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.

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

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. 

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

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.

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

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. 

follow me on twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

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.

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

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.

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

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.

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

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.

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

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.

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

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.

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy