This is an open thread to let it all hang out. Tell me your fears, how you’ve been spending your day(s), what’s been cancelled that you’ve been looking forward to, your precautions, everything. Let’s just be together in this space that isn’t Twitter. Let us take inventory of how many losses are enabling us and our loved ones to live safer.
For my part, I was booked to teach a conference in Sicily the last week of March; I was going to go to the LAT Book Festival and attend the award ceremony for the Ray Bradbury award; I’m looking towards New Zealand’s Worldcon with uncertainty, since it’ll be winter there during the event. And I’ve spent most of today trying to undo/reorganize the coverage I arranged for next week’s classes given my very sudden travel to Glasgow, from where I’m presently writing. It’s very strange to feel grateful for classes being cancelled because it aligns with my own only-tangentially-related-to-virus situation!
Alternately, if you’d prefer to not talk about fears but still want to hang out… What are you nominating for the Hugos!!! Remember the deadline’s at 11:59 PST tonight! (NO NEED TO TELL ME if you’re nominating Time War, I of COURSE love & appreciate your choice but seriously let’s talk about all the other brilliant things that we read and watched and enjoyed last year!)
I'm teleworking now, which has taken me out of easy communication with the rest of my team at work -- I know for very good reasons, my role is not part of crisis response and theirs is, so of course I'm not looped in -- but it is making me absolutely miserable with the horror of not knowing what is going on, and feeling superfluous. (... of course as I write this I may just have been voluntold to be part of my state's crisis hotline team, which ... god knows, really, if that will be better or worse?)
I was going to NYC for Passover with my family and to give a reading with my wife, and we're not doing that. We just canceled tonight's planned fancy-dinner-out for her birthday, too. Going to a fine dining restaurant feels ghoulish, even though we're in a place where the real bite of transmission hasn't started yet. I lost a huge opportunity to go to a workshop in Sundance at the end of April -- work-related, and one of the most interesting and neat projects I've ever come up with -- and god knows if it will ever be rescheduled. I'm expecting to lose going to the Nebulas and Balticon at the end of May, which -- I've never been nominated for awards before and I wanted to have that little bit of joy and celebration and see my friends.
My father is extremely high-risk. And in NYC.
I wish I was in NYC. Despite it being a bad idea to be there.
It's raining with vicious wind here in the high desert, and I am going to vibrate out of my skin before this is done. I'm bad at patience at the best of times. This is the anti-best of times.
(also I'm worried about my boss, who I adore, and who has a dry cough) (I know she'll take care of herself, though) (just -- good lord, who knew that having a team of colleagues that one felt devoted to, like, fealty-devoted, was going to make this so much WORSE? I should have guessed, I write about this stuff often enough. This is like ALL THE THEMES IN MY BOOKS. fucking hell.)
I bought a signed copy of time war and I lost it. (is this how you lose the time war? :) ) I am sure it is somewhere home.. Anyway, I couldn't read it yet. Not for Hugos but I have read and loved Embers of War series by Gareth Powell and now reading Atlas Alone by Emma Newman.. Loving it.
I was supposed to go to Turkey (living in the UK) as my granny passed away. I have caught a cold and had to cancel my trip. :(
I've got a buzz of anxiety between my teeth at all times. It's exhausting and I'm tired and sad, and my plans for how I was spending my next few months are in shambles. But there's so much wonderful solidarity happening. I'm on calls and in chats with people I haven't seen in ages. So there's that.
I don't want to post other people's personal info on the internet but gee whiz dagnabbit today was totally bonkers because Austin learned about cases 3 and 4 and it was like the whole city just went "Come ON!" at once. Slack may actually have caught on fire.
Right now, I'm focusing my energies on managing our produce. It is something concrete I can focus on: eat food before it spoils. Today, I must eat this avocado and check in on my mom. Tomorrow, we must finish those tomatoes, and then see if my friends are still ok.
I was going to bake a cake but the store is selling out of eggs.
Apart from Time War, Gideon the Ninth was the novel I really wanted to squee about in the noms. That was about it; I tend to be a year or so behind the curve in my reading.
Everything (finally!) shuttering here is going to derail the last week of the GU rector elections - did I tell you I was asked to run for the position? honoured beyond words - and it's meant that I've had some reading gigs cancelled. That's about it for me; I'm hoping that my friends will stay hale and I dare say that if any of my family are affected, someone will tell me. One of my cousins tracked me down the other weekend to wish me well.
The thing I'm excited about at the moment is that Kirsty Logan and Heather Parry have started a queer writing workshop in Category Is. I'm hoping that they'll help me break out of the writing closet that I feel I'm in and write hopeful and joyful pieces about being queer and trans.
This is day 5 of working from home. I miss the workstation at the office, but the cats are fascinated with having a new room to explore, as previously we'd left the door closed to the room I'm working from. My wife and I go for walks in the neighborhood park a couple of times a day, but otherwise limit our contact with other humans to grocery runs and so on. I'm glad we have Discord so we don't have to give up our Friday night TTRPG game.
I try to keep perspective. People's lives are in danger. We're facing a crisis of global proportions. I myself am immuno compromised and need to be careful, but I'm also on the verge of depression that my first trad novel is coming out this month in middled of things so much larger and more important than my little book. Guilt and depression, that's my mood.
Fears are relatively low in doctor-filled households like mine, but still plenty of disruption to prepare for. Undergrads have been sent home forever; everyone around here on faculty is stressing about the shift to long-distance learning. Sad that my students won't get to do the big annual research-presentation fair. Probably going to cancel my travel plans to see family at the end of the month for a 40th birthday party. No conventions until June so who knows about those.
But Hugo votes! Yay! Too much of what I read is the Escape Pod slush pile, but at least I get to nominate our semiprozine and awesome co-editors and some of the favorite stories (particularly Flash Crash which pushes all of my Compassionate AI buttons). Only other thing I'm highlighting is Anders' City In The Middle Of the Night, which I loved wayyy beyond expectations.
I was super excited to see Mulan with my sister. We saw the animated one together for her birthday 22 years ago, and it was the first movie we saw in theaters. Last night we decided she had better not travel, and this morning I learned the release date was pushed back. So maybe we'll still get to see it together! That was a bit of good news after a very disappointing and anxiety-inducing day yesterday. In other related news, I started writing teen superhero fiction to unwind! My "serious" projects are adult sci-fi/fantasy, but I found something comforting in imagining a literally magical teenage world where independence is blooming but adult responsibilities haven't set in, and crushes are a bigger problem than supervillains. I work at a university in digital accessibility so my work is cut out for me for the next couple weeks as we rush all our classes online. I'm in support of all of these social distancing regulations; I really believe it will mitigate and contain a serious pandemic. Stay safe, everyone, cover your coughs and wash your hands! P.S. — I love your open threads, thank you, Amal.
Bavarian schools are shutting on Monday until the Easter holidays. It affects me less than most (work at home etc and my wife will be home), That means all the kids in Bavaria will be off school for five weeks. We can cope but this will have a huge impact on some.
