I got married on Friday and it was very fun. The courthouse was busy with marriages and doing them all outdoors so we can stand far away from each other. There were like 20 other couples, at least. We had no rings and a judge pulled two random ones out of her pocket because presumably she just has a jar full of gumball machine rings somewhere. Then we went to our favorite burger drive through and got food and went home. We watched Train to Busan while I sewed facemasks. What a day.
It's my birthday today. 37! I actually find celebrating a little stressful, so I'm slightly relieved to have the excuse not to. My coworker dropped off a little bag with a slice of bundt cake and a card (she put it on my stoop, no human interaction required), which was extremely sweet of her. I keep wanting to cry but I think that's just because I'm on my period and it's a stressful time.
My great uncle passed away yesterday. He was really more of a grandfather, and a truly earnestly great man. All I want to do today is think about him and talk about him and read his favorite books.
I have nearly finished knitting my second jumper of isolation. I knew spending the last decade hoarding yarn would pay off. I hope you're all keeping well and occupied and safe.
HELLO all you lovelies. I seem to remember that a subset of y'all play D&D. Any chance we could get a group together on Zoom or Roll20 or whatever for a game or two?
In other developments, my sister delivered her baby on Saturday, doing a home birth with a midwife since she judged it unwise to go to the hospital, and I am so freaking proud of her (and utterly besotted with my new nephew) that I could pop. Moments of grace in an awful time.
I am in self-quarantine from my husband, though hopefully by this weekend I can un-quarantine. Having the bedroom to myself means I'm working while laying down and watching TV, which feels very Nicole. I'm binging Elite, watering my plants, and generally just am delighted with a week in bed, despite the current circumstances. I have a dramatic red satin gown from Playful Promises, I've finished writing my second romance novel, and I'm generally just feeling very Edith Wharton about the whole thing.
I got laid off last Thursday and am feeling pretty devastated. But, on the upside, I’ve taken my ample free time and finally started working on my book. When life gives you lemons...
Also, I live in New Zealand and me and my partner have been away from each other for three weeks, which is really hard. So all of that is a thing. I hope y'all are all good.
Hello friends! I have been doing a daily pep talk/affirmation for my Twitter followers like the end of Nicole's newsletter since I love it so much, and it's so great! It makes my friends feel better, it makes me feel better, it's a win win.
Here's today's, in case you're missing Nicole's: Good morning friends! We made it to Monday! I'm so proud of you. People miss seeing your gorgeous face in real life (I do!) but what you're doing is important and keeping people safe. Damn! We are so lucky to have friends and neighbors like you.
HELLO, DO YOU NEED/WANT FACE MASKS? I am making them and giving them away free to anyone who needs them, especially if you're in groceries/delivery or have elderly family or even if you just feel anxious without one. I can customize for adult vs kid sizes, filter pocket or no filter pocket, plain white or patterns, ties vs elastic (although there is an elastic shortage right now?? so I'm trying to shunt the elastic ones to kids or people who would have trouble tying their own ties.) I'm bnharrison over at the bird site. Don't put me on blast or anything but feel free to direct individual friends my way.
All my Kindle library books have been hitting my inbox early (I guess people are reading a lot in quarantine) so I zoomed through both Jessica Simpson's and Demi Moore's this week. Honestly I never knew much or cared about either of these ladies but I recommend both autobiographies. I admire their hard-won self awareness and how they've worked through their shit. What the entertainment industry does to young women is just harrowing. Also John Mayer is tool.
Yesterday was grey and chilly and I wept fiercely over the dissolution of the fabric of society and the travesty of the US federal govt disaster response. Today it's sunny and I'm excited about the garden, proud of my darling indoor cat becoming a fearsome mouser, grateful for my objectively optimal-considering-the-circumstances life situation...I'm emotionally solar-powered even when I have other means of self-regulation, but lately I feel completely at the weather's mercy.
Thank you to everyone who sent good thoughts for my grandpa in one of the last open threads. He made it back to Wisconsin from Florida safe and sound, as far as I know. It's one less thing weighing on my mind.
Also, I just found out yesterday that HBO Go is currently offering 500 free hours of streaming, so I spent all day watching Barry, which is as amazing as everyone had led me to believe. I have the last 2 episodes of season 2 left and I am very excited to reach dinner time tonight to watch them. Next up will be Succession, obviously. Any other recommendations on things I have been missing out on? Otherwise I will just rewatch Band of Brothers for the 500th time.
It’s my birthday tomorrow and I’m sad. I’m turning 40 and I was hoping the celebrate it with friends to offset some of the cultural bullshit about turning 40. 40!!!
I hope everyone is hanging in there and doing okay-ish. <3 I unlocked the quarantine achievement: baking bread this morning, so that's a highlight. Other than that, I quickly running out of recipes that I have stored in my brain and I can't leisurely stroll through a grocery store right now to get inspired bc every trip to the store is a freaking anxiety attack. Where do y'all get receipe inspirations?
Today I had a lengthy conversation with my mom about my anxiety and depression. I've never been able to be so candid with her about it because she has always been fairly dismissive when I bring it up. I've been on medication for 4 years but struggling since middle school. But this entire pandemic situation has made her so anxious that it's like a light bulb went off for her. She apologized for not taking my mental health seriously in the past and promised to do better. I feel awful that she had to feel the same way in order to understand where I was coming from all these years, but I feel like it's only going to make our relationship stronger now that this elephant in the room is gone. Love to you all. Call your moms.
Does anyone else find themselves missing creativity? This is honestly such a minor thing (my family is healthy, we have flexible jobs) but between working and parenting I have no mental energy left for the hour max of free time I can find at the end of the day. Before all this started I was finally writing regularly again and doing some other personal side-projects, and that's gone.
Is anybody else just... frozen? It's not that I'm expecting myself to be productive in self-isolation - it's that I can't make myself do ANYTHING except sit on my couch. I've stopped going for walks, stopped exercising in my living room, even going out for groceries is so terrifying I put it off for days. I'm worried.
On top of all this bs, I’ve found out my identity has been stolen and the person applied for two credit cards and blew through about $2k US money. In my country, identity theft is not a crime unless you’re the company who has been defrauded. So I’ve been calling banks today and crying and getting a credit report and calling again and crying more.
I made raid-the-fridge chocolate-coffee brownies (cocoa mix + instant coffee), with margarine instead of butter, and my God, I'm glad they lasted four days because I was on my period and really needed that chocolate.
I am very bad at growing plants, even though I think it’s fascinating, but I put some leek cuttings in water and that baby is GROWING. I am strangely proud and hope that my kids don’t destroy her in their daily quarantine wreckage of the house.
I've been furloughed for two months at my startup, and I have to apply for unemployment tomorrow, and I really hate doing forms of this kind because they set off all my authority stuff of "you have to do it perfectly but there may be ways of screwing it up that no one will tell you until you've already screwed them up and they punish you for it" and just, you know, please hold your thumbs for me, I'm so nervous I'm going to get turned down for some obscure reason and there will be nothing I can do about it because they're already overwhelmed with people needing to talk to someone.
Hi! I think I've commented here before, but I wanted to say hi again. It's been a long time since I joined a forum..... Anyway I live in Idaho, where very little happens, and if a year's worth of reading Nicole's newsletter is any indication this seems like a cool place to ride out the Spring Of Tedium.
My new job of four weeks laid me off temporarily while my city is under shelter-in-place order, so I filed for unemployment, and now my old toxic employer is sending me emails telling me I "can't" certify for benefits and "need" to call them and deal with them directly because the state sent them wrong paperwork - and CC'd the guy who is my reference on all the emails. Like 50% of the state is filing for unemployment, there are going to be mistakes! And what do they expect me to do about it?!
I hit the sad and frustrated guess I am going to cry now wall yesterday. I know I have it so lucky right now but it doesn't make me feel any better or any more accepting.
I think my total work productivity was sending one email because all other work is currently blocked by one thing or another. Last week I was optimistic or at least productive, and now I just want to lie on my bed and cry.
I think I am doing ok. It's weird a lot of people in my office (my work situation being firmly in the "its complicated" but we're still paying everyone and no one has to go in) have developed this uber optimism which is so not my speed right now. And I know some people are taking comfort in like planning for when this is over, but given the uncertainties I have given up future plans really. EXCEPT for right before this I was interviewing for a job in Montreal that I really want and I think they really want me (they continue to regularly update me even throughout all this).
