KIP covid thread

^ that last is not my commute, only the gentle sounds of jet engines over my house at that time each morning.

It looks like we are at the first peak here, so we will see the number of new cases and deaths drop for a little while

Cycling is great at the moment. Weather is perfect and roads are more or less free of traffic.

About the peaceful neighbourhood thing, when I woke up this morning I realized the reason it's so quiet is I'm not hearing any sirens anymore - police or ambulance but, in my case, it's predominantly ambulance. Quiet, apart from the builders next door, of course.

Have been running between 5 and 10k three times a week having been a 3k at most previously.
Been exploring my locality which is kind of edgelandy central belt scotland so farms and woodland and quite pleasant in a way.
Yep, spending nothing.
Cooking lots of good meals aye.
Also work had been driving me up the wall and I'd been desperate for time away from it, had been *this* close to walking out a couple of times (work in a v busy and understaffed restaurant) so this deadly pandemic couldn't have come at a better time for me

Air quality in London is so much better right now.

General good litmus test of the strength of a relationship/marriage is if you can spend months locked up together in stressful circumstances and still get on well and it's comfortably passing that.

Also yeah cooking, not spending money, getting enough sleep on the regular. Booze consumption down as well and only drinking really good stuff.

More or less total control over how much of my physical self to show to the outside world, and even when I do briefly go out my face is hidden behind mask & shades

*allows self to fall into ever more shocking states of dragglement* THIS TOO IS A MIXED BLESSING

Seeing a lot more of my friends back home - scheduling Jackbox game nights and groupwatchs of that Toei youtube channel.

finally tackling the jungle that is my back garden. a few hours every other day and hey presto the difference has been amazing. still some left to do mind you.

golf course shut but i found a patch of grass about the size of half a football pitch hidden behind some trees on the outskirts so have been practicing my pitching/chipping for a couple of hours a day so when the courses reopen hopefully my chipping yips will be a thing of the past.

oh and back up to being able to do 100 + keepie uppies which i haven't done since i was in my twenties

have explored every nook and cranny within 2km, including several good possibilities for buying if economy does crash

legit thought i had opened the animal crossing thread for a second

can’t read the thread title without thinking “kid n play”

so that’s a positive!

eke every drop of it in the circumstances imo

spending more time talking to family members i love

i'm getting more money than i ever have from a job

that being said i somehow got a job with the ut4h st4te 4rchives with a tentative start date of june 1, so when i run out of unemployment i'll be in a pretty cush position, credit cards paid down, etc.

today i'm going to the desert for two days to go running and buy weed

i'm "staying home and staying safe" with a hottie i love

and this isn't really covid related but i bought a really sick dark dnb release (homemade weapons, sorry ilm content) and rakka by that finnish guy to listen to out in the desert plus lots of stoner metal

It's kind of a positive that our situation isn't changing much - husband works from home most days anyway, and is now saving ££ on commute to London. I'm not working while my kids are little but was planning to start childcare for the youngest later this year. I'm glad the 5yo has had enough school to learn the very basics and can continue that at home without missing too much essential stuff, although he's missing it badly. Live on a main road which now has way less traffic, although is now 90% heavy trucks.

every time i see KIP my brain defaults to
https://i.imgur.com/G8bl74G.jpg

Wasn't doing any commuting and that's down to zero now. Which is the correct amount.

Reading loads more (that was on the way down). I think I'll only have a few 500 page+ books left in a couple of weeks.

Got my home yoga practice back (rather than just going to class) and might sign up to classes with a couple of advanced teachers on zoom that I might not had the chance to take a class with! Feel like I'm exploring sequences at the back of Light on Yoga too.

joeks aside, everyone i care about is healthy and safe, partner and i likely wont lose our jobs, are actually saving a bit of money because we arent spending it on stupid shit, & getting a load of reading done. Ive also been enjoying noticing that the constant low droning ambient far-off rumble of cars that you hear in basically every developed place on earth has disappeared from my neighborhood, and for the first time I can walk out on my porch and hear true silence.

the schools closure in the UK has meant there is a new daily podcast aimed at parents, helping them navigate the mountain of BBC content available for kids stuck at home and it's presented by..... yours truly!!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p089l43b/episodes/downloads

tune in for some relentlessly KIP parent content

Cool! Are you William Whiskerson?

