There’s a lot of talk in my circles about the “Before Time” vs. the “After Time”. Namely, our lives before coronavirus, and what we want them to be when it’s over.
I find both conversations unbearably bittersweet.
Don’t get me wrong, I have happy memories of the Before Time. But reminiscing only reminds me of what I can’t have right now and makes me itch.
But dwelling on what happens in the After Time is even worse.
It’s not fear of the unknown, it’s my intense dislike of not being able to predict what will happen next. I don’t know where/when/if the virus will surge again. I can’t foresee if there will be new and thrilling improvements in sanitizing public places or where/when/if we’ll have an outbreak of anti-mask idiocy. And while multiple vaccines are in the works there’s no telling when they’ll be available either.
As such I can’t plan more than a week or two ahead at best (let’s set aside that I was usually bad at planning more than a week or two ahead even in the Before Time).
Fantasizing about who I’ll see for the holidays or what fencing competition I’ll go to next just…grates. It’s like revving my engines only to stay stuck on cement blocks. It changes nothing and wastes energy I need to just to get through the inconveniences and irritations of the next few days.
Be assured I do have plans for the After Time! Lots of people I want to see, things I want to do, and places I want to go. But it’s just painful to dwell on so if I’m mute about them, this is why.
Even though the county’s been opening up, I’m still cagey about going anywhere. Evidence suggests that much of the mandated disinfection may only be so much “hygiene theater“*-the real problem is disinfecting the air.
But given the importance of oral hygiene I decided to keep a months-delayed dental appointment last week, and here’s why.
Yes, there are a lot of open mouths and water droplets and all other manner of nasty virus-spreading activity that goes on in dental offices. Even so, I’d have to take my mask off for a good chunk of time. But my dentist (IMHO, one of the best in the state) spent the months they were shut preparing for reopening.
Plexiglass barriers for the administrative staff, when they’re there at all. I gather they’re limiting hours because my hygenist handled my checkout.No more magazines, which aren’t necessary as no one waits in the waiting room anymore
But in addition to disinfecting every conceivable surface multiple ways multiple times a day and the requisite PPE (masks AND visors) you’d expect, they had these:
HEPA filters in every room, with additional UV light in exam rooms. And they fogged between patients with hypochlorous acid, a proven virus killer that dissipates into salt water.
Air treatment was the deciding factor between neglecting my teeth and taking my mask off.
Pending a vaccine, I think air treatment like this is going to become mandatory for any semblance of safe return to normal life and movement, at least in the near future.
At the same time, I recognize that it would be time-consuming and expensive to retrofit every public building for this, so I don’t expect HEPA filters etc. to happen outside of medical settings.
At some point we’re all going to have to do risk assessment for us and ours because we can’t stay locked down forever (even if we do have a national lockdown to get this thing under control, a move I support).
Given how potentially nasty covid infections can get, though, I’m not sure how much I’m willing to risk.
What do you think?
*Which I still engage in because I’m an idiot who can’t keep their hands off their face. Besides, I like to control what I can.
As I type this on the Monday morning after the riots, I find myself at a loss for words.
Which is a tragedy for a writer. After all, I moved this blog away from (temporarily, I hope) being mostly about writing and weird history into current events and politics simply because ignoring the pandemic is not only living in fairyland but as a history buff I feel obliged to leave a record.
But my posts on the coronavirus include my opinions but precious little about what I feel. Recitations of facts and dates: so many coronavirus cases by this day, a list of things opening up in phase I, etc.
Except that last one (my county started phase I today as of 6 am) seems so insignificant in the face of all the rioting.
Understand: after the umpteenth example of police brutality against black people protesting is called for and completely understandable. I’m even finding it hard to fault violent protests – when you shove people into a corner for generations you can’t really expect much better. Trashing a police station must feel really good if you’ve spent a lifetime fearing the police.
But then I read that a lot of the looting was likely due to outside actors – likely privileged white kids or outright white supremacists taking advantage of the chaos. And cops attacking not only protestors but quiet neighborhoods and journalists just trying to do their jobs. It’s not clear who’s doing what, or why.
No, I’m not going to link to any of this; you have the same Google-fu I do and I’m running on 5 hours sleep. That, and there’s just so damn much of it that I haven’t had the chance to figure out what’s news, what’s crap, what’s speculation, and what’s outright propaganda.
Short version: I’m numb. I have no observations that others haven’t made far more cogently than I could, I have no deep-rooted feelings of rage or fear or anything else because I’ve tripped over all that into just staring into space.
