* Well, Imperfect Foods got back to me. They are supposed to be refunding me my shipping (about $6) and I am to e-mail them if anything arrives spoiled. They seem to think it won't; I am pretty convinced it will because unless the FedEx terminal has a refrigerated locker or at least climate control, that box is gonna be sitting in 90+ degree heat for two days.
I'm still unhappy. But yeah, this is just disappointment number 6,745,328 of this year, so whatever.
My mother reports FexEx was delivering in HER neighborhood (Illinois) today, so I don't even know. Driver sick-out? Decided they didn't want to brave the construction on 75? Who knows.
* I know I can feel stuff like this making me excessively petty but yeah, like I said - this is just one more disappointment in a year that's been overfilled with them, and it wears on you. If this were the before-times - well, I wouldn't even be DOING Imperfect Foods, probably, because I'd be able to easily go out whereever to get groceries.
* Thinking about an Ask MetaFilter I read today, and how I can tell my empathy is strained - someone was writing about how they were "sheltering in place" with their spouse and kids earlier, but apparently spouse and kids were out of town now (the individual in question having had to do the post-exposure quarantine). Anyway, they were like "so how do I enjoy the Fourth of July ALL ALONE" and I am like
I did Easter alone. And Memorial Day, not that I ever do much. And I am doing 4th of July alone. And heck, I will VERY likely be doing Thanksgiving and Christmas alone if nothing much changes between now and then.
At least that person (and yes, this is where I get petty) has a spouse and kids with them most of the time. Until this week, for the past 4 months, I have barely seen another human other than on a screen.
I dunno. I was also thinking - well, this is probably what finally kills of Trick or Treating at Hallowe'en, if the virus is still around I cannot imagine parents wanting to take their kids out and I can't imagine people wanting to hand out candy. We're going to all have to figure out some new set of distanced celebrating things and I don't even know. I can see doing stuff "for the kids' sake" or even for a spouse, but for a single person? Not much point. Not much point in trying to celebrate anything, and I admit my main feeling about Independence Day this year is annoyance at all the yahoos shooting off fireworks until 2 am.
I mean, if I had a little Hibachi grill (I don't) and either steaks or hotdogs or even hamburger patties (I don't have any of those things), I could do a little cook out for myself on my side porch, but I don't so I can't.
I may have to make another Pruett's run Monday, boo, if the meat that I ordered comes all spoiled.
If I had more room in my house I'd get a chest freezer and just buy a crapton of meat and stuff and be more disciplined about remembering to take it out to thaw in the fridge the night before I want it. This kind of thing is for the birds.
the other option would be to get pick up barbecue Sunday if the barbecue place is open then. (I doubt they would be open tomorrow).
* Also, I realized that most people will be off the various social-media places I hang out this weekend, so it will be very still and quiet and I will have to remind myself that it's just that people are doing things with family, and it's not that I've driven them away from wanting to interact with me. (And yes, that's one of the things my goblin brain says to me some times: that when people don't interact with me, they've gotten sick of my BS. I don't even look to closely at profiles because I don't want to see that someone's unfollowed me, maybe, and I'm grateful Twitter doesn't send notification of that. I guess they do of blocking? I don't know)
* I'd weather this better in the before-times, because I could have gone antiquing today (even though it's hot) or gone out and had lunch somewhere and felt less....transparent.....somehow, because I am around other people even if they are not people who are friends. And I think part of my upset with the (rare, I know) cases of people caught on viral video being just absolutely horrible (the woman throwing things out of a grocery cart in a tantrum because she doesn't want to wear a mask) is that I start to feel like even THAT very limited sort of socialization will be closed off to me, because the tantrum-throwers will win and the public square will be too unpleasant. And I don't even know.
I used to be more content with my own company. At least, I think I was? Or maybe it was that those small daily interactions - saying hi to someone in the hallway, having a little conversation with someone working in a shop - met the need I had for socialization and I didn't notice just how very alone I am?
* I was also thinking the other day about that thing I read about robots that were being developed to "interact" with people in nursing homes - mostly as pet-substitutes (cats or dogs or ducklings with somewhat realistic behavior patterns) but I guess there were a few that would, in some way, communicate back and forth with the person and darnit, if we're facing a future of pandemics where we maybe need to lock ourselves away every few years, they need to get those developed and affordable so people like me can get those little daily interactions.
And no, calling people doesn't really work for me, it feels too....you have to plan it in advance, and sometimes they're busy and can't talk and it's just easier having another being there in your same space to talk to. Calling and even texting feels like I'm intruding on the person's time and I don't want to do that.
I can't quite resurrect the imaginary friends I had as a kid; I think by the time I was able to remember the idea of having them, I was already to the point of KNOWING they were imaginary and basically in a weird way play-acting at it, because kids were "expected" to have imaginary friends.
* I've been slowly watching through the early seasons (am on season 1 right now) of "30 Rock" as something shorter and a bit less dated than Murder, She Wrote. I can't tell if I like it or not. Some of the jokes are funny but the characters are mostly either unlikeable (greedy, needy, selfish, rude) or get dumped on by life on a regular basis and I find that particularly painful to watch. There's something about a character who at least presents as earnest (Kenneth) or hard-working (Liz Lemon) getting dumped on again and again by life that hurts me.
It's almost like the "unkind alternate universe" version of Parks and Recreation - there, even though Jerry/Gary gets some verbal abuse, there's the sense that the characters all more or less care about each other. And even the people I'd find deeply annoying in real life (Tom Haverford, for example, or Andy Dwyer, whose sheer dimness, in real life, would send me into conniptions), have an endearing edge to them that makes them seem not so bad.
I wonder if you could pair dark/light universe pairs of shows or media - I was listening to one of my Pandora stations and "Piano Man" came on, and it struck me that that was like a sadder Alternate Universe version of "Cheers."
* And yeah, another thought - the other day (or maybe it was today, they all blend together now), the BBC news played a little clip of the "Cheers" theme song to introduce a story on pubs reopening and I admit I nearly cried at it because even though I never have been a bar goer (and suspect I would never fit in with the clientele at most), the idea of having somewhere to go, where everyone knows your name (and where, perhaps, they at least act happy to see you when you show up) is something I have missed in my life during this time.
Really, at the end of this, I'm going to see this time as being sort of like the Swamp of Sadness in the Neverending Story, or perhaps the Slough of Despond (though I have never yet read The Pilgrim's Progress, and I guess that slough is more about feeling bad about your own sins, rather than being dragged down by the sheer random terribleness that happens in the world). Sort of a grey mass that feels like Silly Putty and is hard to get out of, and when you're in it, it's all much of a sameness - the days are long but the weeks sometimes seem short and time has a strange elasticity to it.
This is one of those times where you just have to hang on....but I've been hanging on through this for SO LONG, it feels like, and I still don't really see a way out of it. I hope we get out of it before I can't hang on any more....
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