RUMBLED

big thing has been actually getting to hang out with our kids (5 and 3). our schedule during the weekday is packed, since we've got one in day care and one that does half days at school, plus my wife's commute is an hour long, so ultimately our time to actually "hang out" with our kids amounts to like, 30 minutes a day (not counting eating dinner or the bedtime routine). when it's over I'm glad I had this time with them

also...sleep. cutting out 2.5 hours of our routine every day actually lets us sleep 7 hours a day. before it was always a choice between getting a good nights sleep and like...taking any time to just relax and watch TV or whatever

Also sleeping more. Seeing kids more. Losing weight. Globally speaking: despite loudly amplified protest voices there seems to be broad public support here in the US for continued lockdown now, followed, when certain benchmarks are met, by careful and watchful easing of restrictions with least dangerous things allowed first, which is sensible. Whatever Trump may tweet about, the more sensible policy is what's actually coming out as White House guidance.

I'm weirdly into the simplicity of the routine, not having to think about social plans, travel, going out, playing gigs, etc.

Also the lack of a commute means we've had time to start doing yoga, in addition to our normal exercise routines (the yoga is also necessary to keep my body from ossifying due to working from home). I think I'm losing weight despite all the cooking & eating.

I'm genuinely happy for everyone that has more free time, but also I hate you all

dont make me tap the sign

* Life happens at whatever pace I want.
* I get to wake up slowly every day and my bf brings me coffee in bed (I used to have to leave home by 7am in the dark to get to work before 8).
* I have a garden to plant and am watching plants grow. Some are beautiful and some will be food in a month.
* I'm financially benefitting from the pandemic relief so I'm actually more stable than I would have been.
* Which allows me to give away a lot of money, so I'm supporting mutual aid/frontline efforts.
* I feel like I'm "playing house" in this lovely home, drinking coffee on various porches etc.
* Lots of evening campfires with the neighbors who are roughly my parents' age, and walks around the neighborhood. No touching/hugging, of course.
* I've cooked literally everything I've eaten in the last 6 weeks AT LEAST.
* Lots of lying on the sofa listening to podcasts.

Sorry to ppl with kids and ppl in small apartments and people who can't get any sunshine.

the schools closure in the UK has meant there is a new daily podcast aimed at parents, helping them navigate the mountain of BBC content available for kids stuck at home and it's presented by..... yours truly!!

wtf?

Also yeah cooking, not spending money, getting enough sleep on the regular. Booze consumption down as well and only drinking really good stuff.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, April 21, 2020 2:20 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah, most of these apply to me. the amount of money I'm saving (and hours of sleep I'm gaining) on not going out on the piss during the week, I'm instead drinking $50 bottles of wine at home at the weekend and being sober Sunday-Thursday.

I didnt expect how much this would change my perspective on almost every single aspect of my life - I feel like we're counting our blessings on an hourly basis, paying so much attention to small things and creature comforts we used to take for granted. Things like being thankful we have the cabinet space to store a months worth of food, we know how to cook & enjoy it, our apt has enough room to swing a cat, etc. It's a really strange feeling - on the one hand I'm terrified of dying in a very immediate way, but at the same time I feel much more grounded and emotionally healthy than any time I can remember.

Yes, all of that. Life without work, taken apart from financial pressures, is actually the RIGHT pace for a good life.

lol Tom that’s what i thought too. the controller of my department heard me on something and was like “you’re doing this” so i was like aye aye cap’n

nobody cares if I don't shower

Tracer do you work for that fat controller or the thin controller

since when is it not comptroller

a comptroller is a chief accountant for a local government

i'm amazed that some of you are managing to lose weight - if anything, I've been eating way more and exercising less. Grateful that the husband is cooking nearly everyday now though. Also relieved that Ramadan will be here in a couple of days - aside from cutting down on the snacking, it'll also be much easier this year without having to commute to work or forced socialising at fast-breaking dinners (count me in among the natural hermits who are enjoying quarantine more than others). 

music-wise, this week has been great with new releases by people I enjoy listening to + actually having the time to listen to them!

and I really do enjoy all the "nature is healing" bullshit, like this is just nice to see regardless of everything else: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/thailand-covid-19-beaches-turtles-nest-baby-12658224

I thought I would be running in the park three or four times a week but as it stands I'm barely leaving the flat. I think it's more that UK office/commute lifestyle tends to encourage unhealthier eating and drinking patterns and just removing those makes a difference.

