Day #140....
Aug. 3rd, 2020 07:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatOne hundred and forty days since I started working from home. Since that time, I've been on the subway precisely one time - to see the doctor, and it was just a twenty minute ride. That was on June 16.
I'm back on the roller-coaster ride. Slowly moving up the hill. Until the next time, our work from home contract gets extended. We currently have an extension until the day after Labor Day. Three unions got the extension.
Meanwhile a tropical storm is on the horizon, it got upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane, in time to make landfall north of Charleston in Myrtle Beach. I'm just relieved that it has skirted my parents and they don't have to evacuate after all. We'll get more than they will - mother told me she's not getting any of it at all. But NYC is slated to get the Tropical Storm and taking precautions. NYC is kind of paranoid post Superstorm Sandy, every time a storm comes its way - it goes nuts with the sandbags and the whole deal.
Took a brief walk after work, when it was still clear, and sunny, and unfortunately hot. Ninety-degrees with 47% humidity, more than I can handle. I don't like summer. I don't enjoy hot weather. Anything hotter than 85 degrees and I retreat into air conditioning completely. There's a reason I live in the Northeast and not the Southeast.
[ Picture is of The troll under the bridge in Seattle - from 2018.]
Mother said my father was tired of all of this. The news is the same. He's tired of it all. I responded aren't we all. I told her that the social isolation thing wasn't bothering me all that much. It only bothered me when people talk about it - and say things like - "ooh, you need to be with people" or " you need physical contact"...but the truth is I'm kind of okay without it.
Mother: Do you realize how much you are like your grandmother? (My Granny or my mother's mother, who died in 2009.)
Me: It may explain why we got along so well.
Mother: She had no problem living by herself - actually enjoyed it. Just puttering around on her own. She'd do social things, when prodded, but didn't really need it one way or the other. You are a lot like her.
And my brother's a lot like my mother's father. Which may explain why my brother and I always got along very well with my mother's parents, we kind of understood each other. We also didn't need the constant presence of people. We're both fine doing things alone.
So the social isolation portion of the pandemic doesn't really bother me that much. As long as I don't discuss it with anyone, I'm fine. I spent a good portion of the 1990s on my own. Remember house-sitting my parents home in 1995 and the only interactions I had were with people in the grocery store, occasionally the neighbors. I wrote letters and spoke with folks on the phone of course. Taught myself how to watercolor, wrote stories, took walks, watched movies, read books and exercised on the bike. I was fine.
I like my own company. Actually kind of prefer it. That was my difficulty at times when I was younger - I'd much rather tell myself a story, then watch Lost in Space at my friend's house or play fashion show. Also my friend's company wasn't all that entertaining. People can be annoying and kind of high maintenance. I'm perfectly happy being alone. There's a lone and lonely, and often I'm at my loneliest around people or interacting with people. I always found it be the oddest thing that other people can make me feel very lonely, and isolated. I think it's because they feel the need to tell me what I need based on what they need. Even my meditation app has a tendency to fall into this trap - telling me that I need family, to be around loved ones, etc. When a phone call will suffice.
It's very hard, I think, for people to understand that we all don't require the same things. As mother puts it, "people like to think one size fits all and that's simply not the case. Also, hugs, can often seem awkward and insincere...when unwanted." Quite true. "And uncomfortable. When often a hug via the telephone works just as well." Or it does for us. There's different types of love. And different ways of expressing it. What works for one person may not for another.
This is kind of long-ass way of stating - that working remotely from home hasn't been a problem. Actually a nice side-effect or bonus, has been the ability to work from home, in my own space. I don't miss my co-workers or boss at all. Much prefer to talk to them all via the telephone and email.
I actually prefer to talk to most people via written form. Face-to-face interactions tend to make me nervous. I say I miss people...but I don't really. I just think that I'm supposed to miss them. Is that odd? Probably.
They are still fighting over sending kids back to school in the fall. The Mayor thinks they can do it, the Governor thinks parents should decide. I think teachers and the people who have to work in the schools and transport the children should decide. No matter what they do - the situation is thwart with issues. There's no winnable situation.
School for many kids is a refuge from an inhospitable home environment. They get their meals at school. They get relief from abusive parents. If they are in an unsafe situation in the home - school is a refuge from that. For me? Home was safe, school was dangerous. So, it's hard for me to identify.
I always saw my peer group or strangers as the enemy, while for many kids it is the exact opposite.
Add to all of this - with a pandemic, and kids being major spreaders of viruses - going back to school...on public transportation, no less.
Georgia and Indiana have already tried the whole school thing - in August, and it's not worked out well. They keep having to lock-down and quarantine.
And they aren't in a major city, with public transportation acting as school buses.
Note - that NYC is a huge college town. Fifty-percent of the population are kids going to schools, and teachers. I know this because every summer the city empties out, and the public transportation becomes less crowded. Then schools open - wham everything is crowded. Then a school holiday hits, it's not crowded.
So, I don't know how it will work. The virus will be worse in the fall than it is now. Because to compound it - we have cold and flu season. Not to mention more people indoors, and on public transportation.
Work was quiet today - which it kind of always is in a way. But I had headphones on, so didn't hear too much of the banging in the kitchen above my own - I did hear a lot of debris tumble down through the walls. Spent most of the day updating a spreadsheet. Which I was doing on a browser window in Microsoft Teams...interesting experience.
And ...New York has now permitted ice cream makers to..legally manufacture and sell " Ice cream containing liquor" in New York State. I didn't know it couldn't be done. It's also suspended 19 liquor licenses.
I finished listening to a book today. It's the first book I've finished since February. Granted it was listening to one. But still I finished a book. Progress.