Can...can i just...post a comment? Just like that? I've been reading for weeks now and I talked all about you all and especially Nicky to my therapist today because the disordered eating thread really helped me recognize it was a learned brain pattern in response to anxiety and NOT the objective reality of what my body looks like or should be. Thank you! I hope you are all doing as ok as you possibly can and you're doing everything right no matter what that looks like for you.
I hit 4 gallons of blood and blood products donated this weekend. I am very proud of myself and hope those of you who are eligible under the regressive blood donation policy will consider helping the national blood supply during this time. If you have blood donation questions or questions about blood products like platelets and plasma feel free to ask me (US only). I hope you all are sheltered in place and not feeling too much strain.
Good morning everyone! My partner and I finally made use of the exercise mats we ordered a few weeks ago and did some Brazilian jiu-jitsu, that was fun.
We also made brownies from the Ghirardelli brownie mix and agreed that they were just as good as, if different from, the Betty Crocker mix. (Any other boxed brands, feel free to recommend - I am tickled by the prospect of coming out of this period with a connoisseur's knowledge of the different brownie mixes on the market.)
Y'all-- have you been getting chain-mail type emails that are either "empowering words" or a recipe swap?? The kind where there are 2 names listed, you put yours as 1 of them, then BCC to like 40+ people?? I KEEP GETTING THEM and I literally do NOT have the bandwidth to participate. I feel horrible. But chain letters reallyyyyy trigger me. Do I reply back to the person who sent it and apologize for being a scrooge? I feel so guilty. Like, it's a 5-minute process, but I KEEP GETTING THEM....
I ate an entire loaf of banana bread yesterday, whoops. My husband was kind of furloughed last week ("stay home til you hear otherwise" is literally all he was told) so now we're trying to figure out how to actually get any of the relief money that was authorized, so that should be fun.
Nearly done with quarantine so I'm all set to move back in with my parents soon. I'm looking forward to seeing them for the first time in more than two years, but I'm also bracing myself for a lot of... issues coming up. I haven't been home for more than a two week visit since I was 18. Now I'll be living at home again indefinitely. It's going to take an effort not to regress to a teenage mindset under these conditions (and god, was I an irritating teenager).
Also, my dad is a nutcase who believes we should just let the virus run its course, ignoring the fact that, as a man in his mid-sixties who's been a chain smoker for fifty years, he's basically marked for death in that situation. He's not great at acknowledging governmental authority at the best of times. Lately - well, just a couple of days ago someone called the cops on him because he was burning brush despite a provincial fire ban and honestly it's a miracle he didn't mouth off and get himself arrested. Mom says he's been ranting about it all weekend. So yeah. Fun times ahead!
Nicole I think it's important that you know that I introduced my 4 year old to Hadestown this weekend. She was loving it, so I instantly ordered her a book of Greek mythology. My nerd heart is very pleased with this development.
The project managers who run my working life just changed the way our team allocates time and balances workloads to reflect the fact that one one is working as fast as normal, and that's fine. And it was the most humane thing, and made me sniffly after I got off our Monday morning meeting call.
Okay guys. Here's a problem that seemed like one Team Nicky could solve. We're all locked in our own apartments (appropriately) and not out and about meeting new people (of course). How do I find me a husband from inside my own apartment?
I had That Moment last night, of "Someone I know directly has it" (friend/former coworker)- fortunately it was from him taking to FB to post "it REALLY sucked, but HAI I'm not dead". And it keeps popping in and out of my brain. I know there must have been letters and remote communications like that during previous pandemic, but the technological aspect is still surreal to me.
This is definitely worse because I haven't slept well for the last few nights, but work is really on my last nerve today. We have a big deadline at the end of the month, non-negotiable, and it is always a stressful and frustrating time and I have to assume it's only going to be worse than ever this month since we're all working from home. No one else seems concerned, which concerns me >.<
I watched Troop Zero yesterday on Amazon Prime, and apparently it came out months ago, but I just wanted to tell you all because I'd never heard of it until stumbling over the trailer this weekend, and it's 100% exactly the kind of movie I've been in the mood for lately. It's about a little girl with a one-track mind (on outer space), who finds out that a Birdie Troop is going to get to record a greeting to aliens on NASA's Golden Record, and when the Birdie Troop in town won't let her join them, she puts together her own with a rag-tag group of kids. I cried abundantly.
