Since I was a teenager, I’ve spent too much time faced with the fragility of modern life. My brother died despite access to decent healthcare. I’ve experienced how the uneasy equilibrium of health and finances, particularly for residents of the US, can quickly unravel on a personal scale. And I’ve seen it at a societal level. Adulthood has been a struggle for me. From moving out the day I turned 18 and getting married and divorced at a young age to single motherhood, where I’ve been laid off during a couple of dot com busts. Then I lost my house (via a short sale but nearly foreclosure) after the housing bubble burst. Now I’m a homeowner again. A condo this time. I was just thinking about quitting my side hustle as an adjunct instructor at a local college. It has been more exhausting than I realized it would be, in addition to my day job. But I’ve been hanging on out of fear. My finances often feel precarious. And my now-adult autistic son has just gotten his foot in the door in the workforce, with a part-time gig. If we dive into another recession I’m afraid it will make it even harder for him to find meaningful full-time employment. With everything that’s going on, I’ve been getting myself too wound up and sleeping poorly.
I’d like to see us, as a society, be more proactive to contain the exponential spread of this illness. If only.
Cancel Everything - Social distancing is the only way to stop the coronavirus. We must start immediately.
I’d also like to see us vote Drumpf out of office. But the progressives need more time to grieve over Bernie and Warren’s campaigns before they can get their shit together to back Biden. He wasn’t my first choice either, but he’s our only hope of getting everything back on track to keep a conservative majority out of the Supreme Court for the next 30 years and keep kids out of cages and ensure the rights of LGBTQ+ citizens.
For now, I’m trying to limit my exposure to the news. But I’ll take news like this: Portland distillery makes hand sanitizer to give to customers
News like this only amps up my anxiety:
- For Me, Rewatching “Contagion” Was Fun, Until It Wasn’t
Some of us have turned to the 2011 movie by Steven Soderbergh to see just how bad things can get. - Coronavirus side effect: The movie ‘Contagion’ is super popular again
Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 pandemic film is spreading like, well, a virus - The 58 Best Pandemic Movies to Binge in Quarantine
Personally, I prefer my escapism to be a little less real.
- I started watching the new show, Devs. “Devs spins a Silicon Valley murder mystery into something unsettling and strange
The director of Annihilation and Ex Machina is back with a thriller that takes aim at tech unicorns” - I also started enjoying Dispatches From Elsewhere - play more weird games with strangers / Larp your way into being a better friend and human
- The guilty pleasures of HGTV where I won’t be exposed to anything gory or violent or too stressful, aside from that one time the guys shattered the stone counter they were about to install (no one was injured).
- These silly Veronica Speedwell mysteries.
- As ever, the LeVar Burton Reads podcast. The best in the business. Most recently he read two beautiful short stories. One from Ken Liu and the other from Max Gladstone. They were so well done I may re-listen to them soon.
This weekend I’ve been invited to three birthday parties. Two in public places the third in a private home. I’ll have to decide how risky these scenarios are. But I feel like an old pro at the social distancing game already. I’ve been practicing it all winter thanks to depression and social anxiety.
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