The journey continues.
This week, the Ministry of Health and the College of Dietitians threw more policy down the pipe and now I'm working from home unless something specific calls me into the LTC homes where I work. The idea is to reduce transmission of the virus from home to home, and since I work in three, this makes sense. It does bring up a bunch of ethical considerations regarding what constitutes essential on-site nutrition care and I'm definitely struggling with that. I do feel better knowing I'm not going in and using up valuable PPE so the nursing staff can give the best care, but I'm also concerned that my residents are not getting the best care from me right now.
That's a whole ball of wax. I've had at least 2 video conference calls per week teasing out what it means and I don't want to spend more time on it here, but it's on my mind, so I mention it.
In the meantime, I have been trying to maintain some level of not-going-crazy in the 1000 sq. feet that I share with my husband. Here's how:
1. I get dressed for work every day. Even though I'm not going anywhere. I change into lounge clothes when I'm done. It helps me to distinguish between work time and home time. Also, it means that if I do have to go in, I'm already dressed.
2. Staying in contact. I've been keeping in touch with friends and family a little more than I had been pre-COVID-19. I'm happy to know they're safe and we commiserate about what's hard about this and what we're hopeful about. It's nice and I should have been doing more of it.
3. Staying active. Right now I'm finding that the weather is beautiful all morning and garbage at right around the time I'm clocking off, and this one would be easier if I could get on my bike and ride without getting pneumonia...but I'm trying to get moving regularly. My gym is closed, but my trainer sent me at-home workouts which I've been doing. I'm still finding that my joints are starting to feel sore, probably from underuse, and I need to focus more on this.
4. Deleting Facebook from my phone. I had been toying with dropping FB from my life altogether, but too many groups I'm part of use FB to communicate, including my family. I disabled the app on my phone, which means I can still use messenger to communicate with people, but I'm not finding myself scrolling through the multiple graphs showing the totally disheartening case-doubling rates of my province, my country and our neighbour to the south, and I'm not doing deep-dives in my friends' comments and getting into flame wars with people I don't really know about whatever it is I disagree with. I log on once or twice throughout the day from my laptop or desktop, but that's it and I feel better about it.
5. Online scrabble. My family and I have been playing Lexulous. This has been good because I have to focus on something very concrete - making the letters I have fit into the letters that are on the board. I'm historically terrible at this game even though I have a fairly extensive vocabulary. I remember a friend inviting me over to play scrabble and pulling out all his best stops because he thought I'd be really good. He skunked me. Anyway....it's also been good because I'm actually better at it than I remember (or my opponents are taking it easy on me...either way...), and that makes me feel good about something.
Still and all, I'm walking a fine line with my mental health. I'm actually finding weekends harder because there's less structure to the day and my mind wanders to places it maybe shouldn't go right now. I'm watching a lot more TV than I normally would and I'm not so proud of that. Most of what I'm reading is suggesting we've got another month or more of this, so digging in to what's working and getting rid f what's not is going to be extremely important.
I hope everyone's coping. I would be really interested to hear what's working for you.
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
The One with COVID-19
These are strange times, friends.
And I'm in a strange spot. I'm a healthcare worker, but not a frontline healthcare worker. I have contact with a vulnerable population, but not *intimate* contact. One of my employers has asked me to work remotely. The other two have decided that I'm an essential service. I'm confused about what that means.
Every once in a while I get that strange feeling that what's happening around me is happening, on a greater or smaller scale, to every single other person around the world and then I feel very small. Because nothing that's happening to me is special, except everything that's happening to everyone right now is special.
I don't have any cool advice on how to deal. Part of me was feeling a little overwhelmed with life and is a teensy bit relieved to have government-mandated stop-everything-you're-doing-and-stay-the-fuck-home time. I recognize that feeling has a lot to do with the level of privilege I enjoy. I own a functioning bicycle and have access to all kinds of streaming workouts. I have a fairly large stockpile of food in my cupboards and freezer, although some of it is a little...unconventional (anybody need a box of cocoa nibs? I have three. Will trade for dry pasta or eggs). My yarn and fabric stashes have been calling my name for *years*. The internet/cellphone waves keep me in touch with my loved ones far and wide. And let's not forget the famed movie list. I'm crossing things off of that baby like crazy.
The takehome here is that I'm probably going to be fine. But I have worries. I have people who are maybe not going to be fine. The fact that the various curves I keep refreshing on various public health-ish websites could go either way still makes me worried. I'm terrified that someone's going to sneeze on my coat at the grocery store and I'm going to be partially responsible for flattening a whole floor of octagenarians because my service was deemed essential. Everything is cancelled or closed "until further notice" and the lack of expiry date on this thing makes me hyperventilate a little.
I still don't have any cool advice on how to deal. Everything is normal and abnormal at the same time. Shit's weird. Everybody shits.
And I'm in a strange spot. I'm a healthcare worker, but not a frontline healthcare worker. I have contact with a vulnerable population, but not *intimate* contact. One of my employers has asked me to work remotely. The other two have decided that I'm an essential service. I'm confused about what that means.
Every once in a while I get that strange feeling that what's happening around me is happening, on a greater or smaller scale, to every single other person around the world and then I feel very small. Because nothing that's happening to me is special, except everything that's happening to everyone right now is special.
