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Covid-19 #3: It's More Personal Than Ever


Zorral

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Anyone figured out solutions to friend-deprived, stir-crazy teens constantly begging you to hang out with their friends, who you're pretty sure are going to start sneaking out soon if you don't figure out a compromise?

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1 hour ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Anyone figured out solutions to friend-deprived, stir-crazy teens constantly begging you to hang out with their friends, who you're pretty sure are going to start sneaking out soon if you don't figure out a compromise?

If you know their parents and can discuss measures with them you could invite them into your bubble

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3 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Anyone figured out solutions to friend-deprived, stir-crazy teens constantly begging you to hang out with their friends, who you're pretty sure are going to start sneaking out soon if you don't figure out a compromise?

This is why I support renting children, once they hit teen years we should be allowed to return them somewhere.:D

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4 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Anyone figured out solutions to friend-deprived, stir-crazy teens constantly begging you to hang out with their friends, who you're pretty sure are going to start sneaking out soon if you don't figure out a compromise?

Arrange to meet up in a park or in someone’s back garden so you can stay 2 metres apart?

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While consistency is for the boring and mediocre, I feel rather unsettled about the fact that we are at the same numbers we were back in April. Only everything is wide open, freshmen week is on, kids are going back to school, people are vacationing at an overcrowded lake by the hundred thousands and there’s a buzzing late summer city life all around. 

Again, I find it impossible to tell if I should stay home or continue to live carefully and strictly according to rules. I do have quite a few threads that need tying up and necessary errands to run. I have an appointment to renew my driving license and now I’m kinda terrified of it. I’m also supposed to meet former colleagues this week. And I have quite a few purchases, exchanges, deliveries to handle for the renovation of sister’s flat. I also use public transport in the city and enjoy an occasional coffee for takeaway. As our numbers increase I once again get a knot in my stomach when I hear a barista cough inside even though I’m outside and  I’m soooo triggered by people coughing on trains as well. (Although my brain knows that people cough for several reasons - my mum coughs because she’s got reflux, my grandfather used to cough because he smoked, and I’m sure there are many more not-coronavirus reasons for people to cough) 

What makes all this even more grotesque is that I feel awkward and embarrassed to openly express my concern, fear and need for safety measures, because some people in my social circle as well as the general public opinion looks down on coronavirus worries and expects me (and everybody in general) to act ‘normally’. This makes me internalize a lot of this anxiety which is not good at all, and it makes me feel torn between my own (potentially indeed irrational and excessive) worries and others’ expectations. 

I also get these catastrophe scenarios in my head about my getting infected, a family member getting infected and let my mind get tangled up in the practicalities and logistics of solving each of these problems. Sometimes I think I’m more afraid of these than the actual illness. At least in my case, in my family’s case, I’m absolutely terrified of the actual threat on their health. 

To add to this, 2020 for me has been an important work project cancelled, the virus sweeping the world, quitting my job, looking for another (insofar fruitlessly), seeing a family member is serious legal trouble which is hanging over their head as the sword of Damocles while I’m unable to help in any way, one of my dogs almost murdering the other (who miraculously survived), oh and my parents also finally openly separated (though as a grownup this shouldn’t exactly hit me hard). So at this point I’m not sure why more shit wouldn’t pour out of the sky and why one of us wouldn’t get infected when this year fully proved that anything can happen. This is all not to say that my family and I are still extremely fortunate in all this because we still have financial stability and are healthy if you look past the psychological damage. 

So yeah. Fuck knows what’s gonna happen and it’s not like I have a choice to not go to the post office and pick up a letter. And I will just have to wait and see if I start coughing in a week and hope for the best and try not to think about it too much while I do. I think I need a new series to watch and I need to start reading fiction again and I definitely need a therapist in 2021. And I need to eat. Because I’m one of those people who lose weight over stress and that’s not going to be helpful if I do contract this stupid thing. 

Im sorry, I suppose most of this should have gone to the mental health thread? It is Covid related a little though, so just skim through or ignore? 

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6 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Anyone figured out solutions to friend-deprived, stir-crazy teens constantly begging you to hang out with their friends, who you're pretty sure are going to start sneaking out soon if you don't figure out a compromise?

