Hello there! I hope that you are and your loved ones are staying safe and healthy. My boyfriend has been in quarantine for twelve days now with a confirmed case of covid and isn’t seeing any improvements… yet. Thankfully, I tested negative. It’s terrifying to see someone so young and healthy struggle with basic functions, and it is heartbreaking to not be able to go in to help or comfort him. Perhaps even scarier is how contagious this is. We’ve been reclusive this year and retracing our steps suggests the virus was contracted either: a) while wearing an N95, laboratory googles, and nitrite gloves at an outdoor farmer’s market CSA pickup, or b) on our unmasked evening walk through an outdoor park with lots of distance between us and strangers. We’ve been teased by family and strangers since this began for being “paranoid” and it still wasn’t enough to protect us.
Everything feels like a blur, so I’m not sure what the weekend will hold. Arizona currently has the highest infection rate in the country (again!) and our governor has suggested that there is no need to close businesses or mandate masks because people can buy patio heaters. Could you hear my sigh of resignation? At minimum, I foresee a few homemade chai tea lattes. With Christmas two weeks away, I’m throwing in the towel now. I’ll either be skipping the gifts this year or sending out IOUs because I’m exhausted. On a more positive note, Phoenix experienced its first rainfall in over ten months yesterday. Somehow, that gives me hope for better days ahead.
I hope you have a safe and relaxing weekend. Here are a few links from around the web. Feel free to share anything interesting you’ve stumbled upon in the comments.
- Did you read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series as a child? I loved the books and appreciated Helen Anne Petersen’s comparison of the characters’ long winter to the current pandemic.“As they sang, the fear and suffering of the long winter seemed to rise like a dark cloud and float away on the music. Spring had come. The sun was shining warm, the winds were soft, and the green grass growing.”
- “The mail truck is everywhere. It moves 500 million pieces of mail per day to 160 million addresses. It’s also quite old and overdue for an upgrade: today’s fleet of 100,000 USPS mail trucks has an average age of nearly 30 years. The little trucks are still running because they were built that way.” The Postal Truck Edition from Why is this Interesting?
- Even if you’re asymptomatic, COVID-19 can harm your heart, study shows – here’s what student athletes need to know from The Conversation. After a bad lung infection with lasting systemic consequences, this has been my fear since the start.
- “I think we are living through a frightening and deeply uncertain time, and though there are dementing and cynical voices out there, which are being emboldened and amplified by social media — that loony engine of outrage — they do not represent the voices of the many, or the good.” How to Cope with Negative Energy from Nick Cave at The Red Hand Files.
- Lovely Illustrations of Plants and Wildlife in the English Countryside via Kottke. Lovely and calming.
- Click here if you have a cat and are not on your work computer.
- Keep calm and make ugly art from Austin Kleon.
- Q: What Is a Hole? A: We’re Not Sure! When polled on how many holes a donut, straw or bowl have, people could not agree on an answer.
- I was fortunate to graduate college with under $10,000 in student debt thanks to a combination of: academic scholarships, private scholarships, grants, my parents’ help via a childhood 529 account, my choice of a public in-state university, and my choice to live in a 250sqft studio shoe box with a roommate for four years. I randomly stumbled across this article from a recent college graduate regarding the student debt crisis and the talks of debt forgiveness and really appreciate their views.
- This may offend some, but if you struggle to keep up with political correctness as I do, this will give you a hearty chuckle.
existential ergonomics 