The only childcare is for families where both parents work for the emergency services.
All the public museums and galleries have shut down too. We’re pretty well stocked up, so hopefully should be ok.
Feels like we're shifting into a proper lockdown phase now.
In more positive news I'm writing a newsletter for Weird Dream Society.
I'm part of a writing critique group, and we're putting together a charity anthology in aid of RAICES.
The TOC is stunning. Look at that list of names!
Nathan Ballingrud
Carina Bissett
Greg Bossert
Karen Bovenmyer
Christopher Brown
Emily Cataneo
Julie C. Day
Michael J Deluca
Gemma Files
A.T. Greenblatt
Nin Harris
Chip Houser
James Patrick Kelly
Marianne Kirby
Kathrin Köhler
Matthew Kressel
Jordan Kurella
Premee Mohamed
Sarah Read
Sofia Samatar
Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam
Steve Toase
A.C. Wise
There will be dream related ephemera, interviews, profiles, and random stuff I've collected.
I was meant to be part of the Sicily workshop, which I was super excited about, mostly because of the energy I get from being around our amazing community. Now, I'm just trying to find moments of mental quiet that allow me to get back into the worlds I create. So much brain static. Hoping for mental tranquility. Hoping for inspiration. Thankful for my writing peeps.
I'm trying to stay off Twitter. (I'm failing.) I'm furious at work pretending like everything's fine, and this deliverable means more than me being prepared to hole up and home and ride out this virus if I have been exposed in the last 2 weeks. I'm very sad that GDC got cancelled, but very relieved that it's not a walking cauldron for it. I may end up leaving the city in which I live and going to stay with family, for a number of complicated reasons that boil down to: when you love someone, you compromise with them.
I'm worried for my parents. They are both over 70, and my mother has health problems and my father works in a hospital, and will inevitably asked to be on the front line. I have tried to make my peace with the fact that I may have very little time with them left. I can't. How could I?
If anyone has strength and soft words to spare, those would be appreciated. Also: drop me your SFF book recommendations of the last, say, 5 years here. Not necessarily the big ones (Broken Earth, Craft Sequence, Ancillary etc), but one-off novels especially. Short story collections, too. One of the things I can do is support local bookstores. I want to be doing *something*.
I've been trying to promote the second session of my narrative therapy and speculative fiction course, but it's been a challenging time and enrollment is still very low with the course starting in April. (I've filled most of the scholarship spots, though, which means that I'll be running it at a substantial financial loss.) And I just learned that two freelancing gigs that I had been hoping for/counting on will not be coming through. So, that's a bit daunting. And I'm going to miss two events that I was really looking forward to, including presenting at the Contested Imaginaries conference in Montreal (unless something drastic changes, but I doubt it will).
But! I'm also thinking about ways to do community organizing in digital spaces - I just put up a call for contributors to a zine on how we're getting through this time of social distancing and increased financial and physical precarity, and I'm looking at maybe hosting a weekly "group video chat and coffee" - not an official narrative therapy group, a bit more low-key, but informed by narrative practices so that it can be sustaining for participants.
I had the opportunity late last month to take over as the coordinator for the food pantry on my university campus. It's been open only a few months. I was volunteering there when the coordinator was offered a Real Social Work Job. She recommended me as her replacement. I've been in the job for two weeks, and now the school has moved to remote learning for the rest of the semester. My job is intact; I've still got office hours, and the pantry is open on an appointment-only basis. But what a strange time it is. The campus is a ghost town, populated by administrators shuffling around with papers and students wandering from the dorms to the dining hall. Everyone's default expression is stunned. I took the van to the regional food bank for a pickup today, and I was nearly late because of all the families moving their kids out of the dorms, hauling boxes and duffel bags this way and that across the narrow campus roads.
But I'm definitely happy to talk about my Hugo nominations! Max got a nod from me for Empress of Forever. I also entered Quichotte by Salman Rushdie, which dove into me deeper than I expected when I read it last fall. For novelettes, there's "The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye" by Sarah Pinkster and "Away with the Wolves" by Sarah Gailey. I filled my short story card with A. C. Wise, Marie Brennan, Karen Osborne, and D. A. Xiaolin Spires, but the one that truly knocked me down and carved its words into my bones was "A Bird, A Song, A Revolution" by Brooke Bolander.
There's a particular novella I read last year. It occupies a pivot point in my life now, the kind of space you use as an anchor when measuring the distance between who you once were and who you are now. I'm sure you don't want to hear about that, though. ;)
This year is going to be my first WorldCon -- potentially only one, given the expense of getting to anywhere from Aotearoa New Zealand. From my selfish position - as a fan, as a Kiwi, as a WorldCon volunteer, as a newly-entered-the-world-of-publishing-small-time-publicist -- I'm concerned that it'll be cancelled and I'll never get to attend one. But that's life, and I'll be happier knowing that I'm not contributing to the infection of my friends and fellows.
My parents are touring Europe for the next six weeks, so I'm anxious for them, and will be until they get back (and until they get out of the almost-certain self-isolation they'll be going into when they get back).
A number of gigs I was going to have been cancelled, and I'm expecting more to go soon.
But I'm also aware of how lucky we are in NZ, with how little an impact there has been so far and that our Government is handling it pretty well. So I CAN afford to have all my worries be purely selfish and minor. It sounds like my workplace is going to be fully supporting Work-From-Home, so I should be able to keep working (as long as Parliament doesn't shut down and make my work disappear). So I'm worried, but--as ever--I'm privileged enough that my concerns are for my happiness rather than my wellbeing.
My spouse and I have been on strike for most of the last four weeks, so I'm already fed up of being at home. I go back to work on Monday, and sneak peeks at my work email show that we're preparing to WFH as much as possible. (Spouse works the same place.)
I'm worried over my children and whether/when we should make the call to keep them home whether or not schools close, and how to keep them occupied if we do, and how to balance that with getting our jobs done.
I'm worried over my mother and stepfather, in their 70s and with asthma/allergies affecting breathing, 200 miles / minimum 4 hours travel away. The safest thing I can do for them is to Stay Away. My stepbrother is in the same town if they need help.
Positive things I've done: by dropping notes around my little street, I've built up a whatsapp group and email list for us to keep in touch and ask for help if needed. A lot of my neighbours are retired and some live alone - my household is among the youngest and fittest here.
Semi-positive thing I did: my friend's funeral was today, in a different city. Spouse and I decided not to go two days ago, and instead I set up an "online wake" in my dreamwidth journal for us and others in the same situation. My friend's husband very kindly shared his eulogy and the music for the funeral, so we were able to feel more of a connection to the actual funeral.
We had to cancel a geology field course in the Sierras and a meeting for our upcoming Antarctic field season that would have been in Edinburgh. I was so so looking forward to that. On the bright side, my partner’s university closed so we finally get to live together. And maybe I’ll finally put together the birthday blackout poetry zine a bunch of my friends and I made in January.
