December 13, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 267: Possibly my least favorite thing about the responsibilities parenting right now is doing the night time floss and brush with JB. They whine so much. But we must because the dentist says we must and while I might naysay most anyone else, I will comply with dentist’s orders like whoa. I love going to the dentist and I want to always love going to the dentist, I don’t ever want to walk in there with guilt and shame over having neglected my kid’s teeth. PiC does a lot of those too but I feel more responsible since he already does most of the kid night time routines.
*****
Everyone is sick today. 🤢 Even Sera is sneezing her head off!! Smol is spiking a fever, JB and PiC are leaky faucets, I feel wrung out and drained to the dregs (which is also normal for me too but in a sick way this time).
The only good thing is when I administered the first dose of ibuprofen to Smol for the fever, braced for baby war, they relaxed and didn’t fight every microliter like the last time they were feverish. I don’t know if this was a fluke but I hope they’ve developed a taste for the medicine enough so we don’t have to battle it out every time.
*****
I am hoping I fixed the dishwasher leak problem. PiC noticed it was leaking during a cycle the other day and I wondered if it was a seal problem. Wiped the whole thing clean with vinegar and discovered that HELLO there was a screw loose in the casing that was preventing the door from sealing. It also damaged the seal but I’m hoping that small tear isn’t enough to cause leaks.
Year 2, Day 268: Huzzah, Smol will take their medicine without flipping out!! Thank everything. I wonder if it’s because I upgraded to a bigger and better syringe or if it’s just because they’re older, don’t feel as terrible as last time, and the taste isn’t new. Whatever it is, I’m grateful every single time I dose them.
*****
We all feel like some version of garbage today. Of course JB remains full of energy and Tigger bounces around despite their symptoms. I’m grateful to yesterday me for poaching chicken breast to make broth. That broth plus rice became warm breakfast chao ga. 8 year old me would be aghast that I served rice porridge for breakfast, I used to hate that. But everyone here today was happy with their breakfast. Hint: remember to take zinc AFTER eating. Before makes all the food taste terrible!
We did the most sloth-slug possible version of parenting today. We traded childminding every one or two hours as usual. For his off time, PiC passed out on the ground. The kids and I watched the robot vacuum, me quietly taking satisfaction in having the grit removed from our floors, them slightly concerned about the possibly sentient being.
We went outside for a breath of fresh air. I’ve been trying to get them out for walks midday, today was an extremely abbreviated jaunt.
It was my turn to work after I sent Smol to Sleepytown part 2. I decided in favor of self preservation and stopped after I cleared the most time critical work. JB built a nest for me and waited by the bedside until I went to lay down. They read the rest of the time. PiC was still miserably sick but went out (masked of course) to pick up the provisions that we had so unfortuitously ran out of. It was a hot and sour soup kind of sick day. Hot and sour soup feels like it burns out some of the sick. Of course it doesn’t but the numbing effect is appreciated.
I dosed everyone with ibuprofen, Zarbee’s, or Robitussin and sent everyone to bed early.
Year 2, Day 269: Another weird day as everyone continues to feel cruddy.
Smol was grumpy half the day but oddly cheerful intermittently so they must not feel so bad. They, bless all the things, continue to take their medication happily so that’s one less fight.
*****
I sorted a medium load of laundry and got that running. Even when I’m feeling run down, I’m so grateful that I can take dirty clothes, put them in a machine, then put them in another one, and they get cleaned and dried. Growing up, I spent time out in the countryside where all the washing was done by hand and I never again took our luxury of a washing machine and dryer for granted. Even if I don’t put them away right away, it also makes life so much easier to have some clean socks, underwear, masks, and a few shirts somewhere.
*****
YAY I just sold the last of the Snoo swaddles. PiC had commented that he’d have thrown them all into a bundle for $30 and unloaded them in one go. I therefore took that as a silent challenge to make this worth my while. In the end, I made $76 after fees! Woo! My way was slow but it was worth it! Because I more than doubled the amount he would have randomly listed it for. 😉
Year 2, Day 270: I thought I’d feel better today but I was dizzy half the morning through a very important meeting where I had to look and sound coherent. Awesome. Really love that.
