Stu and I are on Day 8 of our post-travel self-isolation, and no covid-19 symptoms have manifested, for which we’re both grateful. (We are less grateful to the person who sneezed on Stu in the airplane & delivered him a mild headcold that we’re experiencing in sequence, but even so it is good to be reminded of what normal, unthreatening amounts of illness feel like.)
I want to ask: what have you done during self-isolation that you would not have otherwise done? Good things, perplexing things, things you have observed in yourself as difference.
I made hummus. This is an important one to me, because it’s a thing I always want but never do for myself, because I was taught The Proper Way in Order to Not Be Ill-Spoken of in the Village and that way is time-consuming (soak the chickpeas, boil the chickpeas, strain them, mash/blend them, incorporate the mixture of garlic, tahini, lemon juice, decorate). But now I’m home all the time. Now cooking punctuates that time in a way that hunger used to. Now cooking is a long undulating rhythm ribboning up my days, and in the midst of everything, I’m grateful for it, I love it.
(Less virtuously but fully as comfortingly, I started playing Animal Crossing. A dear friend very unexpectedly gifted me with a Switch Lite, which I’m just now realizing is the first game console I’ve ever owned that wasn’t a PC or my phone, and it’s … so good, it’s so much what I need, and I’m grateful for that too.)
Let’s talk, then! What are we doing that we wouldn’t otherwise be doing, friends? Are there any gifts in this awfulness to feel complicated about?
Like everyone else on the planet, I'm making lots of bread. I have made bread before, but never so rhythmically. It marks our days - before we go to sleep, we check how much bread is left, and when we wake up, the bread is there waiting for us. I've also been forced to confront the reality that I can't do everything myself, and so for the first time, I'm really earnestly asking for and accepting help. It's frightening and important and I'm lucky to live with people who are happy about this development instead of resentful.
I'm fictioning in public for the first time in a very long time. Since I have no income and a lot of free time, I decided to start a Patreon. Now I'm using a lot of dice and a lot of spreadsheets to simulate all the sporting events that have been postponed or cancelled. Then I take all that data and make up stories to tell my Patrons.
It is a lot of work and I'm not close to making up all my lost income, but I'm enjoying myself and the patrons also seem to like it.
Right before this hit, we’d finally got into a good gym routine that was starting to show results. In particular I have a slight kink in my left shoulder which means dead lifts aren’t possible so we working on that with resistance bands. We got some for home about a week before it became clear that We wouldn’t be back to the gym anytime soon.
To my massive surprise, I use the band daily. It’s nothing much but three times a day I’ll work my shoulders and it’s really helping. Yoga most days too! Both of which also really help with giving the day a shape
Reading your discovery of Animal Crossing made me so happy. <33 I love how much this game has nourished folks.
I have been saving She-Ra for a bad breakup, and I considered this on par with a bad breakup. =) I am watching *only* a single episode a day! I have not slowly tapered my viewing of a tv show in such a long time. Since I do not have to ride a bus to work in the morning, I am able to sleep-in, and enjoy an indulgent morning routine with oatmeal and She-Ra.
That hummus looks beautiful! I have had the opposite experience of you, I guess. Today is day twelve of days of work in a row, and the previous eleven were all spent physically on campus averaging 11 hours per day. It has calmed down now, so while we remain essential, most of us are allowed to be essential from home. At the moment, I am vastly relieved by the notion of staying home and not seeing anyone for a while.
Hummus!! It looks so good, and is inspiring me to try and make some of my own (I have also never made it for myself, for similar reasons). I have made enough hashwi to last a lifetime, though.
I don't know if there's anything I have done yet that I wouldn't have done otherwise, but I am going to make this a goal to Do Something Unusual in the coming week. Maybe it will make me feel more capable of coping with the world. My partner, on the other hand, who always loudly proclaims how much they hate cooking, has made both kimchi jjigae AND banana bread this week. Both were very tasty! I am proud of them!
Well, last weekend was the first time I played proper D&D - as in, with people, instead of a video game that adapt it. It had to be over Discord, but less because of the Situation and more because none of us live in the same part of the world, but it was a delightful blast. We're doing it again this Sunday, and likely will continue at least until the cabin fever threat has passed.
