Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

xp to deems

i use bookmarks so sometimes i'm just responding to the last thing i saw (mh's post)

i'm hard at work (can't you tell?) and just checking in on ilx inbetween tasks, so i didn't read the earlier posts that led up to that! i am very bad ilx, still

u are very good ilx but if i get the odd rap of a wooden spoon on the nose for my tics im confident in youse all good people to likewise survive the same

last i checked this is a running thread and people blorp in with whatever they feel like sharing, no?
don't tell me what to do, stern parent!

ok but no spitting on the floor

darraghmac you're not my dad!!

but...i hope that you will consider it

...i hate my dad

i have never spit on a floor in my life unless vomiting counts and i have indeed vomited on some floors

my mom is being very stubborn about only going out to the store when it's "essential" because she frequently goes out to escape being around my dad 24/7 (can't blame her) and now they are both trapped inside. i am not worried about them exactly but i am concerned that my mom will start to take unnecessary risks because she is bored out of her skull/stir crazy. again, i wouldn't blame her for wanting to, just hope she doesn't.

if it helps you keep healthy and you're able to mostly avoid close contact with people by taking a walk outdoors, and you're not likely to pass germs on to someone particularly old or immunocompromised, my opinion is to have at it

but that's my own assessment of the risks and rewards not just for myself, but for my community

fwiw I did spit on the floor as a child, no idea why, and was sent to the corner. my parents weren't really the "explain why it's bad, come to an understanding" type so it was the corner until I apologized. I think I sat in the corner crying for a half hour

sometimes people are petulant because they don't feel capable of that risk/reward calculation, or they've never had to really do it

LL, I am wondering if my mom will kill my dad. He really has to be able to go wander around and interact with other people or he'll drive her nuts.

hope for the best, maybe hook him up with a zoom buddy?!

are you volunteering? :)

i kind of can't believe my parents are still married, and now they are not only stuck in a house all day together, but they are abroad in new zealand. i almost want them to stay there. i dunno

but...i hope that you will consider it

the fuckin cheek im what three years older than you or some shit

can't believe this took such an ageist turn

Diogenes received an invitation to dine with one whose house was splendidly furnished, in the highest order and taste, and nothing therein wanting. Diogenes, hawking, and as if about to spit, looked in all directions, and finding nothing adapted thereto, spat right in the face of the master. He, indignant, asked why he did so? "Because," Diogenes, "I saw nothing so dirty and filthy in all your house. For the walls were covered with pictures, the floors of the most precious tessellated character — and ranged with the various images of gods, and other ornamental figures."

deems deceptively appears to be much riper than his true age

"dad" is more a state of mind than an age

if i have to start grounding people here i will

all of our parents that hate each other, i feel like there is a tv show swap idea in there.

do we have to turn this car around?

hope for the best, maybe hook him up with a zoom buddy?!

I hear Marty Wilson-Piper is available.

Both my parents recently retired and my sister and I have been wondering how long before they murder each other. They’ve been together 35 yrs and only happy for maybe the first 3 from what I remember. Can’t wait to see how self isolation works out for them! My poor sister has been living with them since last November and has been utterly miserable.

in orbit, F went to the store on Saturday and he came home so stressed out because people were getting too close the entire time (also I think he was treating it like a timed mission, which...I don't know why he would do that.) xpost

o/h went to the shop at lunchtime - never go at lunchtime, especially if you live near a building site, because:

1. builders don't get to stop work just because of some apocalyptic plague
2. builders need lunch
3. builders spend all day standing inches apart on some scaffolding and climbing over each other when they need to reach something, they're not gonna stand 2m apart from anyone, especially if they might lose their place in the queue and get back 30s late from lunch and get docked wages
(yay capitalism/contract worker hell)

so, mostly, poor builders, but also, if you are worrying about social distancing, avoid the times of day when builders might be trying to buy sandwiches

also I keep telling myself sooner or later these stock shortages will calm down but they just keep getting worse and worse - still no toilet paper, wet wipes, bread, various canned products, and also no beer today (also no cheap wine (had to buy slightly-fancier-than-the-very-cheapest wine (had to)))

I am really picking and choosing when I drink alcohol to keep my immune system up

oh uh... uh... oops ;_;

I worked with a woman who would shoot Rumple Minze then a water back... then just spit the water on the bar floor if she wasn't standing over a sink.

This was a terrible week to have a condo go on the market.

we tried to buy a house before Christmas and, long story short, it was an extended nightmare and it all fell through and then we thought we were out of pocket quite a lot on fees etc but luckily the insurance paid up even though the small print seemed to weasel out of our exact scenario, so we were only slightly out of pocket in the end, but anyway... I was v pissed off for a time but tbh I'm glad I am not having to move right now

I'm glad that I quit smoking ~2 years ago (and vaping at home at the start of all this) but my god no time has been more suited for sitting on the porch chainsmoking and listening to birds.

serious question: when did it become a bad thing to worry about the oncoming worse-than-the-great-recession-approaching-the-great-depression state of the economy? seeing a lot of Discourse along those lines but the thing is, a bad economy means people will become unemployed and die

People can be prevented from dying of starvation and of covid through collective action. The incipient recession is gonna suck but the ghoulish concern for “the economy” over human lives on the part of rich idiots on twitter is risible

Yeah, in my state construction (all of it, as of today) is still considered essential. It has quite a big impact on the work I do, so I've been hearing a lot about it from all sides. Lots of owners I've talked to would like to slim down their job sites and keep fewer people on the projects, but once you get labor unions involved and have to face down dozens of laborers that still want to get paid - it's a tough choice I'm glad I don't have to make.

xpost

it's unclear whether mortality goes up during recession and there's some evidence it may actually go down

I'm glad that I quit smoking ~2 years ago (and vaping at home at the start of all this) but my god no time has been more suited for sitting on the porch chainsmoking and listening to birds.

― Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z

One cigarette and listening to a scold of blue jays.

serious question: when did it become a bad thing to worry about the oncoming worse-than-the-great-recession-approaching-the-great-depression state of the economy? seeing a lot of Discourse along those lines but the thing is, a bad economy means people will become unemployed and die

i’m fairly worried about this, i lost my job about two weeks before all this went down

the writing's been on the wall for a while indicating that without establishing better social programs, things have been on their way to getting incrementally worse

now we've got a genuinely worse situation and the goal is to make sure the safety net we're crafting in an emergency solidifies into long-term support

ghoulish concern for “the economy” over human lives

there is a grim calculus that I think most ppl would rather not think about or even pretend doesn't exist. I'm so glad I don't have to make any of the decisions involved, so it does strike me as pretty fucked up that some ppl seem eager to volunteer to make those decisions.

One cigarette and listening to a scold of blue jays.

I'm incapable of that (one reason I had to stop) - short of burning an entire pack of American Spirit yellows, it has no appeal for me.

the thing is though the economy crashing will not hurt rich idiots, they'll largely be fine; it will absolutely devastate and even shorten everyone else's lives for god knows how long

(this is not me arguing that people shouldn't shelter in place, by any stretch; I just don't understand how the Discourse consensus is now at "only rich people care about the economy")

Mother
fucking
Florida

My mother tries to file for unemployment. Because the last time she filed was over 9 months ago, her PIN has expired. Ok, no biggie - she tries to go to Forgot PIN online. No dice - it 'can't find her record', tells her to call this number. She calls, it says "LOL SUX 2 BE U, 2 MANY CALLERS, BYE" and hangs up on her each time. my brother tries to help her and register her as a new claimant because they recently changed systems, so he thought THAT was the problem. Nope. it says she already registered.

she goes to email them about the issue - server error, email won't go through.

whole day of benefits lost due to this shit. though I'm telling her to demand credit for today after that horseshit.

I tried it myself and got all three of the same results.

I had to double my lung meds today as I'm struggling to clear them - that usually means i have a chest infection brewing.
Also got a weird thing where my sense of smell is disappearing and I get phantom smells of smoke and I have to keep convincing myself the house isn't on fire. This happened before and I ended up with a sinus infection.
Picked a bad time to get sick(er).

Not to panic you, but a loss of smell-sense has been one of the symptoms.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/health/coronavirus-symptoms-smell-taste.amp.html

good luck onimo :(

also I get phantom smoke-like (or overheating plastic/dust/petrol-like, in my case) smells sometimes, interesting that it turned into a sinus infection for you. for me it generally means either I'm going to get a migraine, maybe within an hour or maybe the next day, or it's the day before my period </TMI>, but before I worked that pattern out it felt like I was going crazy and all the Google results for phantom smells were a bit scary

anyway I guess that's a good tip that if one's sense of smell/taste starts to fade one should maybe start self-isolating, thanks just1n3

Anosmia!

Not to panic you, but a loss of smell-sense has been one of the symptoms.

― just1n3, Monday, 23 March 2020 22:42 (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Thanks just1n3, I saw that but I'm fairly sure this isn't covid-19 as I don't have a temp and my regular persistent cough isn't more persistent than normal. I've also had all the symptoms before so this feels familiar.

I will panic all the same as it's the end of days- it's working wonders for my previously managed hypertension :/

Also phantosmia! xp

Just went for a long walk. It was such a ghost town out there I didn't have to be worried about being close to anyone.

Very much so--maybe seven or eight people in a half-hour walk, most dog walkers (and one car at the small grocery store). I made eye contact with one of the dogs and wondered what he was thinking. "Where the fuck is everyone? How come no one comes up and pats me anymore?"

So what set this all in motion? Was it the death of Bowie, or the Cubs winning the World Series? Probably Bowie right? Killed Prince, then the Cubs clinching elected Trump, and ... here we are.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/19/middleeast/egypt-discovers-coffins-mummies-trnd/index.html

Loss of smell is a common symptom of a lot of cold/flu things. That’s why food is often bland when you have a cold; smell is a huge part of taste.

As a Houstonian, I’m bewildered that we haven’t shut down yet.

I broke my leg right before this started having an impact in the US. So I’m used to being stuck at home. Finally got off narcotic pain meds yesterday and it is a new strange reality to get acclimated to. Our kids have been at my parents place in the country for a couple of weeks and they come back soon. I miss them but don’t look forward to home-schooling and wrangling a 5 year old while in crutches. AND my mom keeps taking the kids places.

I hardly ever post but I’ve been lurking for years. You folks are great, I really appreciate this community. Thanks for being here. It’s been especially valuable lately.