June 30

My anxiety is rising in direct proportion to P and G's approaching visit with the vet. I am so stressed out about it. Being single and having to get two cats into cat carriers when those cats really do not like being in cat carriers is not great. On top of that, the whole pandemic-is-now-out-of-control-again news coverage is not helping.

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June 29

I just ... I just had a bit of a meltdown this morning. I'm just so exhausted by COVID and know that even though the numbers are going down in NJ, they are going up in a lot of other places just as we are really opening the spigot on our own economy. So, a few weeks from now, a combination of our own residents and people from out of state mingling more and spreading the virus will put us all at greater risk because we cannot stop people from coming here and NJ'ers fucking love nothing more than THE SHORE (where drunken young people will spread the virus) and shopping (where every suburban mom, dad, and kid will go to entertain themselves). It's so maddening.

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June 28

I had a pretty bad anxiety attack this morning. I had this pain in my ribcage and got very anxious. I had gone into my office yesterday and had this illogical belief I had caught COVID even though the office was empty when I was there. My feet started sweating and I lost my appetite this morning. I am fine now, but these come on out of nowhere and totally fuck with me. 

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June 27

I had a weird dream last night. In the dream, I pulled into the garage at my office and was about to go inside, but someone else pulled in as I was getting out of my car so I waited until he went inside. As I was waiting, I noticed two people parked next to each other giving on their cars a jump start. I got out of my car and as I was about to open the door to the vestibule, someone walked out and I moved out of the way quickly. When I got to my floor, there was someone standing right in front of the elevator and I JUMPED in the air ... at which point I woke up.

Anyway, I'm spending the day watching Season 9 reruns of the Office on Comedy Central.

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June 26

I forgot to post yesterday. Oops. Life is wearing on me right now. I just feel very anxious and stressed out - over the cats, over the virus, over how much longer all of <gestures at the world> this is going to go on for. The powers that be are talking about bringing us back to the office (part time) soon, which is not great, but it might be nice to get out of the house but for, you know, the deadly virus circulating right now. Summer is usually my favorite season and now I hate it.

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June 24

If only today was the day for P and G's vet visit. They are both chilling out in the bedroom I plan on using to corral them into their cat carriers. Of course, next Wednesday, I am sure they will be in the the most open parts of the house and force me to chase them around, spiking their anxiety and mine.

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June 23

One of the hardest things about anxiety is doing the small stuff. Like, I'm trying to schedule maintenance for my HVAC system but it takes all my energy just to try and make an appointment. If I need to call back or I request a time and do not hear back for a few days, I just silently stew and do not take proactive steps to resolve things. I would really like to hire someone to handle shit like this - like, scheduling home maintenance appointments, getting the house cleaned, all the bullshit that I had handling - and I have the money to do it, just too lazy. 

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June 22

Jim Kiick died this weekend. He was a football player for the Dolphins in the 70s. He had dementia and died in a nursing home. The obit I read in the NYT suggested he also had coronavirus. The obit had a couple of pictures from his time in the NFL - young, vigorous (a bit ridiculous with a 70s porn stache and side burns). I wondered, looking at those photos of a virile man, a Super Bowl champion, a cover boy for Sports Illustrated, what would happen if you could go back in time and tell him he would die such an ignoble death, his brain addled, his physical being tended to by care givers, unable to be with his family when he died. I got really depressed.

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June 21

My anxiety has been bad the last couple of days so it has been hard for me to focus, much less take the 3 minutes it takes to post a daily update. People who don't have mental health issues probably have no idea how hard it is for people who do to go through life never knowing when some tsunami of dread will blow through and basically destroy everything in its path. It is crushing and hard to deal with, but you just muscle through and wait until the storm blows over.

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June 19

Well, I made it through a tough week of work knowing I will be spending parts of tomorrow and Sunday working as well. I try to tell myself that the tradeoff is there - like, I haven't worn anything other than shorts and a t shirt for the last month and take copious work breaks to putz around. I keep House or The Office on basically 24/7 and yet ... I am exhausted. I am starting to think about taking a "vacation" later this summer since I have not taken a vacation day all year but even that seems sort of odd - like, take vacation time so I can sit around the house - which is exactly what I am doing now, just without the forced obligation of work. I don't know.

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June 18

A busy day at work (from home) and the gutters got cleaned, so the day kinda flew by. 

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June 17

In the big scheme of pandemic-related problems, this is minor; BUT, unwelcome. I learned from my vet that while she is still doing house calls, because of COVID she's doing the check ups in her van, not in the house. Which means I have to get my two very uncooperative (and fat!) cats into cat carriers for their check ups. It's ... not ideal. On the worst day of my life - the day Pumpkin almost died because a bite wound she got became infected and almost killed her, she scratched me so hard when I tried to put her in the carrier to get her to the emergency room, that it took almost 10 months to go away. Ghost is a little easier to manage, but having to get them both into carriers is going to be a challenge. Their appointment is two weeks away and I am already stressing out about it.

