Tag: pandemic

That Time I Almost Unfriended April Ludgate

Americans are stressed. Here’s a poll taken in June by the American Psychological Association, and here’s an article about about how we’re more stressed now than in the 90s — especially if we we are old enough to remember the 90s.

Individuals in my life support this. They report incidents of road rage, scuffles between maskers and anti-maskers, flare-ups on social media and in life. Nerves are fraying, people are getting more judgmental and less patient with the quirks and foibles of others.

Except for me… or so I thought. I hadn’t yelled at Paul or gotten worked up on Facebook. I was doing pretty well…

Until the April Ludgate incident.

My husband’s lunchtime break of late has been rewatching Parks & Rec. Occasionally, I’ll wander in from the back room and join him or listen from the next room while working on a jigsaw puzzle (we all have our own ways of self-medicating).

A few days ago, I brought my lunch in in time to catch the last half of an episode from Season 5. The storyline was that Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott’s character) had taken a job running a campaign for a congressman in Washington D.C. and he’d brought April Ludgate (played by Aubrey Plaza) with him — I think because she’d been flailing about what to do with the rest of her life.

So in this episode, Ben is having problems getting the respect of the interns, who are young, good-looking, richer and better connected than he is. In particular, one intern doesn’t do the work Ben asks him to and and seems to be the source of disrespectful drawings of Ben with a stick up his butt.

The combination of these things cause Ben to regress into a pandering high schoolish nerd trying desperately to fit in with the cool crowd. It’s funny but painful to watch him buy everyone pizzas and organize an ultimate Frisbee match while everyone quietly mocks him–and it’s a relief when he finally gives up this ill-fated effort and puts his foot down with the privileged ringleader intern.

But the twist is — it wasn’t intern who drew the pictures that sent Ben into a tailspin.

It was April.

Ludgate.

So to recap, Ben gave April a job, drove her to Washington DC. Was only nice to her… and she sabotaged his ability to do a job he was excited about, and undermined his sense of self worth.

And then I started to think about how April mistreats Ann and Leslie, who constantly try to help her; how she’s mean to Jerry, who has no one on his side; how she fell into a job that, at its core, should be about helping people, and how she consistently and militantly uses her power to make people’s lives harder — remember how at the very beginning she charms Ron Swanson by not passing on any messages and scheduling his meetings on dates that don’t exist? Ha ha, so funny…. Unless you are the citizen blindly hoping that people at a government office might actually do their job and listen to you.

Since I’m not usually one to get triggered by fictional characters in a decade-old sitcom, I’m guessing my reaction might be related to other things that have been happening in my life: Like the fact that after three months and many hours of calling and writing the EDD, I still haven’t gotten a response, or that I was recently involved in a negotiation involving a lawyer who is choosing at every turn to make things more expensive and difficult for me, or that daily I read headlines about another government worker who fell into a job he has no intention of doing, and who views his constituency with about the same disrespect and lack of empathy as… April Ludgate.

As I watched April’s sulky, non-apology for her betrayal of Ben, something flipped in me. I thought “I’m done.”

I had not become blind to the fear and insecurity beneath her behavior or the well-placed hints that she’s emotionally vulnerable under her prickly surface.

I had just ceased to care.

I no longer had any interest in untangling her psyche or even watching her grow to be slightly less of a garbage-person. I didn’t want her working for me, I didn’t want to work for her. I didn’t want to attempt to understand her dysfunction. I didn’t want to apologize or explain things on her behalf to people she’s supposed to care about or do the emotional labor she refuses to do. I just wanted to avoid her completely.

I was ready to unfriend her, but I didn’t, because, you know, she’s FICTIONAL.

And a few days later, I can again — grudgingly — see the amusing side to April’s antics and acknowledge that I overreacted. It’s probably just because there’s some shit going on in the world… and it’s making us stressed.

Remember When… Coronavirus Edition

I’ve just begun listening to a podcast called Fiction/Non/Fiction, and browsing through the catalog tonight, I chose Episode 10, called “Coronavirus and Contagion.”

Though it aired on February 13 of this year, the episode was recorded on February 9 — two days after the death of Dr. Li Wenliang and two days before the virus received it’s name: Covid19. The number of deaths at the time was 800, almost all in Asia, and I believe the number of cases their guest, Lauri Chen, cites is under 40,000, worldwide. Four months later it’s like listening to an audio time-capsule.The discussion is serious, but there is yet a sense of the academic about it, with the American hosts discussing a phenomenon that is happening on the other side of the world.

I have fallen far, far behind in terms of pandemic updates, but for the record, the number of worldwide cases is just shy of 7.5 million, and the number of deaths is more than 400 thousand.

Last Day in Gainesville (Life in a Time of Pandemic, April 24, 2020)

Thursday, April 23, 2020

Woke anxious this morning, and it makes sense. Today is the day we need to clean our whole apartment and pack all our things. Packing always makes me edgy, and today we have a few added elements.

One is that, although my back is feeling largely better, the way we packed the car to come east didn’t allow for any adjustment of the seats, so we’re trying to change that situation by transferring the contents of two large bins to trash bags (my least preferred way to pack!), and then Tetris-ing those bags into the trunk to leave some room behind the passenger’s seat to recline if needed.

