• Previous posts

  • Less noise, more me
  • Good times
  • Not Ken’s Dream House
  • The joy of different
  • This must be the place
  • All of the feels
  • Life update: endings and beginnings
  • Adapting to the lasts
  • At the same time
  • Take a picture it’ll last longer
  • Horsin’ around
  • Surrender, Dorothy
  • College let-go
  • End of summer this-and-thats
  • Aging is for the weak, and everyone else

Archives from 2002-2006

I have decided I am over hearing this won’t last forever even though I myself have written that phrase in this very blog many times over the last weeks. At first it really somehow felt like we were all going to briefly do a collective thing (gooo team!) and then with the flip of a switch (quarantine set to OFF) everything’s magically back to normal, but that was obviously unrealistic and it sure doesn’t feel that way now. Now it feels more like we’re in some kind of endless free fall and yes, this exact state obviously can’t last forever, but we’ve lost too much ground. The path back to “normal” is going to be uncertain and arduous and normal isn’t going to look like it used to, maybe not for a long time, maybe never.

Maybe that’s going to be a good thing, in some ways. But in others, surely not. At any rate, I’m no longer cheered by being reminded this is temporary, because it’s hard not to worry that whatever is next will be worse.

ANYWAY. If you have not yet reached the Rice Krispy treat stage of pandemic coping, I recommend getting yourself some supplies on your next contagion-braving grocery run, and then upping your treat game by leaving the mixed-up goo sort of loosely glopped together in the pan to set rather than pressing it down. Instead of dense square bars you get these airy delightful pieces that can be more easily pulled apart, and if you had the forethought to add some M&Ms in there, all the better.

I also recommend adopting the sport of competitive bear spotting, if wherever you live is doing the thing where people put stuffed bears in windows for children to find. You take your kid, you both get on bikes, then you risk death by craning your head around to look for bears while going full speed and forgetting to watch for traffic. It is perhaps not the safest pastime, but it is great fun and when you get home there are, ideally, Rice Krispy treats to be relished.

Here are some out-of-character things I have done in the last few weeks:

• Filled the entire lower crisper drawer in the fridge with a selection of sodas, because honestly no one is eating lettuce right now but 3 of us are consuming an unholy amount of diet root beer on the daily

• Cleaned all my makeup brushes, for the first time in uhhhhhharrrumph

• Started folding my underwear and putting away bras so they are sort of fancily nestled Victoria’s Secret-style instead of all wadded up in a big clump

• Switched from the good-smelling but probably useless kitchen cleaner sprays to the no-nonsense antibacterial variety

• Purchased a pair of magnifying goggles with a built-in light to further lose my mind over that miniature kit I’ve been working on

• Paid to participate in an online “high intensity” group yoga class. (The in-character thing I did was chickened out at the last minute and didn’t attend.)

Oregon announced that school would be online-only for the rest of the year, which wasn’t hugely surprising but still kind of a gut punch. No 8th grade graduation for Riley; not anywhere near as sad as all the high school seniors missing out on prom and their final year celebrations, but still.

I’m disappointed that Riley, who just blossomed in track last year, will miss this year’s season. Dylan had initially been reluctant to give track a try, but had changed his mind — now he won’t get the chance to see which events he liked, or forge those sports-driven friendships.

It’s hard not to get caught up in worrying about what the long-term repercussions will be for all of this. We went to the cabin on Thursday and I spent a long time sitting next to the river; at one point a boat motored by and I watched how its wake disrupted the entire waterflow for many minutes after its passing. All these ripples and waves, where will we all be in a few months, what will things look like?

Better to feel the sun on my skin, to listen to the birds overhead. Tomorrow is a hope, not a promise.

← Previous Page — Next Page →

• My product review site:

  [Older recommendations]