I haven't managed to work out or go outside yet (we're allowed here), but I have read seven chapters of a Georgette Heyer novel and had both breakfast and lunch, so, small win despite being stuck on the couch and so tired. (Tell me to get off the couch and work out, it always helps.)
I had to go to a med appt today and was probably exposed to the virus on the bus. Someone brought FIVE children onto the bus, no one had masks, they all swarmed around me before i could get away, and then another gentleman coughed right onto me. I stepped directly into a scalding shower when I got home and have spent the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out what to do, as my partner is very at risk for complications if he contracts the virus and our apartment is too tiny to properly distance. There's an airbnb a couple blocks away where I can go stay for the next couple weeks - expensive, but I would be within walking distance of home incase of anything. Or I could go stay with my friend, who lives quite a ways away, but would be free at least (although she doesn't have much space either).
I just hate this. I hate making these impossible decisions where the wrong choice can mean someone dies or gets very sick. Is anyone else experiencing the stress of living with someone who you are absolutely terrified of getting sick?
My husband is defending his dissertation this morning! Over Zoom :( Please everyone send good tech vibes for 9:30 AM EST
I got married on Friday and it was very fun. The courthouse was busy with marriages and doing them all outdoors so we can stand far away from each other. There were like 20 other couples, at least. We had no rings and a judge pulled two random ones out of her pocket because presumably she just has a jar full of gumball machine rings somewhere. Then we went to our favorite burger drive through and got food and went home. We watched Train to Busan while I sewed facemasks. What a day.
It's my birthday today. 37! I actually find celebrating a little stressful, so I'm slightly relieved to have the excuse not to. My coworker dropped off a little bag with a slice of bundt cake and a card (she put it on my stoop, no human interaction required), which was extremely sweet of her. I keep wanting to cry but I think that's just because I'm on my period and it's a stressful time.
My great uncle passed away yesterday. He was really more of a grandfather, and a truly earnestly great man. All I want to do today is think about him and talk about him and read his favorite books.
I need to thank Nicole for including the day of the week in these newsletters, because otherwise, some days, I wouldn't know.
I have nearly finished knitting my second jumper of isolation. I knew spending the last decade hoarding yarn would pay off. I hope you're all keeping well and occupied and safe.
HELLO all you lovelies. I seem to remember that a subset of y'all play D&D. Any chance we could get a group together on Zoom or Roll20 or whatever for a game or two?
In other developments, my sister delivered her baby on Saturday, doing a home birth with a midwife since she judged it unwise to go to the hospital, and I am so freaking proud of her (and utterly besotted with my new nephew) that I could pop. Moments of grace in an awful time.
After much discussion with the hubs, we are getting a puppy!
I am in self-quarantine from my husband, though hopefully by this weekend I can un-quarantine. Having the bedroom to myself means I'm working while laying down and watching TV, which feels very Nicole. I'm binging Elite, watering my plants, and generally just am delighted with a week in bed, despite the current circumstances. I have a dramatic red satin gown from Playful Promises, I've finished writing my second romance novel, and I'm generally just feeling very Edith Wharton about the whole thing.
I am feeling much better and my spouse has not gotten sick. Hooray!
I got laid off last Thursday and am feeling pretty devastated. But, on the upside, I’ve taken my ample free time and finally started working on my book. When life gives you lemons...
Hello! So a piece I wrote about a video game that I've waited for for five years got published today and not lots of people read it. It's here (https://thespinoff.co.nz/games/06-04-2020/review-the-final-fantasy-vii-remake-is-the-definitive-version-of-final-fantasy-vii/) and I worked hard on it, and it feels so trivial that I'm feeling a bit bad about it not being read;
Also, I live in New Zealand and me and my partner have been away from each other for three weeks, which is really hard. So all of that is a thing. I hope y'all are all good.
Hello friends! I have been doing a daily pep talk/affirmation for my Twitter followers like the end of Nicole's newsletter since I love it so much, and it's so great! It makes my friends feel better, it makes me feel better, it's a win win.
