Like dreaming about a test I haven't studied for, but more personal

Last night I dreamed I was at the Campus Times again. It was production night. For a while I thought I was the news editor, but it turned out to be someone else, some woman I didn't know. The front page was blank and I had been assigned two or three stories for it I hadn't started writing yet.

Part three

We got a car. We've been talking about it for a while. The pandemic gave us the push. We get stir-crazy, and even though we haven't used it to get out of town for a while, it's nice to have the option. As a more practical concern, we used to go grocery shopping several times a week. Ever since the pandemic, we're no longer commuting, and going into a store is stressful. A car lets us make bigger and therefore fewer trips. 

Part two

Work is remarkably unremarkable (on the days when there isn't a kid around). I'm settling into a sorta-kinda-maybe management role. I don't like it. I miss writing. I'm still doing a little of that but I'm doing more speaking for the team and assigning tasks to others. On the other hand, my job has less writing these days than it used to, even for the regular technical writers, and more SharePoint management and paperwork. On the other, other hand, I'm really, really glad to have a stable, familiar, secure job these days, even if it has changed a bit.

Working from home full-time is still rough. Even after all this time we haven't set up dedicated office space. When the pod isn't here, T. and I set up our laptops on the dining room table. When it is, we set them up in the back bedroom. The back bedroom is too small to comfortably serve as an office full-time for the both of us. Even leaving it like that for one of us full-time would be pushing it. We each have carried our laptops to other rooms if we had meetings at the same time.

In other news, part one

This has been an eventful month or two, even aside from the sick kid.

T. was away for about two and a half weeks, from mid-September to early October. She spent about 10 days in California with her parents, helping her aunt move into a nursing home, and then after flying home, she quarantined in a friend's condo until she got a covid test. I single-parented for all that time. She was gone when this happened. Other than that, it went about as well as could be expected. The kid and I missed her but we spoke on the phone almost daily, often by video chat. There weren't any really horrible behavior issues. Even more playdates with the kids' friends than usual. Dinners were simpler.

A vignette: that stomach bug on Oct. 2 was particularly painful, although she never actually threw up. I kept her home from school, but had a slow day scheduled at work except for one time-sensitive document review in the afternoon, so took a chance and didn't call in sick. The kid also reported pain walking. Nausea without actually vomiting and pain when moving were details I specifically remembered from when I had appendicitis. It got particularly bad during that document review, so I had to call my team leader and ask him to finish. 

I called a Lyft, threw together the essentials of an overnight bag including her favorite stuffed animal, and took her to the emergency room. That's never fun. There was waiting, she didn't like the snacks I had brought, there were people with hygiene issues in the emergency room, and by the time we actually saw a doctor her symptoms seemed to be clearing up a bit. The doctor was confident it wasn't appendicitis. There was also a covid test. The kid fought it. It was painful. 

As we were waiting for a cab to take us home, she noticed the stuffed animal in the bag. I explained why I brought it. I think it helped a little bit to impress the seriousness on her. Later that night I was wondering what I should have done differently that day. For a while I couldn't come up with anything. I was able to work and help her with school through most of the morning. Then, in the afternoon, she was painfully sick whether we went to the hospital or not. Once things are bad enough to go to the emergency room, especially these days, you're in the doctors' hands.  A line from Star Trek came to mind: "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose," or in this case, have a bad day. "That is not weakness. That is life."

Then, as I was actually putting her to bed, I thought of one thing I wished I had done differently. I wished I had given her the favorite stuffed animal during the covid test!

Taking stock

 Reviewing things, 5 of the past 6 posts have been about the kid getting sick. It's a fairly strong pattern. 

Three unrelated illnesses. None serious in hindsight. Although this one was painful enough for her, and resembled appendicitis more than the average stomach bug, that I took her to the emergency room later that day. And this week's illness resulted in two doctor's visits. One visit Monday because she complained about her ear hurting and in September we had ignored an ear infection for too long so this time we overcompensated, one yesterday for the test. In normal times we might have only taken her to the doctor for the ear infection in September. That's over roughly 2 months. Not great for a kid with no known chronic conditions, but it happens. As far as I remember we were perfectly healthy for months preceding that, but no one keeps track of when things go well. 

The best day of home schooling while working is still not great

The kid has been home with us all week instead of at the pod due to illness. Just a cough and runny nose. We have no reason to suspect anything serious. If these were normal times, we probably would have kept her home Monday, maybe even Tuesday, taken half-days, and sent her to school later in the week. I might have felt a bit bad about that because she still has some symptoms, but time off isn't infinite, right? And she's as perky and energetic as ever, just sniffling and coughing a bit.

Since these aren't normal times, we didn't take any time off this week, we just juggled work and distance learning. It was only really a problem when we both had meetings and she had class at the same time. We also took her to the doctor's yesterday and got her a covid test. I held her down with the help of one nurse while a second nurse stuck the swab up her nose. I saw a little blood on the swab. At 5, she's big enough to really put up a fight when she tries, but not emotionally mature enough to listen when we tell her that this really is needed and the fighting makes it much worse. Or maybe I should be better at explaining things to her, somehow? Or maybe I should respect her wishes and not make her get the test, and explain to her the tradeoffs that would go with it? Or maybe this is just how things work these days.

But speaking of tradeoffs, we also took her to playgrounds several times this week even though we technically had a kid with possible covid. We kept to ourselves as much as possible and had masks on whenever we couldn't but I realize we shouldn't have gone out even that much. But we'd all go stir-crazy otherwise.

What's a sick day? What's sickness? What's a day?

I've been a bit vague on how to handle sick leave for years, since my job has the expectation of teleworking one day a week anyway and some flexibility about what day that would be. But still, in the Before Time, if I felt too ill to be too productive at work, I'd let my boss know, dress cozily, and spend the day at home relaxing. No errands outside the home if at all possible. Maybe I'd log in and work for a few hours but that would feel optional. Illness would be a valid reason to miss meetings and put off (all but the most important) deadlines. 

But now? Who the fuck knows? There's a pandemic going around which can have no symptoms for one person and kill the next person, so obviously we shouldn't leave the house if we have even the mildest sniffle. But these days we try to minimize that anyway. Is it actually a reason to skip work if work was going to be at home anyway? If I cancel all my meetings and no one was expecting any meetings with me that day, am I actually taking a sick day?

And what if I'm not actually the sick person? This post is inspired by my daughter. Today she'd be too sick to go to school in the Before Time. She's just spending all day in bed, and my schedule today isn't too busy, so I didn't take any leave. I still may regret that, though!

All sides suck

"Both sides suck" is said by people who want to sound smart and can't be bothered to earn it. It's so vague it's meaningless. It's trolling that works unusually well offline.

"Both sides suck" because they're led by politicians, which requires an acceptance of compromise and being co-opted by the system.

"Both sides suck" because they're both basically OK with America's system of government and the late-stage-capitalism international order and just want minor tweaks to them, even though they've definitely got worse in recent years and had room for improvement to begin with.

"Both sides suck" because they're made up of people and no one's perfect in this fallen world of ours. 

But if you're willing to consider any details or nuance at all, it becomes really obvious that there are many ways in which both sides do not, in fact, in any meaningful sense, suck.