the blog is back
Pet worms. In my kitchen, but sometimes they go on field trips to my office. Today was bring your worms to work day!
Working from home is weird. I don’t think I would mind it if it wasn’t a pandemic.
Vermiculture is cool. I checked Worms Eat My Garbage from the open library. I got a early edition https://archive.org/details/wormseatmygarbag00appe/mode/2up
I said, I want to shave my whole head. Rose said, nah you should shave it diagonal, want me to do it now? I said I have a meeting in 10 minutes.
I was on time to the meeting. It was good use of a break. Working from home is weird.
I have something sometimes that feels adjacent to fun. But there is too much worry and sadness and distraction for it to count as fun. I have moments of calm and hope. I have moments of joy and I have gotten to have a silly moment now and again in these last two weeks, but fun has been elusive. I love boardgames. There are numerous online and physical options I could play with my housemates, but my brain is too full. I think fun for me requires something that is between focus and let the world shrink to the activity at hand.
I do have some cool new pets. Well, “pets”, I’m doing vermiculture and have worms to give my compostables to. That has been fun. They like Apple cores. They wriggle and seen to be flourishing. Trying to craft an ecosystem is cool.
I pride myself on my ability to sleep. I’m good at sleep. I’m good at going to sleep and staying asleep. I don’t like pandemic. It is bad for my sleep.
Super early morning shower means my hair looks good.
I don my grandmother’s sweater
as if to protect me from the world
but to go into the battle of my first virtual departmental meeting
I look forward to the familiar faces I haven’t seen
working from home
scared for the world
overwhelmed
doing my best
soon poetry month starts
what is this librarian to do?
don my grandmother’s sweater
feel her warmth
she survived the last pandemic
I imagine if she was here
she would be kind and wise and help me see the good in the world
there is a lot of good in the world
I want to be good in the world
the world feels far away
it is a great sweater
I worked from home. It went well. I was productive and got to chat with coworkers. After work I’m feeling overwhelmed.
I sit on the balcony and enjoy what is left of the sunshine. Before the night falls and chill prevents me. I called my Mom. She gives voice to my fears. It makes me feel better. Less alone.
Children play across the street. It fills my heart. I cry. I don’t trust the systems we have to keep society safe. We are not doing enough and our healthcare system is going to be overwhelmed. This feels certain. I hope I’m wrong.
I took out the trash. It’s been a week since I walked away from the house.
Today ET went out and got groceries. He took pictures. Fresh produce is available, if you brave it. Laundry detergent is harder to get, unless you like bottom shelf organic stuff?
I don’t think anyone has to go out again until the next prescription for Daddio is ready at the pharmacy. Of the four of us ET is the one going out to get things, because he’s fast and strong and smart and cautious.
Today was a good day at the (home) office. I felt productive. After work I thought I needed to log in for my first synchronous online class. But no! It is Spring Break!
Oh yeah! Ready to party! In my house! Not outside! Party like it is pandemic time!
I feel silly I forgot about there being spring break. My brain keeps tossing any information it doesn’t think is ‘important’ out the window. This means my exocortex bullet journal notebook has been
I’ve been using the app MarcoPolo to have asynchronous video conversations with some folk. It’s a neat app.
I’m going to try and shovel some Computer Networking information back into my head now.
Spoiler alert. I didn’t shovel anything into my head. I set a timer and deligently didn’t do any work while it ticked away.
I’ll try again tomorrow.
I went on a real cool train trip in the first half of March. I came home just in time for the world to turn upside down. I like my home. It is a good place to be. Covid-19 is trending. And I’m socially isolating with a small crew. My crew is E.T., Rose, my Daddio, myself and the two cats. It’s a good crew. The cats are fuzzy and seem mostly unphased emotionally. Both Rose and E.T. can and are willing to cook. E.T. is all hearty, often carb focused and meaty. Rose is hippy, veggie focused and delicate. The amount of variety is astounding. I’m not comfortable posting on social media about how lucky I feel and how good the food is. So I can write that here, because no one knows here is here yet and I am not going to tell them.
Folks have suggested you’re supposed to journal about this covid-19 time. I’m going to attempt to do that here.
I’m afraid this is going to kill my parents. I feel like my Dad is on borrowed time. He came to live with me after blood clots / brain bleed / epic depression. I hope this doesn’t kill him. I wish it wasn’t killing anyone. Pandemics are scary. I am glad I wasn’t raised with the notion that someone should tell me it will all be alright. I was raised much more with the philosophy – we’ll do our best and see what happens.
It is scary to write down what I’m scared of. To face it written out. My Mom is in Kansas. She splits her time between Saint Louis and her house outside Topeka. I’m worried about her, but I also know she knows how to hunker down, make do with what is on hand and get her hands on more if needed. She said she’s going to make her homemade granola. She makes amazing granola. I wonder if I could get her to live-stream cooking?
There is so much technology. I am glad I’m such a nerd. I have a lot of bandwidth. I gave my tenants wifi. I’m inclined to get a VPN so all their traffic (except netflix since netflix hates VPNs) to go via VPN. Rose said https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/ is good. My godmother asked me about VPNs and I directed her to that one. When I need a VPN I use my jobs VPN so I haven’t researched much. Rose being here is like magic.
I’m working remotely now. We just got Microsoft Teams at work. It is apparently a bit like slack, but I haven’t used slack much. It is a very good time for us to get this new tool. I think it will be helpful.
I’m taking a class remotely. The whole University went online-only, and the next week the whole campus closed. The close was on Friday. Time is moving at strange speeds. Simultaneously too fast and slow. I’m worried about the whole world and my immediate focus has narrowed to the space from my backyard to my front porch.
I’m impressed by the response of society to something so big. I’m bewildered. I’m scared.
