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

I went to bard for a year and the closest I got to a celebrity was when I went to my friend's improv group show, they asked the audience to suggest an occupation for a scene and someone loudly called out "members of the KKK"--turned around to see who the fuck would yell that and it was Natalie Merchant

omg irl lol

she also sprayed Liz Phair with water right in the face during Lilith Fair acc to that oral history that was published last year or whenever it was

back to that new yorker piece: i am not sex shaming at all but Shannon is tricking out of her room in the middle of COVID; she's really taken up most of her good karma roomie slack well before the oven started smoking

Whole story made me think of the (great!) ongoing Simon Hanselmann Istacomic with Megg Mogg and Owl
https://www.instagram.com/p/B9sB-C3hQ_X/
^starts here but you should keep clicking through

i am having roommate flashbacks. shannon is a bad, bad roommate.

imagine living with Steely Dan but they hadn't even made any records yet

― avellano medio inglés (f. hazel)

Imaging living with Steely Dan but they can't bake pizza.

No, daddy can't get no fine cigar
But your pizza is burning wherever you are
Daddy don't cook in that New York City no more

shannon mostly in the wrong but would it really have killed javier to let people know that he's messing with their stuff

500 is about right for homemade pizza tbh

Filling the house with smoke isn't, tho.

show of hands for who would be okay having Shannon switch out with whoever you're currently living with

Under no circumstances would I live with Shannon

the pizza thing isn't great but my immediate concerns would be more about selling drugs out of the apartment and bringing strange men around.

One day, Shannon casually mentioned to Aziz that she was selling drugs. He thought she might have been joking, but she later told me that it was true. “I have not a second of time to spare,” she said. She was Skyping from her room, her hair in braids, applying blush before a john arrived. The packages had mostly been splurges or gifts from clients: Gucci sunglasses, a Nintendo Switch, a clock made from a Lana Del Rey LP. “I saw a client in Jersey the other night, and I got a gaming keyboard. And a knife—a really nice one, if anyone fucks with me,” she said, flicking it open.

She misted herself with perfume. Trader Joe’s was now screening employees for symptoms, and she had been sent home with a cough, which she chalked up to allergies. “If I die, I die,” she said, shrugging. She flashed a letter from the government: she had been receiving food stamps, but now the benefit was being discontinued on the ground that she hadn’t submitted her information—“even though I did.” She wasn’t worried; she now had multiple income streams to cover any back rent she might owe after the rent strike (if she chooses to pay it at all), and also to fund her “new bougie life style.” She told me, “Money is the most important thing to me. It insures my stability.”

I couldn't afford to live in NYC, so appreciate the hustle

i would like to withdraw my previous post about shannon

lol trayce, i also have a soft spot for the drama Shannons in my life but yeah, she's a hard no

Money is the most important thing to me. It insures my stability.”

I dunno Shanno could be trolling high-minded New Yorker reporters.

given that the text exchange alone gives me vicarious fear, no

Alfred's right, you can imagine a bunch of bored quarantined roommates lucking into an interview with the New Yorker and just laughing up this narrative of middle class nightmare over box wine

the only thing that seems a bit out there was that they were all nice enough to cover her rent for three months and didn't seem to hold it against her in her future bullshit.

i.... want to believe?
http://media.pri.org/s3fs-public/styles/original_image/public/images/2018/09/lexicon-nyt.png

megan jasper, proto-troller

she's the CEO of Sub-Pop!
https://kexp.org/read/2018/8/10/sub-pop-30-megan-jasper-interview/

i think you mean she's the best doggone doggie west of the mississip at the wax and wane

she ain't no cob nobbling lamestain, bound-and-hagged or swingin' on the flippity-flop with the tom-tom club

Now if you wanna be cool...

*jazz snaps*

Question about testing strategy: I understand that there are strong advocates for full testing, all people in high risk areas should be tested weekly, regardless of symptoms, etc. They've started rolling out testing in our area for free though whether or not they will actually test you without symptoms seems to not be settled. The advocates for full testing seem to all be...well, health professionals, and epidemiologists, etc... but I'm not hearing that from the city, the state (California), or the federal government (no surprise there) or the CDC. So while there may be non health officials stating this is what we should do....should I bother doing it? I mean, absent an organized strategy around this, I see no point in testing myself weekly when I have no symptoms, am rarely in close quarters with anyone outside my family, etc.

does not seem like a good use of their resources or your time and effort, pending that organized strategy

Health professionals and epidemiologists know that having the fullest, most complete data about who is infected and who they have been in contact with will provide them with the best chance of containing the virus and stopping its transmission. theoretically, with enough testing and a strict quarantine effort, pursued on a nationwide basis, they could throttle new cases down to a trickle and throw a cordon around any new hot spots that emerge. compared to voluntary efforts, this would be much more effective and would allow a 'reopening' of society with the fewest restrictions on large gatherings, while keeping deaths to a minimum. This is textbook stuff for them.

Watching how this has played out so far, politically and practically, no such thing will happen in the USA.

so this morning, I find out my checking account is compromised. not my debit/credit card - an actual ACH charge I didn't recognize, with someone else's name in the identification field. It was only $20, but I spent the entire morning having a hold placed on the account, then opening a new checking account with the same bank, turning off my monthly debits for the old account, and setting up brand new ones for the new (since we're nearing the first of the month).

as I'm wrapping this up, the same friend whose kids I talked about up-thread started bringing up some COVID developments in FL. Now, this is a dude who just 3 weeks ago, was taking COVID seriously...was minimizing visits outside of the house, doing Zoom band meetings, even told me I shouldn't go on the flight I had in March. so imagine my shock today when I realize he's basically swallowed the conspiracists' line. Only immunocompromised should wear masks! Mandating masks is stupid! The death toll has been inflated due to them counting all deaths as COVID-19.

It was shocking. Just two weeks ago we had a lucid convo on this. And then I find out - he was influenced by Elon Musk.

so he begins by saying "let me guess, you hate Elon Musk?" and I answered honestly that yes, I didn't care for him, and he laughed and said "man I find it hilarious how liberal you are" (as if Elon Musk was some alt-right guy that wasn't well-liked amongst many liberal folks as far as back as a year ago), and then tells me if it's between me and Elon Musk, he's going to take Musk's word over mine (as if having a BS in Physics makes one an expert virologist). once he started ad homming me, I lost any desire to be nice and I tore him apart. he couldn't provide any sources for his claims, and I sprinkled him with data to interrupt his attempts at gish-gallop, and he finally gave up.

Now, best friends will argue and argue hard, sure. and yes, this is a dude I've known 15 years, went to his bachelor party, went to his wedding, held both of his kids the week they were born, watched both grow up. I house-sit his dog 3-4 times a year. We consider each other family.

and yet the last two years, he's started emotionally bullying me at times. he will lecture me about the political stuff I post on social media, condescendingly telling me I shouldn't care so much about this stuff, and that it's alienating people and that I'm narrow-minded. Even though he unfollows me frequently (which I am fine with), he'll still tell me I need to change my behavior, with concern trolling language like "I'm trying to look out for you as a friend", after which I point out he's literally the ONLY person complaining about my behavior. He'll dump his problems on me on Lync at work, then if I bother to talk about myself, he'll complain that I "only talk about myself". He cancelled plans with me one Sunday, so I made plans with another friend, and when I arrived at the bar we were going to, demanded I come over and hang with him, and when I wouldn't ditch my other friend, lit me up with this two paragraph essay about how I wasn't holding up my end of the friendship (to which I aggressively responded "YOU CANCELLED OUR PLANS, ASSHOLE"). and then there was last week's tirade against me for criticizing the score of people who weren't wearing masks, telling me in private I was an angry person and that I needed to start trying CBD oil and that I thought I was better than everybody etc etc.

I'm not perfect myself or anywhere near it, but I've never done anything like this to him - he and I are different in many regards and I let him be. I give advice when I'm asked for it but that's it. Each time one of these blowups happens, I blow my stack at him, don't talk to him for a few days, but....today convinced me that I'm going to have to deliver him an ultimatum that he can ignore the shit I write if he wants, but he doesn't get to try to change who the fuck I am.

idk where any of this has come from. he's not even a conservative, he hates Trump. and prior to two years ago, yeah, we had arguments like any friends did, but he wasn't constantly trying to tell me how to live (though this is because he WASN'T ON SOCIAL MEDIA).

five minutes later, I post online that there are 76k excess deaths over the last 7 weeks and ask rhetorically what could be causing this if not for COVID, only to have an old friend who is a lawyer and very liberal/smart suddenly start spouting the conspiracist's line that it's just flu/pneumonia (even though pneumonia's increase is correlated with COVID-19 cases, and flu can't cause excess deaths cos flu is baked into the death forecasts). People who I used to respect are just weakening and falling for this shit en masse.

so I know I can't quit social media due to my weird addiction to it, but am going to cut back my usage and stop posting COVID stuff because 99% of the people on my feed reading it already agree with me and the other 1% are annoying people I don't want to talk to and will probably defriend.

tl;dr exhausted by COVID.

ime stress and Being In A Bad Place can really ramp up the conspiracy engine in people you'd previously thought brain-worm-free. Sometimes it goes away, like a dream or a bout of eczema.

