Tag: covid19

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put a little love in your heart

My faith in humanity has been sorely damaged in 2020. I try to believe that people are inherently good, that for the most part we would all do what we can to spare others pain, illness or death. Here lately though, I’m finding it hard to hold on to that belief.

For the last twenty years or so, the guiding force of my life has been kindness, unconditional love for my fellow man. I believe that it is my duty to help care for others, to at the very least not be the cause of their pain.

I look around me at the world and I can’t understand where the absolute disregard for others comes from. How do you reach adulthood without some semblance of compassion?

Where does the fury come from? How is this who we are as a country? As we slink closer to 300,000 people dead from a virus that we can control, why are we not doing it? Why is the outrage about measures to control it rather than about the number of American citizens are dead and dying? How many deaths will it take for us to realize that the simple steps of wearing a mask in the presence of others, keep yourself distant from others, stay home if you can are not evil machinations attempting to rob you of your civil liberty.

They are meant to save lives! If you can not wear a mask, for real or imaginary reasons, most places that require one will do no-touch curb side delivery. Just order online, drive up and get what you need put into your trunk.

There is no need to demand to enter a building of any kind without your mask. There is no need to harass store employees, or threaten them with a bad interpretation of what the ADA actually is. These are people who are working minimum wage jobs that put them in a very high risk category for catching this virus. They are there to help you.

My heart weeps. Please put a little love in your heart. Save lives.

Cover Photo by Aung Soe Min on Unsplash

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the one with the bird

We, here in the US, are barreling into the holiday season with a pandemic and a recession riding shotgun. Or maybe they’re driving and we’re just along for the ride. Either way, it feels like death is hovering over what is meant to be a festive time with family and friends.

I’m not the biggest fan of the overly commercialized monstrosities that Thanksgiving and Christmas have become here in the US, though I will admit that having a couple days off work to spend with family is important to me.

I’d be remiss to throw myself fully into Thanksgiving without acknowledging the inherent problems with the holiday, but I can do that and still sit it gratitude for the life I have and the family that has helped me achieve that life.

We’ve never had huge family get-togethers because our family isn’t huge. It’s generally my mother, my brother and his wife, their two daughters and myself. I’ve been isolating, they’ve been isolating (where possible) and still it feels a little bit off as I get prepared for tomorrow.

I will be making up some dinner rolls and a green bean dish (not casserole…a tastiness of bacon, green beans, garlic, mushrooms) as my contributions to dinner, and we’ll sit around a table full of good food and our little family and tell stories about favorite holiday memories, the same ones we tell every year. I think we’re past the point of Thanksgiving food fights (though that is a very favorite memory for my brother, mother and I…I think I was sixteen that year) to relieve some of the tension of life, and we probably won’t have another epic Cards Against Humanity session this year again, but there will be love at that table.

And that is my wish for you too, Readers, that there be love at your table. Please be safe. There were more than two thousand deaths from Covid-19 yesterday. Don’t take chances with your lives, or the lives of those you love.

Cover Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

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questions and curfews

You know how some days your coffee tastes extra good? Today is like that. Mmmm, coffee.

In other news, California is going into a partial lockdown this weekend in an effort to curb the spread of Covid-19, which is to say that the governor issued a curfew curtailing public outings and/or gatherings between the hours of 10 pm and 5 am.

I have questions.

How much gathering and outings are happening during those hours?
Is the virus only contagious during those hours?
With the list of exceptions, what is it we’re actually not allowed to do?
Who is picking up prescriptions after 10 pm?
Who is picking up dinner at a restaurant after 10 pm?

As an agoraphobic introvert, I don’t understand why just staying home is such a problem for so many. I mean, I realize I’m in a minority here and that other people need human contact a whole lot more than I do, but with the idea that going out into the world might mean death for you, or a loved one, how is that choice hard?

In yet other news, being up super early means I get some extra writing time today. Coupled with the extra good tasting coffee, this news makes me happy. It’s the little things, you know?

Happy Friday, Readers. Stay safe. Wear your mask if you have to go out. Stay home if you can. Wash your hands. Be kind, especially now. Kindness matters.

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stitching it together

I spent my weekend split between writing and watching whatever random thing caught my attention on Netflix/Prime/Disney/Hulu while crocheting. I’ve had trouble finding a pattern I liked for a sweater I want to make, so I’m embarking on the path of creating one. Not sure how that’s gonna work, but I’m giving it a go.

In what I was watching…Saturday was an afternoon of movies on Netflix. I enjoyed “What Happened to Monday” which is a near future sci-fi sort of thing involving a world where the law dictates one child per family and a set of identical septuplets. I also watched a biopic on Helen Reddy. Like I said, it was all very random.

