March 23rd, 2020
It’s Monday, so I’m back to work. Back in the craft-room-slash-home-office. I can’t say I’m too excited about it. Cuz I’m not.
There’s not much point in writing about my morning routine every day, since it’s not very interesting. But I’m still sticking to just one cup of coffee, and I’m not thrilled about it. Maybe it’s a stupid idea. But maybe not.
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Busy and stressful day of work. My baseline level of anxiety seems to be significantly higher than normal, so a work day kicks me over the edge pretty easily. I spent most of my day in my Zoom room, then reviewed some changes to a contract, and then I had pretty much no brain power left for anything except staring at the wall or watching mindless TV. I watched Zombieland, which was pretty fun, violent, and funny - but with the slight downside that it was about a virus that pretty much destroyed the world.
March 24th, 2020
I slept a bit later than usual, rushed through my morning routine, and I’m getting to work. Boring stuff.
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My son beat me at ping pong. First time ever. I still won two out of three, but it could be a turning point. Anyway, I’m happy for him, he’s happy for him, and he wasn’t a total dick about it - he was actually a gracious winner.
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And he beat me again, two out of three this time. Full disclosure - it was two out of two.
March 25, 2020
Breakfast, fed animals, walked the dog, headed down to my home office. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Yesterday the stock market had it’s best day, percentage-wise, since the Great Depression. It’s still pretty decimated since this all began, not too long ago.
I have a bunch of video meetings today, and I’m still negotiating a contract. I hope we get that contract done soon, so I can divert that brain power to other things.
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We played Jackbox games over Zoom. It worked pretty well. My wife and son, my three nephews, and my sister-in-law all played. Oh yeah, my sister-in-law, her husband, and her son all moved to Eugene from Denver this week. As you might imagine, it’s a weird week to move, especially to a new city. They came here to be closer to family, which isn’t quite working out yet.
March 26th, 2020
Same old, same old. Didn’t get a walk in this morning, though. One of my cats comes to work with me sometimes, so there’s that.
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I’m no longer the best ping pong player in the house.
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On the plus side, we’ve been eating a lot of fresh bread in quarantine. I baked bread over the weekend, and my son has baked bread twice this week. And we haven’t even broken into our brand new 50 pound bag of flour yet!
I’m finding it hard to be motivated to do anything once I’m done working for the day. With all this not-leaving-home stuff, I could do a lot of recording, or just playing a lot of guitar, or getting stuff done around the house, or any number of other things that are creative or productive or really anything at all. But I’m not. Last night, I sat in my bed and stared straight ahead for a while. Tonight, I don’t know - maybe more of the same.
I’ve had a mild headache on and off since yesterday morning. In all likelihood, it’s because work is kinda stressful, on top of the whole world being kinda stressful right now. But since headache is one of the common symptoms of COVID-19, it’s got me a little bit concerned. Which is probably contributing to my headache. I’ve taken my temperature a few times today, and it’s been normal. So I’m probably fine. But it’s hard not to think about it.
March 27th, 2020
No headache yesterday evening or today. So that’s good.
I went grocery shopping this morning and picked up a prescription. The store opened at 7am for high-risk people and 8am for the rest of us. I got there before 8 and waited in my car. The store wasn’t crowded, but it wasn’t nearly empty either. Some people were wearing masks, a lot of people were wearing gloves. It was not possible to stay too far apart from everyone, but I think most of us were trying. The checkout people were wearing face shield that made them look like riot police, and also gloves. They were wiping down their areas and being very careful with everything they touched. I appreciated the effort. Compared to every other grocery shopping trip in my life, this one was the most stressful. I felt anxious just being out in public like that, even though I was careful about what I touched, I sanitized my hands, I didn’t touch my face, nobody coughed or sneezed near me… Then I went through the Rite Aid drive-through for my prescription, which I’ve never done before. It was really easy, and there was no line - I liked that experience a lot more than being in the grocery store.
It’s raining a bit this morning, like it has been on and off this week. That makes it a bit harder to get out and walk, but I don’t think it’s gonna stop me, cuz being stuck in the house all day is pretty tough.
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One of my Facebook friends tested positive for the Virus. It’s not someone I really know, but it’s the first time I’ve seen a post that wasn’t secondhand. He appears to be doing fine.
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My cat Tanner loves cheddar goldfish. He’s crazy about ‘em. He’s staring at me right now!
So I’m enjoying a small bowl of cheddar goldfish. We stocked up on goldfish for the apocalypse. The thing is, cheddar goldfish are only my third-favorite flavor of goldfish. (Now my cat’s on his hind legs, reaching up onto the table in desperation.) My favorite is original flavor. You know goldfish flavor. Then parmesan. Although sometimes, I like parmesan even better than original. But usually original. (My cat’s on the table now, drooling all over my laptop.) Which leaves cheddar as a distant third. At best. But as you probably already know, places that sell large-quantity goldfish packages seem to only sell large-quantity cheddar flavor goldfish packages. What’s up with that? It’s been like that as long as I can remember. Somebody must have gotten to ‘em. Maybe they’re on the payroll of Big Cheddar.
Anyway, I’m getting sick of being home all the time.
March 28th, 2020
It’s 4:07 and I haven’t left the house yet today. I did manage to get some creative stuff in, playing guitar, messing around with Spire Music Recorder on my iPad. Spire is a pretty cool multi-track recorder - it’s got nowhere near the capabilities of Logic Pro, which is what I normally use, but it’s super simple to use and kinda fun. We’re also talking about getting a group together for remote games this evening. And for tomorrow, some of my friends are planning to all listen to the same Dead show at the same time, I think it’s one from 30 years ago tomorrow. So.. big excitement here. Also, whatever my wife is cooking smells pretty good, so there’s that.
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We had borscht for dinner. It was really good. Before that, I hung on out Zoom with a few friends. It’s not really a substitute for hanging out in person, but it’s still pretty good. And most of them live out of town, so I wouldn’t see them in person anyway. So we had a drink and chatted for an hour or so. After dinner, we played Jackbox games over Zoom with some of the family. Between spending much of my work day on Zoom and much of my social life on Zoom, I guess I’m spending a lot of time on Zoom these days.
One of my friends has a cousin somewhere who tested positive. Some of the news stories are pretty scary. New York City is getting hit pretty hard right now, and it seems like it’s gonna get a lot worse before it gets better. I’m still reading the news, but mostly it’s just scaring me. I’m wondering whether it’s ok that I went to the store yesterday, or if I put my life at risk.
And on that note, see you tomorrow!
March 29, 2020
I’m 48 years old, and this is my first apocalypse.
It’s Sunday morning, grey and drizzly outside. It’s almost noon, and my son is still asleep. I just got back from a walk around the neighborhood with my wife and dog. In a few minutes I’m gonna watch that Dead show with some remote friends. The new normal doesn’t have a whole lot in common with the old normal. But this group of people often watches live webcasts of Phish shows “together”, with an accompanying text thread, so this bit will be pretty familiar.
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My son and I played Jackbox games with my mom, sister, and brother-in-law before dinner. I’m gonna have to find some other social activities - these games are fun, but I’m going to get sick of them sooner or later. I’m hoping my cousin will host another trivia night soon.
We watched a movie after dinner - Banana Split. It’s a teen comedy, I liked it.
And that capped off another wild weekend in Corona-land.