April 30

I did not sleep well last night. I think some of it was because I napped yesterday (oops) and some of it was anxiety over going to the grocery story today (yes, THAT IS A THING). The shop wasn't too bad although I feel like I can't walk out without having spent close to $150. It is partially a survival instinct - OOH, they have <x product> and even though I have some now, why not get more, you know, JUST IN CASE. Somehow, a shopping list with 10 items on it balloons to a much bigger amount. I am thankful I have the money (for now) to spend, and I am not good for another week.

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April 29

My neighbors across the street annoy me. It's a family - a husband and wife and their two kids (boys). The husband is a lumpy something or other, he leaves for work about the same time I do, gets home about the same time too. The wife does not work. Her "job" appears to be walking their dog in the morning and at night and yelling at their kids. They put up a sign a few days ago, something about "supporting our front line workers" or something. These people, who have a cleaning woman, a landscaping service, and their meals delivered, and I'm just like, COME ON. Suburbia is so fucking lame.

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April 28

Almost forgot to post today. One of the other weird things about the quarantine is how little parts of our lives froze. For me, one of those was having 2 books checked out from the library when everything shut down. Suddenly, I had all the time in the world to read these two tomes because there was no expiration date. Well, last night, I finished the second of the two books and now I do not have anything to read. I actually broke down and *bought* a couple of books from Amazon, which I never do, but desperate times ....

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April 27

Aging hands out small indignities. Among them is the nagging aches and pains, the little injury flare ups that happen with increasing regularity. I work out regularly and went years, actually, more than a decade without suffering even a minor injury - never missed a day at the gym. In my mid 40s, the worm started to turn. A knee, a back, a pulled muscle, it has all added up. I tweaked a core muscle over the weekend and am now out for a few days. It is so frustrating because I rely a lot on fitness to manage my mental health. 

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April 26

I am taking a break from life today. I am not one for spilling my emotions on social media, in fact, I find people who do it embarrassing. Brian Stelter, a media critic on CNN, got a lot of attention last week for tweets he sent out about being "gutted" by the coronavirus. It was the kind of performative emoting online I do not understand (and find a bit manipulative and self-serving). And in Stelter's defense, he did speak to the struggles of people with far less privilege than he, but really, it was about him, right? Like, you don't tweet something like that out to 700,000 twitter followers if you're not really looking for attention. It's an emotional thirst trap move that I do not condone.

With all of that said, for you, one of 10 people who will read this, I will tell you I am tapped today. Emotionally, physically, and psychologically, so I'm going to lay on the couch and stare at the TV all day.

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April 25

I (hopefully?!) survived a trip to ShopRite this morning. The shopping part was fine but the check out was a little dicey. I went self-checkout and ended up at a less-than-ideal spot. The self-checkout has 4 spots, 2 x 2 but I was at the kiosk closest to where the attendant stands sandwiched between the other kiosk on that side (where someone was also checking out). Everyone had a mask on and I tried to keep my head tilted away from anything, but of course I had a week's worth of groceries to scan so it's not like it went fast. Ugh.

That's one of the exhausting things about the coronavirus, you are always on guard when you step outside your home. Even now, I won't even go to the curb to get the mail if there is anyone within 50 feet of my house. Unpacking groceries takes 10 minutes now because I give the outside of every container a quick Purell wipe down. All the small things I never thought twice about now occupy so much of my mental head space when I leave the house, it really is crazy.

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April 24

I had a bad day today. I did not sleep well, my sides were sore, the cats were frisky, it was just not good. I just feel mentally exhausted. I did some work in the morning but fell into a deep sleep (shhh don't tell my boss) right after lunch for like 2 hours. I rallied a bit later in the afternoon, but am still not feeling great.

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April 23

Kind of exhausted right now. I went to Target yesterday, which, for any of you in the Central New Jersey area, is the place to go for the stuff in short supply like toilet paper, soap, and disinfecting wipes. I was then on a call with a client for more than 2 hours (also exhausting) and spent the afternoon doing some legal research. My sides are sore, I am worried about my health. I've had this pain in my right side for months and had it looked at (CT scan) and it showed nothing but it never went away and now I'm getting a similar pain in my left side, so I just assume my kidneys are failing, so that's fun and of course, under normal circumstances, I don't like going to the doctor, but now, forget it. They'll find my body days after I expire ...

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April 21

Just a quiet day working from home. Was just thinking about my first date with SLF, which happened "OTD" in 2013. She ordered salmon on a cedar plank, asked the hostess if she (the hostess) thought I was good looking, and ordered pistachio ice cream at The Bent Spoon. It's weird how you remember dumb things like this. 

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April 20

It is interesting to see new rhythms created even in a pandemic. To wit, the sweet spot for grocery shopping is not the minute the store opens. No, I have now learned if you show up about 45 minutes after it opens the number of other shoppers is very low. The crazies (raises hand!) who get there at the opening have left and it is too early for the sane people. Viola! A quick and relatively uneventful trip is completed.