Are we going to have another civil war? I don’t know. I’ve never lived through a pre-war situation before. Never lived through a pandemic either. Nothing I’ve experienced has prepared me for all this, so as far as I’m concerned all bets are off.
What will I do? I’ll go back to posting silly memes and black humor because I have to find something to laugh at to keep going. If I’m really smart I’ll take a break from social media. But I doubt I’ll be that smart.
I’ll make donations to food banks and Black Lives Matter and keep making my masks because I need to feel effective in some way (wait a minute, there’s a feeling! Or is it just an artifact of my general anxiety?)
I’ll binge watch something fun and familiar to make sure I stay at numb and don’t trip over into paralyzed because work and laundry and breakfast still have to happen no matter what.
Writing? Pfft. I’ll try. It’s hard to care or see the point, let alone summon the depth of feeling to write compelling fiction.
But I can’t stop any of this. I can’t fix it. I’m stuck in react mode.
We’re barely at the halfpoint of 2020 and it’s a shitshow.
I’m finally succumbing to getting a standing desk.
Not my idea. I’ve been (un)comfortably perched at one end of the dining room table and it was just fine, thank you because this is temporary. Yes, even 2(!) months this it took my husband pointing out that this state of affairs is unlikely to change soon, and when things do finally start opening up I’m still likely to do a lot of teleworking. Why not commit to it?
My guess is that it will last for at least another month, and even if we do start to open up I suspect we’ll end up with a rise in infections that will send us retreating back inside again.
I have to accept that working from home is a new normal. Not my first choice – I’m one of those strange creatures who prefer going to the office to maintain a sharp divide between home and work – but continuing to make do at the cost of my comfort and health (because a standing desk will provide some much-needed exercise as well) is just stupid.
Note I say “a” new normal. I suspect we’re going to go through several over the next year as we test the waters of the outside world and try to keep things going as best we can.
A trip to the grocery shouldn’t be an adventure, especially one of the un-fun kind.
Last week I went out to pick up some prescriptions. It was the first time I’d been in a grocery (or indeed, any enclosed space other than my home) for over a month. I went out of necessity but tried to enjoy getting out of the house.
Then all the preparation came in.
Getting out of my car was like playing a neverending game of “the floor is lava”. Anything I touched might have covid19 on it but I couldn’t tell so gloves and masks were the order of the day. But even the most comfortable mask is smothering. I had to breathe through my mouth and restrain myself from touching my face to readjust it.
Even with gloves, I had to pay careful attention to what I touched: was the door automatic or did I have to open it myself? If I did, did someone touch it before me? Was my credit card already out or did I have to fish around in my purse with possibly-already-contaminated gloved hands? Did I swipe it myself or did the cashier? Was the cashier gloved? Did she change gloves after the person (6 feet) ahead of me in line?
And worst of all, did I inadvertently brush up against someone or something while I was out, necessitating not only glove disposal and furious handwashing when I got home but a change of clothes and possibly a shower as well?
In short, an activity that was so innocuous as to be forgettable in February is now an exercise in constant vigilance, and if I relax any of the dozen steps involved I risk infection or transmission of a Big Viral Bad the likes of which we’ve not seen in a century. And it’s fucking exhausting.
Maybe you aren’t this careful. Maybe you’re in a less densely populated part of the country and less likely to encounter coronavirus in everyday settings. Maybe you and yours are in good enough health that you’re not worried about catching this thing. Maybe you’re already isolated enough you’re not likely to inadvertently spread this to someone more vulnerable if you do get it.
If so, I wish you well. But I’m in a fairly dense suburb in a state with enough cases that an ice rink the next county over has been commandeered as a temporary morgue. I can’t afford to let my guard down. And increasingly the number of things I have to pay attention to Or Else is making even taking a walk less and less appealing.
The word “quarantine” is getting a lot of overuse. “Quarantine” is for people who have definitely been exposed while the rest of us are technically under stay-at-home orders or sheltering in place. Mind, the net isolation result is similar, but at least I’m not biting my nails for two weeks wondering whether I’m sick or not.
My diet has improved a bit, if only because we finished the last batches of cookies and haven’t made more. I am getting bored of cheese sandwiches – and that’s saying something because I took a cheese sandwich to school every day for the entirety of elementary school. This makes me sad because I usually love a gooey cheese sandwich right off the grill. They’re just so easy to make that I’ve finally hit my limit. Fortunately, my enthusiasm for oatmeal remains.
