Coronavirus Chronicles: This is weird
I've been writing this blog intermittently for 13 years now, trying to document the important moments in my life, the minutiae that I don't want to forget, and everything in between. I'll occasionally look at posts from years ago, reviewing what I was thinking, doing, feeling, and writing. Some things I remember, some I forgot -- and the blog is there to capture both.
As the coronavirus crisis reaches an unfathomable point -- with plenty of more fathoms inevitably and frighteningly to be crossed -- I'm feeling the need to document what happens. The fatalist in me says I want to write what happens to our family if everything in the world goes to hell.
Then there's the historian who wants to document these days when something big was a happening and how we reacted with it. I was thinking about both 9/11 and the 2002 Olympics today -- how I wish I blogged during both. I don't want to miss that opportunity this time.
Perhaps most crucially, the Joe in me just needs to write to make sense of everything that's happening. The range of emotions over the past few days has been strange -- from angry to annoyed to happy to sad to content to industrious to pensive to confused. Writing about every day of the crisis might be the best way to sort out a brain that is struggling to get over the idea that this is reality.
Today was Sunday, four days after social distancing and school cancellations began steamrolling, and a day after the really changed world began. I woke up and looked on Facebook to see a friend from college who's a Jesuit priest was doing an online Mass. I didn't so much need the Mass as I needed someone to say that it was OK to be freaked out and that we can draw strength from each other.
After breakfast, Lori and I took a long walk with the dog for the second day in a row. The late morning was sunny, mild, and a bit blustery. We mostly talked about the crisis and how we're navigating it.
I'll be working from my office all week -- hell, the whole next month -- where I have not been as productive this winter as I've been out of the house. Until it warms up a little more and I can work outside, the office will be, well, my office. To prepare, I straightened it for a couple hours; over the past few months, it deteriorated into a storage room again. It still needs some work, but at least I made enough progress that I won't feel like I'm stuck in a mess.
I also did some yardwork in the afternoon, got a jump on my workweek, and watched "Naked Gun 2 1/2" with Ben. Lori made pork chops and rice for dinner. I talked with a neighbor, from a safe distance, about the chaos we're both encountering in our respective lives.
The crisis is about to get worse, and more isolating. The number of deaths in Italy reported today jumped like crazy. The U.S. is about two weeks behind Italy, and the social distancing is going to be extended to more things and more days. I bet we're at least two months away from life getting back to normal. The weird will continue ... and I'll be here to write about it.
As the coronavirus crisis reaches an unfathomable point -- with plenty of more fathoms inevitably and frighteningly to be crossed -- I'm feeling the need to document what happens. The fatalist in me says I want to write what happens to our family if everything in the world goes to hell.
Then there's the historian who wants to document these days when something big was a happening and how we reacted with it. I was thinking about both 9/11 and the 2002 Olympics today -- how I wish I blogged during both. I don't want to miss that opportunity this time.
Perhaps most crucially, the Joe in me just needs to write to make sense of everything that's happening. The range of emotions over the past few days has been strange -- from angry to annoyed to happy to sad to content to industrious to pensive to confused. Writing about every day of the crisis might be the best way to sort out a brain that is struggling to get over the idea that this is reality.
Today was Sunday, four days after social distancing and school cancellations began steamrolling, and a day after the really changed world began. I woke up and looked on Facebook to see a friend from college who's a Jesuit priest was doing an online Mass. I didn't so much need the Mass as I needed someone to say that it was OK to be freaked out and that we can draw strength from each other.
After breakfast, Lori and I took a long walk with the dog for the second day in a row. The late morning was sunny, mild, and a bit blustery. We mostly talked about the crisis and how we're navigating it.
I'll be working from my office all week -- hell, the whole next month -- where I have not been as productive this winter as I've been out of the house. Until it warms up a little more and I can work outside, the office will be, well, my office. To prepare, I straightened it for a couple hours; over the past few months, it deteriorated into a storage room again. It still needs some work, but at least I made enough progress that I won't feel like I'm stuck in a mess.
I also did some yardwork in the afternoon, got a jump on my workweek, and watched "Naked Gun 2 1/2" with Ben. Lori made pork chops and rice for dinner. I talked with a neighbor, from a safe distance, about the chaos we're both encountering in our respective lives.
The crisis is about to get worse, and more isolating. The number of deaths in Italy reported today jumped like crazy. The U.S. is about two weeks behind Italy, and the social distancing is going to be extended to more things and more days. I bet we're at least two months away from life getting back to normal. The weird will continue ... and I'll be here to write about it.
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