And of course, the need to recline the seat is related to the fact that our 40-hour drive will have few breaks due to the pandemic. With some trepidation, we’ve made arrangements to sleep in beds for two nights; but the days will be long: with dining areas of restaurants closed and the friends in isolation, there’s not anywhere to be but the car. We’re unsure whether there will be waits or issues at the reported checkpoints on the borders between states. Overall, it feels safest just to make good time and get home.

In a way, being in Florida has allowed us to compartmentalize the pandemic — to imagine that all the strangeness was just part of our trip, and that when we get home, things would be normal again, but of course that is not the case.

Life in a Time of Pandemic (April 16-17, 2020)

Thursday, April 16, 2020

I’ve turned a corner somehow, and lost my intrinsic motivation to take my morning walk — maybe because it was raining on a couple of days, maybe because I threw my back out a few days ago. Lately I wake and think, what if I just stay in bed? 

I’ve let nine days pass without updating my journal, and without even noticing. In the news as in life, the days are blending together — the number of COVID illnesses and deaths feature less as unemployment numbers, and and the political work of assigning blame for the pandemic take center stage. In neglecting to journal, I’ve also neglected to record the day-to-day events — but today’s news feels mostly like yesterday’s news: Retailer are facing catastrophe because no one is buying much. There still aren’t enough Covid 19 tests to give an accurate picture of the virus’s spread, and there is speculation that the virus was active in Europe and the US before anyone realized it. (Half a dozen people I know personally surmise they’ve “probably had it” because they had some kind of flu or malaise in the past few months.)

Those of us with direct deposit received stimulus checks arrived yesterday of $1200 each. Paper checks have been delayed by a couple days so President Trump could add his name on the checks. He couldn’t sign them, as he wished to, because by definition he is not the Department of the Treasury, but his name will appear on the left-hand side, below the memo line.

Because of my career aspirations and interests I am on numerous Facebook pages and email lists for various organizations which are offering free content for my consumption during this time. After working and teaching online, it’s hard to feel enthused about more hours in front of a computer . but I try to occasionally take advantage.

There’ll be more time for such entertainments after the next couple weeks. Tonight is my last Thursday class — my pitching class. In a burst of energy, I decided to invite outside guests to our final pitches on Zoom, and, as with life events IRL, I am living with the anxiety and partial regret phase of that decision now. Nervous about my ability to play MC and wrangle the Zoom settings and make people feel appreciated.

Saturday, April 17, 2020

Our little Zoom pitchfest went very well last night. All the students rose to the occasion! Their pitches came in right at ten minutes, which was the target — I could tell they had planned and practiced.  I think we’d all been working toward this and been distracted from the reality of it being the last class. At the end, we let our guests go had a pretty emotional farewell! 

And now I am feeling a little sad. I’ve been pushing through these last weeks of class. I’ve been extra glad to be working during the pandemic, but also feeling I’ll be relieved when the performance anxiety (because even though I feel I’m a good teacher, it is my nature to feel anxiety before every class) is over. But the flip side of having that small version of “stage fright” is that I also tend to feel what I’ve labeled over the years “post-show depression.” Plus I won’t see my students anymore…

But here’s a little inspirational side note. My friend Dmitry offered the students some advice that I could stand to follow myself: “Write first thing in the morning.” During my time here in Florida, I’ve been consumed with teaching, then pitching my TV show, and then, with the pandemic and the closure of my yoga studio, wanting to walk outside before the heat, I have given up my morning writing, and my writing has gone out the window…. I have often noted that whatever I do first thing in the morning is the only think I can guarantee will get done, because the day can go off the rails at any time.

This morning, for example, this journal entry is likely the only thing I’ll write today — especially, since I’ve now done something which will end my fragile writerly flow, which is look at my newsfeed:

A Wall Street Journal article notes that yesterday marked the record for number of US deaths from Covid19  in a 24 hour period. It was 4591– up from the prior record of 2569.  There were 31,451 reported new cases, bring the total to 671,000 reported Coronavirus cases, and 33,000 deaths in the US.  Confirmed cases worldwide is more that 2.15 million and the number of deaths top 144,000. 

Other news highlights:
5.2 million Americans sought unemployment benefits last week — the month total is 22 million.
Aid programs for small companies and individuals have reached their funding caps.
Shares of Gilead Science rose 15.1% after reports that one of their experimental drugs was performing well in trials with Covid 19 patients. 
The shipments of masks and test kits from China are being delayed because of quality control issues.
Some governors in contiguous states in the west and the midwest have formed coalitions to use collective bargaining power to get supplies

After some flurry about who would be in charge, President Trump has said that the governors of states will to set the timelines for their “re-opening.” 
The White House has issued some guidelines — saying that the states should phase in reopening once they’ve seen a downward trend of cases over a two-week period and outlining what those phases might look like:

Phase 1: Reopen movie theaters, restaurants, sports venues, places of worship, gyms and other venues with strict social distancing guidelines in place. Vulnerable people should still stay at home — and no visits to nursing homes and hospitals. Some people would return to work, though telework is still encouraged.
Phase 2: Non-essential travel could resume, and bars could open with some restrictions. Schools and youth activities could reopen.
Phase 3: No restrictions on workplaces, vulnerable people could resume social interactions, but seek to follow social distancing. Visits to hospitals and nursing homes could resume.

