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

Dentist: I think I'd be keen not to risk death to sort out other people's tooth pain.

Haircuts: You know to do this yourself *now* rather than wait until the end of working from home, yeah? I know video conferencing ruins this slightly but still ...

Went to the grocery earlier on. For the past month or so, it's been 100% facemasks there, but sometime in the past week I guess a lot of people said fuck it because a good quarter or more of the people there had no masks, were mostly in groups, and acting like they didn't give a fuck about their or anyone else's safety. Not a good development at all.

so the store doesn't prohibit this?

I asked the lady that coordinates the check out lines if they no longer require masks, and she said they still do, but I guess they aren't doing much to stop it. I think as long as the state isn't requiring it, stores feel disempowered to really stop people.

after a grocery worker was shot to death by a customer for trying to enforce mask-wearing in the store I wouldn't be surprised if some stores reconsidered mandatory masks for customers.

Indeed

It's weird living in DeSatan's Florida yet in a county where you're not allowed to enter any enclosed public space w/out'em.

I thought that's what it was like here! It's frustrating because our case numbers have never really gotten out of control, but have just plateaued for weeks without managing to drop significantly. It feels like we were close, but now we're just throwing it away.

My university is trying to reassure employees that if we return to campus in the fall there will be strict policies about wearing masks and following social distancing rules. But all that does is fill us with dread, because we all know what happens when strict policies are put in place that depend on faculty and staff to enforce them... the policies are ignored and the employees get blamed for the failure. It's the same in grocery stores.

Am I correct in thinking you also live in Austin?

you are!

My husband finally broke and got out the clippers, buzzed his shaggy head right down. Now he wanders the house, listening to work calls in his big beats headphones, mostly silent and staring straight ahead, and I wonder why I’m suddenly living with Lobot.

xp

So are you having the same experience that people are giving up on safety precautions pretty quickly?

Living with Lobot coming to Disney+ this August

So are you having the same experience that people are giving up on safety precautions pretty quickly?

I go for runs every other day, and while in March the streets were almost completely empty, now you're guaranteed to pass by dozens of people, and there are lots of groups roving around. I used to go through Eastwoods Park and use the track at Caven Field on campus, but they're both way too crowded now so I avoid them entirely. Aside from that I've only been to the grocery store a couple times.

My social circle is starting to socialize in person again, like invite 1-2 people over to hang out in the backyard and drink. I haven't done it yet, but I want to... and to be fair, I understand both the loneliness overwhelming people, and also the frustration that comes from spending two months suffering alone and then realizing the government - both Texas and Federal - spent that two months fucking around and frittered away all that effort to buy us some time to take action. I'm going to keep quarantine, but I can see why people are seeing politicians (read: Republicans) dick around on TV every day and being like "well, fuck it, this is a lost cause so I'm going out to a bar".

can't get used to having to shop in chunks (twice a week in my case).

so there's nothing for tea, but, simultaneously, i have too much lettuce and milk because they had short dates on them when i bought them. and i hate throwing food out.

i've stopped jogging exactly because it was hard to avoid breathing heavily on people (there are a lot of 'amateurs' around at the moment, people who are struggling and who will just stop suddenly). there are unpopular routes besides busy main roads but...

and part of me thinks i'm never going to bother getting my hair cut professionally again

(the part of me that can't see what a hack-job i've done at the back)

probably not an option in London, but my quarantine running secret is parking garages... they're 100% empty and also shaded.

I haven't been to the grocery store lately, but my wife reported after her last trip that even here in a relatively liberal outpost the mask use has dropped dramatically.

Was talking to a friend on Zoom last night and he said the same thing. He asked a guy at one of the local grocery stores if they were still enforcing the mandatory mask rule and he essentially said that they try to, but the non mask wears get so angry and belligerent that they don't feel safe confronting them. I get it, it's gotta be hard enough with just the stress of being an essential worker right now to not want to be screamed at by a red-faced MAGA idiot on top of it all.

I don't want to jump to conclusions about the non-mask wearing customers, but I definitely detected a sense of aggressive defiance, could possibly be that I'm projecting my own anger onto them.

I was assuming that people might have a bit of expoerience of self hair cutting by the time the lockdown was through and might actually be getting to a point of some ability. & people wouldn't have to be seen in public with the initial rough stages. Or at least there would be somebody in any shared house that might be getting a little skill which they might want a bit of guidance/tuition on when they got the chance.
Also heard the hat was becoming popular in places it hadn't been as much before.

Not only are you going to have a load of people endangering their health by things reopening so early but they'll have to live down bad haircuts. Or is that why they're opening all the hair salons.

You learn real fast working retail to never ask customers to do anything. Even before COVID-19 and MAGA chuds, it was a terrible strategy for getting through the working day. They will always argue, always escalate, and management will never back you up.

the idiotic, ignorant angry non-mask wearing dumbfuck customer is always right!

I feel like things are going to get much worse soon. I heard someone today excited that a Mongolian barbecue place was going to be opening up and seating people inside. It’s a joke to think bars and restaurants are going to be able to manage distancing, and opening them up is going to be a nightmare.

i'm curious how much covid/distancing has invaded other people's dreams. regularly now, I'm noticing I'm worrying about masks or making physical contact with things in my dreams. last night i dreamt that i started coughing in public uncontrollably and while i was sure i wasn't sick with anything, i was mortified because everyone was shooting me dirty looks and i couldn't stop.

I actually ate out twice for lunch this week (the first time I've even attempted such since mid-March). Both places achieved social distancing in seating by making impossible to sit at certain tables by stacking chairs on tables and using police tape to section off booths.

Dreaming about this constantly, though mostly just as free floating stress.

first person I know to die from this fucking thing, my favorite professor from undergrad who also grew to be a good friend in those days. We'd grown apart as he had a stroke a number of years ago and moved to upstate NY. Quite upset.

Sorry akm.

sorry to hear.

I'm so sorry, akm. I was just thinking about my favorite professor today, who died of brain cancer almost 10 years ago. I still miss her very much.

i'm so sorry, akm.

I have two dear professors I try to visit once a year who are getting up there in age. Thankfully they’re healthy but i always get teary thinking each visit could be my last. Sorry, akm.

i thought a few Zoom sessions with friends might be fun. I hated them.

everybody talks over each other (moreso than IRL), but most of all.....it feels like being at work. I'm in front of a computer in meeting software all day, I don't need to replicate the experience.

I have never taken part in a Zoom session, it sounds like hell on earth.

i have been teaching adult ESL students for 3.2 hours each session via an inferior zoom-alternative (i have used both and zoom is definitely superior as a teaching tool) multiple times weekly
morning and night, class last night went to 10pm

this is my life and while i do not enjoy the format whatsoever, i am grateful for it because my students are still all there, still working hard, and their attitude about learning is stubbornly positive. the students in my music class are doing an AMAZING job. i am actually genuinely proud of the work we have done under these circumstances, many of them are still working, some lost their jobs. we are all still chugging away even though in general as a mode of human communication videoconferencing is technologically amazing but otherwise BLOOOOOOOOOOWS imo

we have two more weeks of class. i am going to try to enjoy them because idk what is coming next

My initial two-month work contract (I started March 16) was not renewed. There's a possibility I'll be brought back in July, as my boss liked my work and the fiscal year ends June 30, but I'm not holding my breath.

I got my Trumpbuxxx in today's mail, so that's something, at least. According to the memo line, though, it can only be spent on wire fraud, bribes to elected officials, or donations to the Republican Party, so I don't know what to do with that.

im sure you can think of an official to bribe

i also will say that one on one videocall conversations are actually not that bad. awkward sometimes for sure (like all conversations) but afaict videochatting with someone one on one is pretty much like being separated by a window and still hearing ok. the group situations are very different.

My mother is leaving her locked-down assisted living digs to run a couple of errands and then coming to my house so I can unfreeze a frozen app on her ipad. I said "you better go to the bathroom before you come over because I'm not letting you in. I'll come out to the car masked and gloved and fix the doodad."

wise

I've been having 1 or 2x weekly drinks online with btw 5-10 of my oldest/dearest friends...ppl I've known for 25-30 years who are spread around the country.

I'm alone, w/o my kids, for four days every four days. It gets lonely. So I've been apprectiating this, and it's not at all awkward.

I find it exhausting if I hold too many; two weeks I participated in two per night for a couple nights. The constraints of Zoom: the nanosecond pause between speaking and response; the reluctance to step on each other's lines; its sedentary nature. I'm not drinking more, but I end these chats rather wobbly.

thanks for the condolences all.

re: zoom parties: the success of these absolutely depends on the people. we're doing weekly drinks (I don't drink but everyone else does) and pub quizzes with one set of friends and it's been really fun. you can't have more than a certain number of people on though because audio levels do fluctuate depending on how much noise is coming through, some people have latency, etc, so if there are like more than six people calling in it's bound to fail unless everyone mutes themselves when not talking and then it's not very spontaneous or enjoyable.

My mother had her own mask on, surprising and heartening.

moderated calls w/ friends

akm, ugh, I'm sorry! I just read your post.

We did a family zoom with my in-laws recently (parents two bros, bro’s wife and 3 young kids) and it was excruciatingly boring, mostly bc of the kids, who made us play a game where we had to guess the number on a rolled dice.

My partner has a bad case of the dropsky's with her MS and is dropping things every day. Somehow a dropped plastic rinsing cup has smashed a hole in the porcelain in the bathroom sink. There was already a crack in it so it was ready to break but FFS not now of all times. I'm going to have council plumbers in the house tomorrow for hours, which sucks absolute shit.

How big is the hole? I patched a hole in a bathtub once using an epoxy repair kit with plastic mesh... it looked terrible but was watertight. JB Weld might be effective too. Might tide you over for six months or a year (especially if it's the bathroom sink and not the kitchen).