randomnerd

Random excerpts from the journal I've been keeping.

Hello.

This is the 10th day, I believe, of this isolation. I'm currently attempting a speech-to-text program to avoid putting further strain on my wrists. Not doing so well right now text to speech program is on perfect but anyway, attempted to stay indoors, but visited my girlfriend. I stay for two days come back at night, as fewer people are out at night. I tried calling a woman I suppose I became a bit obsessed with, and she told me off. I'm not mad at her I should remind myself of this and remember to not be so careless in the future. The way of the world is confusing.

I have been eating a lot of non-perishable food, unfortunately these foods are all full of sodium which is of course extremely bad for me I'm trying to keep hydrated. One of the few threats that are not exactly commonplace with us illness threat to the water supply water seems to be relatively clean Brita water filter anyway as a precautionary measure to make sure that the water has going to have to try and stop drinking tap water all together

As F. Scott Fitzergald says, you should write drunk and edit sober. My shoulder hurts my wrist hurts one of my hands is numb, but I display no symptoms of the illness. The zip code in which I live it is apparently below average for infection rates.

The most frustrating part of all this is that I’m a [Redacted], so I have very little to contribute in this moment. I have donated about [redacted] in the past few days, and tried to tip well on most of the services I hire for transportation (visits to [Redacted] which must stop) and food delivery.

I now drink mostly tea and coffee. I pour tap water into a Brita filter tank, then boil the water for black tea. I don’t want any green tea right now because that entails heating the water to a lower temperature.

I do not know what to do, right now. I need to keep my money in my own pocket, not throw it around, willy-nilly.

The past few weeks have been pretty much the same stupidity day-in and day-out, anyway. Little work, over-eating, and a lot of putzing around.

A quote from Dune, by Frank Herbert:

You've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind.

I am now here waiting for something to end.
The damned virus has not ended, of course.

So. I am now doing my best to keep positive. I ventured outside for about… three minutes, to take out the garbage.

I am not at all pleased that I clearly am a “non-essential” worker. Not a great feeling, you know?

I now understand I need to get a job that has a union, that or I should just go into business for myself.

Not working sucks. Working for [Redacted] sucks. Since I don’t have the killer instinct for law, I’ll have to look into something else, entirely.

Okay. I have all my social media stuff in one Chrome Window, all my entertainment stuff in a different window. I can probably decompress better this way.

The President and many of our elected officials are incompetent. I know this is evil, but I wish some of them would just die, so we could be rid of them and their wickedness. But that’s now how the Dance of Death works, so here we are.

I suppose it’s not so bad. I have the great advantages of being young -or not that old- with few people to worry about. I can pretend I live in a little lab. I am the test subject and the technician. Right now I am helping “fold”, supervising my little computer as it participates in the effort to fight COVID-19, Minerva (my laptop) is crunching numbers and sending data back to the big fancy researchers, so they can get data faster. Developing treatment, a vaccination, antibodies, anything.

I’m piloting a little spaceship and firing on the Death Star alongside a great mighty fleet. I suppose I can be content with that for now.

I also get to do some reading, which is nice. I want to help out with a transcription project for the New York Public Library. I am very fond of the NYPL, and am now hoping to contribute in some small way. This is all in the hope there WILL be libraries in the future. That we’re not going to see a massive loss of human life, and the survivors will have no time for books. What a fucking nightmare, a life without books, or music, or art…

No History.

I’m just a mess, no one needs me. No one would need me.

I’m so bad for [Redacted]. She could do better. She is doing better than me as I write this.

It would be very nice to have a house, right now. A Cape Cod or a ranch, just to be in and not have to worry about anything. Have a little more space and a basement to keep more supplies in. I was lucky I was even thinking about hurricanes, and I wasn’t nearly prepared enough for all this.

I need more equipment, even though it’s merely my way of feeling in control of the situation.

I need more fresh food, too.

