Massachusetts’ Department of Public Health releases COVID-19 numbers at around 4:ooPM every day. It’s often a little late, but not too bad. It’s 5:27PM now and they have not posted today’s numbers yet.
Is that a bad sign? Should my spreadsheet, and my whole state, be worried?
It’s Monday again. Patriots Day for those of us in Massachusetts. It should be Marathon Monday in Boston but nope. We have completed five weeks of our working from home lock down. Today begins week six.
Sleeping is weird. I’m doing more laundry than I’ve ever done before. We’re doing the dishes more often than I’ve ever done before. We’re still making the bed every day, though the sheets are in the wash today so it’s not made right now. The trash is going out more often than ever. The house hasn’t been this clean for this long since we moved in almost 10 years ago. We haven’t gone anywhere since week one. We do sometimes leave the house and go for a drive still, though much less often than before, but we just drive around and then go home. We don’t stop anywhere.
We’re leaning on instacart for groceries and amazon for everything else. We haven’t used amazon much because we’ve been insanely frugal. Jen bought a new desk after week one, I bought window screens, she bought a new USB headset, and we’ve both bought bandannas to use for masks. That’s it. We haven’t bought books or movies or music or anything, I haven’t bought any guitar gear, she hasn’t bought any computer gear other than things needed directly for work. We also haven’t been going out to eat at all, which under normal circumstances we do all the time. We’re somehow managing to save a little money. Unfortunately, the instacart bills are pretty high so that’s been eating into our available funds.
Last night I jokingly suggested to Jen that we do a Star Wars movie watch and run through them all. To my shock she agreed. Then to further my shock I asked her which movie she wanted to start with and she said to start at the beginning. Episode One? On purpose? Amazing!
So how will week six go? I’m guessing it will go fine, just like weeks one through five. We just need to make sure the idiot in charge doesn’t ruin the progress we’ve made by letting his cult start going to Starbucks again. Keep hanging in there. Keep washing your hands. Keep doing what socially awkward folks like me have always done and be socially distant.
Solidarity.
Has the human race ever produced a tool as useless as the scissors in a Swiss Army style pocket knife?
Seriously, I’ve seen wet noodles* do a better job scissoring things than these scissors scissor things.
*I actually haven’t. I wrote that as more of an exaggerated expression to illustrate my point. I wasn’t lying to you. I was using a metaphorical type thingie. Really. I promise.
I woke up at about 2:20am for a biology break. I made the mistake of looking at Facebook. There are so many people bitching about the lock down and listing off the reasons why we should end it early that contradict everything that health experts say that I’m beyond furious and can’t sleep.
I would never have imagined that so many people I know are this convinced that money is more important than life. It’s staggering to me. I guess if something global isn’t happening to them directly then it’s not really happening.
It’s Friday again. What is Friday again?
As the lock down gets more and more normal and becomes less and less of a colossal upheaval… well let me rephrase, the colossal upheaval becomes less and less of a 24 hours a day obsession I feel like I can start drawing some conclusions. Purely personal conclusions, obviously.
The work days feel long. The work weeks, however, go by really, really fast. It’s almost as though the clock just stops between 9:00am and 5:30pm. The rest of the time it’s on overdrive. I am still getting up and going through my normal morning routine. I have been ready to start the day by 7:30am every day, which is when I would need to leave the house to get to the office on time. This morning at around 6:00 I joked to my wife that if this keeps going for long enough I’ll start getting out of bed at 8:59 and punching into work at 9:00. For now, I’m still ready to go at the usual time.
The 90 minutes or so before work lets me have an actual breakfast, instead of the usual breakfast bar in the car, and I can read the news or watch a TV show or do some chores before I start my day. Those 90 minutes FLY by though. If I blink they are gone. It’s the same with the time after work. I punch out after 5:30, make dinner with my beautiful wife, and then go to bed. Not really, but the time flies so fast if feels like that.
As for weekends? Blink… missed it.
This weekend is a dad weekend for the kids. They left the house early today because Harry has an online appointment with his diabetes doctor. It always sucks when they leave for a weekend, but given the current circumstances it sucks extra bad now. We won’t see them again until Wednesday. Who knows what the state of the world will be by then? It sucks mightily.
Want to know what’s worse then all of the terrible stuff that’s already going on? Yesterday when we woke up it was snowing out. We didn’t get much, less than an inch, and it had all melted by mid-morning. If that’s not evil enough, we’re supposed to get more tonight. The forecast is calling for a couple of inches of heavy wet snow. You know what, mother nature? You can just go kiss my enormously fat ass, m’kay? You can just go eat a big bag of dicks.
I need something to cheer me up. Where the hell is my cat?
