flexagon | Entries tagged with corona

Many things have changed in the last week. I think I'm mostly okay, though I am showing a few signs of good-habit slippage (falling asleep in front of the fire the last two nights, instead of making it to bed). Today is the day our cleaners were supposed to come, and we printed out the list of what they do and we did that whole list! I know, such pioneer spirit. It took us a couple of hours and I am convinced all over again that, in general, paying for a clean house is a lovely and worthwhile thing to do.

Many changes. Exponential growth. Countries close borders to each other, governors and mayors order shutdowns of businesses and my tiny little life goes on in this condo. It's mundane and terrifying all at once. Oddly, before this virus response started I had already had the spooky feeling that my life was shutting down one section at a time; I only talked about this with a couple of people, but losing Lion and then losing half my team in fairly short order definitely filled my head with visions of everyone/everything else going away too. Now it seems that my pattern-matching brain, usually over-reacting, was correct for once. Life is closed in on itself now. I'm finally getting a lot of time at home and I love that, but I'm also losing track of time a bit, and pretty damn concerned about the country and world. So, a few things:

Circus school is closed. The last day I went was Wednesday, a week ago. Thus far I've been able to donate the money I paid for canceled classes to the studio -- I want them to stay in business. My gym stayed open through Monday, then closed and laid everyone off, which is pretty shitty and an even bigger hit to my mental health.

I did not take a Zipcar to see norwoodbridge, because he developed a cough/fever and self-isolated. I miss him, but in a strangely impersonal way, because it's part of missing everything that isn't inside these walls. His cough has been wet, but his ex-wife's is dry and both his kids got sick too, so... we will wait a while.

Restaurants are takeout-only, churches and entertainment venues are all closed.

I walked two miles to the nearest Dick's Sporting Goods on Tuesday to buy some dumbbells, but got there to find they were all sold out. Kettlebells too. Dropped some money on performbetter.com instead, and the new dumbbells are now here, stinking up the basement. I guess brand-new rubber things always smell awful.

I learned that I get dehydrated unless I put ice in my water so that I'll drink it. The ice machines at work are so amazing that I looked up what they are; they cost upwards of $3000 and regular ice cubes work fine to make water appealing to me, so micro Chewblet ice will just have to be a thing of the past.

My purchase of a sit/stand desk for home in 2012 is looking pretty smart these days. I was physically stir-crazy today, and stood up the desk for a few hours and it helped.

I signed up for an online floorwork class from Fly Together Fitness, on Sunday.

We were going to have dinner with our 20something pets but then all this happened, so we video chatted them instead and it wasn't nothing.

With so many couples holed up together, we're definitely going to see a baby boom and a divorce boom coming out of this.

Life is going to be this way for a while, or more so. I'm sure a full shelter-in-place lockdown is coming; we're just a few days behind the Bay Area on things like that, and they did it two days ago.

Ironically, given that concern over this can usually be predicted by whether someone understands exponential growth, I learned today that Mathworks of all places is being seriously resistant to letting people work from home. Come on Mathworks -- you know better, I know you know better. Get over your cultural hangups already.