*****
We had registered for the state’s Brace and Bolt program a couple years ago but they gave us such a short timeline, at a really bad time for us, to get the work done that I had to let it expire. The program opened up again recently and after three reminders, I decided to just submit our application again this year just to see if we get approved again next year.
*****
I bumble along best I can when I’m sick, trying to learn to pace myself better and take breaks when it doesn’t feel like there’s any room in the day to take breaks. If I don’t, my whole body will fall apart. Once I’m sick, it sets off a cascade effect with my fibro pain so not only do I get the fun viral stuff (sore throat, runny nose, cough, fatigue), I also get intense joint and muscle pain every single time. Woo. I’m learning, though. I’ve been getting by on the bare minimum this week so the pain is a little less intense. My wrists couldn’t bear weight yesterday, which is just perfect when you’ve got a little one crawling about, but fighting my urge to force myself to power through means today, that particular pain is less intense than it would normally be. Other aches pop up, and again, I focus on doing the best I can to rest and doing my best not to fret about it. Fretting doesn’t help and it actually probably makes the pain part worse. I do whine though. Grumble grumble whine.
*****
JB read to Smol for bedtime tonight, and then asked me to listen to them read for their bedtime. They don’t often want me for bedtime reading, they strongly prefer PiC and I’m usually so tired I just roll with it but I’m trying not to miss these small moments so I go and sit with them before bed.
Year 2, Day 271: I’m laying on the floor to write this at the end of Friday night so that gives a general idea of the state of things.
A miserable Smol is in bed. JB will be soon. I hope to be very very soon.
Smol no longer takes their medicine without a screaming (them) fight/struggle (both of us). 😔 This is no good.
It’s also gotten ice cold this week and that doesn’t feel so great in combination with my worn out state. So this is the boo hoo section. Moving on…
*****
Taking a moment to be so grateful for our community who pitches in when a friend is in need. My head has been congested and splitting all week so Abby kindly assisted with getting the message out and our people stepped up. We bought our friend a little breathing space and a safe place to stay for a few more days while they regroup and figure out next steps. Some offered assistance with job hunting and that may be useful soon, we’ll find out. It’s amazing how a community can lift one another up if we’re willing to make the effort. (The irony of that metaphor as I lay on the ground tickles.)
*****
I’ve finally wrapped almost all the holiday gifts that I had ready. I still need to figure out what’s going on with my sewing machine because I wanted to whip up a quick blanket for JB from the remaining project fleece I’d bought. I only have a few more days to do that before I’m out of time for such things. I hope I have the energy to do that this weekend. We have our boosters scheduled for the weekend and that could really upend all the plans.
:: I hope your holiday plans are bringing more joy than stress?
December 6, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 260: Shifting back to normal school and work mode after a long holiday weekend and having a helpful person around is, in my professional opinion, YUCK.
*****
I’ve been rotating through four pairs of sweatpants for a solid year, day and night, because they’re so warm and comfy why would I wear anything else? I only put on real pants to take JB to school. Sometimes. Sweats are real.
We’re going to see people for the holidays and I’m not looking forward to the need to look like I give two hoots about how I look but I should probably get a pair of jeans that aren’t ripped clear across the leg? The last pair I bought was seven years ago and they’re in a pretty shabby state. I do have a smart looking pair of grey corduroy pants that I’d just get a duplicate of in another color but these dandy things are even older than my jeans and aren’t available anymore. Alas. (PiC thinks my pants being older than JB makes them OLD. I say they’re still young until we hit the 20s.)
I spent all day with a vague sense of missing sales but the few things we need weren’t available (pants for me, though I didn’t bother searching more than two stores) or aren’t on sale (the Le Crueset enameled cast iron frying pan because we’re sick of the waste of nonstick pans that don’t last) anyway.
