I hate quizzes like this

What does your choice of mask say about you? A nice neighbor made cloth masks for all three of us and some other people around here too. The elastic on one of them broke quickly, and another has colorful beads on it for A, so I like to leave the one good grown-up one for T. Instead, I usually use a bandanna. Sometimes A. uses a sort of hair wrap of T.'s as a mask. When out and about I see a lot of surgical paper masks and N95 masks, and a few masks like I'd see for athletics in the winter.

Something to be positive about

I haven't rushed anywhere since this started. I've rushed A. through bedtime, because she'd stay up until we went to bed if we let her, but other than that? I don't need to be at work or get A. to school at any particular time. The bus schedule doesn't matter too much if I'm just going grocery shopping, and of course, we try to minimize that. There are no more classes, dates, or events.

I used to get annoyed at A. when she'd take her time like a four-year-old does, walking on walls or experimenting with prickly shrubs, when we had somewhere to be, but now, we have nowhere to be. It used to be difficult to find time for things. Now it's a struggle to fill time. Before, I'd try to channel A.'s free time into edifying activities, or at least games I understood. Now, fuck it, whatever keeps her busy, as long as it's not actively harmful.

I feel like I should enjoy the free time, but I don't. I'd prefer that kind of stress to this kind.

Competitive Introversion

I'm not socially distancing enough and I feel bad about it. On April 15 I went grocery shopping and got as much as I could carry. On April 21 I went out twice (the post office, for tax stuff and to send out paperwork for a refund for a trip that didn't happen, and the liquor store for liquor and some simple groceries) and T. went out to pick up takeout. We just had a farmer's market delivery. If our stocks hold up, we won't have to go out again until April 28 or 29. Four outings in two weeks, doesn't seem too bad considering where and how we live. Meanwhile, we've been on bike trips and walks for fun and exercise, but nothing that would put us within 6 feet of another person.

But then I talk to friends and they've managed to rely on grocery deliveries for a full month! How? What are we doing wrong? We sort of took the kid on a walk with one of her friends and the other mother was more vigilant than we were about keeping the kids apart and not touching the same things, why don't we love our daughter enough?

This is really not normal

In late 2016 and early 2017, "this is not normal" was a mantra among my friends and neighbors. It was inoculation against gaslighting, a reminder that other people had the same concerns as us about the direction of our government.

We need no such reminder now. It's obviously not normal to wear a mask when grocery shopping, or to wear one pair of socks per week, or to work evenings and weekends (obviously, it is for some people, but hasn't been normal for me in a very long time), or finish my World of Warcraft weekly chores in four days, to have a swing in the door frame between the kitchen and dining room. 

The job

Since 2016, I have been a technical writer as a contractor in an IT office of a government agency. I would work on regular reports to the customer, manage the wiki, and turn ad hoc notes by engineers into SOPs or similar documents. Around the end of 2019, my job's contract was awarded to a different company, and they made me a job offer. My transition date was scheduled for mid-April. Here's how things were supposed to go. I would get paychecks from a new company and there would be a transition period as things were reorganized, but the actual job would change very little. An orientation at corporate HQ, maybe a few days working there or at home as access was sorted out, a new manager, new links to bookmark and acronyms to memorize, then back to normal.

Here's how things actually went. My new company sent me a laptop, which was an unexpected concession to the new reality. Yay. However, I cannot use it to access the government agency's network. So far it's only good for HR stuff, the corporate email which is separate from the .gov email, and certain apps like Teams. I still have to use my personal computer for everything else. If I want to do everything else while using these things, I have to set up these computers side by side. This is

FUCKING INSANE

Also, while setting up my corporate laptop, I needed my employee ID to log in. After 20-30 minutes on the phone with Corporate IT Person 1, I found that my supervisor sent me someone else's employee ID by mistake. The following day, on the phone with Corporate IT Person 2, I found that Corporate IT Person 1 had given me the wrong kind of RSA key to log on. Then I found that I needed a one-time password, which could only be emailed to my manager. But that's not my supervisor, that's someone else who was tangentially involved with hiring me. They couldn't tell me who. I managed to guess the right name after scrolling through two months of emails. It was a VP of something or other. (Hey, I report to someone up high. Cool.) I eventually got into my corporate laptop. It was only after then that I figured out I couldn't get into the government agency's network.

I'm rapidly losing my patience for the transition process.

Daddy! Look at me! Daddy! Look at me! Daddy! Look at me! Daddy! Look at me! Daddy! Look at me!

Why does a four-year-old need our constant attention? I don't mean that she needs it to keep her safe and out of trouble, I mean, why does she want constant attention? Her pre-K teacher has not mentioned her being unusually demanding. By all indications she's developmentally normal. But it seems like a real struggle for her to go 10 minutes without T. or me paying attention to her. We have jobs and our own social lives, it's a shame our four-year-old can't type, navigate apps, and buy a device capable of wi-fi connectivity on her own.

Quarantine, Day 37

Some numbers: we've invested in a princess pavilion kid-sized tent for A. to play in ($119), the deluxe version of the app her teacher uses for coordination with the class because she has fun changing certain settings ($8 per month, we'll probably use it for 3 months or so), an indoor exercise kit with a swing and a few other things we could mount in a door frame ($250), and rented Trolls World Tour ($19). Also, when the kid was bored and unattended she locked a couple doors we didn't have keys to and we had to hire a locksmith to for them ($135). We've used marginally more dishwasher soap due to lunches at home.

Savings are harder to quantify but in theory I could do it if I tried. Hard to say how much commuting used to cost, considering I usually bike and T. sometimes walks, but it now costs nothing. Making lunch at home is cheaper than buying it near work. Costs of dishwasher soap were probably balanced out by savings on laundry detergent. Plus, of course, reduced chance of getting COVID-19.

I focus on numbers because they're easy and simple. I couldn't even put a number on the stress that's driving T. to take her own temperature daily, or the rift between A. and her friends because four-year-olds don't really know how to handle social distancing, or the delays in her education (realistically, she'll be fine, but some of her classmates won't), or the minor technical difficulties to my job.

Realistically, we'll be fine. T. and I both have jobs that can be done from home, we have none of those preexisting conditions that apparently make COVID-19 lethal, and our friends and family have a sane approach to this stuff. But reading the news, talking to friends, or venturing more than a mile from home, it really looks like the end of the world sometimes.