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June 16

I reclaimed Yankee Rose. This trashy mid-80s David Lee Roth hit was always a favorite of mine, but it fell out of favor because of an associate I made between it and Special Lady Friend. We were sitting in her office one day and she was showing me the magic of Spotify. She could pull up any song and asked me to name one - "Yankee Rose," I said and lo and behold, Steve Vai's guitar riff followed by the thumping bass line poured out of her computer's speakers. She dumped me, maybe a week later and for years (yes, years) after, I just could not listen to that song. During corona, as I find myself locked in the basement to work out, I play music while I warm up and I can now listen to this minor classic without it bumming me out. 

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June 15

I was at a Dead show in Louisville on this day in 1993. Summer is a time when I think about my younger years and how easy life was back then. If you had told me then what life would look like now, I would have been very upset. 

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June 14

I have a shit week coming up so I am trying to enjoy the low humidity, mid-70s degree temperatures and general ~ Sunday ~ vibe before all hell breaks loose.

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June 13

One thing I have noticed about working from home is that the church/state separation that previously existed - that is, that once you left the office you were pretty much left alone, has crumbled entirely. I now feel like I do some amount of "work" seven days a week. Granted, I am doing said work in shorts and a t-shirt with The Office running in the background, but still ....

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June 12

It has been a busy couple of days. The thing about working from home is that you never really feel like you are off the clock and if you are a Type A like me, that basically means you are doing "work" from as early as 7 o'clock in the morning until 9 o'clock (or later) at night. That may mean responding to an email or jotting down an idea for oral argument, but your mind is constantly focused on work. Plus, I had a really bad anxiety attack Wednesday night, which was not great.

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June 10

I forgot to post yesterday. I have an oral argument next week and I am preparing for it (while also dreading it). On one level, virtual appearances are good b/c my anxiety around things like traveling to court and being physically in front of a judge are much lower; on the other, this particular case is tricky and I do not want to fuck it up. 

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June 8

Another week of work from home. It is true what they say, after awhile, the days do just bleed into each other. I am a decided homebody, but even *I* am tiring of being inside 99% of the time. I know. I know. The rest of the country is opening the spigot (in some places faster, others, slower) and I could be out more, but better safe than sorry. On the other hand, I can't see doing life like this for another 6-8 months, but I am resigned to having a nothing burger of a 50th birthday in October!

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June 7

One of the casualties of the pandemic was a nascent dating relationship I started in the weeks before New Jersey went on shutdown. I am not sure where it was going long-term, but it held some promise. We tried keeping in touch once quarantine dropped but I (oddly) knew I had lost the thread about a week in when she asked me to pick her up and take her to the grocery store (she's a doctoral candidate at, let's just say, a prestigious local university and does not own a car but does use ride shares). When I explained that I was not comfortable doing so (I was experiencing a high level of anxiety at that point) she feigned understanding and shortly thereafter, disappeared. 

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June 6

I had a dream last night that I was sitting in on a differential diagnosis with Greg House and his team and it was magnificent. 

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June 5

Today got off to a bad start. The power went out in a narrow little time frame between about 4:45 AM  (when I peeked at the alarm clock) and 5:15 AM (when I woke up). It immediately made me anxious. Of course, had I gotten up 5 minutes later, the only reason I would have known the power went out was the flashing clock lights, but regardless, not great. I ducked down to the office very early (around 6:30 AM) at a time when no one is ever there and of course, as the elevator opened to take me back to the garage, BOOM, someone walked out of the elevator (and neither of us was wearing a mask). I mean, the interaction was split second, but it still further torqued me up. Just weird energy. Maybe it is the heat and humidity, but I am looking forward to the weekend.

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June 4

This is the longest I have gone without having to put on a suit and tie in more than 20 years, and I have to say, I am not mad about it. There is something to be said for being able to "go to work" in shorts and a t-shirt.

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June 3

A busy work (from home) day that started around 6 am and has not let up since. On the flip side, I really do think I am more productive at home as opposed to the office. To be sure, the occasional 5 or 10 minute chit chat with a co worker is nice, but net/net, the ability to not be distracted by being in a big office building is a major plus.

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June 2

The nice thing about having a busy day at work (from home) is it keeps one away from the daily (hourly) flood of awful, depressing, we-are-sliding-to-dictatorship reporting. 

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June 1

It dawned on me this weekend that I probably will not celebrate my birthday (which is in October) in the way I typically do - going to my local diner and organizing french fries into my age (it is an homage to Walter White in Breaking Bad). That thought bummed me out a little. To be honest, there are many things about the pandemic that have not affected my life at all - I did not go out much before the pandemic and I do not have any close friends I spend any time with - but the small stuff, the ability to just grocery shop, or have that diner breakfast, or browse the books at my library, or go to the gym, have been taken away. I know, in the big scheme of things these are minor, but I have a minor life - a small life - and it just shrinks a bit more with each passing day.

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