On principle, I was tempted to shop more small businesses but that would be gratuitous right now. We just spent a small fortune at a small business for our anniversary gift.
I’ve been working on gifting and visiting logistics for the upcoming holidays and have a three page checklist in play now. Before any of that socializing can happen, though, JB has to get their second vaccine, PiC and I will need to get our boosters, and even Sera will need a flu booster since there’s dog flu outbreak going on. Only Smol Acrobat may dodge the needles this month, though I can’t be certain whether they’re due for anything routine soon.
I’m crossing my entire body like a pretzel hoping large vaccine trials for the under 5 and under 2 sets (they’re being tested separately) yield solid data SOON.
Year 2, Day 261: Smol miraculously slept 11 hours! But my brain fog, oohhh my brain fog today, so thick, it felt impossible to think around.
My first sign it wasn’t going to be a great day was when I started making breakfast and stopped a split second before I cracked all the eggs into the compost bin. At least it was before. I’ve done this before and only caught myself after a few eggs.
I’ve been holding on to a prescription of meds to take as needed, intermittently, for fatigue. Through the fog, I reasoned that this inability to think, this feeling like my brain is stuffed full of cotton, MAY be related to fatigue? Hell, it’s worth a shot. I tried my first, very low, dose. I didn’t notice much change in the first half hour but it seemed to lift a bit of the fog enough so I could clear a few things off my desk.
(more…)
November 29, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 253: JB and I have been spending bits of time together which we haven’t done since the pandemic started, it feels like. I’ve been helping them with their hair and reading to them some nights. I think my therapist was at least partially right that a major source of frustration and conflict we’ve been having lately has been related to their lack of connection to me which I was strongly feeling the lack of as well. These very little things that we’re doing together somehow seems to take the edge off our interactions that were frustrating me so much earlier.
Related, I think: They called me Mommy today for the first time in two years.
*****
A crowd of relatives dropped by for a visit and they brought GERMS with them. UGHHHH. I was immediately infected and so very very frustrated by this. We work so hard to protect Smol and me from germs right now, when we’re on a razor’s edge of being burnt out, and then this. It’s so inconsiderate. We’re immensely lucky to have help in this moment and I’m so mad that that’s squandered because people couldn’t have some consideration for my health. We were all masked of course but that and airflow still wasn’t enough to save me with more than one person running around sick and my not knowing that.
I’m very frustrated.
Year 2, Day 254: Still sick. Still frustrated.
I have a mega ton of work today and no energy with which to do it. So instead of getting it done early so I can enjoy Thanksgiving Thursday off with my family, I have to do the bare minimum today and conserve my energy to try to survive until Thursday. Awesome.
Still, my priorities are at least a little better in that I’m annoyed about the work but I’ve grown to a place where it doesn’t eat away at me (consciously, I still get the work nightmares at times) like it once would have. That’s a big change for me and I’m glad for the shift.
*****
Sometimes Smol is crawling across the floor and stops to do downward dog pose and I don’t know why they do it but it tickles me every single time.
I’m also tickled by their sudden flopping around thing they’re doing. It’s silly and funny.
Year 2, Day 255: We’re normally done with our grocery shopping by now but the disruptions to our pre Thanksgiving routine continued into today and I finally had to break away from work to just go and shop. It was another set of frustration but ultimately the best plan given everything that was going on.
I did put in some solid work time so that I could be set up to skip a day of work tomorrow and be ready to deal with stuff again on Friday at least part of the day no matter how little I want to go back to work. Definitely don’t wanna.
After three almost uninterrupted hours of work, I emerged from my cocoon to play with the kids a bit before we finally wrangled some leftovers for dinner. Our meal times have been all over the place lately and I just wasn’t hungry from still feeling sick anyway so I just grazed.
