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

rural areas also contain multitudes. some of them are great and some of them are shitholes.

i didn't even look at the interior pics of that oregon house until now. it's a gut job. also delightfully close to that national forest that was occupied by right-wing extremists a few years ago.

I lived in horrible Kansass.

a very desolate two hours from the nearest city

yeah, I know nothing about kansas except that book that makes me put it way down on the list.

my cats love this shit afaict. takes all kinds

Much of it is a matter of habit and upbringing tbh. I was born in a metropolis and have lived in another one for the better part of my life so the couple of interludes I've had in smaller towns were hard to bear. Besides, when you're a rootless immigrant, big cities tend to be far more in tune with your general experience of the world.

probably if I'd grown up there I'd have some residual nostalgia, but no, I moved there, willingly, as an adult. It was, for a time, an ok place to think, which is what I get paid to do. But thoughts without intuitions are empty, it's said, and there can be no intuitions where there is nothing to intuit, so the mind turns in on itself. It's inhuman.

no one has to be one thing all the time.

But thoughts without intuitions are empty, it's said, and there can be no intuitions where there is nothing to intuit, so the mind turns in on itself.

Very much so.

Rural living would require at least a partner and preferably a commune for me. I lived in a town of 2300 for 18 months building a B&B/small resort and it was awful - but I was mostly alone and living in the town’s only apartment above a garage.

Or just leaning in and going full Unabomber.

Spent my high school years, and summers home from college, in a town of about 1800. Could not stand it. From the first day of high school I had a countdown until graduation so I could get the hell out of there. You couldn't pay me to live in a town like that again.

no one has to be one thing all the time.

― Yerac, Wednesday, May 13, 2020 8:58 AM (one hour ago)

<3

For a long time, whenever my wife and I traveled someplace, we would have a brief daydreamy discussion of how "oh, maybe it would be nice to live here." (Mostly this was mid-Atlantic Ye Olde Quaintey towns with a historic railroad station, a few blocks of cobbled streets, a charming B&B, a decent pub.

Then after a quarter-hour or so of halfway considering it, we'd both suddenly go "nah, we'd go insane in a week."

rural living would appeal to me if in practice it did not mean being surrounded by white supremacist MAGA types with very little chance to meet anyone else

So I've just been told by EE that the reason my wifi is not working is not my old router, which I just spent £100+ replacing, but with their network in my area - a problem which might not be fixed until the lockdown is over. So I'm basically without internet for the foreseeable future

Everyone's worst nightmare (genuinely) - sorry man! They must be able to do something?

I really don’t like those.. cylindrical towers on old homes. gives me the creeps. is that Victorian style? *shudder*

i haven't been in a car or a bus or a train or left an area about six blocks square in two months

i suppose that's not rare for city-dwellers these days, but it's still odd to consider

i haven't left the apartment at all in 2 months. It's odd that I don't feel odd. I feel fine.

tom d, your neighbors i guess are all having this same issue? Maybe get a mobile hotspot on another network if available/use your phone to broadcast? xpost

rural living would appeal to me if in practice it did not mean being surrounded by white supremacist MAGA types with very little chance to meet anyone else

This is the problem. Even before MAGA and Trump, I was astounded by how many times I'd strike up even the most minor conversation with someone before they'd drop something absolutely horrifyingly racist. Like because I'm a white male, they just automatically assume I'm onboard with all of their hateful beliefs. It was exhausting being surrounded by that all of time. And the minute you speak up against it, boom, you are iced out by a significant percentage of the population and identified as a "snooty outsider".

Tom, do you have a mobile phone plan with them? I resorted to tethering and forced them to uncap my data every time that happened that me (a little too often for comfort).

i could live in a rural area if there was a cool town within driving distance. i've spent a lot of time in western MA and VT and those rural places are wonderful. not as cheap though

fyi plenty of midwest cities have houses in the $40k-$150k range, some even less. i see a bunch of listings right now in the $10k-40k range!

a college town might also be interesting. like oberlin or red hook, NY

Xps my dog has started acting out by destroying things she wouldn’t normally touch when we leave her home - so far she’s torn apart 2 rolls of toilet paper and a box of tampons

Also: why is toilet paper still scarce? Haven’t been able to get it from TJs, CVS or our other local supermarket in several weeks. We resorted to online ordering from Walmart and ended up with 20 rolls in translucent sandpaper. It’s not even 1-ply. It’s maybe 0.5-ply.

Someone way upthread was looking in the Cleveland area few years ago, and I was amazed daily on what was available there. And it's a big city.

Actually it was the Buying A House thread, of course.

EE is the fucking worst. Tom I’d ask if their contract allowed you to bail in a situation like this but I know that trying to get an answer to that question out of them would be a hiding to absolutely nothing. They do tend to have good 4G coverage and good speeds so tethering to your phone could be a not-bad option (as long as they uncap you as pom says)

I really don’t like those.. cylindrical towers on old homes. gives me the creeps. is that Victorian style? *shudder*

I used to live in one of those towers, when I rented a room in a big old Victorian in Flatbush. It was kind of nice, I could see all the way down the street in both directions.

This was a fun post juxtaposition:

why is toilet paper still scarce? Haven’t been able to get it from TJs, CVS or our other local supermarket in several weeks.

― just1n3

Someone way upthread was looking in the Cleveland area few years ago, and I was amazed daily on what was available there. And it's a big city.
― nickn

why is toilet paper still scarce?

mostly inflexible supply chains

weirdly toilet paper has never been a problem for me; it's hand soap I can't find anywhere

i have been using diluted dish soap as hand soap
not bad

There's no method. Often I'll go to the store at 8 a.m. and find soap and no paper. Or vice versa. Then at 3 p.m. I'll find both. At Target today I saw hand wipes and masks. I didn't need them and wasn't about to hoard.

i need to buy some rubbing alcohol but do not feel like shopping around for it. should i just assume i won't find it anywhere?

If you show up at a pharmacy right when they restock it you can get some... it's still being delivered to retail stores.

I'd try a couple of phone calls to nearby stores and ask if they have rubbing alcohol and, if not, do they expect any?

I got a bottle last week without looking for it -- I just spotted it.

I've learned I don't use much hand sanitizer and alcohol except in the car after a store run. I wash my hands 20 times a day, though.

My grocery store now regularly has hand sanitizer that’s clearly in a repurposed plastic liquor bottle. Makes me feel like I’m 21 and buying a 750 of McCormick vodka.

The McCormick back then was probably cheaper than the sanitizer now actually.

there is not even bar (body) soap in stores?

McCormick is better at killing germs!

there is not even bar (body) soap in stores?

― Yerac, Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Yeah! A little more often. And body wash has never disappeared from shelves here. Not once.

I've wondered whether the overwhelming Spanish-speaking members of my community are driven by literalism. "Body wash" is not "soap," therefore overlooked.

People who can't get tp are inserting the bars up th-

Thanks mookie xps

Dr Bronner's is always a good bet

I really don’t like those.. cylindrical towers on old homes. gives me the creeps. is that Victorian style? *shudder*

― brimstead, Wednesday, May 13, 2020 6:47 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Turrets! I'm a fan to the extent that I'm a fan of Victorian houses at all, which is "sometimes, if they're less 'wedding cake' and more 'probably haunted.'''

I never thought I'd want to live in the country again, but I'm here now and I'm surprisingly fine. We have good neighbors though, and I still have my life in the city which I will, covid willing, someday go back to. Of course, the last time I lived in a small village in a rural area the internet didn't exist yet. This is better.

I should differentiate, though: I like living in the "town" part of a small town but I'm still not interested in the whole "20 acres and no neighbors" thing.