I am watching one thing after another get cancelled, some at my insistence. It's pretty frustrating, but I am trying to deal with it by embracing my introvert nature. Also trying, and failing, to stay off Twitter. One small silver lining is my research may be of help to some aspects of what's going on, so I'm trying to work on that but not obsess over it.... :/
I was supposed to be in Paris this week, but that trip got cancelled last week. My employer closed all their US offices on Tuesday, so I've been working from home for the last three days. I just learned that both kids' schools are closing. My son was supposed to take the SAT tomorrow, but that's not happening. We'd booked a trip to Toronto in July, and I have no idea what the situation will be when that time comes. (And one reason we picked the dates we did is that Oysterband, my favourite group, was going to be playing there then - but not only is the virus situation likely to affect that, but also the venue they're supposed to be playing at lost its lease.) Uncertainty abounds.
But we're all healthy, the sun is shining, and (thanks to being allowed to bring home the monitors from my desk) I'm being reasonably productive. My team has set up a chat channel where people can share events of their new home-based work, which is keeping us connected. I'm hoping for a calm, if confined, next few weeks.
i’m alternating between numbed and battered apathy and panic attacks, so that’s great. both of my parents live with me, both of them are high risk, my dad WILL die, practically guaranteed, and my employer isn’t going to pay to mobilize to work from home unless the state makes them.
and i had allergic bronchitis BEFORE this hit, so i’m a cougher and will be for weeks, and i’m scared i’m going to be forced to take leave, which would be wonderful if we could afford it.
My Library just closed for the rest of the month and I'm weirdly sad that I won't have my writing train rides. I quite love working from home - I am SUCH the introvert - but the train, and the birds I get to see from the train, will be sorely missed. I'm also aching for how mean people seem to enjoy being about it. It's a physical ache, and ouch, and I just want to hug everyone hurting.
(argh social distancing argh)
I'm deeply worried about my stepfather, who has COPD, plus he fell and cracked or separated some ribs so is now in the hospital. No confirmed cases in his area yet but there are some in the next county, soooo *bites nails*
As for me, I've got immunity issues and allergies that represent in breathing problems and coughing so THANKS COVID-19 for showing up hard during the start of allergy season. *grump*
I’m a big mix of dread over the world, happiness about various good news things, and sad. A friend I haven’t seen since 2017 had to cancel their visit to the states, and I know other writer friends with debuts and book releases this spring that are having events canceled all over the place.
I’m weirdly not nervous about living in NYC right now, though it’s very weird to see some parts of the city functioning as normal and other parts totally deserted. Most of my worry is going towards friends who work in the medical field—my mom’s pulling shifts in the ER in Vermont, friends work in the ER in Chicago and Madison respectively—or who have kids or work in education.
My in-laws are in their late 80’s early 90’s in Madrid (quel désastre there) and my 82 year old dad practically wants to get in a cruise he's so stubborn and he’s a retired pathologist. I am weary and worried.
On the bright, I finished my ballot yesterday, and other than nominating a certain colorful novella, I really struggled with novelettes this year. I hadn’t seen many. The crush of novels and short stories always leaves me wondering how I will survive ranking them if they are all on the final ballot. (For instance, just novels, Charlie Jane, Seanan, Tasmyn, Arkady, Alix... seriously just 😱😱😱) And the Astounding Award... so hard this year. I only came up with four names? It was pleasant diversion from the realities.
I'm going to look on the bright side at all the travel that has been canceled, which is certainly a big win for the planet! Unfortunately, some of it is probably my own: a trip scheduled in May to visit my in-laws that's looking increasingly unlikely, although no final decision yet. And my brother-in-law, a professional musician and composer, was going to Austria in June for a choir tour that would have been awesome, but is almost certain not to happen.
Fears: I live in an older community, and the reality is the death rate here will be well above 1% if what we're seeing elsewhere doesn't change.
Hopes: remdesivir looks like a promising anti-viral candidate for covid-19. Data and Bayesian updating may be not match for a good blaster, but they sure beat hokey religions and ancient weapons when it comes to curing diseases. https://medicalnewsbulletin.com/remdesivir-antiviral-for-covid-19/
A metal concert and transgender summer camp were canceled for me. So I am hoping to find a way to make my April birthday special! I'm going to start teaching from home tomorrow. That will be a very silly adventure fueled by coffee.
I talk about Time War to my friends so much, what the heck else did I read last year... LeGuin's Always Coming Home just stunned me. I couldn't finish it because it was TOO GOOD. It's a book I am going to have to come back to again and again.
I also finally became an official LOTR fan last year, after asking my D&D group to sit with me thru the movie trilogy. Having finally understood the story, I felt I could finally finish the book trilogy and follow characters I loved thru the drier parts. Gimli, Sam, Gandalf... oh man. And then I read Tolkien's other stuff, which was just as fun!
We live in interesting times. Schools, universities and libraries closing. Hoarding of goods and food (but not vegan food). To be sure there are fears and panic but instead of talking about those it would be interesting to examine how we are faring in these times individually and collectively. It is not post apocalyptic but very unusual to see the society unbalanced.
The amal is that talented people such as Amal would find this rich material for her work
On Friday, Jay Inslee (WA's Governor) shut down all schools across the state. My kid is beside herself with joy. Six weeks with no school! Wheee! All of us parents are trying to figure out how to balance social distancing with keeping everyone from going stir crazy. The shelves are empty of soap and toilet paper and rice, but the produce section is full. There's also enough Axe body wash, which will help fight disease *and* promote social distancing, so that's probably win-win for whoever buys it.
I'm trying hard not to freak out and stay focused, 'cause I still have two projects and three finals to take (all online) before my college's quarter closes, but it's hard. I feel myself slipping back into that same awful habit I had in November 2016, when all I could do is watch the news hoping for a sign, any sign, that this will all work out for the best. Of course, I've had three years of watching the very worst people be in charge of one crisis after another and fail spectacularly. I keep thinking about the meme of the grinning dudes in cowboy hats, sitting on the back of a pickup truck, with a caption that read, "We survived Obama. Y'all will survive Trump." I want to find whoever made that and grab them by the lapels and scream, "You fucking idiot. You short-sighted, clueless, proudly ignorant idiot. You've doomed a whole lot of people just to pwn the libs."
I found out today that two friends in Sweden have test-confirmed COVID-19, and, while they sound like they're over the worst of it, the worst of it sounded awful. I'm worried about all my friends here who are doctors and nurses and how, despite all their training and expertise, they're in for a difficult time because our healthcare system is so, so fucked. I'm tired of stupid people being in charge and saying, "We don't do socialized medicine, because we're Americans, and Americans value freedom and independence and a strong free market."
On the plus side, I made a really, really good chicken pot pie last night. It was the Serious Eats recipe, and it was worth the effort. Cold-poaching the chicken in stock and pre-cooking the filling veggies made for an incredibly rich pie.
Hallo from Malaysia. Cases have spiked again in my home state, so my office starts working from home next week. I'm just hoping not to go stark raving bonkers cooped up at home. After a niggling cough and running nose for the past two weeks or so, I had to sit out the local IWD march (argh) and MY Raptor Watch (AAAARGH). The latter was also cancelled yesterday, but I'm still kind of sad. No big birdwatching outing this year.
National politics have also been, uh, bonkers on toast, and I'm channeling all that anxiety into subbing short pieces to as many places as I can get my hands on. This will probably bite when the rejections start coming back...but...maybe...just maybe...it might not. XD
This has been really rough. I'm at medium risk because of my diabetes and Angie is at very high risk as a kidney-transplant recipient. So we're planning on locking ourselves in the house until things start to calm down. We've already done this once - she was home for 10 weeks after her transplant - but there's a significant change in the circumstances this time.
After her transplant (Oct. 2018), I was still working and she was making half of her salary on sick leave. We got through it, but finances were tight. This time, she's making her full salary while working from home, but I have zero income. I'm a freelance sportswriter and there are no sports. We're not going to lose the house and our cars won't get repossessed, but this is going to be incredibly stressful on top of the part where we could die if COVID-19 sneaks past our guard.
I have a half-baked idea for a Patreon-funded fiction idea, but I'm not sure it will get more than pity subscriptions. I'm taking this weekend to figure it out. It's all pretty terrifying.
Let me perform the dance of the sad bookseller here. Things have really snowballed over the week, as the public reaction to the virus has steadily increased. Thursday morning we thought we might possibly go ahead with our event that evening and accept we’d get a bunch of cancellations. By mid-Thursday afternoon, I’d canceled all our events through mid-April and was searching for the best ways to move our book clubs online, at least. It’s a tough time, and I think it’ll get tougher. I could go through and cite stuff, but it’s not helpful.
I think the thing that I miss the most about the work stuff at the moment is the conversations. On a normal store day, I get to talk with people about a variety of topics, many of which they’re passionate about, and it is about the most fun part of the job. Today I had the coronavirus conversation like 10 times. Which given the fact we had one customer per hour for the first two hours, was not bad overall for the day, in its own way. But I miss hearing about what other people care about.
I can’t nominate for the Hugo, but if I could? I’d probably be putting in for Lent first for novels. Getting down a top 5 even would be here, though.
I'm supposed to be artist Guest of Honor for Minicon 55 (here in Minnesota) on April 10-12. They're having a meeting on Sunday and deciding what to do. As someone in a high risk group for the coronavirus, I've got my fingers crossed that they decide to skip it and take a do-over with the same guests next year. (Jo Walton's the writer Guest of Honor.) The Minnesota Department of Health issued recommendations today that any gathering over 250 people be cancelled or postponed.
Meanwhile I am getting ready to launch a Kickstarter for videotaping my wirework lessons and techniques. My hands are having trouble and I lost some more vision, so it's Carpe Diem Time around here. :) (Neil Gaiman asked me to remind him when I am about to launch so that he can signal-boost, which is incredibly sweet of him.)
My life is pretty home-based as it is (unemployed/work from home, depending on the day :p) so for me it's mostly been this unfolding sense of /largeness/, like every time I think I've wrapped my head around the situation, it gets stranger. It's a difficult balance, isn't it, to both not be worried and be worried, to both take precautions and avoid panicking. I don't know. It's weird, is the bottom line, and in a way I'm counting myself lucky that this is the first time in my life I've experienced something like this. (What takes you to Glasgow, by the way? It feels surreal that I got back from Europe barely a week ago, and now international travel is [gestures broadly] like this.)
On a lighter note, I was very keen on the novel category this year. It was so hard to narrow it down, but I settled on Gideon, A Memory Called Empire, The Raven Tower, Children of Ruin, and Empress of Forever. The Priory of the Orange Tree was the one that just barely missed out, and I'm still fretting over whether that was the right choice... I guess I have a couple more hours to decide. :D
We had a nice conversation with our professor neighbor about how everything is being shuttered until April at least (her thinking is probably remote classes until at least through the summer). She’s taking it in stride despite the systems’ spit and duct tape nature. I’m worried about our elderly relatives who all seem to be irksomely blasé about travel plans and meeting up in crowded places. They may be finally canceling their cruise, and we can all meet up for dinner at our place just fine, when wanted... so hopefully they don’t take undue risks with the DC-local infection off to its opaque beginnings.
We’re well stocked on chickpeas, beans, tomatoes, and salmon; and so ready for pretty much any soup I can make for a month if necessary. The niggling issues are work won’t let me telework so it’s be a forced vacation if they send us all out of office. Which... on the one hand yay? I get to see my WFH partner more. On the other... it’s worrisome and low key stress all day long with everything. As we all feel, I’m sure.
I’ve been rereading Earthsea in the giant illustrated volume. Which is an adventure of logistics on its own. I do cheat with Libby copies from our Libraries when traveling, if they have a copy available for use in extremis. I think next I’ll finally finish the apropos Newsflesh series maybe.
I am scared, but also very grateful that I'm being allowed to work from home, grateful that my mother and grandparents are taking precautions for their health, and grateful that I have my first therapy appointment in years next Wednesday.
Almost all my work can only be done at our facility, so we're trying to figure out how to split normal business hours office work into groups/shifts to minimize contact. I've spent most of the past week trying to figure out how to get through an ever evolving set of rules for mission critical travel. My mom cancelled her trip to France next month, I'm expecting to have my river cruise there in May cancelled or have to cancel it. Fortunately, it is on Viking, and even before the cancelled new departures until the end April they were offering no questions asked full value vouchers good for 24 months, so I won't be out financially. But it was meant to be a group trip with my knitting friends, and I don't know if that will be able to re-coalesce. Suspecting I won't be going to WisCon even if it happens.
On the other hand, more time at home to read my ever expanding TBR is not terrible.
I am a high school teacher at a small wealthy private school, preK to 12th grade. Our 2-week spring break started a day early for the kids - we had an in-service day to prepare to move classes online if we do not return after spring break. I'm grateful that our school has the resources to give every student a device so we can minimize the disruption to their learning as much as possible.
I'm grateful that this virus doesn't seem to affect young people, especially very young children, with the same severity seen in cases with older Americans. I don't know if I could deal with worrying about all of my students on top of worrying about older family members and co-workers :(
But I feel for my students, who are struggling to cope with some massive upheavals and uncertainty. Some of them were literally wondering yesterday if this is the start of the Biblical Rapture(!) Trips and sports championships have been cancelled, which is hitting our seniors so hard. Students have been asking if they will have prom, if they will get to walk at graduation, if they are going to get to go to college next year. This too shall pass but it's hard to potentially miss this milestones and be in limbo over it.
One coworker who is set to retire at the end of the year is bummed that he might miss his last two months in the classroom with the kids if we don't come back from spring break.
My days haven't changed much yet. I guess working at a tiny company and being a big introvert has some unlooked for advantages.
I worry a lot about what will happen in the US and about my family there who I haven't seen in 4 years. I was planning on going back this year but that's all tentative again.
Maybe I should be more worried about the my people here in Australia but we're doing what we can and I guess that's comforting in a way even when you can't really do much.
I'm teleworking now, which has taken me out of easy communication with the rest of my team at work -- I know for very good reasons, my role is not part of crisis response and theirs is, so of course I'm not looped in -- but it is making me absolutely miserable with the horror of not knowing what is going on, and feeling superfluous. (... of course as I write this I may just have been voluntold to be part of my state's crisis hotline team, which ... god knows, really, if that will be better or worse?)
I was going to NYC for Passover with my family and to give a reading with my wife, and we're not doing that. We just canceled tonight's planned fancy-dinner-out for her birthday, too. Going to a fine dining restaurant feels ghoulish, even though we're in a place where the real bite of transmission hasn't started yet. I lost a huge opportunity to go to a workshop in Sundance at the end of April -- work-related, and one of the most interesting and neat projects I've ever come up with -- and god knows if it will ever be rescheduled. I'm expecting to lose going to the Nebulas and Balticon at the end of May, which -- I've never been nominated for awards before and I wanted to have that little bit of joy and celebration and see my friends.
My father is extremely high-risk. And in NYC.
I wish I was in NYC. Despite it being a bad idea to be there.
It's raining with vicious wind here in the high desert, and I am going to vibrate out of my skin before this is done. I'm bad at patience at the best of times. This is the anti-best of times.
(also I'm worried about my boss, who I adore, and who has a dry cough) (I know she'll take care of herself, though) (just -- good lord, who knew that having a team of colleagues that one felt devoted to, like, fealty-devoted, was going to make this so much WORSE? I should have guessed, I write about this stuff often enough. This is like ALL THE THEMES IN MY BOOKS. fucking hell.)
anyway augh. I love you all.
I bought a signed copy of time war and I lost it. (is this how you lose the time war? :) ) I am sure it is somewhere home.. Anyway, I couldn't read it yet. Not for Hugos but I have read and loved Embers of War series by Gareth Powell and now reading Atlas Alone by Emma Newman.. Loving it.
I was supposed to go to Turkey (living in the UK) as my granny passed away. I have caught a cold and had to cancel my trip. :(
I've got a buzz of anxiety between my teeth at all times. It's exhausting and I'm tired and sad, and my plans for how I was spending my next few months are in shambles. But there's so much wonderful solidarity happening. I'm on calls and in chats with people I haven't seen in ages. So there's that.
I don't want to post other people's personal info on the internet but gee whiz dagnabbit today was totally bonkers because Austin learned about cases 3 and 4 and it was like the whole city just went "Come ON!" at once. Slack may actually have caught on fire.
Right now, I'm focusing my energies on managing our produce. It is something concrete I can focus on: eat food before it spoils. Today, I must eat this avocado and check in on my mom. Tomorrow, we must finish those tomatoes, and then see if my friends are still ok.
I was going to bake a cake but the store is selling out of eggs.
Apart from Time War, Gideon the Ninth was the novel I really wanted to squee about in the noms. That was about it; I tend to be a year or so behind the curve in my reading.
Everything (finally!) shuttering here is going to derail the last week of the GU rector elections - did I tell you I was asked to run for the position? honoured beyond words - and it's meant that I've had some reading gigs cancelled. That's about it for me; I'm hoping that my friends will stay hale and I dare say that if any of my family are affected, someone will tell me. One of my cousins tracked me down the other weekend to wish me well.
The thing I'm excited about at the moment is that Kirsty Logan and Heather Parry have started a queer writing workshop in Category Is. I'm hoping that they'll help me break out of the writing closet that I feel I'm in and write hopeful and joyful pieces about being queer and trans.
This is day 5 of working from home. I miss the workstation at the office, but the cats are fascinated with having a new room to explore, as previously we'd left the door closed to the room I'm working from. My wife and I go for walks in the neighborhood park a couple of times a day, but otherwise limit our contact with other humans to grocery runs and so on. I'm glad we have Discord so we don't have to give up our Friday night TTRPG game.
I try to keep perspective. People's lives are in danger. We're facing a crisis of global proportions. I myself am immuno compromised and need to be careful, but I'm also on the verge of depression that my first trad novel is coming out this month in middled of things so much larger and more important than my little book. Guilt and depression, that's my mood.
Fears are relatively low in doctor-filled households like mine, but still plenty of disruption to prepare for. Undergrads have been sent home forever; everyone around here on faculty is stressing about the shift to long-distance learning. Sad that my students won't get to do the big annual research-presentation fair. Probably going to cancel my travel plans to see family at the end of the month for a 40th birthday party. No conventions until June so who knows about those.
But Hugo votes! Yay! Too much of what I read is the Escape Pod slush pile, but at least I get to nominate our semiprozine and awesome co-editors and some of the favorite stories (particularly Flash Crash which pushes all of my Compassionate AI buttons). Only other thing I'm highlighting is Anders' City In The Middle Of the Night, which I loved wayyy beyond expectations.
I was super excited to see Mulan with my sister. We saw the animated one together for her birthday 22 years ago, and it was the first movie we saw in theaters. Last night we decided she had better not travel, and this morning I learned the release date was pushed back. So maybe we'll still get to see it together! That was a bit of good news after a very disappointing and anxiety-inducing day yesterday. In other related news, I started writing teen superhero fiction to unwind! My "serious" projects are adult sci-fi/fantasy, but I found something comforting in imagining a literally magical teenage world where independence is blooming but adult responsibilities haven't set in, and crushes are a bigger problem than supervillains. I work at a university in digital accessibility so my work is cut out for me for the next couple weeks as we rush all our classes online. I'm in support of all of these social distancing regulations; I really believe it will mitigate and contain a serious pandemic. Stay safe, everyone, cover your coughs and wash your hands! P.S. — I love your open threads, thank you, Amal.
Bavarian schools are shutting on Monday until the Easter holidays. It affects me less than most (work at home etc and my wife will be home), That means all the kids in Bavaria will be off school for five weeks. We can cope but this will have a huge impact on some.
The only childcare is for families where both parents work for the emergency services.
All the public museums and galleries have shut down too. We’re pretty well stocked up, so hopefully should be ok.
Feels like we're shifting into a proper lockdown phase now.
In more positive news I'm writing a newsletter for Weird Dream Society.
I'm part of a writing critique group, and we're putting together a charity anthology in aid of RAICES.
The TOC is stunning. Look at that list of names!