Year 2, Day 256: As we slowly started our day, PiC mentioned that an old friend is back in town. Not a particularly close friend but one that goes back several years. Normally it’d be fun to have an impromptu meet up with them but the timing overlaps with my person’s time here which has been well and truly disrupted beyond all reason so I firmly put the kibosh on this new development. I like them but no. I may not have set plans for the day but what I do have is a firm conviction that I am absolutely not open to making it work with anyone else for any reason, period. I’m done. While he doesn’t typically argue when I feel this strongly about it, and rightfully so, I normally would have guilted myself into trying to make it happen for his sake. They’re not here that often and I like him getting to see his people when possible. And especially after our being isolated for so long, it’s harder on him than it is on me. He wants to see people. I only want to see very specific people and anyone outside that list is exhausting right now.
So not this time. My person’s time is my priority and that’s that.
*****
We planned to start cooking at 130 but really started at 12. I’m glad because it worked out to a super early midday dinner at 4 pm when Smol was asleep. We were able to enjoy our hard earned sit-down meal at a leisurely pace without the squawking demands of a fussy eater. After they woke up, they got to have their own sit-down with our leftovers, and of course they squeaked and squawked and did their thing but it didn’t matter because we all had happy full bellies and had an hour to rest.
We still have entirely too many leftovers, of course, but not of turkey this year.
We decided to try something new and it’s a good thing we did because we ran out of fridge and freezer space four days ago. I’m not sure where we’d have fit a turkey.
*****
Oh also yesterday, JB and I had a few long conversations about the origin of this holiday. We told them that it actually involves a whole lot less goodwill towards the First Nations people than the stories say and a whole lot more bad behavior on the part of the colonists. For the sake of being age appropriate, we didn’t get into the genocide part yet, we can do that later.
They were appalled that their teacher didn’t tell them the whole truth. I explained that there are probably a lot of reasons for the half “truth” but that they also shouldn’t march in there and call the teacher a liar over it. (Not in first grade at least…) Twitter found this whole thing very amusing.
Year 2, Day 257: Definitely had to work but didn’t wanna today. I did the bare minimum and skipped out before 5 (barely). This has been a most unsatisfying week compared to what I had envisioned but I was super grateful to have my person here all this time. The kids adore them utterly and it’s been a real balm for the soul to have someone who loves the kids and who I love be here with us.
We even took a couple hours (across two days) to watch Shang-Chi. Note: I will watch anything with Michelle Yeoh, Gina Torres, or Ming Na in it. But I truly cannot remember when we adults last had a movie night. Years, plural, minimum. On the second day, JB excused themselves on the grounds that live action movies sometimes scare them and they believe it’s real when watching. We told them they’re never obliged to watch anything they don’t want to, but having a screaming tantrum about it (like they kind of did on the first day) is completely inappropriate. Just leave the room!! So they did. They did a solo art activity session for 1.5 hours and enjoyed themselves heartily. Isn’t that so much better than tormenting yourself or having a tantrum?
The first day behavior is clearly a mimicry of a cousin whose behavior I cannot stand. We have to “deprogram” JB from those absorbed behaviors every flipping time we see them and it’s such a pain. More on this later.
So grateful for the weekend!!
:: If you celebrated or had some time off, how was your long/holiday weekend?
November 22, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 246: Smol slept in! Which was both nice for us and also disruptive because when they get up early, their first nap works well with the school dropoff and work start routine. Ah well. After dropoff, I took the prenap hour with them: a bottle, some time to wreak havoc and pull everything out of baskets several times, then a game of chase around the playmat. Cackles galore!
We got almost two hours of work in, during which I tested out an anti-anxiety exercise of writing out all the things plaguing my brain right now and separating the stuff I cannot control from the list of things I can control. The latter list is so short. The former list, so long.
*****
I hate hiring.
