January 4th, 2021

Pandemic Diary: June 23 to July 2

Well, I actually kept writing these posts over on Facebook but sort of fell off the wagon moving them over here. Now I’m doing a January (and perhaps February??) posting cleanse on FB, so this seems a good time to get back on track scooting content over here. Much of it is a little dated now but this pandemic diary has been so fun and cathartic for me, I’d like to preserve it, if only for myself and any occasional passersby who might happen to care…

Day 103: Tomato plant tipped over; cat unplugged the router; got caught in rain storm; mis-entered Excel formulae; caught mask elastic in earring and could not remove until home and rescued by husband; jackhammers; missed opportunity to be voice of reason in argument and now argument fully committed to being unreasonable; today would be parents’ 48th wedding anniversary if father were not dead.But! I made a reasonably successful quiche, got some nice texts and emails from friends, and am probably overselling my ability to be the voice of reason in any argument anyway. I also managed to accidentally lock myself out of some software that was upsetting me, so it’s actually better I can’t get back in, and I can’t be the first person, nor the last, to become hopelessly enmeshed in my mask (would be great if anyone else has a story??) Umm, still super-worried about that tomato plant…but the quiche was really good. Think I’ll call my mom now.

Day 104: the number of times I’ve seen a man decide he was being the best feminist in the room by doing all the talking and patiently (or not) explaining to the women who engaged with him how they just didn’t get it is…not insignificant. Women don’t always get this stuff right–especially cis, straight, white women–and there’s also more than one right. It’s important to be humble and open to both discussion and correction, and I know sometimes I get defensive–but oh! my! goodness! There’s something about a man in lecture mode on the subject of How We Treat Women Now that makes me feel like all hope is lost… If you’re wondering, the most feminist sentence I’ve personally ever heard from a man is “What do *you* think?” and then a respectful, attentive gaze on the woman he was listening to. Not like dudes can’t have any opinions on feminist issues, but listening first and genuinely taking on what is heard goes a looong way.

(2)

Ok, while I’m just ranting about stuff, I found an anti-mask postcard in my elevator last night–like, professionally printed, someone went to that level of trouble. It had a list of 10 reasons masks are bad, most of which were fully bananas, like somehow masks give you “high blood acidity,” which is…what? It had no sources, and sounded like it was created by Russian bots to sow discord in Canadian society…maybe it was. (There were a couple reasons that were vaguely legit–I know folks with certain breathing problems actually can’t wear masks, and that was mentioned, but as if it applied to most people.)I can’t even believe any people at all actually believe this stuff. Everyone who lives in society has seen doctors and nurses wearing masks all day to do their jobs and not suffering from “high blood acidity” or anything else. The anti-mask stuff is just arguing for the sake of arguing (and thing about doctors and nurses is what I’ve come up with to respond to people who argue with me in public if it happens again, which so far it hasn’t). I threw away the card…

Day 105: I finished 30 days of Yoga with Adriene just now–didn’t even skip any days, as it turned out. It wasn’t too hard and I really enjoyed it except, sadly, today. The last day had no voice cues, the idea being we are ready to move independently except of course I’m not really. The best thing about Adriene is her top-notch, careful cuing and her funny little asides–I don’t watch the video all that closely, because I find it hard to get the exact shapes from looking and also how can you look at all in downward dog? So having just the visual today was nearly impossible to follow and a sad anti-climax. That said, the other 29 days were a delight and after a little break, I’ll probably do one of her other 30 day challenges, as my office announced an extension of our closure, the gym shows no sign of opening, and Adriene has done a few of these. Also, now that she’s such a regular in my YouTube feed, some of her guest appearances on other channels come up in my recommendations and last night when I was bored, i watched her do something called “foundations of salad,” which was very depressing. Both that people in their thirties might not know how to make salad dressing and that anyone might need a warning that a teaspoon of fruit vinegar, added to a dressing, sprinkled over a salad, and shared among several people, “contains sugar, so watch out.” What are the yoga peoples’ *lives*? Maybe I don’t want to know. The meditation app has gone berserk (not a sentence you see every day)–it and I agree that I started using it on June 11, but it keeps congratulating me on my “28 day streak” of meditations, which does not conform to the space-time continuum. That said, it’s been pretty enjoyable and easy to use, although I don’t know if I’m getting any calmer yet. Maybe it takes longer than fake-28-days. This is Headspace, if you are looking for recos. It also has some exercise videos in the app, which I’ve tried and are pretty bad, at least if you aren’t already knowledgable about those specific exercises. There’s some guided cardio (just walks and runs plus mindfulness) that are all right.Adriene the yoga teacher, Andy the meditation teacher, the couple who argues loudly in the park every night around 9:30–these are the stars of my quarantine constellation lately. Also the The Dean on community. Who are yours?

Day 105: On time and its new meaninglessness: I have always worn a watch when I am out of the house. When I was a little kid, my parents weren’t keen on buying me things, but I always had a cheap digital watch, which my father endeavored to keep set to right time. My father was absolutely maniacal about timepieces and their settings but my mother always wears a watch to go out as well. In our family, a woman has a plain everyday watch and then a second, pretty watch that is really almost like a bracelet that tells time, for wearing with dress clothes when the plain watch won’t do, because of course you can’t go to a fancy party or the opera without a watch. For my fifth birthday, I received such a watch, a tiny little gold Cartier one, which I wore on special occasions for close to 25 years (you don’t give a child a gold watch unless you know that is a VERY CAREFUL child), with several band changes. At that point, I switched to wearing my maternal grandmother’s “good watch,” and wore that for a number of years, including on my wedding day (I suppose it seems weird that I felt I needed to wear a watch on my wedding day, but it actually seems weird to me that some people don’t!) but gradually that very old watch stopped keeping even sort of approximately the right time. I’m sure it did well by my grandma, and by me for a long time, but it was often more than 20 minutes off at the end–hopeless. Over the years my everyday watches have been a variety of Timexes, Fitbits, whatever was on sale at Zellers. Once when I had a skin irritation I actually tried not wearing a watch for a bit–after all, phones tell time. However, when people take out their phones to check the time, many of them turn into rude monsters and ignore whoever it is they were just talking to–it turns out I am no exception. I bought another Timex, this time with some prize money from a literary award, which makes me happy. But for ages I didn’t have a “good watch,” so just before the pandemic started, I told Mark I would like a new one for my birthday this year. He got me a really pretty one, although by that point I hadn’t been wearing a watch at all for months–I’m always home, near a clock or my computer, and there’s no one here to offend if I accidentally get distracted scrolling on my phone. This is the first year I haven’t had a pale stripe in my tan on my left wrist. It’s so weird. I’ve had the new dressy watch for a month and not worn it anywhere, so yesterday when I went to Canadian Tire to get tomato stakes and potting soil, I wore it there. I don’t think anyone was impressed, but I felt fancy, and it kept great time. I hope we are heading back to a world where time matters, sooner rather than later.

(2) So in trivial but annoying news, a table in my apartment just collapsed. Not entirely unexpected–I paid $40 for it in 2004–but annoying all the same. Where do tables come from in a pandemic? This now-dead specimen came from Ikea but I don’t really want to go there right now. The role of said table in my home is to support plants, so it sort of an important one.

Day 106: If you meet a man who is not only willing to brush his cat’s teeth but will gaze at the scratching, biting, flailing cat as he brushes and say, “I love you,” reader, marry him.

Day 107: We went to a restaurant patio last night. The last time we dined out as a couple was March 7. I was really really hesitant but Mark wanted to try, and I sort of did too, so, we did. It was good! The restaurant had hand sanitizer at the gate and pretty much ordered us (warmly) to use it, and instead of menus had QR codes so we could read the menu on our phones without touching anything. The tables were well spaced, though I didn’t think they were quite six feet. The food was great and the staff all wore masks and seemed cheerful. I felt very strange not wearing a mask myself but, of course, we were eating so we couldn’t. Everyone eating seemed very cheerful. We were near the Village and it seemed most people were celebrating Pride. It seemed very warm and nice.I think many people will feel it’s too soon for them to be out at restaurants and if that’s your call, I think it’s reasonable–I could yet backtrack and decide it’s too soon for me too! If you choose to be out, I think it’s worth supporting businesses that are trying to make a go of it in a very hard time–I’ve seen some really nasty calls for small businesses to just give up and not reopen because of the risks involved. But we live in capitalism, which I’m not crazy about but that’s what we’ve got, so there are compromises to be made. My compromise is spending money thoughtfully, and tipping a lot. Our charming cheerful server did not sign up for a job with that level of risk and challenge when he was hired, and we tipped in recognition of that. As Mark put it, “You can’t not be generous.”We probably won’t dine out again anytime soon–I had a nice time but it was so stressful! But it was a good first experience, anyway. The restaurant was The Blake House on Jarvis if that interests you. Happy Pride!

