laurabellel

I was listening to Used to Be Young by Miley Cyrus. I have (half-baked) thoughts. To be clear, I like the song--a whole lot. (I generally like Miley Cyrus. Flowers was awesome too.)

I'd love to see it revisited in 20 or 30 years or by someone 20 or 30 years older. Miley Cyrus is barely 30, and while it may feel otherwise to her right now, from my perspective "young" isn't entirely a past tense for her.

I adore the implied acceptance and even approval of aging in the song. A 30 year old implying that she's not young anymore and is good with it is wonderful. Our culture idealizes youth in women to a truly fucked up level and in a lot of really fucked up ways. Coming out with a song that says yeah, youth is youth and it can be fun but people (women) grow up and that's not a bad thing is really really countercultural in a way people aren't entirely recognizing. The whole "you used to be fun" is a thing men say to women to try to manipulate them in to not having the boundaries that they've learned to have through hard experience. "Yeah, I used to be young" Yup. Exactly. Now I'm not. I don't think the choice of words is an accident.

I want a new car. I do not need a new car; I have a car and it still runs great. It’s 9 years old, 75k miles, looks good on the outside, hasn’t hit the expensive maintenance stage of life. But I still want a new one. I want a car with all the fun bells and whistles. I want one that my phone talks to. I really want one with a trunk that closes with a button—instead of pulling it down myself and pulling my shoulder repeatedly. I could convince myself that it’s a need. That the shoulder thing is a big deal. That I could get an electric car and it would be more eco-friendly. But, yeah. The most eco-friendly car is the one that you already have. I don’t drive enough to change that math. I can be careful of my shoulder. I do not need all the fancy driver assist features. I still want a fancy new car though.

I want a new house too. I want a house that’s big enough for me to have a space that’s mine. One that I don’t have to share and isn’t also the entry way. I want a house with a space that I could put a library/lego room in. I want a house where Mark’s home office is out of earshot of the spaces where I spend most of my day. (A desire brought to you by remote work.) I want a house with a yard where I could try to garden. I want a house with a space big enough for me to host family holiday dinners. But I don’t want to spend another $2M+ on said house (in addition to the $1.3M we could sell the townhouse for). I don’t even know if they’d approve us for that right now. And I don’t want to change William’s school. So, here we are. Because the house we have (the townhouse) is fine. We fit well enough. A yard is a want, not a need. Anything we buy is going to need more work than this house does. But I still want.

Ugh.

Probable Exposure: July 30 or 31
We were on an Alaska cruise; we're assuming dinner as we were really good about masking when we weren't eating.

Day -1: August 1
Negative Covid tests for all

Day 0: August 2
Mark was a bit off all day, but nothing that we thought much of. I had a minor headache and a stuffed up head in the evening. I figured out that I was sick when I was FREEZING when I tried to sleep.

Day 1: August 3
Mark and I were both death warmed over. I got a PCR in the morning. Mostly we slept. I had an awful headache, sore throat, major congestion. No fever though.

Days 2 & 3: August 4 & 5
Mark stayed about the same, started Paxlovid. I was feeling mostly ok except the congestion and some residual sore throat. William still fine.

Day 4/Day 0: August 6
Mark about the same; maybe a bit better. For me, congestion finally started to clear, some possible lower GI symptoms. My sense of smell is largely missing. I still had a positive Covid test. Late afternoon, William had a headache and faint positive on a Covid test.

Day 5/Day 1: August 7
Same old same old for Mark. I'm still congested but no GI symptoms so far. My Covid test is still positive. William is congested and his Covid test is positive (but still much fainter than mine).

Day 6/Day 2: August 8
Mark is actually working and seems fine; he did nap in the afternoon. Yay Paxlovid, I guess? Same old same old for me and William.

Day 7/Day 3: August 9
Mark finished the Paxlovid this morning. We'll see how this goes. Same old for William and I; I didn't even bother to test us.

Day 8/Day 4: August 10
Mark about the same. My test was fainter this morning--I guess that's progress. William is still really congested. We'll see tomorrow.

Day 9 & 10/Day 5 & 6: August 11 & 12
No real change symptoms-wise for anyone. My test was about the same as before; William's was almost non-existant (but not quite); Mark's was negative.

Day 11/Day 7: August 13
Still not much change symptoms-wise. Maybe getting better very slowly? VERY faint line for me.

Day 12/Day 8: August 14
We're all feeling pretty much better. Maybe a bit of snot--but nothing that we'd think much of if we hadn't had Covid. My test STILL positive. Didn't test anyone else.