*****
I came pretty close to finishing my day’s work by 8 pm at which point I just needed to take another break (having taken one for dinner). Unfortunately almost wasn’t good enough and since PiC has a massive day of meetings tomorrow, I went back to finish up and try to make some headway into tomorrow’s work since I’ll be primary caretaker for half the day. Upon crawling into bed, I contemplated how profound a difference it is between being in pain and not being in pain. Pain meds rarely work well for me but on the rare occasions that they do, I feel that absence of pain so intensely. My doctor refers to me as “not a drugs person” but if pain meds were that effective every time? I’d be on them in a heartbeat. It also makes me marvel about how people who don’t live in pain every waking and most sleeping moments must take that for granted.
Year 2, Day 247: I’d forgotten how terrible it feels when my pain meds work on the physical pain and simultaneously block my brain from falling asleep. I got three hours of sleep last night. 😠By 10 am, my muscles were on fire and my brain had gone all spinny. I took a short “break”, set myself up on the bed with a huge stack of pillows for about 5 minutes before Smol woke up and thank goodness for that reset. I wish I’d thought to do that sooner. I was forcing myself to power through because there’s too much to do in too little time, of course.
(more…)
November 15, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 239: This morning was SUCH a struggle to get my brain working. Anxiety driven? Maybe. Case of the Mondays? Probably more that. My anxiebees were quiet for a lot of the day.
We got the news that there will be a daycare slot opening for Smol to attend part time next year. I don’t think the under-5 group will have a vaccine by then which of course sends my worries up again.
*****
The Dino Dash: When they are in the mood for it, we toss Smol on the bed and they turn into a little triceratops on the attack. They crawl madly cackling at you or towards the edge of the bed and we have to intercept them before they go flying off the edge. They clash into our bodies and get flipped on their back or proactively turn around and race the other way and you have to dash wildly around the bed to get to the other side before they do. It’s good cardio!
*****
We snagged a vaccine appointment for JB later this month. I will be stalking the site for any earlier vaccinations. I’m also wondering where the under-5 group trials are. Best I can find is that Pfizer’s trials are in process (Sept 28 article) and Moderna just started their trials. I suppose it’ll be too much to hope for approval of an under-5 vaccine before the new year.
*****
4:30 looked like 8:30 outside, gloomy and dark, with the light rains passing through.
The storm inside was much worse than the drizzle outside: JB was all kinds of frustration and acting out for a while after school. They were sent to their room for a good long while, surprisingly they started their homework without being told, and emerged for their Spanish lesson.
*****
I had cooked dinner at 1 pm because I had ingredients on hand, it was my turn to mind Smol so I couldn’t work anyway, and it was really nice to have dinner already made by the late afternoon.
We were able to work as late as 530 and just get the warmed up dinner on the table in a matter of minutes. I would really like to have more dinners just ready to go.
Year 2, Day 240: My fatigue was notably odd yesterday. Less “someone siphoned my tank again” and more “I could use several breaks”. I wonder if it’s because I forced myself to take a long midday walk? Today it’s back closer to the normal: anchors attached to every limb and heaved overboard. Not great. I took a walk this morning. It’s weird.
*****
Speaking of weird, our reverse water thingamadoo has been putting out a steadily decreasing amount of water for a week. What’s going on?? We have been staring at the slowing trickle thinking “we gotta fix this!” but today’s the first day I’ve actually managed to Google some troubleshooting tips. Time, energy, where do we get some extra??
I tried sugar, that didn’t go so well.
*****
JB got themselves up and ready on time this morning. I got very tired of chivvying them along every morning for the past few weeks so I told them clearly:not to lay abed more than 5 minutes after their alarm on weekdays. I think about how incredibly lucky we are with this.
A, they like (playing at) school. B, after the clear instruction they’ve gotten up on time every day since. It’s taken a few days to get the rest of the routine back in track but that was a huge help to getting us started in the first place. I never had an alarm when I was younger, I was just expected to get up on time and not surprisingly, I never could. I was also plagued by nightmares every night which helped nothing of course. But I’m glad our mornings have shifted in the right direction again.
*****
JB told us they didn’t want to enter an art contest because they might not win. Then they said that if they did enter and didn’t win, they’d never enter again.