Yesterday though I indulged in a marathon of “Whitechapel” which was a British cop show a few years back.

I needed the break from the onslaught of news.

My usual outlet for finding my center on the dark days used to be helping others, usually with buying breakfast for some homeless folks or giving away stuff I’ve made, but since I’m not leaving the house, that path is not open to me. I think maybe that’s part of what has made this time so dark for me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still giving, it’s just at a distance these days which kind of minimizes the internal reaction I get from a stranger’s smile or from talking with someone who most people ignore.

Creating is what is getting me through though, whether I’m crafting with words or with yarn or with paints and oil pastels. It also helps to have work during the week. It gives me focus.

Right now I need to focus on getting coffee and breakfast into me before my first conference call of the day. Happy Monday, Readers! Lets make it the best we can in these circumstances. Stay home if you can. Wear your mask. Wash your hands. Keep your distance. Be kind.

Cover Photo by Olliss on Unsplash

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in numbers too big to ignore

As we barrel on toward the holiday season, the coronavirus is barreling through our country with no sign of stopping. Each day this week we have seen new records for the number of new cases. Yesterday alone we had over a hundred and eighty thousand new cases, and we sit at a total of two hundred forty nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety eight deaths in the US as of the time I am writing this.

Two deaths away from a quarter of a million deaths.

That number is unfathomable.

That is the population of Boise, Idaho. Or Winston-Salem, North Carolina. That is more than the population of Rochester, New York. More than twice the population of Vacaville, California.

And still we have people saying that this thing is a hoax, or it’s no worse than the regular seasonal flu. Still we have people demanding that we open restaurants and bars, that we send our kids back to school.

With Thanksgiving around the corner, we’ll still see people gathering. With Christmas and other winter holidays a little more than a month away, we see people shopping, handling things others have handled, and more gathering.

I get that we’re all tired of the restrictions. I get that we’re bored and we miss hugs. We miss our people. I get that we need to be working and we need to kick our economy into something that resembles functional.

But what good is any of it if our people aren’t there when this is over?

Please take care, Readers! Wash your hands, wear your mask, stay home. Save a life.

Cover Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

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a flower for your friday

This week has been an odd one. Yesterday did not feel like Thursday, in fact at one point I thought it was only Tuesday. On the other hand, I’ve gotten a lot done, and this morning I was half convinced it was Saturday when my alarm went off.

Here in California we are locked back down due to the surge of covid-19. For the most part it doesn’t bother me. I had hoped the virus would be controlled enough to go to Austin at the beginning of August and Disneyland at the end of August, but both of those things are not happening.

And boy-howdy do I need some attention to my hair! I had an appointment next week with my amazing hair person, but salons are among the places shut down again.

Work has been busy, and will continue to be for the next little while. But, I’m learning Markdown as I work along, which is a cool thing. You know how much I love learning new things!

Speaking of work, I should get on that. (Title and image have nothing to do with this post). My coffee’s getting cold. Happy Friday, Readers!

Cover Photo by Jordan Newsom on Unsplash

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safe, loved and informed

The days blur, one into another, just as much now that I have a lot of work to do as they did when I had none. They all begin the same, up at five am…ish, coffee and a brief read through of social media, then laptop booted up. That is where I stay for between ten and fourteen hours of my day, well, I do switch between laptops, depending on which work I have to work on, but pretty much it’s all the same.

I have to say, I am so tired y’all. It isn’t the work. I’m grateful to have something to do. I’m just tired. World-weary is a good phrase for it. This world right now is exhausting, and no amount of sleep is going to fix it.

Maybe we’ve been sleeping too long and it’s time to wake up.

I’ve been watching a lot of documentaries about American history this week while I work. I’ve been very focused on the American Revolution and the Civil War. I’ve learned about a lot of people and battles I had never heard of before. Our history has been so whitewashed here in the US.

Add in some documentaries about black and brown folks, produced by black and brown folks, and I’m just so tired of this world. I can’t imagine how much worse it is for those not born to the privilege of this white skin that encases me.

We need to do better, people. We need to be better.

And as we barrel forward into the uncertainty of this virus infested world, with cases spiking, and deaths to certainly follow, we need to be kind. We need to be informed. We need to vow to care not only for ourselves, but for our fellow human beings. We need to demand the government do the same.

Hoping that you are safe, loved and informed, Readers. Safe, loved and informed.