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April 19

In ordinary times, today is the bookend to the shitty three-day stretch of anniversaries that started on the 17th with Pumpkin almost dying, for today is the anniversary of the day I met the infamous Special Lady Friend. When we dated, I did not get the "that's what she said" reference SLF would make. I just thought it was her way of showing her sexual edginess. Years later, when I started deep diving into The Office I of course recognized its origin. In the episode Sex Ed Michael talks to Holly, ostensibly to warn her that he might have herpes and that she should get checked out, but they have a back-and-forth that if SLF and I ever talked about the time we were together would be almost identical. 

To SLF, our (roughly) two months together was a good memory and she would say that I romanticize things (I do) and that I am making more of our time together that it was. But the irony is we became Jim and Pam after we broke up. No, she is not a receptionist and I am not a paper salesman, but for three years (!) after we broke up, we had those metaphorical chats at the front desk, except they were over the phone, sometimes for just a few minutes and sometimes for an hour or more. It even got to the point where I "pulled a Halpert" and (again, metaphorically) took a job at the Stamford branch (I moved practice groups so we were no longer working together). And yet, there was never a GRAND GESTURE, no Casino Night admission of love, or a stolen kiss afterwards, there was no interrupting a talking head interview to ask her out to dinner and her tearing up to the camera. No pizza on top of the Scranton Office Park building, or cinematic wedding at Niagara Falls, or finding out she was pregnant during an unrelated hospital visit (I TOLD YOU I HAVE WATCHED A LOT OF OFFICE EPISODES!!!) None of that. We just sort of disappeared from each other's life. 

After Michael spoke with Holly, he stewed for a bit and eventually called her back. She was not there so he left a message.

I wish I could leave that message for SLF and have that Hollywood ending (Holly of course comes back to Michael, they get married and live happily ever after). Instead, I am just left mourning something I will never have. 

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April 18

I went into work this morning. It was a tidy and efficient 90 minutes of work that needed to be done from the office. I am more than happy to trade off a few hours on a Saturday morning for being able to work from home Monday through Friday.

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April 17

I am sure I wrote about this on this day last year, but today is the anniversary of the day Pumpkin almost died. It's been four years now, and the only saving grace to this godforsaken pandemic is that I haven't really thought much about that day today. It was so awful and I am ETERNALLY grateful to Dr. Fejes and the medical professionals at CARES who saved her life. 

April 16

I had to go to 4 different stores this morning to find cat litter. My main Shop Rite had one bag (I wanted to get 3), Wal-Mart (zero), Wegmans (now not opening until 8 am, so ??) and then went to a second Shop Rite where I found one bag + one smaller bag. Not ideal. 

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April 15

At the risk of complaining about a true first world problem, the one thing I have noticed about working from home is that while it is much less stressful than going into the office, the day tends to stretch. Now, I start checking emails around 7 am and am often responding to them past 7 pm and sometimes even later. I feel like I'm "on call" more because unlike a normal workday, there is no longer a normal workday. I get emails past midnight and I sometimes write back at 5:30 in the morning. On the other hand, I can also sneak in a workout at a time that is more convenient for me and is in the privacy of my home and that makes my day more manageable too. All in all, I would probably opt to continue doing this after the restrictions are lifted, but I do not think I will have that option, so for now, I'm enjoying it as much as I can.

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April 14

It is so weird how much things have changed because of the coronavirus. I went to the grocery store this morning and there was a smattering of good toilet paper (triple-ply Charmin). It looked like buried treasure. I grabbed a 12-pack. That said, I also realized that there is an economic element to all this. The more expensive items, be they fancy soap or toilet paper I can afford, others cannot. I grabbed a 4 ounce bottle of hand sanitizer that was $5. Was I happy spending $5 on something that was probably (lightly?) gouged. No, but I can afford it. To someone else, that is a harder purchase to make. The whole thing frustrates me on a lot of levels, most of which I stew about after I make it out of the grocery store and sit in my car calming myself down.

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April 13

One nice thing about working from home is not having to deal with the weather. This morning, a heavy rain fell (and more is on the way this afternoon), but when you're locked inside 24/7, does the weather really matter?

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April 12

My across-the-street neighbor, a widow in her 70s, had her family over for Easter today. I was apoplectic watching them in her front yard - 10 or 12 of them in total, *not* respecting social distance and just pretending like we are not in the middle of a pandemic. My health is predicated on your willingness to follow the rules. I stewed and waited until they finally went inside before going outside myself (I had to mow the lawn - backyard only) but just could not believe how fucking irresponsible these fuck nuts were being, especially in New Jersey. We have more than 60,000 cases and 2,000 dead. Like, why idiots?

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April 11

I am at the point now where I memorize my grocery list and envision in my head my movements around the grocery store ahead of time to minimize the amount of time I spend in the grocery store. This morning it really paid dividends as I was in and out of the store in less than 15 minutes. 

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April 10

A strong front blew through yesterday leaving the morning air chilled and the quiet hiss of the gas fireplace needed to warm the house as I spend another day in whatever bizarro world we are living in now.