Other than that, a short story I submitted to a swashbuckling lesbians-themed anthology has been passed over, but it's actually a good thing, as I've realized it would work better as a novella due to how the story was essentially bursting at the seams at 7,000 words and how much of it was rushed through to fit into the word count.
That hummus looks delicious! I made rye bread for the first time in years, and made a twitter thread about the process: https://twitter.com/alisterscriven/status/1242817790798704641?s=20 I'd bought that rye flour over six months ago and somehow never found the time or energy to do anything with it, so that was lovely. Might have to make some hummus to go with it now.
That hummus looks beautiful <3 I've given my brain a light catastrophe amnesty re: working on brain-intensive tasks so what's been left for me at home is baking and taking care of the garden — stuff I've been putting off due to aforementioned brain-intensive tasks. I made red bean paste buns! I doubled the recipe and made so many and they are absolute CHONKERS.
I attended a Zoom performance by an old friend that I haven’t seen in years. It was lovely—kind of like being at a lovely dinner party and kind of like group therapy. That and D&D were the highlights of my week.
I reached out to my family. Given circumstances, I usually assume that no news is good news but these circumstances are unusual. I don't not love them, but given that the last time I tried to push for a reconciliation my mother pitched a hysterical fit at my aunt (who then described it to me), I tend to leave well enough alone. My cousin on my father's side also tracked me down a couple of weeks ago so I made sure to make sure that she and her family are okay. My sister is well, my nephew and niece are bored, my brother in law is on his way to S. Korea, captain of a tanker, so I guess he'll be safe with quarantine rules as they are. I'm worried about my other cousin, she tends to base herself in Madrid and I haven't heard back from her.
I'm finding in myself that I it's not enough to assume that my community is about me to reach out to when I feel like it; I have to check in and make sure that people are safe. I might end up coming across a bit as an anxious mother bear but I'm fine with that.
Oh, also Minecraft! I don't have a switch, so no Animal Crossing for me, but my friends and I started a Minecraft server together where we hang out while on Discord and build minecraft farms and railways and visit each other's houses. It's possibly one of my favourite ways to maintain community from a distance.
My partner and I were unfortinately separated by 15000km right as the lockdowns began and all our lovely plans to meet up over a brief 6 months apart were shattered. We have no idea when we'll see each other irl, but I booted up The Sims and made us a home together there. When the anxiety is too much, we'll video chat and he'll play songs for me. We've realized how much we need that little act of spending time together, not even talking, just reading or strumming or cooking.
Lots of stress cooking and baking for me. Made a pumpkin and apple pie. Catching up on TV -- Kingdom on Netflix is great, lots of anime. More walks than usual, probably because spring seems to have arrived here in Eastern Mass. I've been thinking about things more. Life, connections, human evolution. Nothing too profound, I don't think. Adjusting to a strange sort of (temporary?) realm of existence.
Oh my. Well. My sleep routine is off the rails (stay up to late, and my morning lark tendencies have gone south for the Covidwinter); and I've been on ZOOM a lot, in order to interface with my grad students and try to keep them propped up. They are hugely distressed, all of our experimental work is at a stand-still, and while *I* can the hit, for these young scientists, it's a major blow. In terms of new routines, I wish I could say I had developed a fine new work routine, but mostly I've figured out how to do a physical workout at home, without going to the gym. And planning for meals by the week -- that's not a thing I ever thought of before. In order to keep my group bonded in some way, one thing I thought of was to do a bit of #VirtualBookClub. And (not to pander!), I sent them all a PB copy of Time War (bought from the good folks at Brookline Booksmith -- next time I'll pick something from Porter Square Books). The manager was hugely touched when I put in the order and bought all their stock. And then I was touched! (Touched = cried, a bit). So -- learning to love your neighbor, and their small business. Let's put that firmly on the lessons emphasized list.
We ordered a bunch of stuff with a restaurant supplier that has opened up to home deliveries, except you have to get everything in restaurant-size quantities, so we had the folks in the apartment go in with us, and, anyway, they wanted tofu, so now I’ve got three blocks of tofu and will be trying out a recipe over the weekend.
