It's Not Exactly 100 Years of Solitude, but...

...I wonder how many more of the books I read in college freshman honors English I can reference right about now.  I must say I can't figure out a way to use Gravity's Rainbow. I should see if I can find the syllabus in my trunk of random historical papers.  I sure hope that professor is safe and well during these crazy times.  I hope all of you reading are safe and well, too.

photo credit: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

These really are certainly crazy times, right?  It seems as if we're living a weird sci-fi dystopian film.  Every day lasts forever, but the weeks go awfully quickly.  Working from home always had a romantic sound to it - entering week five has definitely ended the romance.  It's hard to concentrate, it's hard to schedule myself, it's hard to stay motivated.  There's always fear and dread around the corner; the longer this goes on, the more paranoid I feel.  When it first started, I did have a pretty good schedule: I meditated before lunch, walked some laps at a local playground after lunch, fell asleep pretty early and slept pretty well.  I haven't meditated for a while, they closed my playground, and sleeping is coming less easily.  I'm grateful to have a job and food (and toilet paper), and I'm generally fine with my own company, but the allure of Zoom meetings has definitely lessened.  In real life, I rarely watch tv at night during the week - my life is so noisy, I like the quiet when I'm at home.  But during this isolation, I pretty much have my tv on all day, so I can have voices and companionship in my apartment.

As usual, though, I'm turning to theater to get me through.  The last thing I did before heading home for the duration was see a special filmed performance of a show I had tickets for after the closure (the theater practiced social distancing, thankfully).  I'm hoping to start a book club, only with plays, at work, so I'm reading (or trying to read; remember, it's hard to concentrate) lots of plays.  I've bought tickets to some of the streaming events and I've enjoyed them, though it's not the same as being in the room with everyone, of course.  I've especially enjoyed the live play readings the Actors Fund has been presenting on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

I guess I don't really have all that much to report - I just kind of wanted to check in.  My life feels as if I'm floating on a raft with no known destination.  I don't know where I'll end up and what I'll find when I get there.  It's tremendously disconcerting, but I know I'm still pretty fortunate.  So I'll make it through, I'm sure.  Everything will be different - how will I respond?  I have no idea.  But finally:  randomly, I just noticed that today is the ninth anniversary of the blog!  Happy blogiversary to me!  I know ordinarily I do a big number-centric post, but since I'm not in my office at the moment, it's hard to get all that data.  I'll just say that I can't believe it's been nine years.  Once all this quarantine craziness is over, maybe I'll do a stats-y post.  And a nine-years-out sort of post - when I had my replacement surgery, I was told the implants have a shelf life of ten to twenty years.  What if the magic number is ten?  Could I make myself go through another surgery for new implants?  I'm not sure.  So...I guess the uncertainly can represent more than this current pandemic.  I think I need to watch another episode of Little House on the Prairie (which is way more problematic than I remember) to clear my brain...