Tag: covid-19

Guilt

We were originally thinking of keeping me isolated until tomorrow night. I was going to take another Covid-19 test, both rapid and PCR, and when the rapid came back negative I would be in the clear. Today, after a little consultation with the CDC, we decided to stretch that to Friday. I cancelled my test appointment and rescheduled for Friday morning. It’s just another day and a half, and while we all agree it is likely a massive overreaction, it just feels a little safer and a little smarter. I just wish it didn’t feel like such a crushing blow. Come on, Robert. It’s only about 36 hours more.

On top of all of the other shit though, it just adds to all the guilt. I should be able to do more for my parents. I should be able to do more for Jen. I should be able to do more to keep everyone safe while still helping with everything that needs help. Shit, man. I shouldn’t really feel this guilty, but I do. It’s weighing me down and making me tired all the time.

I feel like I need a good, solid win. Followed by a good, solid, long (permanent?) vacation to someplace where it never gets too cold and snow is a fairy tale told to kids to scare them into being good… or something like that.

Ah, hell. I think I’m just tired. I’m sure I’ll feel better in the morning. I did get my 30 minutes of exercise in today, so hopefully that will lead to a really good night’s sleep.

Wish me luck.

Back At It-Ish

The five day weekend is over. Not that I had a five day weekend, but I digress. I’m still isolating in Harry’s room, and today is the first day that I will be on video conferences with folks at work. I’m going to have to explain the Harry Potter book cover poster on the wall behind me. It’s actually not a poster, it’s a puzzle. Harry was able to put it together and hang it up without having it fall apart. How amazing is that? What the camera can’t see is the Star Wars poster off to my right. That one would need no explanation.

I have the windows open and the mini USB fan on low. The goal is to keep the air moving. Something about all of that time at my parents house in the sweltering heat with fans blowing right on my face all day has made me really want to have the air moving around me as I work.

I closed all three exercise rings yesterday. I weighed myself today. Closing the three rings once did not magically reduce my weight at all. What the hell? It was my first weigh in since mid August and I was up a pound and a half since then. I think we can probably attribute that to stress eating over the weekend so I think maybe what I have learned is that Intermittent Fasting is helping me hold my weight steady more than it’s helping lose weight. I will take that as a huge win. Now the exercise can start lowering that astronomically high weight total, and then we can throw in some diet and some bariatric surgery to get it down the rest of the way. Wait, what?

Okay. Punching in to work. Have a good Tuesday, everyone. Labor day is past, summer is over, it is officially winter in New England. Bite me, Mother Nature.

Until next time……

Two Therapy Sessions

I was able to sneak into the cellar and play the guitar twice today.

I got a lot done for 50/90, which was nice, but I reached the point on the second go-round where my hands just wouldn’t do it anymore. That’s actually not a bad thing. I really need to build up more stamina, but I’ll get there.

On a gear note, I have my little recording nook in the master bedroom that has my current recording pedal board and my little 15 watt Fender amp. My big use-with-the-band pedal board and my Vox 15 watt amp (and my 30 watt Fender amp) are all in the cellar because Covid was slowing down and I thought they would be traveling to Mike the Bass Player’s house soon… and of course that hasn’t happened because the universe has intervened. The upside is I could set all of that stuff up in the cellar to keep working on 50/90 while I’m locked out of my bedroom. I bring my new Les Paul and my MacBook Pro up and down with me, as there is no way in hell those puppies are staying down there in the humidity. I set everything up far away from the flood zone, but you may note from the previous pictures that none of the electrical stuff is actually on the floor. The pedal board is, but the pedals themselves are not. That’s for flood damage prevention reasons.

So that is what I am doing to keep 50/90 going this week.

I also wanted to start with the exercising again. I started a couple of weeks ago and then fell off the wagon. I wanted to start up again today, what with it being a Monday and the iPhone Activity app starting its week on Monday. Jen wanted to do the same thing and she totally kicked ass all day today. Me? I was at two minutes of exercise as of 7:00pm tonight. Looked like I was going to fail for the day. Well, screw that folks. I’m up to 17 minutes now with 3.5 hours left in the day. I’ll get to 30 minutes, you betcha.