There is something to be said for the total loss of even the illusion of control, it forces you to focus on the lowest of horizons and the most achieveable of goals. Getting dinner right can be one of the best and most enjoyable and rewarding things you do in a day. Just focusing on putting one foot in front of another and wringing out as many moments of enjoyment in the day is absolutely fine and all you can really do right now, along with appreciating that not everyone can have that luxury.

Spending lots more time with my seven-month old at a key stage of attachment and development

Watching her gradually learn to crawl, push buttons, turn pages on books, poop solids

Reading more and finally getting to Barbara Pym

Having a partner who enjoys disinfecting our food and has a generally less anxious attitude to everything

Zoom D&D every Saturday

I quit my job in December, can’t find a new job, fantastic - I hate work

Patting myself on the back for being less anxious and gloomy about everything than I expected (but not in a head-in-the-sand way)

Finally muting toxically gloomy/meme posting/advice-giving friends on Facebook

Not punching the guy on my walk who yelled “keep away! Haha just kidding” at me yesterday

I like being a homebody so it's all good. I'm walking my 'patch' loads and loads (one corollary of all this: so is every other fucker), spending lots of time with my wife, spending *some* time with my kids, who are of an age where they're happy to be in their rooms chatting with their mates, absolutely reconnecting with my stuff: records mainly but also books and films. I'm slowly cataloguing my records on Discogs. My absolute favourite thing is to play records and do puzzles. Like a pensioner.

I'm a teacher: remote teaching is shit and I miss the general mayhem of the classroom but I'm used to extended breaks so that's sort of manageable in that I've tricked myself into thinking I'm on summer holidays (the weather is helping). I need the routine when it comes to diet, so I'm drinking more and concomitantly eating more shit so need to sort that out.

New record for solar power generation in UK on Monday, over half power generated from renewables. https://www.renews.biz/59798/uk-solar-peak-generation-record-broken/

Not punching the guy on my walk who yelled “keep away! Haha just kidding” at me yesterday

― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, April 22, 2020 9:25 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I was jogging the other day and saw another jogger approaching about 50 yards away. I started to move over to the other side of the street, but at the exact same time she had the same idea. So I moved back and so did she. It was a long-distance version of that thing where you and another person are both trying to be polite about walking on the same side of the sidewalk but you end up dancing back and forth awkwardly. I finally did an elaborate and broad hand gesture indicating which way I intended on going and she flashed back a thumbs up. That was a fun, positive, and voiceless social microinteraction.

New job confirmed WFH three days

That's great!

Every time I see this thread I think it's a reference to this.
https://i.makeagif.com/media/6-11-2016/AdngMb.gif

Not bloody wrong all the same!

https://scontent-sjc3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/p843x403/269643758_1818342701695604_3607362876193411554_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=a26aad&_nc_ohc=q-fP6NWd6XAAX9FAf3Y&_nc_ht=scontent-sjc3-1.xx&oh=00_AT9Eo1MH7QtuJVuqr2e4YcbHMyz43-YIoPCbYsjtNPzQOw&oe=61C6B567

thsi many waves

here is my Christmas present for all of you pic.twitter.com/3QxJfd2Gog

— your friend (@debdrens) December 24, 2021

Went into whole foods yesterday and was grabbing some chips adjacent to the only other person in the store who was masked. Asked if if she ever felt like the only one doing it. She said, "on the daily!" and said she still knows people getting COVID but she had yet to get it. I said "same all around" and we told each other to stay safe. It's a small deal and no judgement to those who threw out their masks and breathe the free air but it can be tough feeling like the only one wearing one of these facehuggers indoors while almost everyone has relaxed. So it's good to KIP with others on the same wavelength.

Got COVID just over a week ago, got better pretty fast, was sad to realize my sense of smell is gone

Today tho my boyfriend walked by. Smelled a waft of something faint. “Are you wearing Beyond Paradise?” Yes he was. Getting better already, keeping it positive

Just posted in the rona thread but I also am getting over an extremely mild case - back to myself (such as it is) in about 10 hours.

Still too stuffy to tell if I can still smell things.