Nathan Ballingrud
Carina Bissett
Greg Bossert
Karen Bovenmyer
Christopher Brown
Emily Cataneo
Julie C. Day
Michael J Deluca
Gemma Files
A.T. Greenblatt
Nin Harris
Chip Houser
James Patrick Kelly
Marianne Kirby
Kathrin Köhler
Matthew Kressel
Jordan Kurella
Premee Mohamed
Sarah Read
Sofia Samatar
Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam
Steve Toase
A.C. Wise
There will be dream related ephemera, interviews, profiles, and random stuff I've collected.
If you’re interested, the newsletter sign up is here. https://tinyletter.com/weirddreamsociety It would be lovely to have you along.
I was meant to be part of the Sicily workshop, which I was super excited about, mostly because of the energy I get from being around our amazing community. Now, I'm just trying to find moments of mental quiet that allow me to get back into the worlds I create. So much brain static. Hoping for mental tranquility. Hoping for inspiration. Thankful for my writing peeps.
FEARS HERES:
I'm trying to stay off Twitter. (I'm failing.) I'm furious at work pretending like everything's fine, and this deliverable means more than me being prepared to hole up and home and ride out this virus if I have been exposed in the last 2 weeks. I'm very sad that GDC got cancelled, but very relieved that it's not a walking cauldron for it. I may end up leaving the city in which I live and going to stay with family, for a number of complicated reasons that boil down to: when you love someone, you compromise with them.
I'm worried for my parents. They are both over 70, and my mother has health problems and my father works in a hospital, and will inevitably asked to be on the front line. I have tried to make my peace with the fact that I may have very little time with them left. I can't. How could I?
If anyone has strength and soft words to spare, those would be appreciated. Also: drop me your SFF book recommendations of the last, say, 5 years here. Not necessarily the big ones (Broken Earth, Craft Sequence, Ancillary etc), but one-off novels especially. Short story collections, too. One of the things I can do is support local bookstores. I want to be doing *something*.
I've been trying to promote the second session of my narrative therapy and speculative fiction course, but it's been a challenging time and enrollment is still very low with the course starting in April. (I've filled most of the scholarship spots, though, which means that I'll be running it at a substantial financial loss.) And I just learned that two freelancing gigs that I had been hoping for/counting on will not be coming through. So, that's a bit daunting. And I'm going to miss two events that I was really looking forward to, including presenting at the Contested Imaginaries conference in Montreal (unless something drastic changes, but I doubt it will).
But! I'm also thinking about ways to do community organizing in digital spaces - I just put up a call for contributors to a zine on how we're getting through this time of social distancing and increased financial and physical precarity, and I'm looking at maybe hosting a weekly "group video chat and coffee" - not an official narrative therapy group, a bit more low-key, but informed by narrative practices so that it can be sustaining for participants.
I had the opportunity late last month to take over as the coordinator for the food pantry on my university campus. It's been open only a few months. I was volunteering there when the coordinator was offered a Real Social Work Job. She recommended me as her replacement. I've been in the job for two weeks, and now the school has moved to remote learning for the rest of the semester. My job is intact; I've still got office hours, and the pantry is open on an appointment-only basis. But what a strange time it is. The campus is a ghost town, populated by administrators shuffling around with papers and students wandering from the dorms to the dining hall. Everyone's default expression is stunned. I took the van to the regional food bank for a pickup today, and I was nearly late because of all the families moving their kids out of the dorms, hauling boxes and duffel bags this way and that across the narrow campus roads.
But I'm definitely happy to talk about my Hugo nominations! Max got a nod from me for Empress of Forever. I also entered Quichotte by Salman Rushdie, which dove into me deeper than I expected when I read it last fall. For novelettes, there's "The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye" by Sarah Pinkster and "Away with the Wolves" by Sarah Gailey. I filled my short story card with A. C. Wise, Marie Brennan, Karen Osborne, and D. A. Xiaolin Spires, but the one that truly knocked me down and carved its words into my bones was "A Bird, A Song, A Revolution" by Brooke Bolander.
There's a particular novella I read last year. It occupies a pivot point in my life now, the kind of space you use as an anchor when measuring the distance between who you once were and who you are now. I'm sure you don't want to hear about that, though. ;)
This year is going to be my first WorldCon -- potentially only one, given the expense of getting to anywhere from Aotearoa New Zealand. From my selfish position - as a fan, as a Kiwi, as a WorldCon volunteer, as a newly-entered-the-world-of-publishing-small-time-publicist -- I'm concerned that it'll be cancelled and I'll never get to attend one. But that's life, and I'll be happier knowing that I'm not contributing to the infection of my friends and fellows.
My parents are touring Europe for the next six weeks, so I'm anxious for them, and will be until they get back (and until they get out of the almost-certain self-isolation they'll be going into when they get back).
A number of gigs I was going to have been cancelled, and I'm expecting more to go soon.
But I'm also aware of how lucky we are in NZ, with how little an impact there has been so far and that our Government is handling it pretty well. So I CAN afford to have all my worries be purely selfish and minor. It sounds like my workplace is going to be fully supporting Work-From-Home, so I should be able to keep working (as long as Parliament doesn't shut down and make my work disappear). So I'm worried, but--as ever--I'm privileged enough that my concerns are for my happiness rather than my wellbeing.
My spouse and I have been on strike for most of the last four weeks, so I'm already fed up of being at home. I go back to work on Monday, and sneak peeks at my work email show that we're preparing to WFH as much as possible. (Spouse works the same place.)
I'm worried over my children and whether/when we should make the call to keep them home whether or not schools close, and how to keep them occupied if we do, and how to balance that with getting our jobs done.
I'm worried over my mother and stepfather, in their 70s and with asthma/allergies affecting breathing, 200 miles / minimum 4 hours travel away. The safest thing I can do for them is to Stay Away. My stepbrother is in the same town if they need help.
Positive things I've done: by dropping notes around my little street, I've built up a whatsapp group and email list for us to keep in touch and ask for help if needed. A lot of my neighbours are retired and some live alone - my household is among the youngest and fittest here.
Semi-positive thing I did: my friend's funeral was today, in a different city. Spouse and I decided not to go two days ago, and instead I set up an "online wake" in my dreamwidth journal for us and others in the same situation. My friend's husband very kindly shared his eulogy and the music for the funeral, so we were able to feel more of a connection to the actual funeral.
We had to cancel a geology field course in the Sierras and a meeting for our upcoming Antarctic field season that would have been in Edinburgh. I was so so looking forward to that. On the bright side, my partner’s university closed so we finally get to live together. And maybe I’ll finally put together the birthday blackout poetry zine a bunch of my friends and I made in January.
I am watching one thing after another get cancelled, some at my insistence. It's pretty frustrating, but I am trying to deal with it by embracing my introvert nature. Also trying, and failing, to stay off Twitter. One small silver lining is my research may be of help to some aspects of what's going on, so I'm trying to work on that but not obsess over it.... :/
I was supposed to be in Paris this week, but that trip got cancelled last week. My employer closed all their US offices on Tuesday, so I've been working from home for the last three days. I just learned that both kids' schools are closing. My son was supposed to take the SAT tomorrow, but that's not happening. We'd booked a trip to Toronto in July, and I have no idea what the situation will be when that time comes. (And one reason we picked the dates we did is that Oysterband, my favourite group, was going to be playing there then - but not only is the virus situation likely to affect that, but also the venue they're supposed to be playing at lost its lease.) Uncertainty abounds.
