unable to go out and look for jobs because of the risk of exposure to the virus. They are all on the Autism spectrum and the older 2 have always had trouble finding work, my middle child has literally never been employed except for work-study at the local community college, the oldest has been hired in restaurant and by a pharmacy chain in the past. At this point neither has worked since March. I came up with an idea so they could do some work over the summer that would save us money and gain them a useful skill: they can scrape and paint our house, or at least most of it. They are going to watch youtube videos to learn how and start at the back of the house for practice. We’ll get all the supplies, of course, and pay them a small stipend because it just wouldn’t be at all fair otherwise. I’m hoping that learning the skills and having the experience will give them both a boost in the confidence dept. and that having an income of some sort again will lift their spirits. It would be epic if either of them could go on to get work as a house painter. Anyway, that’s my scheme for the girls.

Our son has had a short gig as a paid intern for a few weeks the last 2 summers that has been amazing for him. My husband had been asking for an intern to take care of the returned student laptops each Spring. It is low-level work that includes physical cleaning, sticker removal, etc, checking them in, sorting out and shipping the ones that need to be repaired, and cleaning them out of all user information. It’s something that can be learned with maybe an hour of training and not something the Director of IT should be doing, especially when his workload is through the roof. So 2 years ago his immediate boss was suddenly on board and suggested our son could do it as he had just turned 16 and wouldn’t it be a cool experience for him? Heck, yeah! Our lad enjoyed it very much and has been shockingly good at not spending the money he’s earned. Unfortunately, they are balking at hiring anyone to do it this year. It’s insane, my husband is drowning in work, his assistant is drowning in work, and the internship is minimum wage. Further, we have all the stuff here already and having the lad do the work keeps us safe as much as is possible. Hopefully they will decide to let the kid do the work.

Meanwhile, I am back to work, and my husband is basically being told that he will have to work on campus when they reopen in the Fall. That right there is assuming a lot. It’s assumes we won’t be back in lockdown by the Fall, that there won’t be massive travel restrictions to and from the US, etc etc. It sucks that they are asking to come back to campus. He is seriously at risk for the virus, it is an international school, and he has proven conclusively that over 90% of his job can be handled remotely… except during certain brief spans of time that require him to accept of return physical objects on a frequent basis. I am furious that they told him “even if there were positive cases of Covid-19 on campus” he “should definitely still be on campus.” It is lovely that have agreed to go ahead and install all the protections he has asked for in his office, and agreed to all the procedures he has insisted on for no direct contact with staff or students, but then they tell him he will still have to go to offices and classrooms to fix projectors, printers, and other things. !!! So, he’s protected in his office (which is right by a direct entry/exit point to outside) but then he’s supposed to just walk through halls to rooms with staff and students in them? What sense does that make??? He suggested they hire a temporary IT intern to handle these things because they are very low-level anyway and he will be going nuts in the Fall trying to finish the database conversion on top of all the usual stuff (WAY too much stuff) he has to do. They suggested they could buy him a HAZMAT suit. Utter insanity.

Everyone is tired of the restrictions, everyone is tired of face masks, handwashing, social distancing, and all of it. It sucks. But is all very necessary to try to stop what is shaping up to be a horrifying tidal wave of horrific illness and utterly miserable Death. Everywhere I go I see people without masks, not that I am out and about, I’m talking about driving to work, the drive thru at the pharmacy, dropping off our household trash, and gassing the car. There are way too many people not taking this seriously. And my state is one of the better ones for this sort of thing! We are going to see number of infections rising in the next few weeks and I am going to stay home again no matter what the governor recommends even if it means I lose my job. I am not bringing this damned thing home.

Dystopia is here. This is where we are. We have a virus on the rampage and even though we are tired, bored and completely over it, the virus isn’t. It is not tired at all and it is spreading at every chance it gets. Even people with very mild cases of it are at risk for some extreme complications for a long time after the infection has faded. This thing is no joke and if you think herd immunity is some kind of answer I suggest you research the ‘black death,’ the Bubonic Plague that ravaged Europe all those centuries ago, that is what herd immunity looks like. Relying on herd immunity without a vaccine is UGLY and it reflects the utter and abject failure of the leadership of this nation to protect its citizens. They knew for months this was coming and did nothing. Now they are literally asking and expecting the American people to die for their mistakes to save the economy, to make economic numbers look better so the monster in chief can get re-elected. It’s all a fucking game to him and to his ultra-rich cronies and they view the rest of us as disposable pawns.