Here's today's, in case you're missing Nicole's: Good morning friends! We made it to Monday! I'm so proud of you. People miss seeing your gorgeous face in real life (I do!) but what you're doing is important and keeping people safe. Damn! We are so lucky to have friends and neighbors like you.
HELLO, DO YOU NEED/WANT FACE MASKS? I am making them and giving them away free to anyone who needs them, especially if you're in groceries/delivery or have elderly family or even if you just feel anxious without one. I can customize for adult vs kid sizes, filter pocket or no filter pocket, plain white or patterns, ties vs elastic (although there is an elastic shortage right now?? so I'm trying to shunt the elastic ones to kids or people who would have trouble tying their own ties.) I'm bnharrison over at the bird site. Don't put me on blast or anything but feel free to direct individual friends my way.
All my Kindle library books have been hitting my inbox early (I guess people are reading a lot in quarantine) so I zoomed through both Jessica Simpson's and Demi Moore's this week. Honestly I never knew much or cared about either of these ladies but I recommend both autobiographies. I admire their hard-won self awareness and how they've worked through their shit. What the entertainment industry does to young women is just harrowing. Also John Mayer is tool.
Yesterday was grey and chilly and I wept fiercely over the dissolution of the fabric of society and the travesty of the US federal govt disaster response. Today it's sunny and I'm excited about the garden, proud of my darling indoor cat becoming a fearsome mouser, grateful for my objectively optimal-considering-the-circumstances life situation...I'm emotionally solar-powered even when I have other means of self-regulation, but lately I feel completely at the weather's mercy.
Thank you to everyone who sent good thoughts for my grandpa in one of the last open threads. He made it back to Wisconsin from Florida safe and sound, as far as I know. It's one less thing weighing on my mind.
Also, I just found out yesterday that HBO Go is currently offering 500 free hours of streaming, so I spent all day watching Barry, which is as amazing as everyone had led me to believe. I have the last 2 episodes of season 2 left and I am very excited to reach dinner time tonight to watch them. Next up will be Succession, obviously. Any other recommendations on things I have been missing out on? Otherwise I will just rewatch Band of Brothers for the 500th time.
It’s my birthday tomorrow and I’m sad. I’m turning 40 and I was hoping the celebrate it with friends to offset some of the cultural bullshit about turning 40. 40!!!
I hope everyone is hanging in there and doing okay-ish. <3 I unlocked the quarantine achievement: baking bread this morning, so that's a highlight. Other than that, I quickly running out of recipes that I have stored in my brain and I can't leisurely stroll through a grocery store right now to get inspired bc every trip to the store is a freaking anxiety attack. Where do y'all get receipe inspirations?
Today I had a lengthy conversation with my mom about my anxiety and depression. I've never been able to be so candid with her about it because she has always been fairly dismissive when I bring it up. I've been on medication for 4 years but struggling since middle school. But this entire pandemic situation has made her so anxious that it's like a light bulb went off for her. She apologized for not taking my mental health seriously in the past and promised to do better. I feel awful that she had to feel the same way in order to understand where I was coming from all these years, but I feel like it's only going to make our relationship stronger now that this elephant in the room is gone. Love to you all. Call your moms.
Does anyone else find themselves missing creativity? This is honestly such a minor thing (my family is healthy, we have flexible jobs) but between working and parenting I have no mental energy left for the hour max of free time I can find at the end of the day. Before all this started I was finally writing regularly again and doing some other personal side-projects, and that's gone.
Is anybody else just... frozen? It's not that I'm expecting myself to be productive in self-isolation - it's that I can't make myself do ANYTHING except sit on my couch. I've stopped going for walks, stopped exercising in my living room, even going out for groceries is so terrifying I put it off for days. I'm worried.
On top of all this bs, I’ve found out my identity has been stolen and the person applied for two credit cards and blew through about $2k US money. In my country, identity theft is not a crime unless you’re the company who has been defrauded. So I’ve been calling banks today and crying and getting a credit report and calling again and crying more.
I made raid-the-fridge chocolate-coffee brownies (cocoa mix + instant coffee), with margarine instead of butter, and my God, I'm glad they lasted four days because I was on my period and really needed that chocolate.
