I got nothing

Just leaving a marker that I'm still here but today was not a good day.

once again the Imperfect Foods box has been "delayed" and Fed Ex has promised, cross their heart, that it will be delivered tomorrow, but I am once-bitten-twice-shy and I expect the box got damaged in transit (or "damaged" when someone figured out there was fancy food in it).

I was....kind of counting on that for an easy dinner. Oh, I have food in the house, but it is not what I was wanting.

It also makes me worry - if Fed Ex is getting this unreliable (if the box has indeed been rendered undeliverable), what do I do if we have to do a "hard lockdown" with limited grocery access (Some are talking about it, thinking there will be a truly devastating second wave this fall) or if I get COVID exposed on campus and have to quarantine for two weeks? I guess it will be "either eat crap out of cans or hope I can find someone who is willing to go to the store for me and leave the stuff on my doorstep" and I hate that.

I would hope the campus would have something in place to assist employees; I am not the only single-lives-alone one. But it will be "depend on your friends or colleagues" and I don't know what we do if everyone we might depend on is also having to quarantine. I guess "eat crap out of cans' and hope for the best.

I am running out of hope that things will EVER be better. The new normal sucks and maybe just the rest of my life will suck, it will be a series of unpleasant shocks until the very last one.

***

I do have to either figure out an attorney or do some kind of online paperwork, I definitely want to have a formal will and some kind of advanced-directive in place before going back this fall because I suspect I *will* get exposed to COVID, and there's 1 % or so chance I will die. I don't like those odds.

I don't even play the damned lottery, and the odds of dying of this are a whole heck of a lot "better" than winning the lottery would be.

I should text my friend who is the DA and see who she would recommend.

I will also need to find an executor

this is way more adulting than I want to do.

***

Got an e-mail from my doctor telling me I had a message on the patient portal and of course with no other information that freaked me out but it was mostly "please wear a mask when you come in to the office in two weeks" and could they have not said that up front in the e-mail? That's not exactly privileged information.

I freaked out for about 30 seconds going "no no no no please let her not have been exposed and gotten sick" but like I said: it was a boilerplate thing with no privileged info that could probably just have been sent as an e-mail.

***

***

I know a lot of this is because I feel trapped in a one-meter-square space in my life right now, and every little bad thing that in the before-times would have either been an annoyance (the delayed delivery) or something I barely noticed (the e-mail about "check your patient portal") but now, because I have so very little happening in my life, they loom large, and it's easy for small things to either get under my skin and annoy me out of all proportion (And just on cue: one of the neighbors started up his loud lawn tractor. He has a smaller yard than I do.....) or make me feel like they are evidence the world is falling apart.

I just...I am desperate for some good or happy news, and it's hard to find right now.

I am torn between starting all the new projects I want to start (I dug out the pattern for an elaborate sweater called Incunabula from the "This Thing of Paper" book and I know where the yarn I got for it is) because....starting projects makes me happy. But the other part of me goes, "no, if you're gonna die, you don't want to leave behind eight thousand unfinished things that your brother or Mike or Emily or whoever you get to be your executor will have to figure out what to do with" and I don't know.

Also part of me looks at the things that in normal times would bring me joy - my ponies, my books, all the cookbooks I own - and I cringe, thinking of someone cursing the mess I leave behind after I die, even though this is a terrible time to try to get rid of things (not even really all that safe to go regularly to the post office, if I could sell or give away some of the things).

I know this is just partly the mood I am in and when I went to bed last night and crawled into the big messy nest of stuffed animals I have on my bed, I thought, "I couldn't get rid of these, I need them" but yeah....it is something I have thought of off and on in this past year too-filled with losses in my life.

***

The big re-opening news is that they will be posting the number of cases on-campus on the website - we already have people who have tested positive on campus.

I'm still not convinced that the task force will just decide opening in-person isn't possible this fall, and we'll wind up all online, and I admit that would relieve some of my worries, but.....I also find it really hard to do much work towards any of that. I need to write my syllabi but I feel like I hit a brick wall when I try, partly because there is so much I do not KNOW about how this is going to work.

I mean, I still have a few weeks and maybe I will know by then but....this is all breaking me.

And like I said: part of me is thinking "When this is finally over to the point that some kind of normality is safe again (like: not having to "distance" people in the classroom), I will be so happy to be teaching like in the old times again" and another part of me is thinking "I'm done after this year. I can't deal with this, this has sapped the last of my energy. If they offer early retirement, I'll take it; if not, maybe I quit and find employment elsewhere or move back home with my mom"

I probably need to call the counselor again, though I'm not sure how much she can do.