Life in the Time of Corona

 I just don't feel like I feel as many feelings as I used to.  I feel the same ones a lot: anxious, bored, loneliness I am constantly trying to avoid, (anxious I will be bored or lonely), tired, obligated. Sometimes I pull off calm, rewarded, satisfied.  But it feels like this really narrow band of feelings.  This weekend, I was home, I was setting the table, or clearing the table from our outdoor seder. I was tired and I found myself standing between the three tables trying to figure out what I was trying to do and just staring into space and looking around me. My mom kinda called me out, and next thing I knew I was laughing hysterically. I feel like I never laugh any more. All weekend it felt so good to be wrapped in the comfort of my family dynamics and the totally different energy of my young nibblings.  I also never cry (unless I watch Grey's Anatomy, which is finally back on, and I honestly think, healthy for me). When I go to watch there's only a narrow b...

one year into the pandemic, so much has changed. my life is almost unrecognizable from a year ago. i never imagined i’d be a stay at home mom. i am really enjoying this slower pace of life and i’m starting to get used to it, but I also just took on a small gig and am working for the first time in 6 months. the pandemic has happened in phases - the initial shock and depression, then settling in and enjoying some of the new normal things, then apocalypse prepping and total burnout - and now this (hopefully) final phase feels actually hopeful. we survived covid winter. as the weather starts to get warmer and turn to spring, it feels like i’ve come through into something new. my family and friends are getting vaccinated, and i just made an appointment for my first shot next week. i have childcare and systems and routines that feel good. i get to see my brother and sister-in-law almost every weekend, and riley has people in his life who he gets to see regularly and have relationships with. ...

I'd been nudging others to write some reflections about one year into the pandemic, but hadn't really spent any time thinking about what I wanted to say. It just felt like something that should be marked, because I've never been one to journal with any regularity and writing here together with people is motivating to me.  During this pandemic year, I got into twitter (I deleted the 3rd party app on my phone that shows things chronologically and fell into the addictive algorithm.) It's not been great for my mental health to be honest, but everyone knows the power of a good meme, and feeling connected to what's going on outside my apartment can sometimes feel good. It has also been a vehicle for following the ups and downs (though mostly ups) of the covid data and how I found  dccovid.com . The government didn't do a great job of displaying what was really going on because they were motivated to show metrics that would allow them to open restaurants and other busi...

 It took me a long time to think about how to write about this one year mark. It's been such a weird year, the last things are hard to remember - all the stuff and places and interacting that was happening. How our last party did feel like a big deal, but the last day in the office didn't - I thought we'd be right back.  But the other day, I saw something that reminded me of the beginning of my experience of the pandemic: a raccoon walked across the yard and climbed up my maple tree.  Maybe too early in the pandemic, I decided a safe and needed activity for me was having fires with friends. It was spring. And the hours and hours of zoom meetings and urgency of that moment was completely frying my brain. Some days I'd light a fire just to have something natural to stare at. But more often, being the social person I am, I got other people to come over, and sit by the fire with me. Before we knew we were supposed to wear masks - back when we were saving them for hospitals....

     On March 13th, 2020, Lohesh was supposed to play a show in College Park. We were to be playing with one of my favorite bands, Curse, which we very excited about. The show had somehow grown into a 6-band lineup, which we were less excited about. Even less exciting was when we had to cancel the show. It's now been over a year since I've played a show or even had band practice. I haven't managed to write a single song this whole time.     I had planned (on that fateful Friday the 13th,) to leave work early to get to my show on time, and now with my evening free, an exciting possibility had opened up before me: I was finally off early enough on a Friday the 13th to go get a Friday the 13th tattoo. My co-workers somehow finished early too. "What could be safer in a pandemic than a tattoo shop?" we pondered aloud. After all, tattoo shops are highly sterile environments, and studies have shown that people who get tattooed frequently have strong immune systems (...

  This week marks 6 months of pandemic life. It’s also Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. I’m really grateful we’ve kept this blog going. I’m terrible at journaling even though I’d like to, but a group blog keeps me at least somewhat accountable and motivated. I’ve drafted at least three or four blogs over the past couple months, but I just kept getting distracted. Half a year seems like a good time to reflect. I’ve had a number of pandemic phases. For the first couple months, it was just overwhelming depression at the state of the world and figuring out how to live in this new normal. Then we had a honeymoon period where I wasn’t working or thinking about work, where we started hanging out in the backyard with friends and feeling somewhat normal. Then there was a mass uprising, and we went to Florida, and I went back to work, and everything felt horrible. Now we’ve moved onto long-term planning and accepting that this is never going away, or not anytime soon, and figuring out how...

I had to go with the dystopian title, even though its been more like 26 weeks, or you know, 6 months since this all began. It's wild to read back on some optimistic posts here where I really thought I could will my way through the hard parts of this and keep on coasting through life. But we have managed this far and will continue to do so, so I guess it kind of worked? The last meals I shared with people before quarantine began were a shepherds' pie with Amanda in Falcon's dining room (we sat close, masking wasn't a thing yet, but we were careful not to use our own cutlery to serve food) and some brunch at Parkway Deli with Falcon and Bob (the pickle bar was open, but Falcon reminded me recently that they closed it while we were there). The weekend before I saw Amanda's band play at Rhizome and we danced to some coronavirus cumbias at a house party to raise money for rent control.  This weekend I'd normally be in the catskills dancing at sustain release with my...