#plague anchoress diaries

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

you know the local wastewater curves are bad when I am considering paying through the nose for downtown parking rather than ride the bus. five years of this bullshit. between nine and eleven hours a day, five days a week wearing a mask, plus all errands and most social occasions, for five fucking years.

[prudencepaccard]

-The Onion’s parody-of-a-parody-of-a-parody political cartoon posits the existence of sheltering “mancavemen” -@aboxthecolourofheartache​ uses the tag “plague anchoress diaries” -Nathan J. Robinson is, per a vlog entry, “confined in a Florida plague house” -and I have been assuring everyone on my committee that my Queens apartment is now “a dissertation hermitage”

what quaint appellation are you giving your IRL quarantine [house]?

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

sending people hopeful little texts like "updated covid and flu vaccines are available now, if you want one!" and attaching graphs of the local numbers as if I am not already calculating how much time I will be able to spend in-person with anyone this coming fall and winter now that literally no one is taking any precautions at all.

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

it is the 23rd of February, 2024, and I am already feeling the emotion that is Caramelldansen-playing-in-a-storm-shelter-while-sirens-wail-in-the-distance.

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

Pros: vaccinated! Cons: myalgia and joint pain so bad it kept me awake all night and made me nauseous, and flattened today

Conclusion: STILL BETTER THAN COVID

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

oh friends. it's gonna be A Week.

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

Me: [a person with a Known Indeterminate Immune Issue, had Covid last month, is stressed as hell from finals and graduation stuff] "Golly, why am I so tired and experiencing joint pain? What's up with this persistent shortness of breath?"

I am not bright, but by god I'm ballin'. Fuck it, we ball.

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

my brain is one third metadata system guts, one third biomass reactor Western, and one third personified cosmic mechanism derailment, and I hate it in here.

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

current mood: 🙃  but like vibrating at high frequency

yay: - hypothetical foster cat possibly arrives Wednesday - warm enough to open the windows today - stress baked “country French” bread instead of rye, it’s like a sixteen inch loaf.  I planned poorly, but what else new.

less yay: the ongoing saga of the Possible Auto-Immune Issue.

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

Just stress-baked three dozen cookies and froze two dozen of them.  Things are slightly better.  Tomorrow I will try stress-baking some rye bread.

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

I am furious with myself today for not having gone into medicine to the point that I am angry-crying with self-recrimination, so this is a post to keep myself publicly accountable for what I am doing to be of help:

- I am staying at home. - I am social distancing. - I am not panic-buying. - I am using the fabric stash I bought to make myself summer dresses to sew emergency facemasks instead.  FUCK the fact that I have to do that, anyone low-risk who is hoarding PPE needs a kick in the goddamn teeth.  Karma comes back to you tenfold, fuck you. - I have completed the orientation and intake process to be an animal foster-caregiver so shelter staff can temporarily close the shelter.  If I can’t help people directly, I can help a cat or two. - I am using my library and information science skills to help friends find resources. - I am blessed to be financially stable even out of work, so I can live on my resources for a good while and not burden my family or government support systems. - I am washing my hands and not touching my face. - I will only go to routine medical appointments to ensure my medications are refilled or if I am genuinely sick. - I am immunocompromised and should not be in medicine or volunteering outside at this time anyway.  I would be a liability, not a help. - I am continuing to update a story that some people really seem to enjoy, which is a bit of morale boost for them and myself.

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

Hmm. Quick follower poll:

Y’all want me to tag my covid-19/covid-19 adjacent info and meme-ing? My inclination is to let well enough alone since I don’t post alarmist bullshit, but everyone’s mental health is a little more volatile right now.

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

The bumblefucks who live across the alley from my folks (my elderly folks who have both had heart surgeries), invited them to a ‘pandemic party.’ According to Mum, there were about 30 people there in the backyard last night. Obviously, my folks didn’t go, but jesus

jesus