Okay. I need to go get a bottle of water and do another few minutes of exercise.

Looking for the bright side of self isolation. It’s tough to find, but it might be out there. Probably not, but maybe I might be able to pretend.

Door to Door

Just had a knock on the door. Were we expecting someone? Nope. Is there a global pandemic that has killed 600,000 Americans? Yup.

In this case though, it was less than disturbing. There were two people at the door. Both wearing t-shirts with the word Vax on them. They were there to distribute vaccine information. When I told them I was already vaccinated they asked if I needed any masks. Nope. We’ve got mountains of them.

Now, is it really the smartest thing to do to go door to door during a pandemic to spread the word about the pandemic? Well… when you think it through and do the math… nope, it’s not.

Still, the thought was nice. Also, if they manage to convince a citizen or two to take their shots? Then I suppose it’s all good, right?

Clueless

I don’t know what to write about today. It’s Labor day, so have a good one.

Clean up in the cellar has been taken care of for now. All of Harry’s left over laundry is done, though I still need to put his sheets back onto his bed. There is a mountain of laundry in Bellana’s room that I’ll probably start today. I set up a new music nook for quarantine in the cellar last night and am hoping I’ll get a chance to use it today. Maybe.

No cookouts for me today. Just isolation and stress and work and guilt and the usual. It’s hard to explain what is going through my head at this point. I am sad about how my mother is handling the change (did I ever post what the change was? I’ll get to it), I am guilty because I am not there to help, I am pissed off because I have to isolate for Covid (even though I’m positive this whole thing is an overreaction, even if the overreaction is still the smart move) and I don’t get to hug my wife, and I am filled with relief that my parents are finally in a place where they can get the help and care that they need rather than have my idiot ass pretending like I know what I am doing.

I don’t know.

Here’s the Covid music nook:

Hopefully I won’t have to use it long and can go back to the bedroom. I haven’t received a call from the urgent care place telling me I have a positive result so that’s good. I have an appointment for another test on Wednesday. If that comes back negative then it’s back to reality for me. I know it will because I was barely exposed and people who had much closer exposure are all testing negative. Whatever, isolating is the right thing to do, I just want it to be over.

I want isolation to be over, I want Covid to be over. I want my parents’ difficulties to be over. I want being guilty to be over. I want to be able to get a good night’s sleep again. I want to be able to work without having to think about all of this other stuff. I want my wife to not have to worry about me. I want my kids to not have to worry about anything except their educations. I want my band to get back together.

Call me selfish, but I just want normal back.

Shit. I had nothing to write about when I started and then I turned it into another downer. Sorry about that. Next time I post I’ll try to include some jokes or something.

Source

I just paid a visit to Lake Asshole. I think it’s pretty clear that the source is not the Merrimack River but instead our water heater.

Oh yippee.

Once the Covid quarantine-esque thing is over, we’ll have to get a plumber in here. Insert a frustrated sigh here.

I’m so tired of all of this. Covid, my parents situation, not being able to help in any way that makes any difference, water in the basement, all of that shit. It’s just piling on and there is nothing I can do about it. I’m just so tired.

I’m going to eat a bag of Reese’s Pieces and hope E.T. gets his alien ass over here to do that glowing chest thing and make all of my hurts all better. I just hope he gets here before The Walking Dead comes on at 9:00. I don’t want to make him wait until after tonight’s zombies before he fixes my broken ass.

Self Isolation Day Three-ish

So… what day is it today? It’s the second full day of our little self induced quarantiney thing-a-doo. Does that mean it’s day two or does Friday count as a day even though it was only a partial day? How do these things work? I’m going to call it day three. I don’t know how long it’s going to go. I don’t have the ‘rona so I am never going to get my pabst blue ribbon test results (you gotta read back a few posts to get that joke. I think I pulled it from two previous posts… sorry about that) so when am I clear to re-enter society? We’re thinking about another rapid test on Wednesday or so? If that comes back clean maybe we’re okay? Maybe another pabst blue ribbon to go along with it? I don’t know. Maybe I just stay in Harry’s room for the rest of eternity? Fun, huh?

