In the Before, I used to travel for work a couple of times a month: airports, hotels, getting food in restaurants sometimes. Bus rides and long days in the war room. 1/Now, I mostly stay a few feet from my bed. I wear a mask to go out in the hall, fret about the cost of supporting local restaurants with takeout once a week. /1

I went to the condo gym every day. Most days I used equipment: machines or free weights. 2/I exercise in the same space I use as my makeshift office, with a floor mat and occasionally a dumbbell or two. /2

I rehearsed music with my choir every week: sixty people sitting and standing together, building music for performance, in a small room in a church, with lively social time. 3/I have Zoom sessions for two choirs, preparing to record a total of three songs in November for sound engineers to assemble with others' submissions for December. Online meetings are tiring. /3

I walked all over, pretty much every day. Spaced errands and shopping throughout the week. 4/I get food and other items delivered when I can. I'm supporting local farmers. Baked goods come in the mail. /4

Weekends were for galleries, museums, cultural and community events. It was great to be in crowds, people watching. 5/I stay indoors most days. Sometimes I will walk on the crowded streets, wearing my mask, following public health orders. /5

I volunteered, working in close proximity to people I had something in common with. 6/I don't spend much time around people in "real" spaces. It reminds me of being trapped in isolation long ago, not even seeing friends. /6

I want to move forward to a time after the pandemic. I have to live through now to get there. 13/

It's hard. My health is not superb. I can't make it stop on my own. I have to rely on our community and our leaders. 14/

Please stay as safe as you can. Help us all be safe. 15/15

I've seen some folks mocking the Northwestern students who rampaged through the aspirational suburb where the campus is to demand removal of the university police. I admit ignorance about jurisdictional authority (and about the Evanston Police Department) but at both the Evanston campus the Chicago campus (where my offices are), the university contracts with the local police departments, for any large gathering, like a protest or a football game.

So I don't know whether NU's campus police in Evanston are "police" or police. But I know the campus demographics at NU. 50% white, coming from families with a median income of 88k.

It seems that the mocking is aimed at kids like this, marching past Whole Foods, protesting campus cops because they are white kids, with rich parents, at college next door to a Whole Foods.

None of which invalidates their point that we should not have universities contracting with police and maybe should not have police at all.

As far as I can tell. they weren't muscling in on the work of abolitionists in Chicago (or even in Evanston). They were not co-opting a message or a movement. They were looking in their own backyard and saying something could be better.

I wonder what bit of news about the protest I'm missing?

I was chatting about TV with a friend in the Slack and I realized--I don't recall liking a lot of things I recall watching every time it came on. Not actively hating, just being really indifferent. I like being indifferent to what's on the TV. I don't often have enough in me to really attend to what I'm watching. Which often means I'm too tired to do anything more interesting.

That's why I miss people and bars and restaurants so much. More entertaining More interesting. Less exhausting, now that I've gotten better about choosing companions.

I think about people with children or multiple partners or roommates, even, and I think "god it's hard enough navigating space with one person."

I lose track of days. No, that's not right. I woke up knowing it was Sunday, October 11(ish--I probably thought it was the 12th), that in a normal year, we should be hearing the marathon crowds gathering. I remembered that we wouldn't be hearing them.

But I can't remember when last I showered. Or called my mom. Or how long ago that doctor's appointment was. The sameness is exhausting.

The mistakes that come from it are strange and often inconsequential. But i stay exhausted from it.

Mom drove in to the City and we had lunch in the yard. Mom despises eating outdoors. She never even mentioned it.

Lunch was good. There's a family-owned & run Mexican place just a few doors down and that was where lunch came from. 

I miss my Mom. 

She helped me pick paint. Validated my design choices. And I did not even cry. Though she scolded me about despair. I told that when something good happens--or when any local, state or federal government helps someone--I don't discount it.

It was beautiful in the yard, sunny, cool, crisp. It was almost normal.

The fender for my bike finally arrived--it's cream when it should be black.

My daily presciption has no refills left--three months early.

Ikea is finally sending my order--but just the doors and hinges, not any of the actual furniture. And the cancelation form sent a "sorry, we could not cancel this order" auto-response. And the phone tree (after you go through several options) gets you "Sorry, we can't handle any more calls" and hangs up.

And did I mention? Four sticks & three blown veins and an arm full of black bruises for an IV for a routine out-patient thing that could not be rescheduled. Plus 90 minutes of screaming anxiety in the public waiting room before they got around to me.

Not a single goddamn thing goes smoothly.

I fell off there for a while. 15 days. I had a minor out-patient procedure which resulted in three blown veins (for the IV) and one minor panic attack and a clean bill of health. And a whole weekend of sleeping.

That's not why I stopped taking notes, however.

But I fell off chronicling how things are because--if you'd noticed--there's little to chronicle. Aside from that one trip to the hospital, I don't leave the house except to walk in the park or sit in the yard. Spouse runs the errands; picks up the take-out. Zoom hangouts are nothing to write home about.

I'm doing postcards to voters but I'm not volunteering. I'm making my phone calls. But I have no insight; no power; no unique take. We're mostly unaffected--no changes to our employment; no illness in our families; no child we're trying to shepherd through trauma. And my own thoughts are simplistic: I'm bored; I'm frustrated; Everything is unreal; I'm frightened.

I laugh and enjoy things with the Spouse or on chats with the friends. I feel strange when things seem normal. I can't wrap my head around the banality of work in this context. I have no hope and periodically we look at ways to leave the country. We have enough money (assuming out money retains any of its current value) but we have no rights to live in another country and we're too old to be attractive as immigrants. I have few marketable skills. It's truly frightening at times.

I've been smelling decaying leaves all morning, but now I just got this combined with a whiff of someone's hearty beef with vegetable soup. It's not my favorite soup, it's probably Campbell's Chunky, but damn if I am not here to tell you that this smell is bringing me joy today. 

I'm a sucker for gloom.