Not Digging Phasing Back to “Normal”

We’re easing back into the work routine, it’s going fairly well, despite one abusive patron already, during my second shift back. Keep it on the road lady, I haven’t used the system or tried to locate a book or dvd in months! Oof. I have caught up with making all the flyers I need to and am working on assembling materials for the take-home crafts, and packets of information for the contests I’ll be running and things like that. I’m learning all the new protocols, all the new procedures, etc, even as we wait to phase most of it out whenever that happens. I’m enjoying being back in the building, being among the books, getting to casually chat with a coworker, even at a distance and through our masks. I’ve got my new materials budget starting next month, it’s been slashed, but I will make do. I’ll hunt for what bargains there are to be had, solicit more donations of gently used books, etc. That’s all good. And yet I am still contemplating quitting my dream job.

I get stressed out having to go there, stressed by the extra steps we need to go through to track curbside pick up, stressed trying to talk on a phone through a mask, while the phone slips against the mask as I try to use the computer, stressed by all the cleaning, the cleaners make my skin peel, the gloves make my hands wildly sweaty and uncomfortable, I’m just very stressed by work right now and by the pace at which people are rushing to “get back to normal” without adequate time between steps to see what impact the lifting of restrictions will have on virus spread. They are just going to create a new surge of this horrible virus and we are all going to be forced to quarantine again. 😦

Stress is a big factor in my negative feelings toward working, but it isn’t the only factor. I got used to a new, softer rhythm of life, I have been able to be a better wife, better mother, better pet-mom, vastly more prolific artist, and despite all the stress of the pandemic a generally happier person in a bunch of ways. I had more time to read, more time to learn new things, I liked it. Normalcy kind of sucks. Being stressed, rushing places, having to plan dinner for my family and a stupid, sad separate dinner for myself. (usually a couple of granola bars and some water for me. bleh) Not working allowed me to reach out, online of course, and keep up with my friends more, connect in new, untried ways that have turned out to be hella cool. I feel more of a sense of community with all my friends than I did when we were all rushing out to jobs all the time, driving kids around, constantly running errands and busy, busy, busy! Not that I was idle at home, I mean now I am cause it’s a billion degrees out, but I was painting, writing, working from home, cooking a lot, reading, planning, dreaming, just living. And it was good.

We’ve been lucky, we’ve been able to continue to work from home through this nightmare, we have been getting paid when others have been laid off temporarily or permanently, lost their insurance and suffered hunger while not being able to pay their bills. We have friends who are struggling through this and it’s just so stressful. We help where we can but I wish we could do more. I want to fix all the problems and it sucks that I can’t, that I have to choose where I feel like we can make the best impact at any given time. When the virus comes roaring back and we are all forced to go back home I think it might be worse the second time around. Folks that lost jobs will probably still be out of work and how are they supposed to eat and live if our damn government doesn’t support its citizens? Doesn’t ban evictions and suspend the machinery of rent and mortgage collection and tell the greedy utilities they aren’t allowed to shut people off? If our government was more functional we would have universal health care, a strong safety net, and much else that the rest of the civilized world already has. We need to fix that!

Saturday Morning in Our Dystopia

The temperature is slated to be in the upper 80s for the next… forever. I don’t deal well with the heat these past several years. It’s still jarring and crazy-making to me because I used to be cold all the time and I liked it. It was almost like I was always in air-conditioning and because of it I could appreciate immediate heat sources very much. I could still enjoy a nice cold dip in a body of water, enjoyed swimming and going outside in the cold, and so on, and I could soak in the heat from the sun or a crackling fire and purr like a cat. I knew I had it good. Now I just suffer the heat and hate it. I mean, the past year or so, I feel a little better than I did, and I have hope that maybe I can feel good again, cold again, but suffice it to say; heatwaves are my kryptonite. I become weak, and miserable, and nearly inert. UGH. And with the pandemic you know I’m not running off anywhere to try and swim.