Day 13 - 15/Day 9 - 11: August 15 - 17
Negative test for William. Positive test for me. Still.

Day 16: August 18
Negative test for me! Finally! I'm sort of dubious about it, but I'll take it.

Why do parental controls suck so much? Whyyyyyyy?

I'm trying to get ebooks set up for Will. First hurdle--for the Apple parental controls to work between his iPad and my iPhone both devices have to be on exactly the same version of iOS. This is at least a known problem for me now--as opposed to the two days it took me to figure it out 18 months ago. I update my phone. I get the Libby app and the Kindle app installed on the iPad. I discover that you can't access Amazon's kid profiles in the iPad app. You can download Amazon Kids+ if you're willing to pay, but that can't access the library ebooks. I know from trying to have him use my Kindle that the Amazon Kids+ interface is a complete disaster anyway and still requires me to log myself in to the Kindle. For now, we've gone with logging him in as me, which isn't ideal. We're definitely going with "hope he doesn't try to read the romance novels" and "rip my recommendations". I just want an account for him that has access to my Prime and Kindle Unlimited and works with the rest of the Kindle infrastructure and doesn't have access to all of Mark's and my books. Why is this so difficult?

Someday, I want to have a house with a space that is just mine. Right now, I have a desk in our shared bedroom and a sewing "room" that is basically in the front entry. I have no where that I can be by myself. Nowhere that I can expect other people not to be using too. Right now, Mark is reading on the windowseat in our bedroom and I'm at my desk. I could reach out and touch him. Will is watching Pokemon downstairs. There is nowhere to go! Someday.

I'm not doing so well emotionally right now. Reading through all of my assorted rants on here from the last year or so was weirdly therapeutic though. (Not all of them are public.)

We're now at over a year since Mark has gone to work at work. (The last day was March 5, 2020. He stayed home the 6th and that was the day that the work at home for the duration announcement went out.) March 13 was Will's last day of school at school. He played with a neighbor kid "normally" on the 14th, so I decided to count our lockdown from March 15. We're almost there. Based on the current (absurdly optimistic) timeline for kid vaccines, we're looking at about 18 months total right now. Fuck everything. I'm really hoping that numbers look good enough in August that I can justify sending him to school at school for third grade even though a kid vaccine won't be approved by then.

I am incandescently furious with everyone who has kept us in this shithole for this long. I get madder and madder the longer this goes on. There are so many people making conscious choices to risk the health of everyone around them--and I'm expected to be understanding. I'm done with that. How about all these assholes learn to be understanding and STAY THE FUCK AT HOME. My government, on all levels, is either incompetent or malicious or both. At the state level, it looks like the prize for not getting your shit together is more vaccines for you (and fewer for everyone else). Seriously, fuck you Sacramento. (Yes, I completely get the public health reasoning for this decision. Its probably the right thing to do from an epidemiological and public health standpoint. Emotionally, its still a giant FUCK YOU. Especially since its yet another round of "screw the Bay Area" on a state level.)

My kid has no friends left. Ok, he has two facetime friends, neither of whom he's spent time with in person in six months. (The total amount of time in the last year is probably under 6 hours.) The one who still lives walking distance is likely to be locked down even longer than we are--they still have an under 5 year old. Will spends most of his day on screens. Outside isn't very fun by yourself and there's only so long that I can play with him. He's noticeably out of shape compared with before the lockdown. I wish I could trust other people. That I could enroll my kid in a sport or camp and trust that all the other families aren't sending their kids when that is risking exposure for everyone. But, clearly, I can't trust other people that much. Please see the last year of our lives for evidence.

I've gained 20 pounds and gotten completely and totally out of shape--and I wasn't in great shape to start with. Seriously, a 30 minute to an hour walk is about my speed right now. I'm having a lot of trouble getting it together to cook--especially dinner. It's just exhausting. I know that I feel mentally and physically better when I'm not eating nothing but carbs and cheese and sugar. But I'm the only one who cooks and no one else cares and everything is so much work. I need to exercise way more. A couple of walks a week isn't enough. (A couple a day would be better.) But walking outside is stressful. There are too many people and they aren't wearing masks and they get too close and sometimes there's nowhere to go that's far enough away. You have to be "on" the whole time. And all the routes suck. I literally walk laps around my neighborhood. But driving somewhere to walk is a shitty option too. There aren't very many relatively flat 30 minute to an hour loops and they're all super crowded even pre-covid and that's all I can do right now.

