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.

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.

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.

Accomplished

For those of us who haven’t gotten sick, or been consumed with caring for someone who did, who aren’t frontline healthcare workers pressed into crazy, heroic efforts and exhaustion in service to their fellow humans, and who have managed to stay home without undue suffering… have had a chance to do things we might normally not have the time for. I know I have at least. As strange and scary as it has all been, and as much as I care about the suffering of others, I have had time for things I’ve previously neglected.

I’m reading again, for real, finishing novels, reading modules for an upcoming game, etc.
I’m writing again, keeping a bit of a journal, blogging more regularly, etc.
Got the shed set up for art and, basically, glamping.
Gaming. I think I am currently in 3 RPGs and getting ready to run a 4th.
Baking, I bake again. More scones, cookies, and brownies have been made during the pandemic than in the previous year, probably, I don’t track this stuff.
Professional development. I am learning so much in online classes and webinars that will make me better at my job it’s crazy.
Set the deck up for BBQs, lunches in the fresh air, and hammock lying.

The first month of self-isolation was not very productive at all. I think the worry, stress and fear made focus impossible for me. My husband was ill and getting 3 breathing treatments a day, I had had the flu, our son was recovering from 4 impacted wisdom teeth and the surgery to remove them, the younger 2 kids were struggling to learn from home, my eldest had quit her job to protect my husband from exposure, (assuming he didn’t have the damn thing which was never confirmed because why test someone who is obviously ill and stuff?) and we were all just stressed to the max. Yeah, that month, possibly more, was pure survival mode, though we all felt the relief introverts feel when they get to turtle-up at home, and kept insisting we were fine, we had no focus and a lot of worries.

Things are mostly better these days, we have new stresses, like our bosses talking about returning to work while the number of covid-19 cases continues to climb throughout the country. I can’t tell you how reluctant I am to return to work. A friend who works at a national insurance company told us they are not being asked to consider coming back to the office until after Labor Day and that is not carved in stone. I hate how there is no real safety net and no real help so that everyone is desperate to get back to work. We all deserve better.

Random items of progress and frustration

It’s been a big day so far. We had to take trash and recycling to the transfer station and buy more bags from them. Our town sells town branded trash bags for $2 a piece instead of a flat fee for the year. I like it because it motivates me to produce less trash. Then, because the tree by the driveway has been going just crazy and the car has barely moved, we took the car to no-human-interaction car wash to clean it off, then realized we needed gas too so we took care of that too. That is as big an outing as we’ve had in a month. Crazy. While we were out about 90% of the people we saw out walking and doing things (seen from the relative safety of our sealed car) did not have masks on.

I’ve continued to work on my shed, using things we already own, junk I chucked in the basement and things like that. I’ve got more lights out there now, and I brought out loads of art supplies and a string of purple lights. I found a bunch of teas in metal tins at the back of the tea cupboard and brought them out there, it’s nice to have a variety and these teas haven’t been seeing any use. They are also distinct from the teas I use in the house so it creates more of a feeling of getting away. Most of them are blends I created myself too, makes me feel good to consume things I had a hand in creating, or to use things I created, I love that feeling.

This far into the day and I have no idea what dinner will be. Bad mommy. LOL. At this point I am so burned out on cooking it is just crazy. I don’t know what to make! I am so sick of having to decide, having to come up with stuff, it’s so relentless. I mean, not ALL the time. Some times, especially right after we get a delivery of groceries, I feel inspired and excited to cook again, for a night or 2, sometimes for a breakfast and lunch or 2. I look at what we have and I want to make stuff again. A few days later and here I am… uninspired, cranky, and ready for anyone else in the world to do the cooking. I forget to thaw things on time, I forget to order key ingredients or they just aren’t available… what is that? My whole life has been lived with the potential to just go and get anything, maybe I couldn’t afford to do that, but the foods were all there. I wanted a couple of cans of lentils the other week and the store was out of them, lentils. Nothing in my life prepared me for how utterly weird that is. That’s the kind of story my parents used to tell us kids about Russia. Like supposedly Russian people would wait in a line forever and ever and just get whatever the hell they were selling or giving out or something, because communism. (hold on, I need to add lentils to my order again, see if I can get any)

In 24 hours, or thereabouts, I have cut back on web surfing, TV and so forth. Proving nothing, anybody can do anything for a day. We’ll see how I get on. I think our savings are about to dip again, we had to have the septic system cleaned out, omg so expensive, and we need to pay all our bills again. One of our bills actually went up $10/month for no reason, the jerks just want to charge us more so we’re stuck with it. WTF? I thought we weren’t supposed to have monopolies in this country. To keep not spending money, as I want to do, I need to plan some kind of dinner tonight. Ummmmmmmmm…. I suppose that’s a question better answered or pondered in front of the open pantry.