But life isn’t all bad. I’m running my game tonight with at least half the players so we’ll see if they survive. LOL. 2nd edition modules are quite brutal. I’m honestly mystified as to how the players are supposed to survive certain encounters. Optimally designed characters, with an exquisite sense of strategy… maybe, but some of my players have not designed their characters along lines that would tend to maximize their potential. It may not cause issues in the short-term but a little ways down the road there is potential for some pretty big problems, character deaths, mainly. It sucks, but there is only so much nerfing a GM can do and still retain plausibility, still allow players to feel like the world makes sense, and that it has cohesion. Meh, we’ll see how it goes I guess. Hopefully adjustments will be made as the players start to realize that they can play their characters any way they want to but that their stats and abilities have to be chosen with combat in mind when playing in a module/adventure path. My home brew games are different, they are always heavy on the plot and roleplay, we are telling a story together and it is amazing, but I don’t have the mental energy to build all that right now. So here we are.

I can’t deal with reality right now so I’m escaping into books, art, and games. It’s all too much. I’m trying to keep up with the news and lend my support to excellent causes but I’m exhausted, stressed, almost ill. I’m trying to find some kind of balance, enough news to know what’s going on but not so much that I want to hide in an underground bunker. Reality is so rough lately. I have seen spots of good news here and there though, and that’s cheering. I mean, we’re all going to like die of the pandemic because a bunch of people think wearing masks is like being handcuffed or something, but besides that it seems like there are positive changes on the brink of happening. We could have non-militarized police soon, who stop murdering people of color, we might see some freaking reparations for slavery and actual racial and economic equity happening. Canada might invade the US and bring democracy to it’s blighted political landscape, who knows? (It could happen, let me dream!)

Stay well, stay safe! Drink some water and get some rest. Take care of you, because no one else is going to.

Blogging for Sanity

I can’t believe what I am seeing in the world, in my country, in my neighborhood. We’ve got a global pandemic of a disease that is just a shocking nightmare, millions, upon millions of people out of work with no income and no health insurance, no freaking FOOD, and since the safety net’s been gutted there is almost nothing there to catch them. Food banks are screaming, crying, and begging for help to try and meet the need to keep families from starving to death in the richest country in the history of the planet… while billionaires are having to find extra help so they count all the profit they’ve made while hundreds of thousands of Americans die. Aside from not having the money for food, people can’t pay their rent/mortgage, they can’t pay their electric bills, or their car insurance, and the list goes on.

Some of these threats are more immediate than others, deadly disease and hunger/malnutrition are clearly top threats, but if you lose your home how TF are you supposed to protect yourself from the virus? We are all sick and tired of being shut up at home. I want to go out to a nice meal I didn’t cook and don’t have to clean up after, I want my kid to get their blood-work done, I want us all to see the dentist, we were supposed to go in April, I want to be able to go swimming, to have the kids come into the library for programs, etc, etc. But the virus is NOT tired, the virus is fine, it is out there feeling energetic and virulent, eager to infect everyone. It is a perfect storm of a virus:

Highly Infectious
Long Incubation
Asymptomatic Transmission
Horribly Miserable for those who get a “bad case” of it
Multiple, awful issues connected to it like multiple organ failure, severe clotting, etc.
Having “Recovered” may still mean you need a lung transplant even if you were healthy before you got it, dying of a heart attack even if you were healthy before, dying just when it looked like you were about to recover. Most of these can happen even to people with mild or NO symptoms.