For the first time today, have taken to picking up curb side beer from our favorite local brewer. Usually we spend time reading of an afternoon in their space, but that is now of course verboten. And sharing with the isolation we’ve tried to keep tipping our locals via an ingenious website folks made to aggregate Venmo info for many local restaurant staff. At least as long as we can give a bit extra.
I'm very much with you on the days punctuated by cooking (and, in my case, baking). I've been trying to do a baking or sweet project a day in addition to cooking to keep up morale, and they've mostly been successful. The one I'm most proud of is getting back in to bread baking; I used to bake bread weekly, and when I moved to cities with bakeries I liked, I stopped. Now that I'm at home all the time, I thought it'd be nice to get back into it again, and yesterday's boule is a really nice loaf of bread.
My wife and I have been video-chatting with a variety of friends across the country (and the atlantic), which has been good for connecting with people we don't see or talk to enough, and that's been a good thing to come out of this. That, and the Feline Overlord couldn't be happier to have his thumb-beasts home and able to be sat on every minute of every day.
Yesterday, I have also made humus and also tabouleh. But also black eyed peas with sausage and okra with lamb. But these are normal activities. A new one that we never did is paying our house cleaner through PayPal. They could not come because of social distancing and they live hand to mouth. I also will not share distressful things to keep things positive
I’d already been on a cooking upswing; pandemic kicked that into a higher gear. It’s been a good, good thing in an otherwise trying time.
But the real treat is espresso and properly steamed milk. Just before Recent Things really got to Ramping Up, I ended up springing for a little mechanical lever espresso machine, Cafelat’s wonderful Robot, accompanied by a stovetop milk steamer. I’m still learning, but after short days of this I’m already consistently acceptable on both fronts. I’d somewhat happily depended on our local army of dependable baristas, so this makes up a bit for that loss now that we’re on lockdown.
A friend and I started an online SFF convention and what began as an impulsive act is slowly (because terrifying self-isolation-induced brainfog) turning into something a tiny bit ambitious: www.facebook.com/groups/158674505182290/
Huzzah!! I think Animal Crossing is just as virtuous as hummus :) I have made hummus too recently! And sadly no Animal Crossing for me, but I have been playing Half Life: Alyx!
I put up (almost) all my posters and pictures that were sitting on my writing desk for the last...um...year...because I needed to use my desk to work from home. I've finally got things on my bedroom wall, after living here for 3 1/2 years. I've also been doing an "Adventures in Mixology" series on my Instagram stories, which has been entertaining my friends to a very satisfactory degree. Usually I drink rarely, but I really enjoy mixing drinks and trying new recipes, so the chance to bring people joy and experiment/branch out at the same time has been a delight. I'm already planning how to film my attempts to juice a grapefruit without the appropriate tools...
I created a Discord for all my friends to come visit my virtual living room and it's a very chatty place, and several more have done the same for their own virtual living rooms, so we're all interacting more than we would have under normal circumstances. Discord is free, though you can get better bandwidth and so on with "server boosts" that you can pay for; I started paying for it because I'm getting my money's worth out of them.
I lwork at home anyway, and I'm massively reclusive, so the effects on my daily routine have been embarrassingly small. My wife is an artist so her routine hasn't changed much either, although she had to cancel the tai chi class she was teaching and her singing and book groups have been experimenting with meeting virtually (choral singing over Zoom is... a work in progress.)
We haven't made any bread yet, although I keep thinking about it. I've not baked bread in years. Maybe this is time?
Good things to have come out of this: I've got a new appreciation of why genes for autism have been conserved in human populations. Those of us who are comfortable going a week or two with zero human contact likely out-performed the average survival rate during the Black Death and suchlike. It isn't easy living the life of the neuro-atypical, and putting it into some kind of evolutionary perspective is strangely helpful.
And these events have given me a new appreciation for how awesome this country is. While we have a ways to go yet, especially in Ontario and Quebec, in BC the case count went linear almost two weeks ago, and I'm expecting we'll see the curve really start to plank next week. I'm impressed with how well people are doing, how much good will there is, how well businesses are adapting, and how well governments at all levels are following expert advice. I'm not a fan of politicians (I've been involved in federal, provincial, and municipal politics at various points in my life) but damned if they don't come through when it matters. They are dealing with a lot of opposing forces, but I think they are hitting a sensible balance, and people seem to largely appreciate that, behaving like adults rather than petty partisans. Maybe it'll have some lasting effect on our political life? I can dream!
