I'm 28 today. 🥳

We had a nice thunderstorm last night. It wasn't on the forecast until about midday. I tried some lightning pics.

We've been nuked!

This one made it look like early evening.

It was a great test of the rain garden. A good amount of standing water during the storm. I didn't get to check after the rain stopped. Hopefully the cattails grow.

My roommate went nanners. I've been in a supportive housing program for almost two years. He was yelling all night for a week or two so I spent a few nights in a hotel. His behavior seemed to change in early February? Honestly I don't know what's wrong with him but I'd guess he's been unmedicated for about a year and I've been kinda ignoring him being benignly odd. Like vacuuming the coffee maker and cutting open cans with a knife.

Long story short at the end of February he started ripping out drywall and doors and carpet in the apartment. He helped trigger a pretty long psychotic episode in me and when I got out of the hospital his dad said he was in jail. Between that and the pandemic I lost a lot of grounding in reality. I don't know what to do about the damage since the I'm not the lease holder, it's a government program

I think he might have been selling drugs. He has two young children. It's all very sad. I'm still kinda shook

Family

My sister gave birth to a healthy baby girl this week. Everything went well, they ended up only spending a few hours at the hospital and were allowed to go home early. I'm dying to visit them but will hold off until the situation in Stockholm seems a bit more stable. Also, my sister still has a dry cough, but at least it doesn't seem to get worse.

Garden

I've been starting late on my preparations for this growing season. I got my seeds last week and all my regular houseplants have now had to yield the windowsills to the soon-to-be seedlings. Today I got a delivery of potatoes, onion and garlic bulbs. Still some digging and manuring left to do before I'm ready to start planting, but hopefully it will be done by the end of the week. This year I decided to put together my own wildflower seed mix instead of buying the premixed stuff. Will be interesting to see how that one turns out.

First day back to work after a 2 week shutdown... gonna be wierd but we have basic maintenance that needs to be done on inventory or it will all rot. Feels a little like going to the battlefield in a desperate attempt to keep the us economy alive. Maybe a Chinese century is inevitable but fuck if it’s going to happen because people like me were too afraid of the inevitable to save ourselves.

Two months ago, I was planning to move about 4 hours away to the fair state of VA when my lease was up on 6/30. I was tired of living with my younger sister, who wasn't great about doing chores and in general being responsible, and couldn't wait.

One month ago, COVID started happening and by three weeks ago my sister was out of a job. We were rapidly moving towards shelter in place. At that point, I said, "My sister's on the dole, I can't exactly just move out and leave her in the lurch, I won't be going anywhere until she gets a job." My sister expressed being fond of the amount she was going to receive from unemployment (thanks Trump) and said she didn't want to look for a job, she wanted to save that extra $600 a check for the four months she would get it. I said, "Sister! I'm stuck here until you do something. Our lease is up 6/30. I just really would like to know what my options are and right now, you're telling me I just don't even really have any options because you're going to float aimlessly along and hope you can last it out until restaurants re-open and you can just go back to your serving gig."

This week, she comes to me. She's found a roommate with a place to move into 8/31. She'll have down payment saved due to unemployment, she knows the girl, she's doing it. (I think the girl's a bad influence and the apartment complex she's moving into is both gross and tiresome, but my sister needs to make her own mistakes. God knows, by 25, I had made all of these sorts of mistakes myself already, and she needs to get off the graduated learner's plan system we have going where she's not technically living with her parents but she's still sponging off our familiar connection to get a maternal/adult figure who takes care of 85% of household shit for her.)

Well, fuck. I was all freaked out about "What I was gonna do next?" and she went and made a plan. Now what am I going to do?

I don't want to move out of state if we are still shelter in place (or back to it) come August. However, the cascading effect of this is that if I don't move out of state this August, odds become less and less likely that I will at all. (This becomes a mathematical problem of how many times I want to pay to move on a yearly basis for multiple years, among other things.) I've made a pros and cons list. I'm trying to really figure out what I want to do/what's best for me. I don't know. And COVID-19 clouds all of it regardless.

Also, I realized this weekend that damn it, I am going to miss living with my sister after all. COVID's brought us closer. (Inevitable, right?)

The only real answer to my conundrum, besides pro/con lists, is "wait and see." 8/31 is almost 5 months off; no one even wants to show you an apartment unless you're trying to rent in the near future -- 2 months, 3 months absolute maximum.

But I'm the gal with all the plans, see. The single gal, might I mention? So today here I am. No known future. No partner and no ability to even try and date -- dating doesn't exist in COVID-19 world and you're stupid if you try -- just a big ball of "I don't know" and saving money while I still can. My work even got rid of mid-year performance management for everyone, so I can't even try to work towards that. I guess I'm lucky. My dad's work cut everyone's salaries 10% across the board. (I predict that getting rid of mid year performance management at my job might lead to no year-end reviews, which would mean no raises or bonuses across my company in the long run for 2020 -- I don't think my prediction quite makes me and Dad even-steven in the moment, however.)

I'm trying to do the best I can every day. I've run over 25 miles so far this month. I started yoga and factorial push-up sets. I'm reading a lot and making a hell of a bunch of stickers and I ordered like 5 paint by numbers and by god, I have watched so much TV and netflix. Podcasts. I'm even, finally, getting into freakin' podcasts. My family and I played Scrabble and Boggle this week. On separate occasions, even.

I still have to bite down this instinctive, initial rising anger whenever people in my life, who I call family and friends, attempt to reach out. To Facetime, to have us come for dinner unexpectedly (my parents are the only people I see), who ask me on the work chat, "How are you doing today?" I reinstall instagram to post on my art account and then I delete it again. Facebook? Dead to me.