On that cheery note...I leave you with whatever half-way decent photo I can find without too much effort.
I'm back on the roller-coaster ride. Slowly moving up the hill. Until the next time, our work from home contract gets extended. We currently have an extension until the day after Labor Day. Three unions got the extension.
Meanwhile a tropical storm is on the horizon, it got upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane, in time to make landfall north of Charleston in Myrtle Beach. I'm just relieved that it has skirted my parents and they don't have to evacuate after all. We'll get more than they will - mother told me she's not getting any of it at all. But NYC is slated to get the Tropical Storm and taking precautions. NYC is kind of paranoid post Superstorm Sandy, every time a storm comes its way - it goes nuts with the sandbags and the whole deal.
Took a brief walk after work, when it was still clear, and sunny, and unfortunately hot. Ninety-degrees with 47% humidity, more than I can handle. I don't like summer. I don't enjoy hot weather. Anything hotter than 85 degrees and I retreat into air conditioning completely. There's a reason I live in the Northeast and not the Southeast.
[ Picture is of The troll under the bridge in Seattle - from 2018.]
Mother said my father was tired of all of this. The news is the same. He's tired of it all. I responded aren't we all. I told her that the social isolation thing wasn't bothering me all that much. It only bothered me when people talk about it - and say things like - "ooh, you need to be with people" or " you need physical contact"...but the truth is I'm kind of okay without it.
Mother: Do you realize how much you are like your grandmother? (My Granny or my mother's mother, who died in 2009.)
Me: It may explain why we got along so well.
Mother: She had no problem living by herself - actually enjoyed it. Just puttering around on her own. She'd do social things, when prodded, but didn't really need it one way or the other. You are a lot like her.
And my brother's a lot like my mother's father. Which may explain why my brother and I always got along very well with my mother's parents, we kind of understood each other. We also didn't need the constant presence of people. We're both fine doing things alone.
So the social isolation portion of the pandemic doesn't really bother me that much. As long as I don't discuss it with anyone, I'm fine. I spent a good portion of the 1990s on my own. Remember house-sitting my parents home in 1995 and the only interactions I had were with people in the grocery store, occasionally the neighbors. I wrote letters and spoke with folks on the phone of course. Taught myself how to watercolor, wrote stories, took walks, watched movies, read books and exercised on the bike. I was fine.
I like my own company. Actually kind of prefer it. That was my difficulty at times when I was younger - I'd much rather tell myself a story, then watch Lost in Space at my friend's house or play fashion show. Also my friend's company wasn't all that entertaining. People can be annoying and kind of high maintenance. I'm perfectly happy being alone. There's a lone and lonely, and often I'm at my loneliest around people or interacting with people. I always found it be the oddest thing that other people can make me feel very lonely, and isolated. I think it's because they feel the need to tell me what I need based on what they need. Even my meditation app has a tendency to fall into this trap - telling me that I need family, to be around loved ones, etc. When a phone call will suffice.
It's very hard, I think, for people to understand that we all don't require the same things. As mother puts it, "people like to think one size fits all and that's simply not the case. Also, hugs, can often seem awkward and insincere...when unwanted." Quite true. "And uncomfortable. When often a hug via the telephone works just as well." Or it does for us. There's different types of love. And different ways of expressing it. What works for one person may not for another.
This is kind of long-ass way of stating - that working remotely from home hasn't been a problem. Actually a nice side-effect or bonus, has been the ability to work from home, in my own space. I don't miss my co-workers or boss at all. Much prefer to talk to them all via the telephone and email.
I actually prefer to talk to most people via written form. Face-to-face interactions tend to make me nervous. I say I miss people...but I don't really. I just think that I'm supposed to miss them. Is that odd? Probably.
They are still fighting over sending kids back to school in the fall. The Mayor thinks they can do it, the Governor thinks parents should decide. I think teachers and the people who have to work in the schools and transport the children should decide. No matter what they do - the situation is thwart with issues. There's no winnable situation.
School for many kids is a refuge from an inhospitable home environment. They get their meals at school. They get relief from abusive parents. If they are in an unsafe situation in the home - school is a refuge from that. For me? Home was safe, school was dangerous. So, it's hard for me to identify.
I always saw my peer group or strangers as the enemy, while for many kids it is the exact opposite.
Add to all of this - with a pandemic, and kids being major spreaders of viruses - going back to school...on public transportation, no less.
Georgia and Indiana have already tried the whole school thing - in August, and it's not worked out well. They keep having to lock-down and quarantine.
And they aren't in a major city, with public transportation acting as school buses.
Note - that NYC is a huge college town. Fifty-percent of the population are kids going to schools, and teachers. I know this because every summer the city empties out, and the public transportation becomes less crowded. Then schools open - wham everything is crowded. Then a school holiday hits, it's not crowded.
So, I don't know how it will work. The virus will be worse in the fall than it is now. Because to compound it - we have cold and flu season. Not to mention more people indoors, and on public transportation.
Work was quiet today - which it kind of always is in a way. But I had headphones on, so didn't hear too much of the banging in the kitchen above my own - I did hear a lot of debris tumble down through the walls. Spent most of the day updating a spreadsheet. Which I was doing on a browser window in Microsoft Teams...interesting experience.
And ...New York has now permitted ice cream makers to..legally manufacture and sell " Ice cream containing liquor" in New York State. I didn't know it couldn't be done. It's also suspended 19 liquor licenses.
I finished listening to a book today. It's the first book I've finished since February. Granted it was listening to one. But still I finished a book. Progress.
On that cheery note...I leave you with whatever half-way decent photo I can find without too much effort.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-04 02:14 am (UTC)