CRUCIAL ADDITION: feel free to share good things that have emerged as a consequence of this awfulness, like for instance this absolute purity: https://twitter.com/tithenai/status/1243623778745286656
Like everyone else on the planet, I'm making lots of bread. I have made bread before, but never so rhythmically. It marks our days - before we go to sleep, we check how much bread is left, and when we wake up, the bread is there waiting for us. I've also been forced to confront the reality that I can't do everything myself, and so for the first time, I'm really earnestly asking for and accepting help. It's frightening and important and I'm lucky to live with people who are happy about this development instead of resentful.
I'm fictioning in public for the first time in a very long time. Since I have no income and a lot of free time, I decided to start a Patreon. Now I'm using a lot of dice and a lot of spreadsheets to simulate all the sporting events that have been postponed or cancelled. Then I take all that data and make up stories to tell my Patrons.
It is a lot of work and I'm not close to making up all my lost income, but I'm enjoying myself and the patrons also seem to like it.
Hummus! And not aberrations with black beans or red peppers or chocolate!
Mostly I’m watching more TV but some of it is really excellent TV. Big plan is to start planting a 2000 sq ft native wildflower garden tomorrow.
That is some AMAZING looking hummus.
Right before this hit, we’d finally got into a good gym routine that was starting to show results. In particular I have a slight kink in my left shoulder which means dead lifts aren’t possible so we working on that with resistance bands. We got some for home about a week before it became clear that We wouldn’t be back to the gym anytime soon.
To my massive surprise, I use the band daily. It’s nothing much but three times a day I’ll work my shoulders and it’s really helping. Yoga most days too! Both of which also really help with giving the day a shape
Reading your discovery of Animal Crossing made me so happy. <33 I love how much this game has nourished folks.
I have been saving She-Ra for a bad breakup, and I considered this on par with a bad breakup. =) I am watching *only* a single episode a day! I have not slowly tapered my viewing of a tv show in such a long time. Since I do not have to ride a bus to work in the morning, I am able to sleep-in, and enjoy an indulgent morning routine with oatmeal and She-Ra.
That hummus looks beautiful! I have had the opposite experience of you, I guess. Today is day twelve of days of work in a row, and the previous eleven were all spent physically on campus averaging 11 hours per day. It has calmed down now, so while we remain essential, most of us are allowed to be essential from home. At the moment, I am vastly relieved by the notion of staying home and not seeing anyone for a while.
Hummus!! It looks so good, and is inspiring me to try and make some of my own (I have also never made it for myself, for similar reasons). I have made enough hashwi to last a lifetime, though.
I don't know if there's anything I have done yet that I wouldn't have done otherwise, but I am going to make this a goal to Do Something Unusual in the coming week. Maybe it will make me feel more capable of coping with the world. My partner, on the other hand, who always loudly proclaims how much they hate cooking, has made both kimchi jjigae AND banana bread this week. Both were very tasty! I am proud of them!
Well, last weekend was the first time I played proper D&D - as in, with people, instead of a video game that adapt it. It had to be over Discord, but less because of the Situation and more because none of us live in the same part of the world, but it was a delightful blast. We're doing it again this Sunday, and likely will continue at least until the cabin fever threat has passed.
Other than that, a short story I submitted to a swashbuckling lesbians-themed anthology has been passed over, but it's actually a good thing, as I've realized it would work better as a novella due to how the story was essentially bursting at the seams at 7,000 words and how much of it was rushed through to fit into the word count.
That hummus looks delicious! I made rye bread for the first time in years, and made a twitter thread about the process: https://twitter.com/alisterscriven/status/1242817790798704641?s=20 I'd bought that rye flour over six months ago and somehow never found the time or energy to do anything with it, so that was lovely. Might have to make some hummus to go with it now.
That hummus looks beautiful <3 I've given my brain a light catastrophe amnesty re: working on brain-intensive tasks so what's been left for me at home is baking and taking care of the garden — stuff I've been putting off due to aforementioned brain-intensive tasks. I made red bean paste buns! I doubled the recipe and made so many and they are absolute CHONKERS.