Thursday Thoughts

My son’s birthday is coming up. He’ll be turning 18 in quarantine. I’m doing what I can, got him a few presents and they arrived and are hidden. They aren’t much but they are what I can do under the circumstances. A few books, a sweatshirt, and I got him a special quarantine birthday banner and cake topper which should get here in time. Kind of an insane indulgence really, but he’s turning 18, I want to decorate and make it as special as possible. I’ll be making a cake and hoping to be able to get some ice cream too. He wants a certain kind of pizza and getting that will just depend on whether they do curbside pick up or not. We will be playing an RPG that day as per my son’s request. I will do whatever I can to make sure the snacks are epic. I really want to try to get the lad some Virgil’s Root Beer, it’s his favorite. We’ll see if I can manage it.

We’re having warm days and cool nights lately and we’re keeping a lot of windows open. That means the cats are now obsessed with bird watching. All winter they ignored the birds, pretty much, but the birds are more active now and the cats can hear them better and smell them. So now they are glued to the windows chattering at the birds. The dog is even more vigilant about defending our borders now too. She doesn’t like people walking down the sidewalk across the street, or being out in their yards, or other dogs existing. She pretty much hates all living things, really, so she barks out the window now whenever she sees dogs or people. At least she’s started ignoring the rabbits and squirrels for the most part.

Work is starting to ramp up for me as we scramble to try and pull together some kind of activities for summer reading. I’m doing ok, it’s just weird trying to plan to do a bunch of stuff with no in person programming. I’m trying to set up virtual book clubs, take home craft activities, and put together materials for those who want to take part in the fairy tale and ghost story writing contest I’m hoping will actually happen. I’m supposed to come up with prizes somehow too. EEEEEEEK. That’s definitely a tricky bit. I think I need to go hide in a video game for a bit.

Mother Issues (etc.)

74 days of isolation and all is well at our house… or at least relatively so. We are all covid free as far as we know, all still at home, still able to get food and water. We are very lucky.

We’re still gaming a lot. Preparing to add more games and more players to the mix going forward. Lots of fun to be had there. We’re preparing to face decisions about going back to physical workspaces relatively soon as the state opens up. My Director just mentioned having the library actually open in some fashion by mid June. Color me terrified/skeptical. If we open and the spike in cases comes later I am naturally extremely reluctant to be exposed to this monstrous disease or have my vulnerable family members exposed, at the same time I doubt/hope it won’t happen that we won’t open then because the spike comes in time for us to change course on that. If I just babbled some kind of incoherent nonsense, I apologize, my focus has been suffering lately.

Last night, as I was gaming with some distant friends, my sister started texting me about how our mother has been ripping her down about her adorable little craft business. WTF? I have so many objections to this treatment of my sister. #1. Who does that? Who wants to just rip someone down over their art that they enjoy? It is so the worst sort of Jr. High viciousness #2. Who does that to their own daughter??? #3. WHY??????? WTF???? Ok, I have a pretty good idea wtf: jealousy. Our mother started behaving in a competitive manner toward us as soon as each of us approached puberty. When we started looking like attractive young ladies she clearly freaked out internally and started treating us like crap. (In new and exciting ways she hadn’t tried before!) If we, as teenagers, dressed attractively, wore any makeup, talked to or about boys, etc etc. she would call us “whores” and other choice words, accuse us of sleeping around, restrict the hell out of us, etc. I remember her flirting with boys we brought around, putting us down as we were just not as good as her, as popular as her etc. It was ridiculous. So, my sister is better educated than our mother, has more money and success and that sort of thing, which is not my sister’s focus but is probably why our mother is digging at her.

See, the thing is, my mother and her husband run a successful online business that has supported them for more than several years. They ship worldwide, they have a showroom that people occasionally come and peruse, (not often, it isn’t really public) but they sell tons online, more so now in the pandemic because those who can still afford to shop are doing it online. So my sister, who has a great job already at like a company, started making these terrific crafts and a local place or two near her started selling some, and she made so many she started selling them online. She did it more or less on a lark, maybe as a little experiment. She loves making these things, they are lovely, so she put them out there. Knowing she can afford to do this experiment who wouldn’t be encouraging of her hobby/business? That’s right! Our mother. My sister can’t say anything about her little fledgling business without our mother shitting all over it and bragging about how much money her business makes…. and our mother asks and asks about it so she can get her digs in! If my sister responds with any kind of ‘hey, wtf, don’t pick on me’ all of a sudden mother dearest cannot understand WHY Sis is so upset or angry? “why are you mad at me?” So Sis needed to vent, needed a little TLC from someone else who regularly receives such bullshit abuse and understands the horrible bind one is in when being tortured by a narcissist.