Hanging out outdoors, with masks, without sharing cars, and if possible with adult supervision, should be fine.

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26 minutes ago, RhaenysBee said:

 

What makes all this even more grotesque is that I feel awkward and embarrassed to openly express my concern, fear and need for safety measures, because some people in my social circle as well as the general public opinion looks down on coronavirus worries and expects me (and everybody in general) to act ‘normally’. This makes me internalize a lot of this anxiety which is not good at all, and it makes me feel torn between my own (potentially indeed irrational and excessive) worries and others’ expectations. 

Ignore them. They are basing their behaviour on what they have done all their lives because they are unable to process what to them is inconvenient, abstract information. Don't take risks because of them. 

 

 

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Our library system which was shut down since early March, this month began the Grab 'n Go program in selected branches.  It's the same process as before when putting a request for a loan of a book not in the physical collection in the branch library near you.  Everybody in Manhattan at least, has a branch now within walking distance even if it isn't one's 'home branch' from Before.  There is no physical checkout now, though.  One wears mask and gloves, enters, goes to the shelf and 'grabs' one's book(s) and leaves again.  Returning books, one drops them in a bin in the lobby.  This is so exciting -- today I am picking up the first two titles I requested this weekend!  A destination! Something to do!  A beautiful day.

The 'home' university library remains still completely non-operational.  Yet it insist it is opening with physical classes and dorms in about 10 days.  What the eff?

 

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So two people from my family went to a wedding this weekend. I am essentially preparing for their two week quarantine in spirit already. It will be rather lucky if neither of them contracted the virus and downright miraculous if nobody at the wedding had it. I will do my best to persuade them to get tested next week instead of just waiting for symptoms to show. Good times. 

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We are approaching Labor Day holiday in the U.S. in a week. Hopefully people don't try and pretend they can gather in large groups, drop masks and fail to socially distance without any consequences.

I have reserved campsite in the mountains for a week. I feel I'll be safe, especially as I'll be outdoors over 90% of the time.

Btw, another worker went home Thursday night, complaining he had lost any sense of taste, currently he"s waiting his test results. This is exactly why I refuse to use the communal lunchroom. I'll bet 5-6 of their group will all end in quarantine now.

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On 8/26/2020 at 4:09 PM, The Great Unwashed said:

Anyone figured out solutions to friend-deprived, stir-crazy teens constantly begging you to hang out with their friends, who you're pretty sure are going to start sneaking out soon if you don't figure out a compromise?

Get them a tent. They can go out to meet friends if they like, but if they do, they can't come back inside.

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Day begins with NYU-Clive Davis faculty meeting.  “Director of Diversity”, “Office of Spiritualism”, Office of Wellness” WTF? Can one be more Orwellian than this?  Position papers, not knives, not bazookas. 

OTOH Clive Davis is in a much better position for both faculty and students in These Times than almost all the other schools and programs. The brand new building-complex in Brooklyn got finished over the summer.  It is an up-to-date condition, from the multiple studios to the way the doors and ventilation and disinfecting work.  So little ever needs to be physically touched by hands and fingers. Also it has open space around it.  Entirely unlike the rest of NYU’s legacy physical plant.  Plus both faculty and students are well-versed in studio work, like doing it, and have been doing online projects long Before These Times.

The news sites are repetitive, without much new.  Shoggoth shoggoth shoggoth all the time doing all the same shoggoth evil he’s doing.  Covid-19 action always worse than ever, including appointing a new guy he picked from fox noose who is counseling ‘herd immunity.’  The so-called journalism industry is pretty tired too, now that the news cycle has slowed down to shoggoth all the time and nothin’ else is happening except pandemic, wildfires, hurricanes and economic and climate collapse.

Another neighborhood luxury store robbed in daylight, by at least 4 people at gunpoint, in the last 3 days. This morning the Prada store was hit (it's a huge, multi-story store);  Saturday it was a very high end jewelry designer store.  This is organized.