I attended a Zoom performance by an old friend that I haven’t seen in years. It was lovely—kind of like being at a lovely dinner party and kind of like group therapy. That and D&D were the highlights of my week.
(If anyone wants to see Siobhan’s zoom performance, there’s another one tomorrow afternoon at 2pm EST! You can sign up here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe0M4UsSoqRUtaDff0uceg6zir1jHc25iJa5Fx8cUxud8iN9w/viewform
I reached out to my family. Given circumstances, I usually assume that no news is good news but these circumstances are unusual. I don't not love them, but given that the last time I tried to push for a reconciliation my mother pitched a hysterical fit at my aunt (who then described it to me), I tend to leave well enough alone. My cousin on my father's side also tracked me down a couple of weeks ago so I made sure to make sure that she and her family are okay. My sister is well, my nephew and niece are bored, my brother in law is on his way to S. Korea, captain of a tanker, so I guess he'll be safe with quarantine rules as they are. I'm worried about my other cousin, she tends to base herself in Madrid and I haven't heard back from her.
I'm finding in myself that I it's not enough to assume that my community is about me to reach out to when I feel like it; I have to check in and make sure that people are safe. I might end up coming across a bit as an anxious mother bear but I'm fine with that.
Oh, also Minecraft! I don't have a switch, so no Animal Crossing for me, but my friends and I started a Minecraft server together where we hang out while on Discord and build minecraft farms and railways and visit each other's houses. It's possibly one of my favourite ways to maintain community from a distance.
My partner and I were unfortinately separated by 15000km right as the lockdowns began and all our lovely plans to meet up over a brief 6 months apart were shattered. We have no idea when we'll see each other irl, but I booted up The Sims and made us a home together there. When the anxiety is too much, we'll video chat and he'll play songs for me. We've realized how much we need that little act of spending time together, not even talking, just reading or strumming or cooking.
Lots of stress cooking and baking for me. Made a pumpkin and apple pie. Catching up on TV -- Kingdom on Netflix is great, lots of anime. More walks than usual, probably because spring seems to have arrived here in Eastern Mass. I've been thinking about things more. Life, connections, human evolution. Nothing too profound, I don't think. Adjusting to a strange sort of (temporary?) realm of existence.
I have fewer claims upon my time than I’ve had since I was sixteen years old. I’ve used it to write six poems in two weeks. We’ll see what comes!
I have also been playing Animal Crossing! It is very soothing in this time of chaos.
Oh my. Well. My sleep routine is off the rails (stay up to late, and my morning lark tendencies have gone south for the Covidwinter); and I've been on ZOOM a lot, in order to interface with my grad students and try to keep them propped up. They are hugely distressed, all of our experimental work is at a stand-still, and while *I* can the hit, for these young scientists, it's a major blow. In terms of new routines, I wish I could say I had developed a fine new work routine, but mostly I've figured out how to do a physical workout at home, without going to the gym. And planning for meals by the week -- that's not a thing I ever thought of before. In order to keep my group bonded in some way, one thing I thought of was to do a bit of #VirtualBookClub. And (not to pander!), I sent them all a PB copy of Time War (bought from the good folks at Brookline Booksmith -- next time I'll pick something from Porter Square Books). The manager was hugely touched when I put in the order and bought all their stock. And then I was touched! (Touched = cried, a bit). So -- learning to love your neighbor, and their small business. Let's put that firmly on the lessons emphasized list.
We ordered a bunch of stuff with a restaurant supplier that has opened up to home deliveries, except you have to get everything in restaurant-size quantities, so we had the folks in the apartment go in with us, and, anyway, they wanted tofu, so now I’ve got three blocks of tofu and will be trying out a recipe over the weekend.
For the first time today, have taken to picking up curb side beer from our favorite local brewer. Usually we spend time reading of an afternoon in their space, but that is now of course verboten. And sharing with the isolation we’ve tried to keep tipping our locals via an ingenious website folks made to aggregate Venmo info for many local restaurant staff. At least as long as we can give a bit extra.