Will doesn't sleep. I mean, he does sleep, but not more than we do. (This is a whole, other, ongoing issue. He will actively keep himself awake as long as we're awake.) So, any conversations that I want to have with Mark have to be had with a 7 year old audience or have to be had outdoors where the neighbors can hear. Neither option is good. I haven't been alone with my husband in a year. Pretty much literally. We've snuck a few walks here and there, but otherwise, nope.

My parenting is...not what it should be. He needs more structure, more activity, less screen time, and more consistent enforcement of rules and requests. Its showing in his behavior. But its exhausting to be the sole source of all of this. I can't actually do it. I feel like a complete failure. (There's also a whole shitty dynamic going on with Mark's and my interaction and Will's reaction to it that I can't really fix on my own but I can't get Mark to fix his part of it.) I need to fix me and my parenting. And its exhausting too.

Yes, I know I'm depressed. I'm about as depressed as I've ever been. But I'm completely and totally not up for playing medication roulette and Kaiser won't give me a scrip for what worked 20 years ago because Wellbutrin can have bad effects on anxiety (which, to be fair, I totally have problems with). I also have almost-panic attacks when I have to be around lots of people. I'm pretty much going to have to fake-it-till-I-make-it out of those (if I can ever get a fucking vaccine so my freakout isn't sort of rational).

I'm so fucking tired of everything.

Fires. We're up to New Jersey, just in California. Oregon was at Delaware last I checked. It's been a month since I could go outside and breathe easily. Portland has the worst air quality in the country, possibly the world. The east coast has kind of noticed. Sort of. They still don't seem to comprehend how bad it is, but at least their news is reporting it at all.

My kid had a complete meltdown today about wanting friends. I don't know what to tell him. Either they're even more pulled in than we are or they've moved. When we open up, he isn't going to have any friends. I feel terrible; like a failure as a parent. And it's going to be ages before he can go anywhere where he could make new friends that he could play with. I'm so furious right now at everyone who has made this last so long.

I'm so very annoyed with the moderators of the local mom facebook group. They keep taking down everything posted by people advocating caution and actually listening to the scientists. For fucks sake, today they took down an article telling people to keep their kids inside when the air quality is bad. Like, what the fuck? this shouldn't be controversial. Apparently, people feel shamed. Like, yes, when you're doing stupid things that are directly endangering your children's health you should feel shamed. Then you should STOP DOING THOSE THINGS. They leave up everything advocating that we just open the schools, but take down everything advocating caution and considering the health of the teachers and staff. Then they claim that they don't want political debate. Even comment threads get removed. They leave up things asking for travel advice and recommendations. They take down things pointing out that WE SHOULD NOT BE TRAVELLING. News flash, your poor decisions on this do, in fact, effect the rest of us. If everyone would fucking stay home and stop doing things that are not actually essential for a month, we could probably get disease levels down to the point that we could open all of these things ACTUALLY safely. Like so my family could do things. But, no, people are selfish assholes who only care about themselves. And there is no political will and no resources at any level of government to make this happen.

I am so fucking done with the apologists for covid deniers. So very fucking done. If you have more problems with the woman who called the cops on the (every weekend for the last several weeks) 100+ person basketball tournament and when they claimed it wasn't their job to enforce the county and state orders, and then took photos of said 100+ person basketball tournament, emailed them to every relevant group (city council, school board--it was located at the middle school), posted the pictures on social media, and actually managed to get something done so it won't happen again next weekend, than you have with the people who think its somehow fucking ok to be having a basketball tournament, I'm assuming that you think the basketball tournament is just fine. Fuck you. I'm proud of that woman. Oh, she should have gone and talked to them and it would have all been ok. Do you seriously fucking believe that? Ignoring the fact that going over to talk to a bunch of people who are socializing without masks is literally risking your own health and life right now, have you ever succeeded in talking an antisocial asshole into not being an antisocial asshole. I can't even usually get people to stop smoking next to playgrounds. No, one random woman going over and talking to them isn't going to accomplish anything. Yup, by the end of the week there aren't going to be any basketball hoops left in Mountain View. No, asshole, that's not the fault of the people complaining, that's the fault of the assholes who can't seem to understand "one household at a time".

I've been stuck in my house since March. I go to the grocery store every couple of weeks. I see my grandmother on those days (92, lives alone, I do her shopping). Sometimes I hang out in my parents' backyard. My only child has played with another kid his age not on facetime 4 times since March. I'm fucking tired of this. Every asshole who refuses to abide by lockdown orders is essentially externalizing the consequences to the rest of us. Its like a giant FUCK YOU. The population won't do the right thing, no level of government has the political will or resources to actually do anything, and I'm going to be stuck in my house for another year.

