So I guess

I guess my pattern in this is 2-3 halfway decent to good days, followed by one day of just horror and acedia and not wanting to do anything and feeling sad and angry and like we will NEVER be able to safely leave the house again.

Cool, cool, at least I know now. I have to grade today and write two more short tests (got one already done for one class) but I don't know where I'm going to find the motivation.

Part of this is I got up at 5 am to do my work out and thought  "hey, maybe walmart opened some pickup slots and you could get more milk and salad "contact free"" but the slots through Friday were all gone.

I'm hoping it's just Easter holiday*/ people just got paid and not "it's going to be impossible to get a slot now because people have written crawlerbots that grab up the existing slots when they become available" (They say "every morning" they open them up, but there were none for the rest of the week at 5 am, and none at 7 am. I am guessing maybe it's like midnight, which is technically "morning" and people either have some kind of a program set to automatically grab them, or they stay up really late and get them?)

(*Yes, I know, Passover, but we have very few Jewish people, so few that it seems like it's hard to find matzoh in the stores....I haven't been in this year but as I remember wal-mart used to carry a little and a few "kosher for Passover" things, but otherwise, no. And we don't have a temple, I presume people drive somewhere else for services)

Yes, the food box is still supposed to come but I couldn't get any milk or salad this week and what do I want more than anything now to eat? Salad. And the romaine plants I bought mostly died.

So I guess I suit up either later today or early tomorrow and try the Green Spray? Maybe? (This morning they had their early-for-vulnerable-people hours, which is a good and right thing, so I couldn't go first thing today).

But yes, this is very tiresome and I am lonely and sad and am worried by some of the news coming out in re: antibodies in recovered people that might suggest no one gains immunity to this, and....I don't know. What if this is the thing that mostly ends humanity and ends society? Do I just keep plugging along and hope, or do I go out and figure, "Well, I'll get it, and either I'll survive or I'll die, but I'd get it eventually anyway if immunity is not possible" or does there come a point where I decide....no....I'm not even going to say it but I admit my mind went there, if the rest of my life is me hiding in my house and never being able to be within 6' of another human, I'm not going to live that much longer any way, because they say loneliness is as bad as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. I am still exercising and still trying to eat well but it feels slightly futile if my cardiovascular system is withering away because of lack of human contact.

I don't know whether to order a "contactless" pizza for delivery for lunch today or not. I suppose it's probably safe if I open the box up and then wash my hands, just in case....and I presume Marco's is requiring temperature checks on their workers, but I don't know.

I know "the curve is flattening" and there will be fewer deaths than feared, but still.....it feels like I'm never again going to be able to walk into a store without fear and a mask and full-body covering, and then strip and shower as soon as I get home. We are all Adrian Monk now, I guess. And it's terrible.


Part of it is, I think, the "transition to online" has taken so much time and energy that I'm not doing much else. I'm back reading through the Doctor in the House books (Richard Gordon) that I have, and I know they're very dated and there's a lot of misogyny and irresponsible behavior and bla bla bla, but they are one of the things that....I don't know, it shows me a glimpse of a safer world, where doctors didn't truck off to the hospital presuming they would sicken and die, and there's a sort of devil-may-care attitude that I never have been able to have (as regards money, mostly) and somehow it's a nice diversion.

Maybe I try to force through my work this morning and take the afternoon off, and .... I don't know. I don't feel like doing a lot. If this were happier times, if the pandemic never happened? I'd be in ecology lecture right now, and I'd be taking a crew of students out to do herbaceous plant sampling this afternoon, and that thought makes me sad, because yeah, if I could do anything? It would be that. I can't believe now that at one time I complained I was getting burnt out on ecology and was trying to persuade a colleague to swap classes with me, and me teach intro conservation while he taught ecology....I miss all my classes. I miss teaching in person. I miss being able to run down to the JoAnn's on the weekend and spend too much money on craft supplies I never use (and am not using now, even, in my captivity, because....it just feels like a lot to pick something up and start it).

Probably I just need to fight past the inertia and DO something; overcoming inertia is harder these days