I am very bad at growing plants, even though I think it’s fascinating, but I put some leek cuttings in water and that baby is GROWING. I am strangely proud and hope that my kids don’t destroy her in their daily quarantine wreckage of the house.
I've been furloughed for two months at my startup, and I have to apply for unemployment tomorrow, and I really hate doing forms of this kind because they set off all my authority stuff of "you have to do it perfectly but there may be ways of screwing it up that no one will tell you until you've already screwed them up and they punish you for it" and just, you know, please hold your thumbs for me, I'm so nervous I'm going to get turned down for some obscure reason and there will be nothing I can do about it because they're already overwhelmed with people needing to talk to someone.
Hi! I think I've commented here before, but I wanted to say hi again. It's been a long time since I joined a forum..... Anyway I live in Idaho, where very little happens, and if a year's worth of reading Nicole's newsletter is any indication this seems like a cool place to ride out the Spring Of Tedium.
My new job of four weeks laid me off temporarily while my city is under shelter-in-place order, so I filed for unemployment, and now my old toxic employer is sending me emails telling me I "can't" certify for benefits and "need" to call them and deal with them directly because the state sent them wrong paperwork - and CC'd the guy who is my reference on all the emails. Like 50% of the state is filing for unemployment, there are going to be mistakes! And what do they expect me to do about it?!
I hit the sad and frustrated guess I am going to cry now wall yesterday. I know I have it so lucky right now but it doesn't make me feel any better or any more accepting.
I think my total work productivity was sending one email because all other work is currently blocked by one thing or another. Last week I was optimistic or at least productive, and now I just want to lie on my bed and cry.
Hokusai
Anger is a bitter lock.
But you can turn it.
Hokusai aged 83
said,
Time to do my lions.
Every morning
until he died
219 days later
he made
a lion.
Wind came gusting from the northwest.
Lions swayed
and leapt
from the crests
of the pine trees
onto
the snowy road
or crashed
together
over his hut,
their white paws
mauling stars
on the way down.
I continue to draw
hoping for
a peaceful day,
said Hokusai
as they thudded past.
Anne Carson (2000)
I think this week we are getting to the "fuck off, I hate you" portion of #StayHome, so that should be fun.
I think I am doing ok. It's weird a lot of people in my office (my work situation being firmly in the "its complicated" but we're still paying everyone and no one has to go in) have developed this uber optimism which is so not my speed right now. And I know some people are taking comfort in like planning for when this is over, but given the uncertainties I have given up future plans really. EXCEPT for right before this I was interviewing for a job in Montreal that I really want and I think they really want me (they continue to regularly update me even throughout all this).
Can...can i just...post a comment? Just like that? I've been reading for weeks now and I talked all about you all and especially Nicky to my therapist today because the disordered eating thread really helped me recognize it was a learned brain pattern in response to anxiety and NOT the objective reality of what my body looks like or should be. Thank you! I hope you are all doing as ok as you possibly can and you're doing everything right no matter what that looks like for you.
I hit 4 gallons of blood and blood products donated this weekend. I am very proud of myself and hope those of you who are eligible under the regressive blood donation policy will consider helping the national blood supply during this time. If you have blood donation questions or questions about blood products like platelets and plasma feel free to ask me (US only). I hope you all are sheltered in place and not feeling too much strain.
Good morning everyone! My partner and I finally made use of the exercise mats we ordered a few weeks ago and did some Brazilian jiu-jitsu, that was fun.
We also made brownies from the Ghirardelli brownie mix and agreed that they were just as good as, if different from, the Betty Crocker mix. (Any other boxed brands, feel free to recommend - I am tickled by the prospect of coming out of this period with a connoisseur's knowledge of the different brownie mixes on the market.)
Y'all-- have you been getting chain-mail type emails that are either "empowering words" or a recipe swap?? The kind where there are 2 names listed, you put yours as 1 of them, then BCC to like 40+ people?? I KEEP GETTING THEM and I literally do NOT have the bandwidth to participate. I feel horrible. But chain letters reallyyyyy trigger me. Do I reply back to the person who sent it and apologize for being a scrooge? I feel so guilty. Like, it's a 5-minute process, but I KEEP GETTING THEM....