Fuck everything.

Ugh

Someone on my friendslist posted something today about how parents need to stop shouting about how kids won't wear masks and kids need socialization. She's a teacher with health issues. Like, we're not shouting about this to be entitled or to be mean or whatever you think. We keep saying this because any return to school plan that depends on grade-schoolers consistently and properly wearing masks is doomed to failure and should not be tried. And people keep suggesting these stupid plans.

On socialization. I have a seven year old only child. We live in a 1200 sq ft townhouse with no yard. My kid hasn't been outside for more than about 45 minutes at a time in 11 weeks. He hasn't socialized in any way with anyone under age 25 in person in the same amount of time. (He spends hours a day on FaceTime with one friend, and a few hours a week with another. That's it.) He has taked to his aunt in person for a cumulative total of about 30 minutes over three "visits", spends about 30 minutes a week playing in his great-grandmother's backyard and talking to her at a distance, and has played in his grandparents' backyard for about an hour on two separate occasions. Other than that, he has us, his parents. This is not healthy for anyone or sustainable over a longer time period. It is probably permanently stunting his social growth (and it wasn't a strength area to start with) and I'm expeciting significant social anxiety (we've had issues before) when being around other kids becomes possible again.

Physical activity and screen time are the other concerns. Between school, FaceTime, the Nintendo Switch, and videos, he's probably spending 10-12 hours a day on various screens. I mean FaceTime is social time, and the Nintendo Switch is also often social time. I feel better about video games in general than I do about watching videos. Video games involve thinking and creativity--not just passive absorbing. But Mark and I were "joking" that if he has the genes for shitty eyesight, we'll know about them by the end of this. (Nearsightedness is an interaction between genes and close work and eyeball development. You have to have both the genes and the close work. Before this, he spend so little time on close work that the problem wouldn't have developed.) Will used to spend 3-4 hours daily outside playing, even on school days. Outside play involves a lot more movement than anything inside. I've been noticing a decrease even inside lately, which I find concerning. His swim school is reopening the first week of June. I still have no idea if I'm sending him or not. The HOA pools are closed until county health says otherwise--and honestly, I don't see any way to have them open without significant crowding. The neighborhood is dense enough that we can't really hang out outside, we have to keep moving and there's a lot of crossing streets and walking in the road to maintain distancing.

Right now, I feel like I've been locked up for three months for no actual reason. Because the assorted governments in charge of this response have neither the political will nor the staffing levels to enforce a lockdown that would actually accomplish what it needs to accomplish, we still haven't tamped it down enough on a regional level. (My actual city and zip code would probably be fine, but we're not at all separable and the bigger city to our south has significant community transmission on the east side still.) On a national level, I'm pretty sure that we've decided to be Sweden and just not tell anyone that. On a state and local level, we have no viable exit plan. No timeline. Not even any list of metrics/goals that would allow for being around people outside of our households. School wasn't even in the presentation about reopening. I don't care about shopping. I can live with takeout only indefinitely. I need friends for my kid. I need friends for me. I need somewhere to go to be alone (or for my husband and kid to ever leave the house). Right now, I'm looking at an entire summer in my house with my husband working 90 hour weeks and my kid having nothing structured to do and no social outlet. My AC only sort of keeps the house cold. And it sounds like we're seriously expected to do this until a safe vaccine is developed.

We cannot do this for two years. Does anyone seriously think it is reasonable to expect that the next time my kid plays with a friend will be after his 8th birthday? He was 6 when this started.

3/19/2020

I've chilled out a bit. I mean, I'm still worried, but now that everything is shut down and I only leave the house for grocery shopping, there's nothing more I can really do right now. I'm pretty sure that my household doesn't have it yet--Mark hasn't left in two weeks, I haven't heard about any cases at Will's school, and I doubt that I picked it up while grocery shopping.

I did succeed in grocery shopping on Monday--no TP, no pasta, no rice, but everything else was fine. It was both more and less stressful than I anticipated. Nothing was crazy, but at one point while I was waiting at the meat counter, my Apple Watch felt the need to inform me that my heart rate was over 100 BPM and I wasn't doing anything. So, there's that.

Miraculously, my uncle is still with us. He's even been discharged. It was nice to get some good news this week.

Nothing much exciting is going on Chez Lillibridge. I suck at this homeschooling thing (not being able to go anywhere makes it much harder), but we were down to like 3 hours of video today, so I feel like that's progress. We'll see how this goes I guess.