Mostly reading a lot and cooking a lot.
I'm very much with you on the days punctuated by cooking (and, in my case, baking). I've been trying to do a baking or sweet project a day in addition to cooking to keep up morale, and they've mostly been successful. The one I'm most proud of is getting back in to bread baking; I used to bake bread weekly, and when I moved to cities with bakeries I liked, I stopped. Now that I'm at home all the time, I thought it'd be nice to get back into it again, and yesterday's boule is a really nice loaf of bread.
My wife and I have been video-chatting with a variety of friends across the country (and the atlantic), which has been good for connecting with people we don't see or talk to enough, and that's been a good thing to come out of this. That, and the Feline Overlord couldn't be happier to have his thumb-beasts home and able to be sat on every minute of every day.
Yesterday, I have also made humus and also tabouleh. But also black eyed peas with sausage and okra with lamb. But these are normal activities. A new one that we never did is paying our house cleaner through PayPal. They could not come because of social distancing and they live hand to mouth. I also will not share distressful things to keep things positive
I’d already been on a cooking upswing; pandemic kicked that into a higher gear. It’s been a good, good thing in an otherwise trying time.
But the real treat is espresso and properly steamed milk. Just before Recent Things really got to Ramping Up, I ended up springing for a little mechanical lever espresso machine, Cafelat’s wonderful Robot, accompanied by a stovetop milk steamer. I’m still learning, but after short days of this I’m already consistently acceptable on both fronts. I’d somewhat happily depended on our local army of dependable baristas, so this makes up a bit for that loss now that we’re on lockdown.
A friend and I started an online SFF convention and what began as an impulsive act is slowly (because terrifying self-isolation-induced brainfog) turning into something a tiny bit ambitious: www.facebook.com/groups/158674505182290/
Huzzah!! I think Animal Crossing is just as virtuous as hummus :) I have made hummus too recently! And sadly no Animal Crossing for me, but I have been playing Half Life: Alyx!
I put up (almost) all my posters and pictures that were sitting on my writing desk for the last...um...year...because I needed to use my desk to work from home. I've finally got things on my bedroom wall, after living here for 3 1/2 years. I've also been doing an "Adventures in Mixology" series on my Instagram stories, which has been entertaining my friends to a very satisfactory degree. Usually I drink rarely, but I really enjoy mixing drinks and trying new recipes, so the chance to bring people joy and experiment/branch out at the same time has been a delight. I'm already planning how to film my attempts to juice a grapefruit without the appropriate tools...
I created a Discord for all my friends to come visit my virtual living room and it's a very chatty place, and several more have done the same for their own virtual living rooms, so we're all interacting more than we would have under normal circumstances. Discord is free, though you can get better bandwidth and so on with "server boosts" that you can pay for; I started paying for it because I'm getting my money's worth out of them.
I lwork at home anyway, and I'm massively reclusive, so the effects on my daily routine have been embarrassingly small. My wife is an artist so her routine hasn't changed much either, although she had to cancel the tai chi class she was teaching and her singing and book groups have been experimenting with meeting virtually (choral singing over Zoom is... a work in progress.)
We haven't made any bread yet, although I keep thinking about it. I've not baked bread in years. Maybe this is time?
Good things to have come out of this: I've got a new appreciation of why genes for autism have been conserved in human populations. Those of us who are comfortable going a week or two with zero human contact likely out-performed the average survival rate during the Black Death and suchlike. It isn't easy living the life of the neuro-atypical, and putting it into some kind of evolutionary perspective is strangely helpful.
And these events have given me a new appreciation for how awesome this country is. While we have a ways to go yet, especially in Ontario and Quebec, in BC the case count went linear almost two weeks ago, and I'm expecting we'll see the curve really start to plank next week. I'm impressed with how well people are doing, how much good will there is, how well businesses are adapting, and how well governments at all levels are following expert advice. I'm not a fan of politicians (I've been involved in federal, provincial, and municipal politics at various points in my life) but damned if they don't come through when it matters. They are dealing with a lot of opposing forces, but I think they are hitting a sensible balance, and people seem to largely appreciate that, behaving like adults rather than petty partisans. Maybe it'll have some lasting effect on our political life? I can dream!