Cover Photo by Abbie Bernet on Unsplash

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slow Sunday mornings

Is there anything better than a slow Sunday morning with coffee and cuddly kitties? I even managed a little bit of a sleep in. I mean, I was awake at 5:30am, but managed to hush my mouthy cat and go back to sleep for almost two hours. It was lovely.

So much of life right now isn’t lovely, so it feels like these little things matter all the more, you know?

It seems like everyday the news gets worse and worse, and there’s so little we can do about it. Here in the US we never completely broke the back of the first wave of this corona virus, and now we’re getting slammed by the second, or maybe just the revenge of the first.

The more we discover about how this virus attacks the human body, the scarier it seems.

I know I’ll breathe easier once I get paid on the 1st. I’ve been without money for so long, and it just presses in on all the rest of the anxiety. It’s significantly less money than I was making before, but I will never have a daily commute, so that’s a plus. I imagine that once the current economic environment improves, so will my pay.

So many people have it harder that I feel bad for feeling bad for myself, which I know is ridiculous. This isn’t a competition, and none of us need apologize for how we are feeling.

How are you doing, Readers?

Cover Photo by Mike Kenneally on Unsplash

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black lives matter. period.

There seems to be a sense of expectation hanging in the air, at least here for me. Some of that is the fact that after months of unemployment, I will be starting not one new job on Monday, but two! I pretty much won’t have a life here for a while, but neither of them pay what I’m accustomed to and combined they might just let me climb up out of the hole I find myself in financially.

Add to that confirmation that an event I had been looking forward to in August is still happening (at least at this moment…who knows what the future will bring…but it IS in Texas, so…yeah, no idea how that will affect things), and I am cautiously hopeful.

With so much wrong in this country right now, with death and dismay all around us, it feels good to have something to look forward to. But, we have to remember, this pandemic isn’t gone. And, we are sure to see spikes in the numbers going forward, with so many bodies out there protesting, with businesses opening, with so many people just acting as if now that we have a new threat, the old one is gone.

People are still dying of this virus. Which in no way means that I do not support the protests or my black brothers and sisters. I totally understand their choices, because if your choice is a slow, agonizing death or a fight to prevent senseless, violent death? I’d choose the latter every time.

I wish I had what it took to be out there with them, but I’ll be honest, between my agoraphobia and my immuno-compromised system, I break out in a cold sweat just looking at the pictures on my TV.

My new jobs will help me stay home too, since they’re both work from home. It means a lot of stuff I might normally be doing gets put on hold, such as writing. Today and tomorrow might actually be the last few days I have to get words out of my head and down on paper for the next few months.

So I should probably get on that…and make more coffee! Remember, Black Lives Matter. Kindness Matters. Love Matters.

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it’s the end of the world as we know it

Any normal June 1st would see me waist deep in preparation for San Francisco’s Pride Festival and Parade, which usually happens near the end of June. I’d be planning training sessions for my volunteer groups and their supervisors. I’d be fielding phone calls from first time volunteers over the phone, holding skype calls to help someone get up to speed. I’d be pouring over spreadsheets, making sure each entry gate had enough people manning the donation buckets.

This year, in a time of a pandemic, we had already canceled the parade and festival before the current escalation of the end of the world, but I can only imagine that if we hadn’t, we’d be seriously considering it now.

Why? Well, because drunk, stupid people are hard enough to contain when they don’t have an instigator driving them to bad behavior. Because we’ve seen so many clashes of community and police (though I have never personally seen police acting inappropriately at the festival itself, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen) and because right now emotions are very high and the world seems to be standing at the tipping edge of something huge.

SF Pride sometimes has 1 million people over the course of the weekend. Those people come in every ethnicity, every nationality, every color, every orientation and every gender. Outside the gates there are protesters trying to tell us our “lifestyle” is wrong, or sometimes other messages that often get lost in the clamor of that many people. There are criminals looking to score drugs or to bloody someone for fun. There have been shootings and stabbings. There have been gay bashings.

Lay that on top of the racial tensions and the fear and the anger, and you’d have a recipe for one giant powder keg, just waiting for a spark to set it alight.

So here I sit at the beginning of Pride month, a little numb and staring into the heart of a country that no longer feels like home, and I hide in my house, watching the chaos around me unfold. My agoraphobia makes it nearly impossible to join a peaceful protest. We will see a spike in virus numbers. This might devolve into a civil war, or at least that’s the way it feels.

Maybe it is the end of the world as we know it. I’m not convinced that is a bad thing. It’s up to us, every individual to decide how we rise from the ashes.

Please stay safe out there, Readers. Support your brothers and sisters as they cry out in rage for change, for equality, for an end to the violence of poverty, discrimination and straight out hate.

None of us are equal until we are all equal.