Now, I don’t think contests are important but I’m appalled at the developing underlying all or nothing notion: that if you can’t win, you might as well not try. I shared my “don’t reject yourself” philosophy while withholding a screech of WHAT ON EARTH, explaining that even if you don’t always win, you definitely won’t if you won’t even participate and also you’ll miss out on a lot of fun and learning in life with an all or nothing mentality so we’re going to practice something different.
They went on to whine about other things so I have no idea if they actually heard me, if it made any difference, or if they were just being a contrary cuss for attention.
*****
I took all the kids out for an unexpectedly long (in time, not in distance) walk in the evening so that PiC could get some uninterrupted work done. I’d intended only to go for about 20 minutes but we were out for an hour because we kept running into people. JB ran into a past schoolmate and had to stop to say hi. I never had the experience of going to the school in my neighborhood and seeing my friends at school around my home. It’s a bizarre feeling and sometimes I don’t like it because I feel hemmed in and vulnerable. Not sure what the vulnerability is about specifically, just that sometimes I want the shield of anonymity up. There’s an impulse/reaction to interrogate at a later date.
Year 2, Day 241: Our reverse osmosis system is totally down today, boooo! PiC has been trying to troubleshoot it, but no joy, alas. We’re calling in professional help.
He did fix the temperature issue in our shower so that’s a huge help. We still need to deal with our broken eaves and gutters and replace our hot water heater but that’s going to have to wait for …. either desperate times or energy, whichever comes first. I think we all know which it’ll be. Actually that leads me to….
*****
Happy(?) news: My doc came up with a medication recommendation for me to try out and see if it helps at all with the overwhelming fatigue on a couple days a week. I’m briefed on the side effects so I’m crossing my fingers that on very low dose and an as-needed basis only, the side effects will be minimal. I also have a full battery of bloodwork on order to see if there are any medical issues we can address. Obviously I have medical issues, I just got the package of ailments without solutions or treatments.
*****
Smol’s naps were pretty terrible today. That by itself isn’t so bad but after yesterday’s prolonged outing, my body was on fire with fatigue by 1:30 because I needed a lot more sitting down time before baby chasing time. PiC took over and I slumped at my desk for a few hours while muscles went back to some semblance of baseline tolerable pain. Not awesome.
Year 2, Day 242: I’m on my second to last set of Invisalign aligners. I’m a month away from having to make the decision about whether I am happy with the new alignment. At my recent check up, I was uncomfortable with being so close because while the alignment of my teeth has been corrected, my bite is uncomfortable in this configuration. Well it feels like this set of aligners is tackling that but OMG OWCHHHH. It feels like every tooth is screaming.
Also I was told that I’d have to wear my retainers full time for 12 months (preferable 18 months) to ensure they don’t move again *cries*
*****
We had a last minute lunch guest. A dear friend we don’t see often enough retired recently and has been traveling the world having adventures. She realized that she has been very responsible with her money, enough so she has enough for years and years, and very few needs and responsibilities so she can afford to go live her life and enjoy it instead of working.
I’m so happy for her and am so eager to join her in the post-work life stage. We joked that even if I didn’t have a dozen things I wanted to do, I’d be happy to retire to enjoy a time of good food, good rest and good dogs, without work.
PiC and I both grumbled that we don’t want to work tomorrow and / or anymore and he asked me if we could retire now.
Sure but it’ll be a short retirement! I wish I (and my job) were the sabbatical type but I’m more of a push hard for the final goal and don’t look back type. Since sabbaticals aren’t possible in my line of work anyway, I have to embrace the means that are available to me.
Seeing my friend was a boost to the soul. I missed her and miss my other dear friends so much.
Year 2, Day 243: I didn’t have the day off work for Veterans Day but the day after a school day off is still disorienting.
