Just checking in from quarantine
Mar. 18th, 2020 10:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
parody_bitDale's working from home. I'm working from home. We're both somewhat higher-risk for COVID-19--at least a decade under 50, sure, but asthmatic, and I've got an autoimmune condition on top of that. (I've stopped taking my immune-suppressant meds for it until I'm sure I don't have the virus. When I've been quarantined for 14 days without developing a temperature, I'll go back to taking the meds. My doctor's going to be pissed if she finds out I've made this decision, but there you go: I'm prioritizing my lungs over my joints.) We were both aware that we stood a distinct chance of getting extremely sick if we caught it and, yes, possibly dying, so we were both being careful. And then the news came out of Italy that, due to overburdened hospitals, patients were being triaged. People with asthma weren't getting ventilators. Well. The US is, what? 10 days behind Italy, statistically speaking? That sort of sealed it, for us. Neither of us is going out in public again before [I predict] probably June 1, at the earliest.
So, we've been home, with only occasional trips to the park down the street for a walk, and only when there aren't more than 3 other people there, since I got back from a fairly anxiety-inducing grocery trip around midnight on Thursday night/Friday morning. (Everyone at the store at that time of night was either exhausted or near panic. I was both.) Luckily, I married someone I actually like, so five days with no other in-person human contact has been ... fine? He's taken over the desk in the basement for work, so I've taken over the bed in the spare room, where I cover the cute pillowcases with a boring brown blanket to make it look like I'm teleconferencing from a couch. There's a table in the living room that I sometimes use, too, but it's no good for video chats: the birds start trying to talk along when they hear voices, and it gets deafening quickly.
My employer thinks we're only doing this until April 19. I'm hoping they come to their senses and move us online-only and close our buildings (while still paying our hourly staff) for the rest of the semester and the summer. Honestly, we should be looking at online-only for fall, too, given some of the predictions I've seen. Colleges are not great places to hang out during pandemics.
Anyway, ways I've been staying sane, besides trying desperately to plan how my classes can best be moved online despite a general exhaustion/trouble concentrating (stress and not taking my arthritis meds ➡ brain fog, probably?):
Todo:
So, we've been home, with only occasional trips to the park down the street for a walk, and only when there aren't more than 3 other people there, since I got back from a fairly anxiety-inducing grocery trip around midnight on Thursday night/Friday morning. (Everyone at the store at that time of night was either exhausted or near panic. I was both.) Luckily, I married someone I actually like, so five days with no other in-person human contact has been ... fine? He's taken over the desk in the basement for work, so I've taken over the bed in the spare room, where I cover the cute pillowcases with a boring brown blanket to make it look like I'm teleconferencing from a couch. There's a table in the living room that I sometimes use, too, but it's no good for video chats: the birds start trying to talk along when they hear voices, and it gets deafening quickly.
My employer thinks we're only doing this until April 19. I'm hoping they come to their senses and move us online-only and close our buildings (while still paying our hourly staff) for the rest of the semester and the summer. Honestly, we should be looking at online-only for fall, too, given some of the predictions I've seen. Colleges are not great places to hang out during pandemics.
Anyway, ways I've been staying sane, besides trying desperately to plan how my classes can best be moved online despite a general exhaustion/trouble concentrating (stress and not taking my arthritis meds ➡ brain fog, probably?):
- crafting with friends over Discord sometimes
- watching movies with friends over Discord (Pacific Rim last Friday, Wild Wild West this coming Friday)
- planning (not yet implementing, but planning!) video chats with friends
- playing video games I like
- watching some absolute trash ("Love is Blind," if you must know enough to judge me) on Netflix
- napping
- spending so much time with the birds, who are enjoying the heck out of all of this
- watching calming and funny things on YouTube, in turns
- walks in the park with Dale
- baking bread and making soup (I have to stop the latter until we eat some of what I've frozen, because we're out of containers :))
- cleaning up sticks from our yard and also planting things in pots indoors
- documenting the mourning dove that is nesting on our porch
Todo:
- Build a list of hopepunk things to read and watch, besides Pacific Rim, which was exactly what I needed on Friday night
- Make candles -- this is actually scheduled, because a friend is going to bring me things from a store (leaving them on my porch) and take some freshly made candles (which I'm leaving on my porch for her), without us ever actually talking to one another except maybe through a glass door.
- Maybe pick up my guitar again? I mean. Maybe.
- Actually get on the exercise bike which works even when it's rainy or the park is full of people and which would probably make me feel better and be less strain on joints than even walking is.
- Make some progress with unpacking the house, given all the time we're spending in it.
- Also cleaning said house.
- Do some reading. (I don't have the attention span for "serious" reading, right now, but I think I have it for fun books. And to be fair, I've listened to some audiobooks while doing other things, already.)
(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-19 04:50 pm (UTC)And I suppose this also makes some decisions easier for you, as it does for me (like WisCon and all the rest of the near-future travel)!