In mask making I’ve found something I can control in a world where I can’t control much else. There’s something meditative about the assembly line construction of multiples of the same thing: first cut all the ties, then sew together all the fronts to backs, then turn all the masks right side out, etc. I’m doing something I know how to do and there’s no pressure to match colors or sew perfect seams.
It still goes slowly though because my energy levels are in the basement and digging…every other day or so. Either I have so much nervous energy that I flit about doing busywork to avoid worrying or I zone out with comfort tv and forget all of anything I intended to do. I’m hoping this week to make it to Friday without napping after work.
Saturday I attended a Zoom workout/happy hour with a number of vet women fencers. Though I was low energy I enjoyed it and realized with a shock I’d not seen most of them in almost 2 months. I really really missed them! We’re aiming for weekly Saturday Zoom meetings, and one of the coaches is offering class twice a week as well.
Speaking of Zoom, its rapid adoption everywhere makes previously inconvenient lectures and other meetings easier to attend than before. Where it’s nearly impossible to drag myself to a downtown bookstore or other whatever it’s no big deal to log into something after dinner. Last week I “attended” a talk on historic costume and an author Q&A.
In spite of it all, most people I know aren’t pushing to end shelter in place until widespread testing is available. Indeed, I’ve only heard one person murmuring about how we’ll have to open back up the economy sometime, whether the disease is managed or not. I was polite but it pains me to hear people say things like this. Ending social distancing before we have better control over this is deciding that some lives aren’t worth saving – inevitably the old, poor, and sick. Knowing that my mother would have been among those first thrown under the bus makes me take injunctions of “well, we’ve just GOT to” pretty personally.
I still get a chuckle here and there. It cracks me up that Anthony Fauci has become some sort of heartthrob! I contracted to NIAID for years and I saw him speak on a few occasions. That he’s a great science communicator is no surprise to me. That he’s being played by Brad Pitt on SNL [YouTube] is.
Another week, another blur, though a few actual Things happened that helped me mark the days:
My birthday. A quiet celebration included a very nice gift from my husband, to use when I can have opponents again:
Not suitable for sport fencing, but I can play in the SCA and it just looks pretty. Photo Dan Philpott.
At the same time, this feels like a guilty extravagance given everything that’s going on.
Yesterday I got up early to submit to RevPit (contest for manuscript editing) but went back to bed. Part of this is tiredness but the other part sadness; it was my mother’s birthday. When I woke up I zoned out with cozy British murder mysteries for the rest of the day.
I’ve not left the house in several days. It’s not fear exactly, just frustration. Even the simplest things have become an ordeal.
Bringing anything into the house (mail, groceries) means wipedowns with homemade clorox wipes [YouTube] followed by disinfecting ourselves and every surface they’ve come in contact with. We made a “timeout box” (old piece of Tupperware) to throw the smaller mail pieces into to wait out the 24 hours coronavirus can survive on cardboard (and by extension, all paper products).
This week we’re going to start leaving our shoes at the door if we go out. So even a walk in the park is not…, well, a walk in the park.
If this seems excessive I’ve got good reason. Though we’re so careful that the odds of my getting the virus are slim, the possible effects of more severe cases do keep me up nights. Much as I might hate getting wiped out for a month, cytokine storms and multi-organ damage (not linking to nightmare fuel, feel free to double check me) are far more frightening.
I’ve started some N95 mask covers. Rather than formally volunteering to make a set number, I’m finishing what I can and then contacting them to see if there’s anywhere to send them. They’re not difficult, I just lack the confidence that I can finish them in a timely manner. My energy levels still suck and while I’m working on the sleep hygiene there’s only so much I can do about the mood.
Aiming to have 20 of these in the next few days, using up yards of scrap fabric and bias tape I’ll never use.
I’m finally stress baking and tried out the much-circulated Double Tree chocolate chip cookie recipe today. I am much impressed thus far.
My kryptonite.
My eating habits have grown strange. I’m not very hungry but invariably eat junk when I am. We’re mostly cooking in. I want to keep local restaurants afloat but bringing anything into the house is A Production as described above.
Much as I dislike lockdown I can’t even with those protesting against it. Since when is it clever to risk your health (and that of others!) to “own the libs”? It staggers me that public health has become a political issue. One would think everyone would want to be healthy, but these people either cannot understand or do not care that this isn’t about their personal freedoms being infringed. If they didn’t spread illness to everyone else I’d say let them shoot themselves in the foot but respiratory viruses do not work that way.