I could call this one a stir crazy but it’s not really funny or silly. It’s just pissy. I am feeling really frustrated today. Everything I try to do fails. I’m tired and annoyed and just in a bad state of mind today. Not even the Tewksbury Tweets (!!!!!!!) from last night can cheer me up. Maybe I’ll just watch a zombie movie and listen to Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut. Just feed the pissy mood.
At least tomorrow is Friday…. not that that means anything.
Here’s what I have for today:
I had a shitty night’s sleep last night. I went to bed early but I kept waking up. My back was sore and I couldn’t get comfortable. The numbers I got from my watch this morning showed that my sleep was okay but nothing special. I was really tired when I first got up but I’ve felt a little better as the day rolled on. I just ate my lunch so I’m feeling sleepy again.
I’ve read that trouble sleeping can be a side effect of all the stress from the social distance. I’ll buy that, but I don’t think that’s my current problem. I think I just sometimes have a little back pain. My stress issue is stress eating but I’m not going to stress over that right now.
Its been warm enough the last couple of days to open a window in the office. That has felt great. It’s too cold today though and that’s bumming me out. We’ve got cold and rain in the forecast for the next few days. Again, major bumming out. I needs me some Springtime right now. I ordered some screens for our bedroom windows. I can’t wait for a warm, breezy night when we can sleep with the windows open. It’s going to be bliss.
Nice weather would go a long way toward making the whole COVID-19 thing a little more tolerable, don’t you think?
Just before 9:00AM today I checked to see if my staff had all signed in to work. One of them hadn’t. He lives way down South of Boston. My first thought was, traffic must be bad today. That was followed immediately by, you idiot.
There was also a second or two this morning as I was getting ready for the day when I thought it was Thursday again. It’s not. It’s Wednesday. I double checked.
So the whole social distance thing is getting more and more normal every day, but we’re still not 100% there yet. I seem to still have some adjusting to do.
Unrelated: That last post… I proof read it twice before publishing it. I just read it again a few minutes ago. There are at least a couple of dumb grammar/usage errors and one I-could-blame-it-on-auto-correct-but-I-typed-it-on-an-actual-Windows-box error.
Moron.
In a move that flips the bird at the nazi in the white house, the Governors of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Massachusetts are working together to come up with a plan to bring us back from the COVID-19 shut down. There is a similar group forming on the west coast as well.
In response, the nazi in the white house says he has “‘total authority’ over state decisions” because he’s never read the constitution and he’s a fascist anyway so even if he had read it he wouldn’t care.
I’m a month shy of my 49th birthday. Prior to the nazi in the white house’s inauguration in January of 2017 I was pretty much a full on Federalist. That term doesn’t really apply anymore but it works. I was always much more focused on issues at the Federal level than at the State level. That isn’t to say that I ignored the goings on in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but I just tended to look at things nationally more.
That mostly changed when fascism took over the Federal government. Now, despite having a Republican governor, I find that I look to the state to undo a lot of the bullshit that the feds try to force on us. This move by the governors of the Northeastern states cements my new attitude like nothing else ever could. While the nazi in the white house stands in front of the entire world and declares that he is the head of an authoritarian regime, the individual states laugh in his idiot face. I am so proud of my governor right now. Granted, if he were up for re-election today I would still probably prefer to vote for a Democrat. I have to say that he his making me happy. Good job, Charlie.
Look at me, being all states rights and shit.
As for the presidential election. Joe Biden was not my last choice in the primary. Bloomberg was. Biden would probably ahead of Gabbard too, but I’m not sure about that. Everyone else who threw their hat into the ring was preferable to me than Joe. I’m still going to vote for him though. I am still going to contribute to his campaign. I am still going to do whatever I can to get him elected, though the sexual abuse allegations need to be dealt with before he gets a dime from me. The nazi in the white house who thinks he has total authority over the states needs to be removed from office and we sure as shit know the fascists in the senate will not do their part in that. Whatever.
Biden said he would choose a woman as his running mate. I am 100% behind that decision. I wanted a woman to be president, but if I am stuck with it then I want a woman to be vice president.
Having said that… New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is currently the most presidential figure in American politics today. When we see the nazi in the white house trying to rewrite the history of shit he pulled just last month, as if no one in American has a memory that goes back that far, what we should be seeing is someone who handles himself and the crisis the way Andrew Cuomo does. If Joe reneges on his pledge to choose a female running mate, I hope Andrew Cuomo is who he chooses. I still want a woman in there though. Preferably Elizabeth Warren. Or Kamala Harris. Or Amy Klobuchar.
Enough politics for today. Go wash your hands and don’t you dare come within six feet of other people.
Inside the Red Head's Head 