I don't have any cool advice on how to deal. Part of me was feeling a little overwhelmed with life and is a teensy bit relieved to have government-mandated stop-everything-you're-doing-and-stay-the-fuck-home time. I recognize that feeling has a lot to do with the level of privilege I enjoy. I own a functioning bicycle and have access to all kinds of streaming workouts. I have a fairly large stockpile of food in my cupboards and freezer, although some of it is a little...unconventional (anybody need a box of cocoa nibs? I have three. Will trade for dry pasta or eggs). My yarn and fabric stashes have been calling my name for *years*. The internet/cellphone waves keep me in touch with my loved ones far and wide. And let's not forget the famed movie list. I'm crossing things off of that baby like crazy.
The takehome here is that I'm probably going to be fine. But I have worries. I have people who are maybe not going to be fine. The fact that the various curves I keep refreshing on various public health-ish websites could go either way still makes me worried. I'm terrified that someone's going to sneeze on my coat at the grocery store and I'm going to be partially responsible for flattening a whole floor of octagenarians because my service was deemed essential. Everything is cancelled or closed "until further notice" and the lack of expiry date on this thing makes me hyperventilate a little.
I still don't have any cool advice on how to deal. Everything is normal and abnormal at the same time. Shit's weird. Everybody shits.
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
New List
Ugh...I keep trying to write something and I'm not getting past the first few sentences.
I've been trying to read more lately. More books, first and foremost, but also articles and commentaries on current events. One of my aborted attempts at this post was inspired by an article about African American installation artist Kara Walker.
More recently, I read an article about how the internet has become a giant library of top 10 listicles. It's not too far from the truth, and as a lifelong list-maker myself, it hit home for me. The piece made the argument that the ever-expanding archive of ranked lists is really part of the capitalist machine to steer our collective consumption. When I see a top 10 list, my gut reaction is to add the things on that list into one of my own lists. I have a list of podcasts I want to listen to, a list of books I want to read, a list of movies I want to see, a list of recipes I want to make, a list of crafts I want to craft...the list goes on. The part of me that wants to eat the rich and smash the patriarchy tells myself that I will only buy these things when I actually need a new one, or when someone asks me what I would like as a gift, or I will only borrow it from the library (I guess that one only works for books...)...
I could go on to defend myself with the notion that most of the lists I'm culling for my own list-fodder are written by people or groups that ascribe mainly to my own particular ideals, the deeper part of me knows that it's still all just part of the WANT machine that's been driving us more and more lately. A large part of me knows I can never possibly listen to all the podcasts, read all the books, watch all the movies, bake all the cakes and knit all the hats because I simply don't have the time or money to do that and still go to work and exercise and eat right and sleep a full 8 hours every night. That part of me is dying of FOMO every second.
A gentleman I know who used to work in the publishing industry told me that the reason for all the lists on the internet and all the franchise reboots in the movies and all the sampling and covering in music is that the planet earth is DESPERATE for content. Always be (making) CONTENT so we can ALWAYS BE CONSUMING.
How can this possibly be? I feel like I'm *figuratively* drowning in CONTENT. I can't even keep up with the articles I'm trying to read about how the content that's out there isn't even very good. This entry I'm writing isn't very good, but that's because I'm trying to force myself to create content.
...
I know this is where I usually have a tidy little resolution where I find a way to resolve things for myself. But the truth is, I really don't know how to stop making lists. And the corollary to that is that I also want to remove things from the list...Hmmm...
New list:
1. Eat the rich.
2. Smash the patriarchy.
...
There's the denouement I was looking for.
I've been trying to read more lately. More books, first and foremost, but also articles and commentaries on current events. One of my aborted attempts at this post was inspired by an article about African American installation artist Kara Walker.
More recently, I read an article about how the internet has become a giant library of top 10 listicles. It's not too far from the truth, and as a lifelong list-maker myself, it hit home for me. The piece made the argument that the ever-expanding archive of ranked lists is really part of the capitalist machine to steer our collective consumption. When I see a top 10 list, my gut reaction is to add the things on that list into one of my own lists. I have a list of podcasts I want to listen to, a list of books I want to read, a list of movies I want to see, a list of recipes I want to make, a list of crafts I want to craft...the list goes on. The part of me that wants to eat the rich and smash the patriarchy tells myself that I will only buy these things when I actually need a new one, or when someone asks me what I would like as a gift, or I will only borrow it from the library (I guess that one only works for books...)...
I could go on to defend myself with the notion that most of the lists I'm culling for my own list-fodder are written by people or groups that ascribe mainly to my own particular ideals, the deeper part of me knows that it's still all just part of the WANT machine that's been driving us more and more lately. A large part of me knows I can never possibly listen to all the podcasts, read all the books, watch all the movies, bake all the cakes and knit all the hats because I simply don't have the time or money to do that and still go to work and exercise and eat right and sleep a full 8 hours every night. That part of me is dying of FOMO every second.
A gentleman I know who used to work in the publishing industry told me that the reason for all the lists on the internet and all the franchise reboots in the movies and all the sampling and covering in music is that the planet earth is DESPERATE for content. Always be (making) CONTENT so we can ALWAYS BE CONSUMING.
How can this possibly be? I feel like I'm *figuratively* drowning in CONTENT. I can't even keep up with the articles I'm trying to read about how the content that's out there isn't even very good. This entry I'm writing isn't very good, but that's because I'm trying to force myself to create content.
...
I know this is where I usually have a tidy little resolution where I find a way to resolve things for myself. But the truth is, I really don't know how to stop making lists. And the corollary to that is that I also want to remove things from the list...Hmmm...
New list:
1. Eat the rich.
2. Smash the patriarchy.
...
There's the denouement I was looking for.
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