*****
Every time I think about the climate and how we have all kinds of possible solutions and it feels like there is zero effective political will to do anything about this before our time runs out, I catch myself holding my breath. Symbolic unconscious reaction, I suppose, for a world that may all too soon be uninhabitable for humans of today. I don’t know how to fight the existential dread that all of this is for naught because we cannot, as a planet of people, get our acts together on a global and nation-sized scale. This can’t be about individual action anymore, and that realization that we’re depending on people leading countries to do something while it seems like the world is being taken over by right wing fascists… I don’t know how anyone functions like we’ll have a tomorrow.
It’s getting harder for me not to feel like hiding under the bed. For a multitude of reasons, certainly, but this one’s a biggie.
:: How are you coping this week? How do you feel about contests and doing things for the sake of winning vs for the sake of enjoying them?
November 8, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 232: So the good news? Smol slept in until 730 am!!
The bad news is I woke up every hour because of internal temperature fluctuations, I’d wake up in a sweat, then wake up freezing, and then leapt out of bed at 1 am startled because my subconscious brain was positive that something was wrong. By 9 am, my entire body was fatigued beyond belief.
But Smol’s sleeping in was so much appreciated.
*****
JB was so wiped from the day before that they slept in until 930 which was both surprising and appreciated too, just in a different way.
They are grumpy that there’s laundry to put away again. Yeah shocking how with two kids there’s always some laundry to put away, isn’t it? Also shocking there’s always food to be cooked and dishes to wash as well. Life requirements, so tiresome!
*****
Light rain all day. I’m glad for the gentleness, we need the rain but the heavy rains bring worries of floods.
*****
My doctor’s office wanted me to take the 13 question questionnaire meant to ferret out depression and can I ask if there’s anyone who isn’t feeling most of those things every day? As an example: Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless; Little interest or pleasure in doing things; Feeling tired or having little energy; Feeling nervous, anxious or on edge. Yes, yes, yes, and yes…. who isn’t??
I function but of course I feel all these things every single day.
A friend pointed out that it’s the people who ignore the pandemic and just live like nothing’s changed who aren’t experiencing this. They’re probably right and that ticks me off too. This could have been so much better, and we could be back to some semblance of a safer normal, if it weren’t for people acting like we aren’t in a deadly pandemic.
I can’t help but feel bitter that the tide shifted from alarm and attention to the “fuck them, I’m fine” attitude the moment the data started showing that this affects PoC more than white people. And it’s not like they were hiding it. They just came right out and said so.
***** (more…)
November 1, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 225: My Anxiebees were incredibly active today, slowing down my brain processing by a factor of ten, and inspired a new design (women’s V-neck; standard tee). I stopped to make those to burn off some of that oppressive worry / stress / brain fog / creeping depression / fiddly twitchy feelings.
*****
I had Royal Pains on in the background while I was working and Henry Winkler’s character — can I just say, MAJOR FLASHBACKS. That scene when he and Evan talk about his taking all their money: “You’re gonna get your money back, day or two, week tops.”
That exact same expression on his face is what was on my dad’s face when I was following up with him on getting the money back from the loan I’d made. That lying manipulative asshole expression of “trust me, I’m your father” when he really meant “trust me, I need to take more of your money.” That shook me pretty hard. I still can’t deal with these flashbacks. I think about how angry Hank was, and how angry I am, and how that tracks as we were the responsible siblings. How easily Evan forgave him, I still can’t wrap my head around. Maybe it’s because he had a protector, where neither the Hank character or I did.
*****
I finally asked Michael’s if they were still going to ship my fabric. They confirmed that the fabric was still in stock, and that their warehouse was just ten days behind. I started to ask if it was ten days in addition to the two weeks they’re already late but decided that doesn’t matter. It’ll get here when it gets here, it definitely won’t be in time for me to get through my holiday projects. They sent a $10 gift card for my trouble so that was nice since there’s nothing they can do to hurry along the shipment. I guess it’s a good thing I bought that back up fabric after all. Now I just need to learn to sew on the machine! 😬
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