Life in the Time of Corona

At 7:00 the organizers from the Janeese Lewis George campaign called on everyone to take a knee for Black lives. From my knee, I couldn't see far, but I could see that for a minute or two the whole scene did just that. 7:00 was when the curfew started. It was sunny. I'd just gotten to the polling site. It wasn't till later that I realized the line snaked around almost 2 city blocks, around the park. That the wait was about 4-5 hours. At 9:30ish, I wanted to get to the back of the line to make sure they got snacks, so I walked in the street. It was then that I realized that there was no one driving on the street. It was silent. It was empty. After hours of dodging cars jaywalking on Georgia at previous poll hang outs, it was eerie. After living off Georgia for 10 years, it was eerie. DC's felt quiet in the pandemic, but this is another level. I felt like I could just walk down the double yellow line as far as I wanted. I had heard about the polling stations during ...

Sunday night I was laying in bed, cuddling Riley while he fell asleep, when I got a text from a number I didnt know. Legba had been arrested by the White House. I spent this last weekend how I’ve spent most of the last 3 years, in my little family bubble watching the world blow up around us, not knowing how to help. Frantically checking my phone for every update, worried about my friends in the streets, and not able to do anything except hold my baby. It’s hard to not be in the streets right now, or organizing support work, or doing anything at all. Last week I started a blog post about the beginning of summer, but that seems so distant now. The world has changed so dramatically so many times in the past 3 months, and I don’t think it’s done yet. For a while we (along with everyone else) were feeling like we were living in Groundhog Day, but that’s over. Riley kept joyously saying “it’s grand hop day!” Sometimes it was even “Purple Grand Hop Day.” Today I’m going to go vote for Janee...

At the end of last week, Phase 1 was starting. I made plans for my new coworker to have her first ever DC JWJ in-person meeting by doing her weekly check in with me in my back yard. Today, her sister who she lives with tested positive for COVID and her daughter has a fever. At the end of last week, I was planning to dedicate all my extra emotional energy and outdoor time to the most important political priority: getting Janeese elected. Today, it seems like nothing compared to the resistance happening downtown and across the country. In the second week of March we couldn't imagine the third week of March. Last week, we couldn't imagine this week.

there's a consensus that time feels different during quarantine. and i'm finding that to be very true. i stay up late and wake up early and still somehow haven't even considered working yet today even though its almost 11am. what was i doing with my morning? the traditions we keep to mark time are sliding past us, even though we've succeeded in celebrating some of them in a changed way. but what i'm actually longing for is being together. last weekend i deeply missed reviving the 15 years of dumb jokes we'd compiled through repeated sloppy banter in detroit. i talked with jonathan about how people talk about some of these events like church, and how it's not actually as if there's a sudden spiritual awakening at the rave, it's actually more like a church where you see people you know, year after year. some things stay just the same and it's a comfort, and it feels like community. i used to delay actually playing music at bad moves practice every ...

it's summer y'all. it's where good things happen. i just want to record my weekend because it's the first time the weather really made us all sweat this year and it felt like real life, and at some moments even better than how life used to be.  i put on headphones and short shorts and listened to some favorite disco songs on the walk down kennedy street to bob and rob's house. i was kind of dancing at a stoplight, waving my hands around, and a guy in a car just smiled really big and said "yeah!" in this supportive way.  i sat on their porch as bob showed me all the grading he'd done on the side of the house to make a stone path and mulch some gardens. they watered a tree they'd planted by the sidewalk. afterward, i sat out in the back of meredith's house and chatted while the other housemates were scattered around on happy hour phonedates with friends. katie came out in a blazer because they were being interviewed on meet the press! we talked a...

It's weird, being trapped outside of your normal life and patterns. It makes you feel apart. But today, I realized, I am feeling more connected to DC, specifically my neighborhood, than ever. Part is the free food thing. People stop to get food, but I try to leave them alone. Even more people just say really nice things to me. Today a woman asked if I could help ID people for a kinda specific grant she needs to spend this month. When I told her my work email, she was like, DC JWJ, I helped bring JWJ to DC. A few days ago, a man stopped and ate a clementine while talking to me. I had a hard time understanding his Spanish, but he was clearly sad, and I think was telling me about people he'd lost recently. I wished I could connect better, but I just listened. I had a similarly hard time with the women I'm dropping the milk off with. The milk delivery is fine, but I tried to make small talk for like an hour on mother's day while we waited for people to come by. And betwee...

Emma just texted me like, yo, me and Sam and Falcon wrote stuff on the blog, are you gonna write stuff on the blog? Shit, the blog! I hadn't exactly forgotten it, but it's been a truly weird past ten days. So, I was happy to be reminded of it. And anyway I was just sitting here wondering, what should I do? So now I know. Write a blog post. Last Thursday I had surgery to remove an ovarian cyst, and the ovary along with it, and the fallopian tube (why not), and also the other fallopian tube on the other side (cause it had been wrecked for a while and was gathering fluid and the docs just wanted it out of there). This was all very routine, my super kind and competent-seeming gynecological surgeon assured me. And it was short: arrive at the hospital at 5:30 AM, surgery at 7:30, recover for a couple hours, out of there by noon. But it was pretty intense. I'd never been put under before, or opened up before. And it takes the bod a while to recover. The pain has never been bad:...