“…ignore everyone who is posting productivity porn on social media right now….Let go of all of the profoundly daft ideas you have about what you should be doing right now.”
––Aisha S. Ahmad, from The Chronicle of Higher Education
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Update from West Bumfuque, StarDate 200330
I have basically not left my house for 18 days now.
My employer () closed all its stores on March 14 and there is no re-open date even on the horizon. I am beyond fortunate to work for a company large and prosperous enough to continue compensating its employees through the closure. I’ve had several video conferences with my colleagues. There is not much news but the virtual gatherings are a welcome respite. They like that I wear my silly top-hot with the rainbow ribbon.
I went to a “virtual AA meeting” via Zoom yesterday and was surprised how well that worked. #32years!
Instacart delivers my groceries (which I handle with rubber gloves and disinfect before storing); Amazon drops something on my doorstep a couple of times a week (nothing new there, really).
I have all the toilet paper I need, but the Publix where my Instacart order gets filled is completely out of ketchup. Of all brands and varieties. Gone, empty, nada. Civilization is treading on very thin ice indeed.
I haven’t taken cash out of my wallet for nearly three weeks.
I shower… most days. I wear clean clothes. Little victories.
I go for twice-daily walks around my neighborhood. If it’s sunny and warm in the late afternoon, I go for a “21st Century horseback ride” – I take my Mustang convertible out for a 40 minute spin over some of the backroads out here in West Bumfuque. “Sport mode” is great for curve-straightening. Giddyap, little pony car.
Riding around the countryside alone still qualifies as “social distancing,” right?
In the evenings. my go-to binges right now are “Outlander” Season 4 on Starz (via Amazon Prime) and “Cheers” on Netflix” (only 269 episodes to go; think that will get me through the pandemic?) On HBO I’m following along with “Westworld” – which is gorgeous and brilliant, but also incomprehensible without podcasts and recaps. “The Plot Against America” is equally brilliant, timely, and much easier to follow. “Plot’s” vision of a dystopian past run by humans is much more terrifying than “Westworld’s” vision of dystopian future run by robots.
I miss Colbert’s monologues. This week he has resumed his shows from his home, but the tone is different. I’m glad John Oliver is doing what he can from home, his monologue/diatribes work better without a studio audience.
I finished “Portnoy’s Complaint” and have queued up Phillip Roth’s “The Great American Novel,” which is about baseball, which we will otherwise be doing without for the foreseeable future.
The rest of the time I am #HomeAlone, trying to do the things – and then trying not to be too hard on myself for mostly not doing them. I have fallen into the bottomless pit of the #InfiniteScroll.
“…ignore everyone who is posting productivity porn on social media right now….Let go of all of the profoundly daft ideas you have about what you should be doing right now.”
Ah, there’s the doorbell. Instacart has dropped my groceries off at the front door Lord, bless those souls for being on the front lines, they are every bit as vital as the nurses and doctors but not nearly as well compensated.
I’m going to put my rubber gloves on now…