I have seasonal depression on a regular basis anyway, but I can already tell this is year is going to be bad. My last really bad year was 2013, and I was suicidal. I’m not that bad now (yet?) and I’m hoping that those demons stay away. But I remain worried about my health, my family, and my job. I “teach” online, but it’s a complete clusterfuck and I honestly have no idea how much longer we can sustain this model.
My usual method of dealing with my stressors this time of year is to basically join a couple of friends in text or FB messenger chats and bitch about life, share jokes, and talk about spring and summer plans. Even that isn’t happening this year due to the usual suspects dealing with their own shit.
Thanksgiving will be, for all intents and purposes, cancelled this year. I’m still going to cook up a big feast and one of my former students and her SO may stop by, but the usual big family get-together is, obviously, not happening. It’ll be me, my wife, and our two kids. Maybe 2 others if we’re lucky. No big 15-person dinner with laughter and stories and jokes and… just us. No clue yet about Christmas but surely nothing groundbreaking will change in the next 6 weeks, so that’ll be cancelled as well. Those two events were sort of the highlights of my winter as they gave me something to concentrate on, plan for, and think about. Now… nada. I’m stuck at home with a couple of rude teenagers and job that I’m having difficulty doing. I can’t even visit my sick grandfather because of Covid restrictions.
Since we’re all in this shitshow together, I’m hoping maybe we can use this as place to vent, bitch, moan, commiserate, and sympathize with each other. It’s going to be a bad fucking winter, but we don’t necessarily have to do it alone.
I was just talking with a student on Zoom and he was telling me that his family is planning a big traditional Clark Griswold - style Christmas day, with the requisite multiple families all having dinner together. I kept my mouth shut, but I wanted to ask him if he (or his parents, who are planning this thing) think the 'rona is just a hoax. But part of me was jealous… this kid is just trucking along like nothing has changed.
I’m happy to join in a dedicated thread and here’s my first bitch. . . um, I mean, contribution.
I started working from home back on March 16. Two weeks ago, in desperation to escape the walls closing in on me, a partner who is very noisy and who is home ALL. THE. TIME, and my crappy, on-again, off-again home internet service, I came back to work in the office for two days a week. It was glorious. Quiet. Reliable internet. Big workspace.
Now our governor has issued an partial shut-down order, closing bars and restaurants, severely limiting the numbe of people in stores, etc., and strongly encouraging working remotely. So now I’m back to being at home, all day, every day. It was so nice while it lasted.
Are you in Oregon? 'Cuz that sounds like what Kate Brown just announced, and I’m in the same boat. I was going to start going to campus one day a week for a staff meeting, beginning tomorrow. I was really looking forward to getting out of the house. But I got an email today saying the meeting would be through Zoom instead, and we were to telework as much as possible – a useless directive, since that’s what we’ve been doing since March 18 already. Ugh.
Yep, I’m in Salem. When I heard Gov. Brown’s announcement last Friday, I knew my little bit of respite was gone, at least for a few weeks (or more). Our state agency follows the Governor’s orders very carefully, as we should, and although I could probably push it a bit in my office, I’m not going to. Sory you didn’t even get to go to the campus a couple of times.
At least your state government isn’t comprised of trump loving assholes worried about infringing on rights by mandating and actually enforcing something as easy and simple as wearing a damn mask. I love living in the geographic region called Idaho, but I’ve really come to despise most of the people living here.
On the plus side, just got my latest test results back and no covid up my nose! Considering the circumstances that led to the testing, I’m happily surprised.
Congrats, @DorkVader, on your negative COVID test! That’s always good news.
I’m astonished at the hate and threats that shows up on FB whenever Gov Brown does anything to slow down the spread of the disease. Where do these people come from? According to them, it’s all lies, when it’s from the government or scientists. I understand that people are negatively impacted by business reductions and closures. But what about all the other people who will be negatively impacted by the disease which is traveling like wildfire? I am at a loss how people can be so stupid and so selfish.
I live in the Roseburg area, and here these people are legion. I simply do not get it.
Well, not to hijack my own thread too far into the weeds, but actually I do get it. Ignoring Covid has become a part of a political identity. Claiming its a hoax or that it is all overblown or whatever is like chanting the team slogan at a football game: disbelieving established and fact-based science is now part of the Republican identity. And since all liberals lie and are otherwise completely dishonest, their support of social restrictions due to covid is simply further evidence of covid being a hoax – because a liberal Democrat would never be honest about anything, of course.
My wife’s family falls into this camp to a very large degree. Thankfully she’s the black sheep of the family and actually has, and uses, a brain. I noted in the OP that we’d be doing Thanksgiving at home. Well, her family will not be. They’ll all be crammed into my SIL’s double-wide, no masks of course, eating for hours.
Count us out. I’d prefer to live, thankyouverymuch.
We drove through Idaho last fall: Boise, Twin Falls, Idaho Falls, and then up to Helena. Very pretty country. We met some nice people – actually, everyone we met was nice – and saw some very pretty country, but it didn’t strike me as a place I would want to live. It seemed very impoverished.
I have things pretty good. I live in a nice, spacious house. I have a pleasant back yard, and the local streets are uncrowded and good for walking. My internet is good. I live with my husband and daughter, and we get along okay.
But damn i miss going out. I miss hanging out with friends. I miss dancing, and holding hands, and giving weight. I feel like I’m rotting away.
Yeah, it seems like the further east you go the poorer it seems.
Boise isn’t bad, Twin Falls isn’t really that bad either, Jerome(right next to TF) can seem pretty low rent Pocatello, Idaho Falls, Ft. Hall Reservation are, less expensive. And very conservative, and more rural and farming centered. If folks in that part of the state seemed nice, you just didn’t spend enough time there.
I’m single, 58, and live alone. I only see people if I go to the grocery store, and it’s been this way since March. I have a couple friends I see once a month-ish, they swing by and we would sit on my back deck when it was warm; next week they’ll come by and we’ll sit inside in front of the fireplace. That’s pretty much it, everyone I’ve seen since March. I go walking outside and studiously avoid strangers in masks by 6 feet. Nod hello sometimes.
This is all fine, we’re saving lives, but such a joyless, isolated existence.
This fucking pandemic is just what i needed after being diagnosed with GCC (Goblet Cell Carcinoid) I’ve lost my ability to work in the HVAC trade and have been making truck and house payments from savings since March this year. I’ve lost my health insurance and unemployment ran out just last week.
Thank God for my mother who has done all the leg work to get me into the care of Moffett Cancer Center here in Tampa at USF. I’m expecting a call today regarding acceptance through charity care funding.
A friend of mine had to do a covid test yesterday. She’s showing all the symptoms, so of course now she’s worried sick. She lives in a house with 5 other people, 4 of whom are kids. Now I’m worried for her.