I didn’t forget to liberate the CPAP machine last night. On Friday night I slept for four hours and 45 minutes and the restful sleep percentage was something stunningly low, like 46% or something. Last night I got seven hours of sleep and the restful sleep percentage was 71%. That’s more like it. I did wake up around 5:00am and didn’t get back to sleep until almost 6:30 so that’s a pretty colossal fail. Other than that, the sleep was pretty good. I feel almost awake now.

When I came home from my pabst blue ribbon test on Friday (that joke getting old yet?) I told my beautiful wife that I was going to need junk food to get through this. It was all like, engines full, stress eating ahead! Then last night I finished dinner before 7:00pm and didn’t have a single bite to eat afterward so I guess the stress eating commences today. I guess. I started my intermittent fast two hours early, which means I can start eating again two hours early, which means 11:00am which is 14 minutes from now so… there is likely to be a significant amount of M&M’s devoured during much of today’s weekend work day and shit.

Okay. Back to it.

Shit.

Long Day

I’ve been tied to my desk pretty much all day. I did do a shit load of laundry and I cleaned up lake asshole. It’s currently small puddle asshole but the floor in the main cellar still has water under the tiles that bubbles up when you step on the right spots. The water is still coming in from somewhere. I’m guessing the water heater is leaking somewhere but I need a plumber to take a look. With yesterday’s Covid scare we won’t be inviting anyone into the house for a week or so, so the clean up will continue unabated. At least I won’t be out of the house for 24 hour stretches so I will be able to keep on top of things… in theory, at least.

Tomorrow will likely be the same deal. Lots of shit going on that I have to keep up with. Opportunities to stray from my desk are likely to be few and far between. I need to get a good nights sleep. I need to do the exact opposite of what I did last night. With the Covid semi-quarantiney we’re doing around these parts it means I am couch bound. Last night I forgot my CPAP machine. That plus the uncomfortable sectional left me with not a lot of sleep, and the sleep I had was pretty awful. I’ll have the CPAP tonight so what sleep I get should be better. I’m hoping being exhausted yet again might mean that I’ll sleep no matter how uncomfy the couch is.

What other unimportant thing can I write about? Last night I posted a blurb saying that when I start working from Harry’s desk we can expect more time lapse candle videos. Well I worked from Harry’s desk today and my iPad is taking a time lapse as I type this. The thing is, I can’t remember when I started it. I want to say it was 11:00am, which is 11 hours ago. It might have been more like 12noon. Either way… that’s a long ass time to shoot a time lapse. I want to let it run until just before I go to bed, so that will probably be around 11:00pm, maybe 45 minutes from now. I’m sure you’re over come with anticipation.

Okay. I’m watching the last episode of season two of Titans right now. I’m going to wrap this up so I can watch that. Then I am going to upload that time lapse to youtube. I know, I know, you can’t wait. I promise you’ll have that adrenaline rush before I sleep tonight.

I don’t like Being Quarantined

I sat at the desk in my step son’s room all night tonight. My wife was down the hall. A few times we masked up and had distanced visits in our own home. Yeah, this sucks.

Once I am at work on Tuesday you can expect lots of shit like this:

I am going to be working this weekend too, on top of all of the other stuff, so maybe you’ll get something before Tuesday. I don’t know.

I wrote a song for 50/90 tonight too, so that’s positive, right? Right? I strongly believe that if you sit alone in your car in some random parking lot and don’t interact with other living creatures then you are still within your quarantine. So maybe car music tomorrow. Or maybe the next day. Or maybe the day after that. I don’t know.

I miss Jen. She’s right down the friggin’ hall, yet I miss her. Boo.

Quarantinish

Well there was a Covid-19 scare today. A little one that guaranteed won’t amount to anything. Still, we’ve chosen to isolate me for a few days just to be safe.

Overreaction? Yes, yes it is. It’s okay though. Better safe than sorry, and it’s only for a few days.

Granted, I’d rather get run over by a gas truck, but better safe than sorry.

I have a quarantiney work desk set up in Harry’s room. I can do whatever needs to be done for work from here. At some point there will be a 50/90 music work space in the cellar (away from the flood zone).

I wonder if the speakers built into Harry’s monitor work. Let’s watch a Titans and find out.