But we're all healthy, the sun is shining, and (thanks to being allowed to bring home the monitors from my desk) I'm being reasonably productive. My team has set up a chat channel where people can share events of their new home-based work, which is keeping us connected. I'm hoping for a calm, if confined, next few weeks.
i’m alternating between numbed and battered apathy and panic attacks, so that’s great. both of my parents live with me, both of them are high risk, my dad WILL die, practically guaranteed, and my employer isn’t going to pay to mobilize to work from home unless the state makes them.
and i had allergic bronchitis BEFORE this hit, so i’m a cougher and will be for weeks, and i’m scared i’m going to be forced to take leave, which would be wonderful if we could afford it.
My Library just closed for the rest of the month and I'm weirdly sad that I won't have my writing train rides. I quite love working from home - I am SUCH the introvert - but the train, and the birds I get to see from the train, will be sorely missed. I'm also aching for how mean people seem to enjoy being about it. It's a physical ache, and ouch, and I just want to hug everyone hurting.
(argh social distancing argh)
I'm deeply worried about my stepfather, who has COPD, plus he fell and cracked or separated some ribs so is now in the hospital. No confirmed cases in his area yet but there are some in the next county, soooo *bites nails*
As for me, I've got immunity issues and allergies that represent in breathing problems and coughing so THANKS COVID-19 for showing up hard during the start of allergy season. *grump*
I’m a big mix of dread over the world, happiness about various good news things, and sad. A friend I haven’t seen since 2017 had to cancel their visit to the states, and I know other writer friends with debuts and book releases this spring that are having events canceled all over the place.
I’m weirdly not nervous about living in NYC right now, though it’s very weird to see some parts of the city functioning as normal and other parts totally deserted. Most of my worry is going towards friends who work in the medical field—my mom’s pulling shifts in the ER in Vermont, friends work in the ER in Chicago and Madison respectively—or who have kids or work in education.
My in-laws are in their late 80’s early 90’s in Madrid (quel désastre there) and my 82 year old dad practically wants to get in a cruise he's so stubborn and he’s a retired pathologist. I am weary and worried.
On the bright, I finished my ballot yesterday, and other than nominating a certain colorful novella, I really struggled with novelettes this year. I hadn’t seen many. The crush of novels and short stories always leaves me wondering how I will survive ranking them if they are all on the final ballot. (For instance, just novels, Charlie Jane, Seanan, Tasmyn, Arkady, Alix... seriously just 😱😱😱) And the Astounding Award... so hard this year. I only came up with four names? It was pleasant diversion from the realities.
I'm going to look on the bright side at all the travel that has been canceled, which is certainly a big win for the planet! Unfortunately, some of it is probably my own: a trip scheduled in May to visit my in-laws that's looking increasingly unlikely, although no final decision yet. And my brother-in-law, a professional musician and composer, was going to Austria in June for a choir tour that would have been awesome, but is almost certain not to happen.
Fears: I live in an older community, and the reality is the death rate here will be well above 1% if what we're seeing elsewhere doesn't change.
Hopes: remdesivir looks like a promising anti-viral candidate for covid-19. Data and Bayesian updating may be not match for a good blaster, but they sure beat hokey religions and ancient weapons when it comes to curing diseases. https://medicalnewsbulletin.com/remdesivir-antiviral-for-covid-19/
A metal concert and transgender summer camp were canceled for me. So I am hoping to find a way to make my April birthday special! I'm going to start teaching from home tomorrow. That will be a very silly adventure fueled by coffee.
I talk about Time War to my friends so much, what the heck else did I read last year... LeGuin's Always Coming Home just stunned me. I couldn't finish it because it was TOO GOOD. It's a book I am going to have to come back to again and again.
I also finally became an official LOTR fan last year, after asking my D&D group to sit with me thru the movie trilogy. Having finally understood the story, I felt I could finally finish the book trilogy and follow characters I loved thru the drier parts. Gimli, Sam, Gandalf... oh man. And then I read Tolkien's other stuff, which was just as fun!
We live in interesting times. Schools, universities and libraries closing. Hoarding of goods and food (but not vegan food). To be sure there are fears and panic but instead of talking about those it would be interesting to examine how we are faring in these times individually and collectively. It is not post apocalyptic but very unusual to see the society unbalanced.
The amal is that talented people such as Amal would find this rich material for her work
On Friday, Jay Inslee (WA's Governor) shut down all schools across the state. My kid is beside herself with joy. Six weeks with no school! Wheee! All of us parents are trying to figure out how to balance social distancing with keeping everyone from going stir crazy. The shelves are empty of soap and toilet paper and rice, but the produce section is full. There's also enough Axe body wash, which will help fight disease *and* promote social distancing, so that's probably win-win for whoever buys it.
I'm trying hard not to freak out and stay focused, 'cause I still have two projects and three finals to take (all online) before my college's quarter closes, but it's hard. I feel myself slipping back into that same awful habit I had in November 2016, when all I could do is watch the news hoping for a sign, any sign, that this will all work out for the best. Of course, I've had three years of watching the very worst people be in charge of one crisis after another and fail spectacularly. I keep thinking about the meme of the grinning dudes in cowboy hats, sitting on the back of a pickup truck, with a caption that read, "We survived Obama. Y'all will survive Trump." I want to find whoever made that and grab them by the lapels and scream, "You fucking idiot. You short-sighted, clueless, proudly ignorant idiot. You've doomed a whole lot of people just to pwn the libs."
I found out today that two friends in Sweden have test-confirmed COVID-19, and, while they sound like they're over the worst of it, the worst of it sounded awful. I'm worried about all my friends here who are doctors and nurses and how, despite all their training and expertise, they're in for a difficult time because our healthcare system is so, so fucked. I'm tired of stupid people being in charge and saying, "We don't do socialized medicine, because we're Americans, and Americans value freedom and independence and a strong free market."
On the plus side, I made a really, really good chicken pot pie last night. It was the Serious Eats recipe, and it was worth the effort. Cold-poaching the chicken in stock and pre-cooking the filling veggies made for an incredibly rich pie.
I send you all socially distancing hugs.
Hallo from Malaysia. Cases have spiked again in my home state, so my office starts working from home next week. I'm just hoping not to go stark raving bonkers cooped up at home. After a niggling cough and running nose for the past two weeks or so, I had to sit out the local IWD march (argh) and MY Raptor Watch (AAAARGH). The latter was also cancelled yesterday, but I'm still kind of sad. No big birdwatching outing this year.