I'm sorry to hear that, Neanderthal - I think about quitting social media a lot these days, but even just cutting back sounds like a good idea.

<3 Neanderthal

And I second Andrew's suggestion; social media is a psychological blight on the best of days.

i'm going to visit my friend on Friday (the one diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer), another 'social distance' party. that should help.

also have officially discussed with my mother that I'm returning to my home after next week, but will make daily visits to check on them, and stay close to my phone for emergencies. mom actually wants me to go back sooner cos she feels bad, but I think it's too soon.

dad was discharged from physical therapy and home health care today! :)

he also snuck to the bathroom on his own when a scheduling snafu with my mom left him alone for 5-10 minutes. he grinned like he was a cat who ate the canary when mom incredulously asked why his walker wasn't where she left it :)

So apparently one of my co-workers - though I haven't worked in the same department as him in a long time - has died. No indication of the cause yet, so maybe I shouldn't be jumping to conclusions, but he was fine before all this started, as far as I'm aware. He did suffer pretty badly from arthritis, that's all I know about any underlying health issues, he was probably late 50s? I expect I'll find out more over the next few days. Everyone is a bit shocked.

― Is Lou Reed a Good Singer? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 19 May 2020 19:29 (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Confimed. Died of a Covid-19 related illness on May 14th. He'd worked for the organization for 43 years, so probably straight from school. I hadn't realized that people with (rheumatoid) arthritis might be in more danger of developing severe symptoms.

so sorry to hear that Tom, I hope you and your colleagues are alright through this

Didn't really know the guy that well, he just came into work, did his job, kept his head down, didn't get involved in any of the usual work-related nonsense, then went home at the end of the day. And did that for 43 years, I assume.

Hugs, Tom and Neanderthal.

yeah, we had a coworker die last week as well (not someone I worked closely with, he was desktop support though and I did use to see him daily in the kitchen). weirdly aside from an email from his manager, not a single person I work with has mentioned it; but water cooler talk isn't really happening because we use MS Teams which everyone hates.

.

is being outside in the heat for 5 minutes or more while simultaneously wearing a face-hugging facemask likely to temporarily inflate your temp?

my dad went to get bloodwork done today, and they refused to take it as his temp (taken 5 times in 10 minutes) was between 99-100, though it kept going down. after they left, two of the nurses followed my father out and said they'd be willing to see him after their lunch, but it was lunchtime and my mother was already flustered so she said they'd come back another day.

but he's taken his temp at home three times since then, and it's been normal each time, between 97.2 - 98.3. and I know a few times I've taken my temp after wearing a mask for hours, I've been in the upper 99s and it's come down.

just seems weird. obviously if he has a fever, we want to get him another COVID test (he was negative previously), but it doesn't...seem like he does? he coughs, but he was doing that even before his first COVID test, and usually after he eats or drinks, rather than randomly.

normal ranges vary and are dynamic over a day's time and subject to obvious influences like exertion and eating. i don't think any doctor or nurse i've spoken to in the past few months has been impressed by a temp under 100.

i've been watching my temp closely and it most certainly goes up after i leave the house to run errands.

k. thanks

wish I had been there, my mom has a tendency to get confused as to what people are telling her when she gets stressed. she got home and was barking at my dad and I saw my dad mentally shutting down so I had to take over for a bit.

still, glad both of us are on antidepressants. we stay *relatively* calm. if this was 2009, dad would be dealing with both of us shrieking.

i think doctor's visits are extra stressful right now. and staff are generally on high alert so they monitor the need to provide services very assertively/defensively. it can be overwhelming (on the patient end).

makes sense

anecdotal of course but I swear to god it's at the point where 50% of the people I encounter when I have to go outside have no masks whatsoever. no pattern to either the people wearing or not wearing them, just SO MANY

Outside outside or outside inside? I see very few people wearing masks outdoors here, but anywhere between 50-60% at the store, which is a decent enough range, I suppose, given that mask-wearing is not enforced in any way, shape or form by governments local and/or provincial despite Montreal being the hardest hit city in Canada by far.

I generally don't wear a mask walking around my suburban neighborhood, but I also try to give other people a very wide berth as much as possible.