I have more sympathy for people who fear losing their livelihoods, though I don’t have a ready answer for them. From my privileged teleworking pedestal it’s easy to say their companies should figure out a way for them to work remotely (move all storefront retail workers into helping sell online?), or in safer facilities (how far apart can factory workers work and still be efficient?) but I’m not the expert and it’s not up to me. Which is why I’m frustrated as hell that people who know even less than I are in charge of figuring this out.
The truth is we can’t open the economy without widespread testing and none of the federal efforts seem very committed to making that happen.
Vent over. For now.
How are y’all passing the days? Hell, how are you keeping track of them?
I’ve not worn makeup or contact lenses in over a month.
I desperately need a haircut but am not to the point of DIY head shaving (yet?). I’m trying hats and headbands first. Maybe I’ll just go with a Tudor headrail for the duration.
Getting days and nights turned around over the weekend is entirely too easy, and only telework keeps me aware of what day it is. The wonky weather has me turned around as to what season it is.
Sign at the neighborhood playground. Courtesy Dan Philpott, who still remembers to take his phone everywhere.
I’ve not walked much this week due to pollen – my eyes have itched most of the week. But in the interest of keeping my car battery charged I took a drive around the neighborhood.
Everything is in bloom now: what was just a mist of green buds on the trees are full leaves now. The cherry blossoms are in full bloom and it was nice to see them, as the Cherry Blossom Festival is largely canceled .
Though, a good chunk of the festival has gone virtual and it’s not the only event that’s bringing the outside world inside. As I type this I’m finally going to the (virtual) Haçienda, 30 years after my pseudo-goth teenage self got turned away at the doors of the real deal.
The county is requiring face masks while shopping as of Monday. My husband stocked up on masks back in January when covid19 was a blip on almost no one’s radar, but given that healthcare professionals need any surgical-grade PPE available I’m considering switching my mask making efforts from respirator covers to masks for the public. Though save one friend who asked for some, I’ve got no idea how to get these to anyone.
Tangentially, masks might be required but there are crickets on where these masks are supposed to come from. Though I’ve got a pretty good idea. In this instance, I don’t mind. I CAN sew and have time to do so and these are people’s lives. I can set my feminism aside for now, on this subject.
On free (“free”?) time: without a commute and working from home I’ve strangely got more of it. I can take a 10-minute break from my laptop to pin some things together/sew a few seams, fold some laundry, or continue reorganizing the Blu-Ray collection. All of these things that fell by the wayside a month ago.
But while according to my Fitbit housework burns more calories than I expected I’m still not getting anywhere as much exercise as I need, weekly Facetime-linked footwork notwithstanding. My clothes are tighter, I’m more sluggish, and more irritable. Maybe dancing around the house to the virtual Haçienda rave will burn off some of this angst.
I’m sure you’re all seeing calls to be grateful on your [insert social media/email list/forums/etc. here] lately. Someone starting a comment thread, or posting a quote, or speaking of meditation and other ways to ease anxiety.
I’m not knocking it – every little bit of positivity you can squeeze out of this situation is good. But personally, it’s starting to grate a little.
I can’t take any more of this cheerfulness.
Not that I don’t have anything to be grateful for, because I’m lucky compared to some: coronavirus hasn’t taken anyone from me (yet? I do still worry), me and mine are (largely) healthy, I’m employed, and I’m sheltering in place with someone whose company I enjoy and who I trust to be as careful as I am (if not more so). I don’t want to be the jerk who doesn’t acknowledge how easy they’ve got it.
But I’m grateful for some things that are just depressing and maladaptive:
I’m grateful I have pre-existing anxiety. A brain that always leaps to the worst conclusion isn’t blindsided when the sky comes crashing down. I have similar disappointments to everyone else but in a twisted way, I’m prepared. Experientially I’m sideswiped, yeah, as none of my worst nightmares included a pandemic that could go on for months and months, but my (usually) lying brain just knew it something was in the post.
Sadder though is that I’m grateful my mother died in January. Given her age and health, she wouldn’t have survived coronavirus. She would have suffocated alone, respirators allocated to people with better chances. Given shelter in place there wouldn’t have been a memorial service. But in January she went peacefully with her family around her, and we got to give her a lovely service.
I feel horrible for even admitting that. But I know that if she were still alive I’d be crawling the walls with worry and unlikely able to go to her. While I can weather everything else that would be too much.
So, confession time, if you’re so inclined. What odd, sad, or questionable things are you grateful for in this mess?