That Time I Went on The Swings (Life In The Time of Pandemic, March 30 -April 4)

Monday, March 30

I’ve become obsessed with swinging on the swing in the park not far from our house. For the past few weeks I have been walking and walking, until my I.T. bands are tight as braided steel. I yearn to feel other muscles work – my abs for instance, or my upper arms. I think of how it felt to move through the air on my neighbors’ swing-set as a kid, how the grass changed angles, the sky became closer, and my troubles on the ground — whatever kid troubles they were — felt farther away.

I know it’s against the rules, but like crossing an intersection against a red light when there are no cars on the road, who would it hurt if I occupy this unused equipment for ten minutes one morning ?  

I’m not someone who breaks rules easily – most often I am someone who waits for red lights even when there are no cars for miles. Thus, I have to make cognitive leaps as well a logistical and guilt-reducing preparations to conduct an illegal heist such as this. From what I’ve read, I know the chains of the swing set should be virus-free after hours in the sun, but even so, I pack Clorox wipes in a plastic baggie to wipe down the chains before and after. I put this in one pocket of my hoodie, while in the other pocket I carry a second layer of protection — to disinfect my hands after they have touched the wipe that touches the chains — in the form of a spray bottle of hand sanitizer. The sanitizer is something I discovered in my travel case one day, after all sanitizers had disappeared from the stores. A bauble I’d tossed into my luggage just because I’d come across it while packing, that has now become a rare treasure.

On the chosen day, I head out of the house early. My skin is too hilariously susceptible to burning to swing in direct sun, so even though I walk past the park both mornings and evenings, the swing heist must happen in the morning when the swings are still in partial shade.

But, as if the universe has read my mind, when I arrive at the park, a city security vehicle – never before seen by me – is suddenly resting at the edge of the park, and I must abandon my cause.

The next day the car is gone, someone is walking the grounds in a florescent vest. Do they work for the city, or are they just someone wearing a vest? I circle the park, unable to be sure and now already it has become too hot and sunny for my project.  I wrap my hoodie around my waist and proceed to jog the non-park portion of my circuit. When I arrive home I find I’ve lost my hand sanitizer and mourn it. For the next couple days I try to retrace my steps and keep an eye out for the bottle but don’t find it. Feeling somehow defeated, I let go of my plot to swing in the swing.

But this morning, as I reach the park, I find it empty, and not too sunny. I have my Clorox wipe in my pocket. In a burst of rebellion, I use my Clorox wipe on the metal of the swing, and take my seat.

It feels good to swing. It feels good to pump my arms, although the chains occasionally pinch the skin of my palms. It feels good lean back and lift my legs high, though I have lost the bravery I had as a kid willing to swing so high that there would be a moment of slack and a jolt as the swing considered continuing it’s arc clear around and then decided against it.

And it feels freeing to be in the air — kind of. I am conscious of people – not authorities, but dog-walkers and other pandemic pedestrians—watching me as they pass. They look, and I imagine they are judging, or feeling threatened by my cavalier behavior… they can’t know the Clorox consideration I plan to lavish on the chains when my moment of swinging is over. 

I’m reminded of a time when I was twenty and traveling in Greece. I removed my top at a sparsely populated beach, which I’d been told was both legal and so customary that it wouldn’t warrant a second glance. I wanted to feel the freedom of it, and for a few moments, maybe I did, but those moments were quickly overshadowed by the gaze of a weathered man who appeared on the rocky bluff above me. He did not look away when I glanced his direction and made it very clear he was not planning to look away. I tried defiance for five or ten minutes, going about my business, trying to recapture what I’d almost felt, but trying not to notice is noticing, so I replaced the top of my bathing suit, and my shirt over it, and left the beach soon after.

And on this day in the park, though eyes are on me, I keep swinging for a few more minutes, because I know I won’t have the heart to do it again.

On Tuesday, March 31, the news tells us that as many as 25% of people carrying the Covid 19 virus could be asymptomatic.

On Wednesday, April 1 there’s a prediction, that if we continue with the steps we have taken thus far, the U.S. might expect between 100,00 and 240,000 deaths.

On Thursday, April 2, the New York Times reports that Trump is expected to recommend that everyone – not just medical workers, should wear masks in public.

The actual announcement on Friday April 3, is mitigated – the actual recommendation comes from the C.D.C., and the president notes that it is only a recommendation and “I’m not going to do it.”

Still, overnight, here in Florida, there is a change. On Saturday April 4, I enter the Family Dollar, and find that two of the four customers inside are wearing masks. I’m not one of them – I’m buy rubber bands to use as elastic for the homemade masks we’ll soon be making.

That evening I walk into through our neighborhood, and, long after I’ve given up looking, find the broken carcass of my hand sanitizer.