Not sure if someone posted this already, but the OP from the coworker with the imaginary kid followed up. Here’s what she said:
The OP*
March 23, 2020 at 12:25 pm
Thank-you for answering my question, I appreciate your thoughtful answer. I did end up quietly speaking to my manager. I only showed the public stuff from Facebook and I framed it that I had donated time off and then saw what I saw. I didn’t say anything about him faking or making up a kid. A few weeks later he stopped coming in and the company gave everyone back the time they had given him over the past year. They said it was given to him in error. Nothing else has been said. With all that is going now I had completely forgotten about him. I am stuck in my hometown because I was visiting before all this went down. We are all working remotely and it seems so far away now.
This is extremely silly but getting these as emails have been very soothing to me. It's so weird to basically have no structure whatsoever right now. Getting an email from you is a lovely part of my routine now. Also, very importantly I'm making nachos to eat with left over chilli! All good things!
Some exciting news amongst all of *gestures vaguely to the outside world*: I had a skype interview with the head of one of the masters courses I've applied to which went really well. My academic background (english) isn't really aligned to the programme (social policy) so he wanted to ask about my professional experience (minimal but enthusiastic) before making an offer. He was LOVELY and satisfied with my answers and said he'll be requesting the university to accept me!!! I'm relieved and excited.
This literally happened 1 minute ago so of course I needed to tell strangers immediately. Nicole, your emails make me very happy and add structure to my weird days now. Keep safe and well everyone.
My wife and I are both working from home. The closet where my sweatpants/other cozy clothes are is right behind where we set up her workstation. Twice so far I have gone over to the closet and taken off my pants, and then remembered to check that she wasn't on a Zoom call. I have not yet taken my pants off in front of her office but this is very dangerous.
Nicole, you are a gem. That prairie dog (?) is INCREDIBLE and gives me hope in dark times.
Yesterday I had to go interact with medical professionals to ensure that my heart keeps beating. (It almost certainly will, but only if I have regular access to medical professionals, and otherwise I am screwed, whereby screwed I mean dead.) SO MANY PEOPLE coughed on me. So many people. It was so incredibly scary.
But, I just got a paper accepted in a Fancy Journal (I am an academic), so, uh, part of the world is still turning.
My coping strategy is "having an infant who has no idea the world is falling apart." I have to get up at the same time everyday to feed him and keep up with the routine. It helps that he is happy 90% of the time!
I look forward to these emails every day! Thank you for the smiles. I've been going on a brisk walk in the early mornings instead of my regular commute and I feel SO accomplished getting exercise AND an hour of literature reading done before second breakfast. 4/4 paws, recommend.
I'm quite busy with my work as an English teacher and translator, but let me tell you about one of my most common games I played as an introverted child. In the afternoons the sun would come in the living room window at just the right angle to illuminate all the dust motes floating in the air above the couch that was under the window. They generally floated in an upward direction, and at like a 50-degree angle. I pretended they were all passengers boarding one of those planes with stairs (V glam to board a plane that way, thought my kid mind). Then I would wave my hand through the middle of them and send them swirling into disaster (tornados... I lived in the midwest). After that, I waited patiently for the dust-people to collect themselves and get back into their orderly patterns until I could play disaster again. Fun quarantine game, right??
Well I have been going through it. My flights home got cancelled and I started looking into how I could possibly convince Australian Immigration to let me stay past my visa expiry, notorious sympathetic souls they are. Lucky for me my brother's mother-in-law is a no nonsense aged care nurse who never learned how to back down. She called Air Canada on my behalf and got them to rebook me for no extra charge... somehow, I don't really know what techniques she employed and I'm kind of afraid to ask. The new flights are rough - 43.5 hours total in transit, and they're tomorrow so I've only got six hours to pack - but it gets me back to a country where I have medicare and where I can look after my parents (particularly my dad, who still believes people are blowing this out of proportion 😐). It's been a scramble so I just grabbed weird Australian snacks to share out, but I did get an enormous stuffed wombat to give to my six month old nephew I've yet to meet!
I’ll say this counts as kink: learned from a friend that in the LA legal community, there are two bigwig celebrity/extremely rich people estate litigators who are FAMOUS NEMESES. They are such NEMESES that they will purposely find out which case the other is working on so they can go up against them in court. They measure their success by the defeat of the other in all arenas of life. They have been doing this for literal decades, mostly for the perverse thrill of it.
I... love this and want a Coen brothers movie of it?
Hey Nicole, a super unrelated but needed question during these quarantine times: remember when you went to Blackberry farms and bought a candle from their shop, but then found out it was being sold for far less on another platform? I remember you praising its smell but cannot for the life of me remember the brand name! What was it called?
Re “what exciting new kinks and fetishes are we discovering in quarantine?”
I live alone, and I'm doing okay, but I am pretty damn lonely. So, new kink arising is kindness. Someone on twitter posted about he called a friend who lived alone and did simultaneous stuffed animal hug since they couldn't hug each other... and I got aroused just thinking about how nice that was that a cis white hetero male felt cool telling all of twitter he has a stuffed animal. :)
I'm have beenkeepingit together, but your praise at the end made me cry. It's very hard with my parents anyway, but now there's this kind of antagonism from my mom. It's difficult and complicated! I needed someone to say I'm doing a good job with my own family! So many times you've told me exactly what I didn't know I needed to hear. Thank you. Love you!
(My dad has dementia and is under the care of my irresponsible, alcoholic brother in a beach town in Florida and that is nightmare stuff that is also complicated!)
The longtime theatre critic of our local daily newspaper, who is a lovely man and has survived the paper's huge ups and downs over the past 30 years, has finally taken the paper's proffered buyout during the coronavirus crisis mainly because he and his equally lovely wife have a nearly grownup autistic son and now that that son's structure and routine, that were working wonders for him, have been upended, the gentleman wants to be home to help. All of us in the arts community will miss him terribly. When I messaged him to that effect he responded with such a nice compliment about our working relationship (I do PR) that it brought me to tears.
Also, the oldest city newspaper in the USA, which has been serving our city for 72 years, called it quits and laid off its entire staff today. I was their contributing copy editor for three years earlier in the past decade and have also written for them on and off for years. They are a lovely group of people and do such great work. Overnight they became unsustainable.
These may be minor things but... everything about this pandemic sucks.
I would 1000000% be down for a movie night. I request “9 to 5” because it’s got everything a movie could possibly need (except for more than one POC in a speaking role...).
I don't personally know anyone who has been hospitalized for the 'rona but one of my neighbors killed himself last night. Suicide is also contagious, and it's harder to keep people connected in community during this time of social distancing. I'm worried for whoever else is struggling.
Not sure if someone posted this already, but the OP from the coworker with the imaginary kid followed up. Here’s what she said:
The OP*
March 23, 2020 at 12:25 pm
Thank-you for answering my question, I appreciate your thoughtful answer. I did end up quietly speaking to my manager. I only showed the public stuff from Facebook and I framed it that I had donated time off and then saw what I saw. I didn’t say anything about him faking or making up a kid. A few weeks later he stopped coming in and the company gave everyone back the time they had given him over the past year. They said it was given to him in error. Nothing else has been said. With all that is going now I had completely forgotten about him. I am stuck in my hometown because I was visiting before all this went down. We are all working remotely and it seems so far away now.
This is extremely silly but getting these as emails have been very soothing to me. It's so weird to basically have no structure whatsoever right now. Getting an email from you is a lovely part of my routine now. Also, very importantly I'm making nachos to eat with left over chilli! All good things!
Some exciting news amongst all of *gestures vaguely to the outside world*: I had a skype interview with the head of one of the masters courses I've applied to which went really well. My academic background (english) isn't really aligned to the programme (social policy) so he wanted to ask about my professional experience (minimal but enthusiastic) before making an offer. He was LOVELY and satisfied with my answers and said he'll be requesting the university to accept me!!! I'm relieved and excited.
This literally happened 1 minute ago so of course I needed to tell strangers immediately. Nicole, your emails make me very happy and add structure to my weird days now. Keep safe and well everyone.
My wife and I are both working from home. The closet where my sweatpants/other cozy clothes are is right behind where we set up her workstation. Twice so far I have gone over to the closet and taken off my pants, and then remembered to check that she wasn't on a Zoom call. I have not yet taken my pants off in front of her office but this is very dangerous.
Hello sapphics I am here to flirt.
Nicole, you are a gem. That prairie dog (?) is INCREDIBLE and gives me hope in dark times.
Yesterday I had to go interact with medical professionals to ensure that my heart keeps beating. (It almost certainly will, but only if I have regular access to medical professionals, and otherwise I am screwed, whereby screwed I mean dead.) SO MANY PEOPLE coughed on me. So many people. It was so incredibly scary.
But, I just got a paper accepted in a Fancy Journal (I am an academic), so, uh, part of the world is still turning.
My coping strategy is "having an infant who has no idea the world is falling apart." I have to get up at the same time everyday to feed him and keep up with the routine. It helps that he is happy 90% of the time!
I look forward to these emails every day! Thank you for the smiles. I've been going on a brisk walk in the early mornings instead of my regular commute and I feel SO accomplished getting exercise AND an hour of literature reading done before second breakfast. 4/4 paws, recommend.
I'm quite busy with my work as an English teacher and translator, but let me tell you about one of my most common games I played as an introverted child. In the afternoons the sun would come in the living room window at just the right angle to illuminate all the dust motes floating in the air above the couch that was under the window. They generally floated in an upward direction, and at like a 50-degree angle. I pretended they were all passengers boarding one of those planes with stairs (V glam to board a plane that way, thought my kid mind). Then I would wave my hand through the middle of them and send them swirling into disaster (tornados... I lived in the midwest). After that, I waited patiently for the dust-people to collect themselves and get back into their orderly patterns until I could play disaster again. Fun quarantine game, right??
Well I have been going through it. My flights home got cancelled and I started looking into how I could possibly convince Australian Immigration to let me stay past my visa expiry, notorious sympathetic souls they are. Lucky for me my brother's mother-in-law is a no nonsense aged care nurse who never learned how to back down. She called Air Canada on my behalf and got them to rebook me for no extra charge... somehow, I don't really know what techniques she employed and I'm kind of afraid to ask. The new flights are rough - 43.5 hours total in transit, and they're tomorrow so I've only got six hours to pack - but it gets me back to a country where I have medicare and where I can look after my parents (particularly my dad, who still believes people are blowing this out of proportion 😐). It's been a scramble so I just grabbed weird Australian snacks to share out, but I did get an enormous stuffed wombat to give to my six month old nephew I've yet to meet!
I’ll say this counts as kink: learned from a friend that in the LA legal community, there are two bigwig celebrity/extremely rich people estate litigators who are FAMOUS NEMESES. They are such NEMESES that they will purposely find out which case the other is working on so they can go up against them in court. They measure their success by the defeat of the other in all arenas of life. They have been doing this for literal decades, mostly for the perverse thrill of it.
I... love this and want a Coen brothers movie of it?
Hey Nicole, a super unrelated but needed question during these quarantine times: remember when you went to Blackberry farms and bought a candle from their shop, but then found out it was being sold for far less on another platform? I remember you praising its smell but cannot for the life of me remember the brand name! What was it called?
Re “what exciting new kinks and fetishes are we discovering in quarantine?”
I live alone, and I'm doing okay, but I am pretty damn lonely. So, new kink arising is kindness. Someone on twitter posted about he called a friend who lived alone and did simultaneous stuffed animal hug since they couldn't hug each other... and I got aroused just thinking about how nice that was that a cis white hetero male felt cool telling all of twitter he has a stuffed animal. :)
I'm have beenkeepingit together, but your praise at the end made me cry. It's very hard with my parents anyway, but now there's this kind of antagonism from my mom. It's difficult and complicated! I needed someone to say I'm doing a good job with my own family! So many times you've told me exactly what I didn't know I needed to hear. Thank you. Love you!
(My dad has dementia and is under the care of my irresponsible, alcoholic brother in a beach town in Florida and that is nightmare stuff that is also complicated!)
The longtime theatre critic of our local daily newspaper, who is a lovely man and has survived the paper's huge ups and downs over the past 30 years, has finally taken the paper's proffered buyout during the coronavirus crisis mainly because he and his equally lovely wife have a nearly grownup autistic son and now that that son's structure and routine, that were working wonders for him, have been upended, the gentleman wants to be home to help. All of us in the arts community will miss him terribly. When I messaged him to that effect he responded with such a nice compliment about our working relationship (I do PR) that it brought me to tears.
Also, the oldest city newspaper in the USA, which has been serving our city for 72 years, called it quits and laid off its entire staff today. I was their contributing copy editor for three years earlier in the past decade and have also written for them on and off for years. They are a lovely group of people and do such great work. Overnight they became unsustainable.
These may be minor things but... everything about this pandemic sucks.
I would 1000000% be down for a movie night. I request “9 to 5” because it’s got everything a movie could possibly need (except for more than one POC in a speaking role...).
I don't personally know anyone who has been hospitalized for the 'rona but one of my neighbors killed himself last night. Suicide is also contagious, and it's harder to keep people connected in community during this time of social distancing. I'm worried for whoever else is struggling.