One of the (few) regular readers of this blog posed two interesting questions in the comments. What personal surprises have I encountered doing this daily writing and would I have started had I known I would still be writing 114 days in? Personal surprises is a tough one. There have been days when I sat down to write without an idea in mind, but one comes as I start to write. I did not really expect to progress from mostly commenting on the big picture to including more of the personal side, but I should have since one reason for starting this was to have a daily journal of how things progressed and how I dealt with life as a hermit.
Would I have started if I'd known how far away an end date might be? I would have. For one, I can write this without feeling guilty about taking "me" time to do so. I've always wanted to try writing on a regular basis, and this has been a good exercise. I do keep in mind that this is not a private journal. I will admit that there are topics or details I would include in a private journal that I don't include here. (Don't take this personally, Mom. I've left out a thing or two I might have said to you that I wouldn't want non-family members to read.) Will I still feel good about doing this on Day 228? I hope so, though I also hope that it might not be necessary for mitigation measures such as masks and distancing to last that long.
Speaking of such things as mitigation measures, the husband had a physical today and inquired of our family doc if I was being paranoid about hermitting ("hermitting" sounds so much better than "quarantining"). She said I was not, that avoiding potential exposure was not a bad thing for someone with my underlying conditions. I'm not sure what I might have done had she said that I was definitely over-reacting and it would be okay to resume normal activities. I'm actually not sure what I would call normal activities during a pandemic. All the meetings I might have attended have been moved online via either email or Zoom. Working out with a trainer when the trainer has to stay 10 feet away? Not gonna happen. Hermitting for the win!
The doc also told the husband that the hospital staff (it was not clear if this was the entire staff or just the doctor types) will be undergoing a 20 percent decrease in salary. This will clearly hurt the lower paid staff members--orderlies, housekeeping, etc.--more than it will hurt the docs or the administrators. On the non-hospital side, salaries have been frozen, but the only ones taking salary cuts have been the top administrators.
So the Education Secretary in HWSNBN's cabinet says K-12 schools should go back to in-person instruction five days per week in fall. And the governor of Florida is saying the same thing, only what he says carries weight. They say that kids don't get covid-19 or don't get it as bad as adults. Florida has so far recorded some 7,000 cases in children. And it's not clear at all if kids are contagious to adults, something I don't think should be tested by totally reopening schools. And HWSNBN has said that colleges and universities should also go back to full-time in-person instruction. Can a person sue the federal government if their professor spouse catches covid-19 from a student and dies? Not something I want to find out first-hand.
Once again, there are no easy answers and more than enough questions. We've never been through this before. There hasn't been an international pandemic in a century. We are all, even the experts, playing it by ear to a certain extent. It would be nice to be able to say "been there, done that." Maybe someday.
4 comments:
I had the thought yesterday about hermitting, "I'd rather be safe than a statistic."
I should have been journaling all along so I'd have something my grandkids could read, but I haven't and am not sure where I'd start, and I'm not usually good at following through. Do you have a set time that you record your thoughts?
My exercise log is kind of a journal, but I don't mention the pandemic much there. It's more of a daily record of what I did to be active (or not). Matter of fact statements don't always make for entertaining reading.
That's an interesting thought experiment, Janet. Will our current always-on, always-recording social interaction actually translate to testimonials for future generations, or will all the tweets, blogs, insta-whatevers, and other digital records disappear as soon as the electronic platform becomes obsolete?
I seriously doubt the writers of our real history truly understood their letters were destined to be a snapshot of Life As It Was, that they felt they "should" be journaling what was happening at the time. They wrote--it's what they did. It was their lifeline, and it happened to be more lasting on paper than our ephemeral digital form of communication is at the moment.
Not sure where I was going with this. Sure wish we were all hashing this out in San Marcos, though!
Also, Jean: so tickled my questions provided fodder for a blog entry!
I was thinking today, as I sewed and ironed and sewed some more, that my preferred hermetic lifestyle has finally been validated!
Museums are recording the pandemic journals of normal people, future scholars will have no problems accessing the pontifications of our great and glorious leaders but the records of day to day living are generally less well preserved.
Yesterday I looked at my journal and worked out that it is likely that I will reach the end of the book before we reach the end of restrictions. I'm not writing it for history, if I was I'd not be including the continuing antics of my inlaws. History might judge them for the illegal haircut because I know I do.
I will know it's truly safe to be out there when the local teaching hospital is allowing visiting. I checked, for science, and not suprisingly, that's not happening yet.
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