One-year Anniversary of Work-from-Home/Self-Isolation/Lock-Down.

I didn't start counting until the weekend. But this was the day my co-workers and I went into Lockdown - March 17, 2020.

We acknowledged it during the "Staff Meeting From Doom" today. It was the beginning of the week from hell.

In two days I get the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. The NY Governor got the Johnson & Johnson today in Harlem - he's trying to get the African-American, Black, & Hispanic communities to get the vaccine. There were a lot of speeches - two from his mentors, who helped raise them - a black congressman and a black social activist and local representative.
They all made it clear that if it weren't for the Governor, we'd not have gotten this far.

Most New Yorker's according to polls support the Governor and don't believe the allegations. Or care. ( long ramble about being quick to judgment and fair hearings, etc )

I made another quiche, after talking to mother. Mother got the second dose of the Moderna. She also took two tynenol when she got home - because she's already in pain all the time. Doctor did say it was okay to take a tynenol after the second dose, just not before.

Although if I have a vertigo headache coming on...because of weather/pollen I'm taking the tynenol that morning. Today is the first day this week that I didn't have the sinus headache. So, I've hope. I think the weather finally got through shifting. I hope.

During work, Wales texted me. And I've no clue how to help her.
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God. She's always been a little crazy - I tried to help her in 2008 and it blew up in my face in 2009. Now, I have boundaries. I keep telling her to get out of her head.

The thing is I don't have the bandwidth to help. I'm exhausted.

Me: I think Wales is going crazy. (I tell her about it.) And this is the one friend who calls me or texts me...I..
Mother: I know how exactly how you feel - I spoke with your father today.
Me (well not exactly the same..): How's Dad?
Mother: Well, he's leading the "parade" today - so if he passes your way, let me know.

Every day, I go through this kind of fear, anger, relief...trajectory. But I find moments of happiness within it.
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NY vs. the Corona Virus

From the Governor's newsletter...
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I am getting a headache again, I think. I can't wait until Friday - when I get the vaccine over and done with. So far, mother isn't having any symptoms for her second dose. She's doing okay with her home-health care workers, and her neighbors who check in on her. I feel kind of isolated where I'm at - my friends and family all on phones and inside my computer.
The only people I see in person are the strangers in the laundry room, lobby, sidewalks, grocery stores, pharmacy, and cemetery.

Stuff

1. The Meghan Markle Helpline - a Made up Helpline for a Made Up Problem.

LOL. The line that made me laugh? "The Meghan Markle Helpline for the people who got incensed watching the interview - which they watched of their own free will..."

2. I also watched a rather entertaining podcast with Russel Brand on the whole thing.

Russel Brand on the Meghan Markle Interview - he addresses the class issues - which I thought was really interesting - American Classicism is very different than British Classicism, because we don't really have the whole monarchy thing. (Trump tried - it did not work. We had a Revolutionary War for a reason - hello. But he did try along with his idiotic white supremacist supporters. So - we really have a divide on that issue. Also, Americans romanticize the Royal Family and British class system or aristocracy. Do you have any idea how many American historical romance novels there are that focus on British Regency Period and Dukes? So not only romanticize, fantasize about it - but don't understand it or why it still exists. )

3. For those into RPG (I'm not, but if you are) Kickstarter for a RPG that takes place in a fantasy world where the Americas were never colonized - 700 years in the future entitled Coyotes and Crows

I'm not into games or cosplay. It's the one cultural medium that makes no sense to me. I keep trying to like them - because you know, socialization? But, alas, no.

4. Hmmm...saw this on Twitter and thought about sisinlaw - who creates her own dyes, fabrics, designs, and clothing line.

Sisinlaw was highly appreciative and emailed back that she'd just painted their plates in arsenic green.

5. Regarding books, writing, comics, audiobooks, and reading?

* I've discovered audio books - which have too pluses, 1) they don't take up shelf space - and since I have none left, this is a good thing. I have books in an old coffee table that I need to get rid of - the coffee table, not the books. I also took about three bags full down to the basement laundry room library. 2) you can listen to them while making breakfast, dinner, getting ready for work, and electronic filing, also walks to and from the cemetery.

* Kindle and Fire HD - work very well for storing electronic books that take up no shelf space. I basically have over 1000 books on the Kindle and Fire (some are comics, which is about 200?) and 1000 regular on Kindle. I also have all those other books on the shelves. And no, I haven't read most of them - because I have a tendency to comfort/impulse buy books when I get upset, depressed, craving something, edgy, bored, frustrated, or anxious. Weirdly I've bought less during the pandemic - I've no idea why that is. So possibly I'm wrong? And I have a tendency to buy books when I'm none of those things? (Still flirting with Kindle Oasis, but not sold on it yet.)

*Michelle Obama's Becoming I'm half-way through Michelle Obama's Becoming - it's better than expected. She's a good writer - or whomever she got to help her is, I don't really know. Also she's an excellent reader. It's an intriguing book to read after reading Barack Obama's Promised Land, because it's kind of like seeing the other side of his story or his story from another perspective? Seeing a President from the perspective of the First Lady is an interesting experience.

* Writing And on the writing end? I'm playing with a fantasy novel, which I'm considering illustrating with paintings, drawings, and photographs. Along with little descriptions of the species in it - as one might find in a book. Haven't really gotten to the world-building quite yet - I see the world unfolding in my head. I kind of write in weird snippets, and as the story unfolds in my head - I write it down and play. Stories unfold like movies in my head, but often not in sequence. I have to back up and fill in the gaps as I write - my head wants to jump ahead , but if I give in, I have troubles filling in the gaps in between.

My brain isn't really linear. It jumps about. I have to kind of corral it into one groove.

I am still getting responses to the meta I posted to Ao3. I didn't post my fanfic. I'm leery of posting that. I'm not really a fanfic writer. To be one - you have to trust betas. And it makes me edgy. I don't like to beta myself either - why? Because I am not a good line or copy-editor. I have a tendency to want to change the story or fix it. And that's not a beta's job. My mother is a very good beta, so too are professional line editors.

But I've had miserable luck with friends as betas - they either want to change the story completely into another story that is in their heads (in other words throw out mine, substitute their plot and have me write it - and just no), or they liked it, but don't have any constructive comments to make. Let's face it - most people suck at betaeing. My father found this out too early on - and wisely advised me to hire a professional.

The problem with fanfic or my issues with it - is a)I need a beta, b)I don't want one, c)I don't write well on demand or to a fan's fantasy, more to my own. d) it's a lot of work...and I feel like I'm in someone else's territory and have to get all the character's voices, actions, and the world exact - in short? I think I may be too much of detail-oriented perfectionist to write fanfic?? I don't tend to have issues reading it, I just don't enjoy writing it.

* Comics

I've started reading comics again, after a bit of a break during the pandemic.

The story got good again, although I kept getting lost and unable to find issues. Comixcology doesn't make it easy to find Marvel stuff - other stuff yes, Magna? No problem. But it appears to have issues with Marvel.

My favorite? Weirdly? Unexpectedly? ( Read more... )

Off to bed. Sigh.