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April 9

One thing I have come to enjoy is the online class option my gym is providing. I have total flexibility on when I do my classes, I do them all by myself, and the instructors are great. I warm up for 5-10 minutes by running "laps" in the basement then I click onto one of the Les Mills classes being offered. Weight training, kick boxing, HIIT, I rotate each day and feel great at the end of each class. 

I have also noticed my appetite has been moderated a bit. I am sure a lot of people sheltering at home are eating themselves a new butt cheek, but I have been pretty good. I've stuck mostly to my same diet and have avoided loading up the pantry with salty snacks. 

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April 8

I did not sleep well last night. My bedroom was hot and I woke up at about 2 am. I knew I was going to have to go into work and do a secondary grocery shop today (because a few things I needed were not at my normal place yesterday). I'm sure that had something to do with it too. In any event, I tossed and turned for about an hour while P and G snored away. I drifted off only to be awoken by a loud clap of thunder, which I feared would ruin my plans to go into the office super early to do the paperwork I needed to do and then make it to groceries by 7, but it was all done by the time I left.

I was not quite as anxious being out (I even pilfered a pair of disposable gloves from work shhhh). The grocery store was not that bad, though I found a stash of white rice that I availed myself of like I had just found buried treasure. The hoarding instinct is insanely strong. Anyway, I am home now and other than a bit of a bum ankle from the Body Combat class I did yesterday, all is good.

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April 7

I am not having a good morning. My anxiety level is very high, owing, I assume, to a dicey trip to the grocery store this morning. It was more crowded than I was expecting and things I needed were not in stock. It does not help when you are speeding around the store in gloves and a face mask fearing anyone who comes within a few feet of you. At the checkout, the clerk was having a conversation with another clerk a few aisles over and someone started to get into my lane as I was trying to pay. It all added up to a lot of anxious moments and I have been having low level panic attacks since I got home. Plus, I have to go into work tomorrow and will now need to go back to the grocery store in the next day or two hoping they have the things I need. 

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April 6

One of the other reasons the pandemic has not affected my daily life is my diet. Before the pandemic I only ate like four or five different foods and rarely ate out. I'm not a ~ total foodie ~ I look at food as fuel for my body and just eat what I need to keep running. The only challenge (at least at first) was finding the staples in the grocery store, but now it is easier and I have stores of my basic staples. One less thing to worry about.

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April 5

I think a lot about some dumb luck I had before the pandemic hit. I filed my taxes - state and federal; I had my car serviced (not that I'm driving much these days); I had an ample supply of toilet paper (not because I had any sense of what was going to happen but because I buy when its on sale); I decided against making a *very* big purchase (a new car when I had just bought another new car a year ago); I had some work done on my house last fall that needed to be done.

Does all this ensure that other things will not happen? Of course not. The cats need their yearly check up (June); the HVAC could use a tune up (before summer); other things may happen (TBD). But I am also fortunate enough that if/when those things happen I still have a job and money saved to deal with these occurrences. Do I want this to drag into June or July or August? No. But if it does, I will be ok.

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April 4

Th easiest part of being in a pandemic is the social isolation. In that respect, my life is not that different than it was before the pandemic. The only times I went out were for work and working out and while I did some socializing in both places, the idea of being home 24/7 does not bother me at all. I don't have Face Time happy hour, I do not need a weekly Zoom meeting with my family, or a Slack chat with my friends. I don't touch people and people don't touch me. I go long stretches of time without any human contact whatsoever. I am perfectly fine just being in my house, by myself and my cats. I could do this for months and months. If anything, it has eliminated my typical depression and replaced it with basic I-could-die-from-coronavirus angst, so there is that too.

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April 3

The Great Cable Outage of 2020 has been solved. I went for a run yesterday afternoon and lo and behold, not one but two Comcast trucks were on my street (nb., when I called customer service on Wednesday the person I spoke with said Comcast is not sending crews out) and shortly thereafter, The Office was airing again on my TV without having to swap out my boxes. A small victory.

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April 2

My cable went out yesterday. The DVR box just up and died. In the big scheme of things, it is not the worst thing in the world (though RIP my 2019 Washington Nationals Game 7 World Series win) and, other than the 30 minutes I had to sit on hold, Comcast was very helpful. Supposedly, a new DVR will be arriving today, so my disruption will hopefully be a minimum.

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April 1

There is no grimmer place than the grocery store at 6 a.m. Last week, I had a more positive experience - a true in and out run that lasted all of 20 minutes. Today, was not quite as smooth. It is the images of people lined up 5 minutes before the store opens, face masks affixed to their heads, gloved, and wiping down their carts, that I will not soon forget. Inside, you reflexively swivel to avoid people, going long ways around aisles simply to keep safe social distance and having to circle back if two or more people are looking for the same things. There is little lingering. You grab what you need and do not tarry. I do not exhale, fully, until I am out the door and on the way back to my car, thankful I will not have to do this for another six days.

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