Sis? 100%: I feel ya! We got through our childhood alive. We somehow all grew up and eventually chose good, loving husbands. We managed to raise kids who are all wonderful in their unique ways and we LOVE OUR KIDS and SUPPORT them. We are fucking superheroes! We have grown kids, almost grown kids, and a few younger kids, and all of them are good, kind people who still love us. With any luck they will bitch in their like spaceship voice logs or whatever about how we moms all bother them with space-care packages too much, or how we sometimes interfere with grandkid’s homework because we want to talk to them every day. But they will never, Never have to rant to each other or cousin to cousin about how we tear them down, insult them, manipulate them, or make them feel like shit. Our kids won’t have that to deal with because we are goddamn amazing phoenixes rising from the ashes and ruin we were subjected to, and we have all fought hard to be good moms and we have succeeded. I don’t know, maybe our mother is jealous of that? Jealous of the happiness we have each found in so many ways so she wants to damage it, drag us down, make us as miserable as she is? Whatever her damn issues are, they are not ours, and I’ve got your back. Bitch to me whenever you need to. I get it, girl, I hear you.

Isolation: Day 71

I think I need to have a talk with my phone about covid-19. We’ve been self-isolating since early March and my phone keeps relentlessly informing me that I am less active than I was last year. Is there like a setting? Or something? Like a quarantine setting so the phone knows that unless someone buys me a treadmill or whatever I am just not going to get in all those juicy, juicy steps? Or can we maybe kind of just get the phone to read the headlines and stuff?

Mostly yes I am just not walking around as much as I did in the pre-pandemic world but part of it is also that I am home 100% of the time and don’t feel compelled to keep my phone on me at all times. My phone isn’t recording so most of my running up and down the stairs, with laundry and such. Maybe it would be less concerned about me if I just started keeping it in my pocket all the time? Is it me? Am I the problem here? It’s phone neglect isn’t it?

So tomorrow a bunch of businesses are going to open back up apparently. I won’t be going to any of them because OMG it is so not safe to be trying to get back to any kind of normal yet. I’m seeing cases spiking about 3-ish weeks after all these other places start easing restrictions, Texas has something like 1,000 new cases a day now? We’ll probably see that uptick in Georgia any day now too. South Korea and Germany are having issues, China’s having issues, returning to normal seems like FUBAR situation where it’s being implemented.

Traffic’s already picked up around here. I see loads of people out walking, biking, etc. without masks. The people running the transfer station keep their masks off and some people seem to take it as some kind of slight that we refuse to approach them. I know my mom thinks I’m crazy because I won’t visit with her but she has been anything but what I would consider careful during this whole thing. I’m not visiting with anyone except the people I live with. This is disease and you’re not just taking the risk of seeing that one person, it’s that person and anyone they may have come in contact with, and anyone those people had contact with, and so on, and on, and on. This virus is dangerous and weirdly unpredictable. It has so many effects that seem to be a part of it or that are associated with it in some poorly understood way. The clotting this is scary. The multiple organ failures-thing is scary, and these things can happen after folks seem to have recovered. Screw that noise. I’m feeling pretty good about staying home as long as I am able to.

Day 70: Date Night was Great!

It took me most of the day to clean the shed/studio/hippie-fort, set up the loft, get the food ready and all, but it was worth it. He dressed up, tie and everything, and came and knocked on the shed door. I let him in, Billie Holiday setting a mood, we danced, had wine with a simple dinner of pasta, salad and bread. There were homemade cookies for dessert, we played Bananagrams for the first time, not sure we did it right, we climbed up in the loft and read to each other from the book A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet; and had a wonderful evening.

It was warm when we fell asleep but super chilly when we woke up. I made tea and we had breakfast of grapes, bread and cheese I’d hidden in the little fridge. We stayed out there talking and reading to each other for a while, until we heard our son out walking the dog, then we put everything away, cleaned up all the food and dishes and such, and went back to the house to take care of chores and get on with our day. One of the best dates I’ve ever been on. My husband thought it was awesome too. So date night under quarantine accomplished. ^_^