I am that type of person that goes into quarantine and just wants to be left the hell alone. Except of course I'm not. Of course I'm angry because all of these attempts to reach out are abnormal, atypical, hell if you want you can call 'em false (and I promise, at least 90% of the reaching out done at work feels entirely that way to me). Each call is a reminder things aren't normal and, at the same time, a frustrating reminder, every time someone else asks me, "So how's it going?" or "What's new?" that really? It's a big fat old nothing. And you know it.

I'm doing the best I can, and I'm tired of self-pitying myself with weed and alcohol and overeating. I'm going to get my hands around this quarantine. I'm going to take advantage of it. One day at a time, everybody. I succeed if I succeed today.

And that, my friends, is how I'm gonna get through it.

Also PS yes consciously trying to accept the friendship and phone calls of other people who are only "bothering me so terribly" because they care about me and want to make sure I'm doing OK. And because we r frans and stuff and all that, so on.

Thanks for letting me get all that off my chest, Hubski. I don't believe I have it that bad even out of the stories in this thread. But that bad or not, doesn't make much of an impact on my feelings.

I've been on a bit of a Hubski hiatus. Hi everyone!

I've been on hiatus from a lot of my normal activities as well actually - even before quarantine started...

Having said that, I'm trying to be creative by taking photos exclusively within my apartment. My partner is not a willing subject so I've been trying to take self-portraits, but I never like how they turn out. I've also been exercising every morning in the living room. Something that never happened when I wasn't confined to the apartment. So at least I'll feel a little healthier when I'm allowed to go outside again.

Hope you're all doing well!

Started running today. I've been sitting on my ass too much, and haven't found any other quarantine sport that I hate less. To no one's surprise, I suck at it. Last time I consistantly ran was a few years ago. Apps 'n shit have gotten a lot better since then, especially Spotify's running auto-mixed playlists are great.

It wasn't until, like, yesterday that I noticed it's Easter this weekend. Which means a long 5-day weekend, which coincides nicely with our plans to paint a bunch of walls. Hopefully our new dinner table and chairs are also delivered, so we can really make the room come together. (We hope.)

PS: if anyone's looking for a decent, simple Zoom alternative, I can vouch for Whereby.com. All in-browser, can send people a super simple URL to join.

An old man sleeps with his conscience at night

Young kids sleep with their dreams

While the mentally ill sit perfectly still

And live through life's in-betweens

John Prine succumbed to COVID-19. What a bummer.

I've got some COVID-19 inspired depression, and a guitar I'm not very good at. Weird forces to put into a dualistic framework, but they're pushing against each other and I'm somewhere along the boundary. I have no energy to think or speak or do, but I'm learning barre chords so that's neat!

I deleted three or four longer comments before leaving this one. What's happening to me?

Went picking though people's trash yesterday, it's kind of a new hobby now that everything's closed. Found more milk crates, a bucket for my compost project, a potential white sheet to make a movie screen for the projector in the basement (it's an Ikea blackout blind thing, so it's missing the wall attachements. Will see if i can figure a good way to attach it. Looks like there are some 3d prints online, but chasing down friends with a 3d printers seems like a hassle right now), a camping chair, a functional new samsung computer monitor, a Call of Duty collector's box set, an I am legend collector box set, a vintage solid soldering gun and a 2tb hard drive we have yet to test.

We were out biking, I would estimate 2:30h. It was fun but got cold by the end of it. It's just insane the stuff people throw away. Fun activity, might turn it into a weekly thing.

I've never dumpster dived for food tho, I wish I knew some good spots around where I am. My friend told me how she found Kilos of fancy french cheese once, and the story really makes me want to try.

Update:

Update 2:

Life is good. Applied for my benefits today in Canada and they simplified the hell out of it. You literally just promise them you’re eligible and they warn you that they’ll get the money back if you’re lying. Took all of 3 minutes with a bad internet connection. They made that process so easy they’re probably saving money at the end of the day by cutting out 99% of the process.

On another note I decided a while back that I would try microdosing mushroom when I had some time off work and well the universe provided. Gotta find those silver linings people.

I share the more general frustration at Biden being the Democratic nominee, and am trying to figure out how to make peace with that. Truth be told, as an educated, white, cis male, I'll likely ride things out better than most. Sometimes unfairness goes both ways.

Thanks to those who--explicitly or via positive vibes--expressed their appreciation for the SCOTUS round-up posts. Now that decisions are starting to happen again, I'll look at getting back into that.

More generally, I'm just enjoying the way people are adapting to the current crisis. That it's not (originally) man-made seems to help us get our egos out of the way a little. There just seems to be a little more thoughtfulness in the air lately. I also think we need to take the pandemic as a wake-up, both in terms of the brittleness of our institutions but also, more generally, the nature of our lifestyles. Forcing us to slow down, to actually talk to the people we live with a little more (where applicable), and to re-think what's really important to us is a good thing. It's a pity it took a dangerous contagion to do that. But we can only do what we can do. Since none of us can magic COVID away, all that's left is to look at what we can do to make our immediate spheres a little better. As introverted as I was prior, I find that now I'm actually putting a little effort into the interactions and communities that I am in contact with. Quality > quantity is as un-American a formula as you can get, but maybe we can push a little bit in the right direction.

These days I'm mostly on IRC, namely the server run by Master Boot Record. There's also an IRC channel connected with /r/datahoaring on reddit that I plan to investigate. I've been thinking about setting up my own server on the box I use for Nextcloud, but am not sure that further splintering of the people that I know is the way to go.

Finally, given that we're all left waiting for things, I'd like to share a short story that I recently finished translating. Feel free to share with whomever you think would enjoy it, and I welcome feedback of whatever sort.