Spoke to my mother’s family today. They are mostly doing well. A cousin's wife, [Redacted], is ill. This is super bad, because she likely has Corona. My Cousin works in a Nursing Home. It’s a disaster. She’s in good spirits, though. I talked with them for about 45 minutes.

I talked to my [Redacted]and [Redacted] - for another 45 minutes, through Facebook. It was pretty soothing. I had tried to make it sound like everything was under control, but I clearly came off as nervous. I do live in a big city, after all.

Well, everything is falling apart in Ecuador. It’s tragic, because these people have so little.

The US is just grotesque, we have so much, and we still fail.

I visited [Redacted] a few days ago, it was a terrible risk, I should be far more careful! I miss her so much, though. I found and purchased masks, then left the masks with her family. I hope they don’t go through the masks too quickly, but I especially hope they use the masks. [Redacted] father doesn’t seem too cautious, preferring to step out frequently. [Redacted] doesn’t even seem to care that she might die, which is to be expected, as she has suicidal thoughts often. This would be the perfect way to end her suffering -get sick, transmit it to her parents, and all die in rapid succession, so she doesn’t have to worry about how they’ll get on once she’s gone.

Everything is awful.

Today, I’m wearing olive green shorts and a gray long sleeve shirt. Tres fashionable. I guess. I have my stupid belt pouches on it. [Redacted] thought I was gonna be thrilled because all of my emergency stuff is getting used. I told her that I don’t actually like emergencies, I like being able to take control of a situation and having the ability to fix a problem quickly so we can all get on with things.

I have put my knife holster on the left side, so I can draw it like a sword, not sure if that’s smart. I’m too nervous and clumsy anyway. What am I going to do? Fence with a mugger? That’s preposterous.

I can’t play games with my life. I only have one.

Well, I suppose there’s not much else to do. Today and tomorrow I have to pound the phones and push my legislators to force hazard pay for “Essential” workers.

I must not buy any toys for right now. The most important thing to do is to keep everyone off the streets.

I’ve donated for Covid-Related stuff. I have also donated to my local NPR affiliate (WNYC) and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, but that’s really more for me than the good of the community. All charitable giving satisfies my own ego, I suppose.

I'm done with people claiming this is an attempt to humiliate Trump. Restaurants are closing, many museums won't survive this ordeal. PEOPLE ARE DYING. Everything's falling apart. I'm not enjoying hiding in my apartment in the hopes of mitigating the damage.

All I can do is stay out of the way.

Horrible, deadly torrents of Bullshit, spewing all over the place. I cannot stand it.

Death everywhere. Dishonest people. Horror, endless fucking horror. I am complicit.

There is no end to this horror.

I can only stay indoors.

I must stay out of the way, not be underfoot.

I just wish the bullshitters would fucking shut up, even for a goddamn minute.

I have now opened up three browser windows: One for news and communication, one for entertainment, and one for “Battle”. Charities that I can direct resources to, the Charity Navigator website, and the “folding@home” manager, which allows me to track what’s folding. Minerva was a goddess of both education and war.

I have my toolbag next to me. I have some tools on my waist. The small tools, the everyday carry (EDC) that consumed me even before this horror began.

I have no right to a therapist.

I’m closing up TweetDeck (my Twitter client) for the moment. No good comes of using Twitter, anyway. Just a bunch of people yelling at each other in bumper sticker phrases.

Got a text from poor [Redacted]. She’s out in the middle of nowhere, hopefully safe from the plague. I hope she pulls through this.

I attempted to do my own laundry, in a tub. I haven’t done this in many years. I took a storage tub, put it into my bathtub, then filled it with water, then soap. Because I’m bored, I started shoving the laundry around, to agitate it and maybe get better results than soaking alone. I poured out the water, then I squeezed out the laundry. Then I refilled the storage tub with water, it is soaking now, then I will squeeze it out, and hang them on the shower curtain to dry.

Okay, we have proof of concept! It just needs to be smaller loads… maybe two days worth of clothing. Two pairs socks, two pairs underwear, two shirts, sweat shirt, jeans.