But somehow a whole bunch of people have decided they are just “over” this whole virus kerfuffle and are just going to traipse back out to have their hair and nails done, get massages, eat at restaurants, go to bars, go to parties, etc, etc. I 100% get the people who are desperate to get back to work because they have bills they can’t pay or are facing hunger, they are weighing the risk of disease against eating, having shelter and water, medication, etc. They are not being stupid they are desperate. They shouldn’t be in that position. Our government should have responded to the threat of this pandemic sooner and provided clear, medicine and science-based leadership. Yes it would have been nice if China had been more honest and not downplayed the threat but if I, a geekly housewife/part-time teen librarian and mom, could hear the news coming out of China and see the videos of workers in hazmat suits spraying the streets down and know that it wasn’t adding up. If I, with my limited information, and limited resources could see the threat coming and start preparing in January, which I did, I think our government could have, and bloody well should have, seen it coming and fricking prepared.

They are giving away tax cuts to BILLIONAIRES while Americans go hungry, WTF? They should be taxing the wealthy more so they can support everyday people who need money to pay for food and rent so our country can freaking SURVIVE this crisis. They could and should be pushing through a completely socialized medical system Right Now, covering everything. They are LYING when they say it would be too expensive, the prices we, as Americans pay for health services and medicines are inflated often by orders of magnitude. That’s part of the deal of single-payer health care, the government helps set the prices of everything. That’s why ambulance rides all over Europe cost an average of $30-50 while we pay upwards of $2,000 for the exact same thing.

But instead of doing anything sane like all of that, they have decided that instead of dealing with the situation, instead of protecting the American population, they are just going to send everyone back out there and hope not too many people die. But that is a lie. How can they pretend to care how many people die while actively inflaming their extremist supporters not to wear masks? While claiming the news, and scientists, and liberals are hyping the whole thing up just hurt the President? While the President and his cronies wander around without masks on? Holding big rallies with no social distancing? It seems like they don’t care at all if it spreads, or if millions die. What do they care about? Money. Money for them, money for billionaires, more and more and more money while people are dying. And people of color are dying at a higher rate while police seem to kill them in broad daylight without consequences. And Native Americans are dying too. I have heard the infection rates on reservations are appalling. How can this be 2020 if Black Lives Matter is a controversial statement?

And yet, here we go, pushing everything to go back to normal so infection rates can rise and spike and our hospitals can be overwhelmed and we can experience a truly nightmarish situation. I am back to work now, in a closed building, with a million precautions in place. I am lucky, lucky, lucky that my boss, and the trustees, and the town are taking this virus so seriously, and yet I am still terrified because getting this virus is not an option. I cannot bring this thing home to my family, to my severely asthmatic husband, to my daughter with damage to her heart. I am still considering quitting my dream job because once the doors open at all we can say patrons have to wear masks all we want but how are we supposed to enforce it? I wish everyone would just show compassion for others and wear the damn masks. I hope that right now we are changing the world and ending the extreme racial inequity in the United States and around the world. I hope that we can fix things. I hope my country can survive this time of multiple, horrible disasters. I’m not exactly sure what the alternative looks like but I know it’s something I do not want to see.

The Meh, the Good, & the Work to be Done

My first day back at work was demoralizing. I don’t remember how to do anything and there are new procedures for EVERYTHING. I feel like an idiot. Checking items back in now has so many steps and I’m not even talking about the quarantining and cleaning. Since there is no interlibrary loaning going on now we have to check in each item, cancel any transits that come up, turn on check in modifiers and re-check-in. Then we need to turn off the check in modifiers and scan the next item. It really slows things down. We are also not even half-way through with the deep cleaning of the entire library and need to keep up with that. We are each supposed to complete one task from the list per shift so I cleaned the staff freezer last night. We have a whole new list of procedures for curbside pick-up that includes a spreadsheet that confuses the heck out of me and delivery as well. Last night was a lot and I felt overwhelmed. I love this job, I love this job, I love this job. I also have real concerns about when the doors open and being exposed to the virus that sometimes necessitates lung transplants in formerly healthy people. #wanttostayhome

In better news apparently the U.S. Supreme Court opted to protect LGBTQ workers from being fired for being themselves. YAY! That is awesome. I mean, so much more work to be done to create a truly free and equal society for all people, but it’s good to see some decent decisions being made these days. I am also really heartened by seeing the turn-out for Black Lives Matter and Black Trans Lives Matter rallies. We need to keep this going and make real change happen. We need to fix everything that’s broken and make things truly great for all of us.