National politics have also been, uh, bonkers on toast, and I'm channeling all that anxiety into subbing short pieces to as many places as I can get my hands on. This will probably bite when the rejections start coming back...but...maybe...just maybe...it might not. XD
Wash your hands and drink lotsa water, folks.
This has been really rough. I'm at medium risk because of my diabetes and Angie is at very high risk as a kidney-transplant recipient. So we're planning on locking ourselves in the house until things start to calm down. We've already done this once - she was home for 10 weeks after her transplant - but there's a significant change in the circumstances this time.
After her transplant (Oct. 2018), I was still working and she was making half of her salary on sick leave. We got through it, but finances were tight. This time, she's making her full salary while working from home, but I have zero income. I'm a freelance sportswriter and there are no sports. We're not going to lose the house and our cars won't get repossessed, but this is going to be incredibly stressful on top of the part where we could die if COVID-19 sneaks past our guard.
I have a half-baked idea for a Patreon-funded fiction idea, but I'm not sure it will get more than pity subscriptions. I'm taking this weekend to figure it out. It's all pretty terrifying.
Let me perform the dance of the sad bookseller here. Things have really snowballed over the week, as the public reaction to the virus has steadily increased. Thursday morning we thought we might possibly go ahead with our event that evening and accept we’d get a bunch of cancellations. By mid-Thursday afternoon, I’d canceled all our events through mid-April and was searching for the best ways to move our book clubs online, at least. It’s a tough time, and I think it’ll get tougher. I could go through and cite stuff, but it’s not helpful.
I think the thing that I miss the most about the work stuff at the moment is the conversations. On a normal store day, I get to talk with people about a variety of topics, many of which they’re passionate about, and it is about the most fun part of the job. Today I had the coronavirus conversation like 10 times. Which given the fact we had one customer per hour for the first two hours, was not bad overall for the day, in its own way. But I miss hearing about what other people care about.
I can’t nominate for the Hugo, but if I could? I’d probably be putting in for Lent first for novels. Getting down a top 5 even would be here, though.
I'm supposed to be artist Guest of Honor for Minicon 55 (here in Minnesota) on April 10-12. They're having a meeting on Sunday and deciding what to do. As someone in a high risk group for the coronavirus, I've got my fingers crossed that they decide to skip it and take a do-over with the same guests next year. (Jo Walton's the writer Guest of Honor.) The Minnesota Department of Health issued recommendations today that any gathering over 250 people be cancelled or postponed.
Meanwhile I am getting ready to launch a Kickstarter for videotaping my wirework lessons and techniques. My hands are having trouble and I lost some more vision, so it's Carpe Diem Time around here. :) (Neil Gaiman asked me to remind him when I am about to launch so that he can signal-boost, which is incredibly sweet of him.)
My life is pretty home-based as it is (unemployed/work from home, depending on the day :p) so for me it's mostly been this unfolding sense of /largeness/, like every time I think I've wrapped my head around the situation, it gets stranger. It's a difficult balance, isn't it, to both not be worried and be worried, to both take precautions and avoid panicking. I don't know. It's weird, is the bottom line, and in a way I'm counting myself lucky that this is the first time in my life I've experienced something like this. (What takes you to Glasgow, by the way? It feels surreal that I got back from Europe barely a week ago, and now international travel is [gestures broadly] like this.)
On a lighter note, I was very keen on the novel category this year. It was so hard to narrow it down, but I settled on Gideon, A Memory Called Empire, The Raven Tower, Children of Ruin, and Empress of Forever. The Priory of the Orange Tree was the one that just barely missed out, and I'm still fretting over whether that was the right choice... I guess I have a couple more hours to decide. :D
We had a nice conversation with our professor neighbor about how everything is being shuttered until April at least (her thinking is probably remote classes until at least through the summer). She’s taking it in stride despite the systems’ spit and duct tape nature. I’m worried about our elderly relatives who all seem to be irksomely blasé about travel plans and meeting up in crowded places. They may be finally canceling their cruise, and we can all meet up for dinner at our place just fine, when wanted... so hopefully they don’t take undue risks with the DC-local infection off to its opaque beginnings.
We’re well stocked on chickpeas, beans, tomatoes, and salmon; and so ready for pretty much any soup I can make for a month if necessary. The niggling issues are work won’t let me telework so it’s be a forced vacation if they send us all out of office. Which... on the one hand yay? I get to see my WFH partner more. On the other... it’s worrisome and low key stress all day long with everything. As we all feel, I’m sure.
I’ve been rereading Earthsea in the giant illustrated volume. Which is an adventure of logistics on its own. I do cheat with Libby copies from our Libraries when traveling, if they have a copy available for use in extremis. I think next I’ll finally finish the apropos Newsflesh series maybe.
Our cats
I am scared, but also very grateful that I'm being allowed to work from home, grateful that my mother and grandparents are taking precautions for their health, and grateful that I have my first therapy appointment in years next Wednesday.
Almost all my work can only be done at our facility, so we're trying to figure out how to split normal business hours office work into groups/shifts to minimize contact. I've spent most of the past week trying to figure out how to get through an ever evolving set of rules for mission critical travel. My mom cancelled her trip to France next month, I'm expecting to have my river cruise there in May cancelled or have to cancel it. Fortunately, it is on Viking, and even before the cancelled new departures until the end April they were offering no questions asked full value vouchers good for 24 months, so I won't be out financially. But it was meant to be a group trip with my knitting friends, and I don't know if that will be able to re-coalesce. Suspecting I won't be going to WisCon even if it happens.
On the other hand, more time at home to read my ever expanding TBR is not terrible.
I am a high school teacher at a small wealthy private school, preK to 12th grade. Our 2-week spring break started a day early for the kids - we had an in-service day to prepare to move classes online if we do not return after spring break. I'm grateful that our school has the resources to give every student a device so we can minimize the disruption to their learning as much as possible.
I'm grateful that this virus doesn't seem to affect young people, especially very young children, with the same severity seen in cases with older Americans. I don't know if I could deal with worrying about all of my students on top of worrying about older family members and co-workers :(
But I feel for my students, who are struggling to cope with some massive upheavals and uncertainty. Some of them were literally wondering yesterday if this is the start of the Biblical Rapture(!) Trips and sports championships have been cancelled, which is hitting our seniors so hard. Students have been asking if they will have prom, if they will get to walk at graduation, if they are going to get to go to college next year. This too shall pass but it's hard to potentially miss this milestones and be in limbo over it.
One coworker who is set to retire at the end of the year is bummed that he might miss his last two months in the classroom with the kids if we don't come back from spring break.
My days haven't changed much yet. I guess working at a tiny company and being a big introvert has some unlooked for advantages.
I worry a lot about what will happen in the US and about my family there who I haven't seen in 4 years. I was planning on going back this year but that's all tentative again.
Maybe I should be more worried about the my people here in Australia but we're doing what we can and I guess that's comforting in a way even when you can't really do much.