Writing emails sure is fun! Honestly even when I had a job that was over 50% emailing, I never really got sick of it but I also used to write long-hand letters for fun. People are different! Skydiver SLF, asked me why I was doing this, meaning blogging. Sometime its only because I know that my life-long and biggest fan of an aunt is reading; I am not under the illusion that I am creating a masterpiece but “What if someone wants to make a book about it?” Okay, sure I have had that fleeting, grandiose thought but I’m not Carrie Bradshaw and this isn’t a New York City sex column. I’m not going for a book deal, or followers, and I may even at times, incriminate myself with the ways I skirt around the SIP, like my plans to spend this summer on a SUP. From Sipin to SUPin, I’ll call it. It’s easy to stay 6-feet apart on a river!
I am creating a record, and the novel thought I had yesterday, while using the toilet, was that maybe I’ll get a kick out of reading this one day. Writing helps me remember in the moment and in the future and process and narrow in and, it turns out, make decisions. Writing about what was holding me back with the purchase yesterday, helped me move on from it, like a snagged finger nail, filed back to a smooth round edge. This is the magic of giving a problem attention.
Speaking of smooth round edges, I emailed iRocker, the SUP company with the best reviews and most reasonably priced boards. I was surprised that what started as an ask for a discount, turned into a full scale visualization on how to bring my skills and what I love to do together in a business idea. I need to figure how I am going to make a living! This has been on my to do list for about 13 years, since I graduated from college in 2007, in another recession. Just as I had paid off my student loans, exited a failed relationship, learned to make cocktails and secured a solid feature spot at the comedy club, just as I had started to believe that I could make something out of my quilted career history, here comes the Rona. But this time around, I know better. I refuse to be the chopped liver of our corrupt capitalistic governmentally longer. I will not internalize the failure of our systems this time around. I will figure out a way to make money, to build a career, to serve my community and I will come out on the other side of this because, we the people, especially the poor people, deserve it. This is our time and I for one, will not suffer this again. I am getting a SUP and you can guaran-godamn-tee, I’m gonna make something out of it.
In terms of the day to day and the coronavirus, I follow the NYTimes Daily podcast and they have had one guest, Donal G. McNeil Jr., a science and health reporter, on multiple times at critical points in the pandemic. He has been ahead of the game and listening to the early reports helped me be ahead of the game as well. I bought toilet paper on Coronavirus Wednesday and if you remember, Thursday was the beginning of the panic. On this Monday’s episode of the Daily, Donald givens some insight into how and where we might go from here. Reopening and coming back together is almost scarier than continuing to shelter-in-place. Its a mess and its not looking like things will change, or at least should change, anytime soon. I wrongly thought that warm weather would kill the virus and we’d get at least some relief and rejoin as a society in some ways, but who the hell knows? The heaviness of the situation bears down more fully. With the lack of clear guidelines and strong leadership, division seems to grow, even in like-minded people. I feel a current of shame getting stronger and circling in. I am wondering if I am imagining things, if I am doing something wrong by riding my bike on the greenbelt or hosting my germ bubble friends, one-at-time for dinner and sanitizing all surfaces before and after their visit. Are we starting into the phase where we turn on each other or have we been there am I just noticing it? Do we point fingers at each other because we can, because there is someone to take out our frustration on in the immediate. SUPing is not SIPing but it is social distancing so its ok, right?
Should I make some shame armor and learn to sew masks? That way I could be like, “Well I may have been SUPin through coronavirus summer but I donated homemade masks, made from my old t-shirts, to healthcare workers, what did you do?” Or I could just live life like all the executives of most major companies are do and say nothing while I live my best life and other continue to suffer. What do you you do when you are neither a hero, nor a complete asshole in times like these?