March 31

Today is the second day in a row I have been able to work from home. It is doing wonders for my stress and anxiety levels.

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March 30

Morning weighs heavily on me. Laying in bed it feels like a heavy blanket is pressing me into the mattress. The dread of all this is hard to quantify or explain. It is omnipresent but invisible, a threat you cannot see but you know is all around you. A lot of people on TV predict a quick bounce back once we are on the other side of this but I do not see it. The scant minutes I spend in public, I see the same fear on the faces of others. The days I go into the office and the few of us who are there tiptoe around each other like we are highly contagious. I do not see how you undo that quickly.

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March 29

I apologize in advance to the 5 people who will read this because what I'm about to say is incredibly petty and dumb, but I am feeling particularly resentful today of my neighbors. I have lived next door to them for 15 years and never passed a pleasant word to them. I HATE them going back to how they let their kids run around in my backyard when my ex wife and I first moved in and I went over to (politely) ask that they not do so (we put up a fence the following spring in case they missed the message). 

The dad is a loser piece of shit gym teacher who doesn't work summers and spends that time drinking beer in his backyard. The mom is a sloppy part-time teacher's aide who walks their dog in her PJs with her tits hanging down to her knees and no shoes on. Their kids are dopes. So right now, mom and dad are on a paid vacation of indeterminate length and will ALSO get a nice fat check from the federal government because there is no way they make $199,000 between them (I'm pretty sure they don't make $99,000 between them). 

So, to summarize, these pieces of shit who are sitting on their fat asses every day getting paid by the school district *I* pay property taxes for (even though I have no kids!) and will get ANOTHER check from the federal government while I, a hard working lawyer who has not had a day off since March 1st, is working seven-days-a-week (most of the time IN THE OFFICE!!), will get nothing because I have the temerity to earn a better living than them. 

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March 28

The last couple of days have not been great. I am still going into the office on most days, which is its own challenge. The building is pretty quiet but I am trying to limit my movement in the building to a bare minimum - basically, to use the bathroom and heat my lunch - but even that is fraught with peril. I breathe a big sigh of relief when the day is over, but home is no respite. The phone keeps vibrating late into the night with new work emails, each buzz a little jolt of stress to my body. The cats still need to be cared for and all of it exhausts me to the point I am in bed by 8:30 on most nights. I have worked some part of the last two weekends as well. I am really not sure how much longer this can go on.

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March 26

Today is my first day working from home and I am very pleased. It is not just being able to work in my PJs and not having to shave, it is the comfort of knowing I do not have to be out in public, potentially being exposed to a deadly virus. It has upturned our society in ways I could not imagine and it really is frightening.

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March 25

I went to the grocery store this morning. The experience was *much* better than the past two weeks. First, there were far fewer people there at 6 am when the store opened. Second, the shelves were better stocked (though good luck finding hand sanitizer or toilet paper). Third, I moved swiftly to get what I needed and lucked out that the one checkout line (still?!) was empty. So, the whole thing took 20 minutes and I'm good for a week. 

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March 24

Are there silver linings to the coronavirus? I will try to find a few. For one, I did a bunch of stuff before everything hit - renewed my driver's license, my car registration, and filed my federal/state taxes - so I'm all good. For another, because the library is closed, I have two great books to read that I would not have otherwise been able to finish in the three-week timeframe I would have otherwise had to read them. Finally, because I'm so focused on avoiding getting sick, I haven't been able to focus on all the OTHER things that make me depressed!

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March 22

So I had a 20 minute panic attack this morning, which was fun. I went out to take photos this morning in the very cold weather and was not dressed warmly enough and when I got home the air temperature was like 68 degrees so I turned the fireplace on but started shivering. I of course assumed it was the beginning of coronavirus and a full panic attack ensued until the house warmed up (as did my body temperature) and now I am fine. This is going to be a long couple of weeks/months.

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March 21

I made it through the week. Looking back, it all seems like a blur of stress and fear and praying I did not get sick. I went grocery shopping yesterday morning. It was not fun, but it was tolerable. Maybe I am just getting accustomed to being in a free for all with other highly stressed out people. My food stock is now much better, so going forward, I will not need to buy as much, which will also lessen the amount of time I am in the store, which will hopefully lead to less stress.

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March 19

Life has taken on a different kind of routine. I still get up every morning to take care of the cats. I still shower and shave and put on a suit and tie. I still (!) drive into my office (against my will). But now, I close the door and sit in my office quietly doing my work, only getting up to use the bathroom until it is time to leave. It is unnerving and stressful to be in *any* public space and those of us who are still coming in provide one another wide berth if we run into each other in the halls, but it is basically like being in quarantine, only getting paid to do it. At the appointed time, I leave and come home. Thankful to have survived another day.

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy