covi

Starring out windows is what self-isolators do best

This might be the day that productivity fails me and I forgo a bra. I don’t want to get dressed or go for a walk. I probably wouldn’t even be writing this if I hadn’t made the commitment and if I didn’t know that there were at least one or two of you out there who are bored enough to read it. I read what I wrote yesterday and yeah this blog is terrible. So if you are reading it, I am sorry and I will try to be better but honestly probably not today. This is just what I am doing to keep myself mentally moving forward. I do wonder what book Brene Brown is writing right now. She and the people who are already at the top of their careers, the famous comedians, skilled authors and journalists, the people of our times, they will tell the stories of this time in our history and for that I am jealous. All I have are grand hopes for our collective conscious shift and a fundamental change to our systems and this quarantine blog.

I love logistics. I am fascinated by systems and I loathe that they fail us.

(Long Pause)

(Stare out the window)

Systems are people. That is something I learned in the first half of my Master’s in Public Administration program. Systems are the people who make them up. In us, as a people and a system, I see a blind spot when it comes to patterns and our individual parts in them. Our systems have a hard time helping people. Navigating them as a user feels like playing a game you can’t win, like the Hunger Games. They don’t all fail us, all the time. If I receive the unemployment I was quoted for, that system will work for me. I’m thinking primarily right now our crisis response systems at the local, state and federal levels, of coarse. Who isn’t? And ugh, get me back in school cause the next time something like this happens, and there will be a next time, I want to be in a position to contribute to the response, if not the telling.

I promised to revisit the difference between boredom and loneliness. The other night, though I had gone for a good hike in the foothills and delivered food to people and had just a tip top, gorgeously productive day, when I got home and the sun went down, I felt lonely. I hadn’t felt that in a good while. I felt so lonely I got mad at the people who weren’t here and then I started to think, like I used to all the time, “no one loves me…” As soon as I heard myself say those words I was I knew I was in trouble , that I was going to a place that I did not want to go and then thought, “ah yes, there is food for this.” I knew that I needed to immediately love myself to keep from going down that hole and so I ate a second dinner and then a second dessert and passed out before the endorphins could wear off. Its ok to give yourself what you need when you really need it most. So here is my half-baked theory- loneliness can lead to dangerous places and requires some sort of preferably immediate action, where as boredom is a blessing to be fully given into.

This hoodie has food all over it and smells like b.o.

This hoodie has food all over it and smells like b.o.


But what about yard sale season?

On the topic of What do you do with all your spare time? Louise writes off the top, “This is what I can’t decide: -Whether I don’t have any spare time at all, or whether most of my time is spare time.”

Finding a bread recipe for which I have all the tools and ingredients took a bit of searching. No bread stone, stand mixer or even metal loaf pan at my disposal, I’m trying this one and using the dual cast iron alternative method because I also don’t have a dutch over. I’m suddenly craving yard sale season.

Last season I was moving into the apartment I am in now and I needed trash recycling cans. I was working full-time at that point so I went to Bed Bath & Beyond and struggled with the decision between the $50 single canister or the dual auto-opening $200 can for 15-20 minutes when I came to my senses and bought the $50 one. I carried that still relatively expensive trashcan around in my car for a good week, feeling not quite right about the purchase. Ahhhh… wait. I’m out $50 bucks and I still need another trash can? Then I remembered that yard sale season was approaching and I brought that trashcan back. .

It was a particularly magical spring. I devoted a wholeSaturday to the activity of finding trashcans and other things, did the mapping and everything and then I hit the motherhood- an entire subdivision of sales! Turns out it was an annual thing; they had a banner! I walked past house after house of friendly families and elderly home-girls, appliances and clothes, tools and sporting equipment, sun on my face, all for far below retail value, gently USED stuff! I had a full dopamine release, a feeling akin to orgasm, my legs got weak and I had to sit on a curb. I ended up with a nice tall white can for $3.00 another small stainless one, almost identical to the one at BB&B for $5.00 which I haggled down to $4.00 (on principle.) Im not going to pay $5.00 for a trashcan at a yard sale, common.

Its hard to tell how this pandemic will effect the yard, garage, rummage sale biz… will people be de-cluttering and cleaning or ware they finally using all of the stuff they never had time to for before, like Norwegian whisks and proofing baskets?

Louise goes on to say that since she enjoys everything she does, aside from cooking, and because it is all necessary to survival, “there is no demarcation between work and play.” Then she writes at greater length about smelting, or the process of catching very small sardine-like-fish with a short running season, at much greater length than she discusses giving birth. The bread came out just fine, a mere morning of light work between writing this and doing poorly at my boundaries by listening to the news and texting friends. Basically anything that is not looking for ways to make income or temporary relief from unemployment is considered spare time for me and like Louise I enjoy it all, most especially the cooking. I’m going to get to the whole income thing right after I finish detailing all my shoes and watching my favorite Vermont Hippie Mom friend make cookies on google chat.

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