ay 108: I rode the subway yesterday for the not-very-manyth time of the pandemic. If you, like me, used to ride the TTC most days and are now down to a couple times a month, fyi, there are posters advertising a new policy saying that masks will be required on TTC vehicles starting July 2. It could be I’m just really out of the loop but I didn’t know anything about this before yesterday–I don’t think the policy has been well-advertised outside of TTC properties, which, as I say, I no longer frequent. I could just have easily have taken that trip next weekend as this and the policy already been in effect. Which would have been fine for me–I always wear a mask–but if you are requiring something not everyone has in order to get access to an essential service, I just think it should be really really well advertised. I’d say about half the sparse travellers on the TTC were masked last night, which brings up another point, which is who among TTC staff is well-paid enough to intercept every second passenger and argue with them about mask wear? Also, if someone is rushing to somewhere important and has no mask but would be willing to wear one, will the TTC provide it? Or will they actually be prevented from travel? Because I see that going poorly. Mark saw a brutal reaction from someone who was being prevented from shoplifting this weekend, and everyone knows you can’t shoplift (though I wish that had gone differently)–being prevented from doing something you thought was ok is likely to elicit a lot of strong reactions. There’s also a footnote on the posters that you don’t have to wear a mask if you have a breathing problem, but not info on how you prove that or if proof is even required. Hopefully you would be taken at your word on something like that, but that’s not often how such things go.To be clear, I think people who can should wear masks in situations where we have no choice but to be close to each other, and the TTC is certainly one of those. But I’m very concerned about how this policy is being effected and I feel like there’s going to be a lot of selective confrontations on the TTC in the next little while, and I know from the fare enforcement officers approach to these things earlier in this year, that there’s a strong opportunity for racial discrimination and other abuses here.I’m worried.

Day 109: I took that photo of myself with the lipstick on yesterday and was pleased about being able to wear it with a mask. And I haven’t generally felt I looked cute in a while and have been so worried about masks and it all just felt like a big victory and culminated in me scrolling the Maybelline New York instagram page to see if they’ve figured out those Matte Ink lipsticks don’t rub off on masks. They didn’t seem to so I…wrote them a PM letting them know and urging them to share the good news so more people would wear masks. I even wrote them a little tagline they could use, which I will not be sharing here because it’s very embarrassing. This all happened over the course of a little 10 minute work break yesterday afternoon and then I didn’t think much more about it. Yesterday was actually a pretty good day for pandemic me…I thought…and then 7 hours later Mark and I were unwinding at the end of the day, and I told him about it. It was only as I heard the words aloud that I realized, “Oh no, that’s bananas.” I asked Mark if he ever thought he would end up married to an adult woman who would be writing to one of the largest brands in the world, for whom she does not work, to offer them unsolicited marketing help. I started the message “Dear Maybelline.” HELP!If you would have told me I’d be in lockdown for 109 days, I would have known it would be bad but not bad in this exact way.

Day 112: Good lord, it’s July–also today is the last day of week 16. If you are keeping careful track, you’ll note I was miscounting earlier in the week but forgive me, it’s very hot and the count is very high now. We used the day off yesterday to have a picnic because what else is there to do, really? We at least tried a new park, for variety’s sake–this one filled with young families and kids, unlike our usual, which is more hipster-y. I ended up watching the kids and their parents like TV–I’ve really missed hanging out with small people over the past 16 weeks! There were a lot of hijinx and a lot of parents trying hard despite clearly being over everything after a 112 parenting marathon. Highlights include:–a little girl whose parents were trying to pick a good spot for a picnic who said every area they considered was “a secret spot.” She also said to another child that she had “super fast legs for running” and had ruler-straight bangs. –children trying to fly a kite with modest success attempting to run around a tree and not knowing why they couldn’t get any farther–when do children understand how…objects work? –an English child pronouncing “Daddy” with an accent. He was actually complaining about his bike, but it sounded way fancier to say Daddy 30 times in a row with an English accent.–when the little girl from the first bullet realized she was not going to have much fun at her picnic because her parents’ other child was a newborn, the father called over some slightly older neighbourhood children he appeared to know slightly and asked if his girl could run around with them. They agreed and he instructed “don’t take your eyes off her” and as they ran off, one kid appeared to take this literally, sprinting while darting his gaze back and forth between the path ahead and his new companion every second or two. –the English family had THREE children under 6 and the littlest one, of perhaps 2, broke free and got pretty far without anyone noticing. I panicked when he appeared determined to throw himself off a low retaining wall, and was about to recruit Mark to go scoop him up when a dogfight broke out at the base of the wall and the little one wisely retreated. The second time he made a play for the wall, his father noticed and ran after him in a panic, so I think I was not inventing drama. –speaking of dogs, a small schnauzer attempted to join our party briefly and its owner called him away by saying, “They have important things to talk about.” (we didn’t)–several families had this strange kind of bike with two wheels up front and a sort of bin in between the front wheels, into which they’d put picnic trappings but also small children. At first I thought the babies were simply loose in the bin but eventually I saw that there were actually straps to secure them in there. –There actually were some hipsters in this park and they were talking about their young-people drama behind us more or less throughout our visit, but I did not care and forgot to eavesdrop–kids are where it’s at.