I’m trying to sort through my own programming/attitudes/beliefs/etc, and learn how to become a real ally for all marginalized people right now. It’s a little overwhelming when I think of it that way, actually, so I’m trying to figure out one step, then a next step, learning how to listen, how to put my feelings in their place so I can keep listening when things get uncomfortable. Right now I’m mostly doing a lot of reading and watching videos and things. I know I will make mistakes I’d just prefer not to storm out there like some giant water buffalo making every mistake.

We all need to do whatever we can to support justice and equality for all. I thought I understood how bad things were for Black Americans but I am finding out that what I know was a fraction of what has been going on. I’m sure I don’t even have the full picture yet, may never be able to fully comprehend how entrenched, institutionalized racism impacts and has been impacting non-white communities, even so I can learn to help, to work for a better world, a just world where people are all treated fairly and with actual human respect.

104 days of isolation. I’m not ready to go back.

20,000 new cases in the U.S. every day… again, and I have to start back to work today. I am an animal undergoing stress. We have been so careful and have been waiting this out as best we can and now I am supposed to go back to work and raise our risk of exposure when it isn’t safe at all. I’ll be in the library with one coworker, always the same coworker for every shift, with lots of protocols and precautions in place. It’s good, it’ll be fine, it’s ok. No patrons will be allowed in but we are supposed to manage curbside pick-up for people. It’ll be ok.

I’m freaked out mostly because I see so many people out there without masks. They walk up and down my street in groups, they jog, bicycle, and walk their dogs. People like my mother have been having “socially distanced” gatherings all along, rejected their masks because they didn’t feel like they could get enough air, and still say they have “zero exposure.” I trust almost no one who assures me they haven’t been exposed. People are just way too casual about this virus and believe, without actual proof, way too many things about it. Much of my husband’s family just believes that Vitamin D will keep them from getting it, tons of people are assuming it will die down in the summer and are behaving accordingly. I’m not saying they are wrong I am saying we don’t know so we should not rush out there and risk being filled with regret.

In all seriousness I do not think there is an upper limit to the number of times I am going to have to answer the same damn questions for my mother. “Is hubby back to work yet?” Answer: No. He will not consider going back until September. “Are the kids getting out to see their friends or looking for jobs?” Answer: No. They will not consider doing so until at least September. I also hear about (from my mother) everything everyone else is comfortable doing now. Mom sees her friends “with social distance,” my sister had her in-laws over, this or that place is open for business, her friend did X, Y, or Z. Well, they can all go ahead and do that, that is up to them, that is what they are doing, I will do what I feel is wise. Does she think I am going suddenly say; “oh so-and-so is doing that? Sign me up! That changes Everything!” I get exhausted dealing with her for over 10 minutes these days.

So, I am going back to work today. Stressed, with a headache, but, and I am dead serious about this, without a bra. I cannot begin to express how awesome it is to have gone 3 MONTHS without wearing one of those torture devices and I am not going back. I will find a way. Masks are uncomfortable but at least they serve to help protect me from an actual threat, I will wear a mask without complaint. Let me add that I totally get that some women like bras, I assume, or need them because they serve an actual function for them. To quote a badass babe; “That’s not me.” My boobs are not of sufficient magnitude to warrant outside support. That said, I think I need to find some sort of substitute to hide certain, mercurial little aspects of said boobs, but I am determined to get that sorted.

Belatedly I am realizing that there are a number of logistical problems I need to sort out before I can go to work today: (yes, I am sitting here blogging instead of jumping on those problems)

I need an outfit I can decently wear without a bra that isn’t basically pajamas.
I need to make or figure out something for dinner that someone else can make without too much risk-factor.
I need to figure out some sort of dinner for myself that I can bring to work.
I have to remember/figure out all the things I need to bring with me to work so I can get stuff done once I get there.
I have to hope I can still drive in the dark.
I forgot to call and get my car looked at for what is hopefully a muffler problem and
I need to get my oil changed.

Usually making lists calms me down. This one is not helping.

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.