I ate an entire loaf of banana bread yesterday, whoops. My husband was kind of furloughed last week ("stay home til you hear otherwise" is literally all he was told) so now we're trying to figure out how to actually get any of the relief money that was authorized, so that should be fun.
Did anyone save Nicole’s tweet thread on how to barter down a medical bill? Had a friend get slammed with an unexpected bill during this crisis.
Nearly done with quarantine so I'm all set to move back in with my parents soon. I'm looking forward to seeing them for the first time in more than two years, but I'm also bracing myself for a lot of... issues coming up. I haven't been home for more than a two week visit since I was 18. Now I'll be living at home again indefinitely. It's going to take an effort not to regress to a teenage mindset under these conditions (and god, was I an irritating teenager).
Also, my dad is a nutcase who believes we should just let the virus run its course, ignoring the fact that, as a man in his mid-sixties who's been a chain smoker for fifty years, he's basically marked for death in that situation. He's not great at acknowledging governmental authority at the best of times. Lately - well, just a couple of days ago someone called the cops on him because he was burning brush despite a provincial fire ban and honestly it's a miracle he didn't mouth off and get himself arrested. Mom says he's been ranting about it all weekend. So yeah. Fun times ahead!
Nicole I think it's important that you know that I introduced my 4 year old to Hadestown this weekend. She was loving it, so I instantly ordered her a book of Greek mythology. My nerd heart is very pleased with this development.
The project managers who run my working life just changed the way our team allocates time and balances workloads to reflect the fact that one one is working as fast as normal, and that's fine. And it was the most humane thing, and made me sniffly after I got off our Monday morning meeting call.
Okay guys. Here's a problem that seemed like one Team Nicky could solve. We're all locked in our own apartments (appropriately) and not out and about meeting new people (of course). How do I find me a husband from inside my own apartment?
I made some masks for my husband who is still working and it was satisfying - I like sewing. And we had a FaceTime cocktail party with friends.
I had That Moment last night, of "Someone I know directly has it" (friend/former coworker)- fortunately it was from him taking to FB to post "it REALLY sucked, but HAI I'm not dead". And it keeps popping in and out of my brain. I know there must have been letters and remote communications like that during previous pandemic, but the technological aspect is still surreal to me.
This is definitely worse because I haven't slept well for the last few nights, but work is really on my last nerve today. We have a big deadline at the end of the month, non-negotiable, and it is always a stressful and frustrating time and I have to assume it's only going to be worse than ever this month since we're all working from home. No one else seems concerned, which concerns me >.<
I watched Troop Zero yesterday on Amazon Prime, and apparently it came out months ago, but I just wanted to tell you all because I'd never heard of it until stumbling over the trailer this weekend, and it's 100% exactly the kind of movie I've been in the mood for lately. It's about a little girl with a one-track mind (on outer space), who finds out that a Birdie Troop is going to get to record a greeting to aliens on NASA's Golden Record, and when the Birdie Troop in town won't let her join them, she puts together her own with a rag-tag group of kids. I cried abundantly.
I haven't managed to work out or go outside yet (we're allowed here), but I have read seven chapters of a Georgette Heyer novel and had both breakfast and lunch, so, small win despite being stuck on the couch and so tired. (Tell me to get off the couch and work out, it always helps.)
Would anyone be interested in an "Unorthodox" watch party? I'm currently on the equivalent of Eastern US time and of course my schedule is flexible.
Oh no oh no John Prine
I had to go to a med appt today and was probably exposed to the virus on the bus. Someone brought FIVE children onto the bus, no one had masks, they all swarmed around me before i could get away, and then another gentleman coughed right onto me. I stepped directly into a scalding shower when I got home and have spent the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out what to do, as my partner is very at risk for complications if he contracts the virus and our apartment is too tiny to properly distance. There's an airbnb a couple blocks away where I can go stay for the next couple weeks - expensive, but I would be within walking distance of home incase of anything. Or I could go stay with my friend, who lives quite a ways away, but would be free at least (although she doesn't have much space either).
I just hate this. I hate making these impossible decisions where the wrong choice can mean someone dies or gets very sick. Is anyone else experiencing the stress of living with someone who you are absolutely terrified of getting sick?