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A close mutual friend came across a Buzzfeed article on his Facebook and was shocked to recognize the face. I mentioned here way early into this all that we'd lost a former co-worker in New York, who was only 34, to CoVID. It was really hard to read the article detailing his incredibly hard life before he made it to an extremely hectic but very fun Times Square pub to work with yours truly - he was a damn good waiter and made a ton of money. He sent back thousands not just to his mother but a bunch of other family members and childhood friends. Now that he's gone, his destitute mother back in Mexico has lost her main means of living. It's just heartbreaking all over again for poor Axel and his mom. 

Her Son Died Of COVID-19 In New York. Like Others In Mexico, She’s Now Struggling To Make Ends Meet.

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All over, here, and surely everywhere else, the faces of desperation are clear to the eye the moment one goes out the door.

Food desperation is right in our faces, and it's going to be much worse, and global.

 

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What does food desperation mean? 

Here you go out and life is one big party. It’s semester start everything is full of obnoxious and careless college kids. They are swarming in the streets making noise, blocking the pavement, drinking in public and making more noise late at night and early in the morning. 
Those who aren’t college kids are exactly the way they always are except that the gallant majority wears a mask on public transport. 

According to our latest stats coronavirus only ranks 6th of main worries people have and pandemic deniers tripled over the summer. We went from under 50 new cases per day to 300+ new cases a day in a week. The average age of current new cases (which I presume means the past couple days) is 30, and every single freshmen’s camp (is this even a thing anywhere else in the world? For freshmen groups to go out for several days to a private rural camp/festival/whatever organized by the student body of universities in order to “bond” aka drink, vomit, peer pressure freshmen into vulgar, sexualized or just generally disgustingly unhygienic activities, abase other universities in order to form attachment by creating a common enemy and drink a bit more?) yielded at least 20 confirmed cases, which suggest 200 unconfirmed ones. Who even approved organizing these events (that should be banned anyway, regardless of Covid)? Well after the first fiascos unis with confirmed cases called off further freshmen events, but many are still on. It’s curious because the narrative is always safety and socially distanced activities in masks. In practice this means the exact same raves they had pre-Covid, but with hand sanitizer and putting on masks in the first 5 minutes. And it’s not the judgmental grandma talking. I was at uni not that long ago and I know first hand that after freshmen week 80% of the uni was sick for 1-2 weeks because of how generally disgusting, unsanitary and bacteria/virus infested these events are, especially freshmen camps (at mine, 34 of us slept in a room with 8 bunk beds and shared washrooms and dining hall with 300 more freshmen in a 1960s children’s camp facility). This was without Covid. Imagine what they pass around among themselves now. 

On a more personal and less controversial note (not sure why I presumed to offend the younger generation of intellectuals so much above) there are now several acquaintances of friends of friends who are proven or suspected to have Covid. This is not something we experienced in the spring. Covid was this vague and distant threat that many people got but nobody actually heard of anybody who had it. Sister also has a sore throat - nope, not from a university event. She attended a wedding on Saturday and well... weddings are arguably the second/third most likely places to contract Covid these days after university events and night clubs. If she develops further symptoms or we learn that someone from the wedding was confirmed to have Covid, we’ll all get tested. My father who attended the wedding too and I who live with sister. I think it’s reasonable to think that my aunt and uncle who drove them back from the wedding will be unaffected, though should either sister or my father test positive, we will get them tested too. As of right now, we are just hoping that sister caught a chill from an AC or after the 16 degree drop in temperature from Sunday to Monday and it’s not Covid. 

This is one exhausting year... 

 

 

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New York University students moving in, in droves, not wearing masks, cramming all the street tables in the surrounding area around Washington Square Park.

This will not end well.  Particularly when public school K-12 reopens on the 16th.  Nobody has a clue, according to the people I know who teach and others whose relatives teach.  Nothing any of them planned over summer applies.  But there is still no plan.

 

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I wore a mask for 15 hours straight at work yesterday. Anyone who cant be arsed putting one on at the supermarket can fuck right off. I was also wearing body armour and am mildly asthmatic. And it was pretty warm. It's not that big a deal. It actually gets easier rather than harder during prolonged periods of time. 

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