Tag Archives: Pandemic

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There are days when it’s a real struggle to get words on the page. Sometimes just writing a short, easy statement can help with that. Some days is doesn’t help at all. Sometimes the stress of life puts a real, genuine damper on the production of words.

Most days I will tell people that I eat stress for breakfast then head out to take on the day. Most days.

Last week really pushed the needle on the stress meter. There was simply a ton of things that went pear shaped – not just for me, but for family and super close friends. Losses of jobs, medical diagnoses, calls from the consulate regarding a certain family members ability to get a visa, court dates, project deadlines, last minute school arrangements… It was an awful lot. I’d say I need a vacation, but that doesn’t help a whole lot these days either. The pandemic has made things so much more challenging across the board.

Long, deep, soulful sigh ~ insert here.

I’m back at the keys and clacking away. I’ve got a deadline tomorrow that I can’t miss for work and a deadline I can’t miss tomorrow for the kiddo. Work should be easy. Writing an essay about what I’ve learned as a parent as part of my daughter’s journey in martial arts? That’s going to be a challenge.

Gone Virtual

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I would have to consider it the negligent misuse of understatement to say that our current global pandemic has changed many things. Everyone has been asked to significantly change our way of living. How we work, how we connect with each other and certainly how we gather… and that is to say that we DO NOT GATHER. We don’t know a lot about the virus that is raging across the world and killing people by the thousands. We do know that if we keep our distance from each other, things slow down.

Everything has slowed down. Meetings take longer to arrange. Work hits unexpected delays. Time off takes on a whole new dimension – if you’re lucky enough to still have a job and still be working.

Part of the slowing down, part of the social distance needed involves not getting together. Conventions that many of my friends and collegues depend on are simply not happening this year. They are not able to gather so many people in a single place. The risk is too great.

Going to conventions – particularly science fiction / fandom cons – are a major part of my life. I have been going to or working as part of the staff of cons for somewhere around the past 27 years. I genuinely don’t remember a year when I haven’t been off to Richmond or Boston or Pittsburgh or Baltimore for a convention. Sometimes a big con, sometimes a small con – always going to see friends and talk about my favorite things. This is part of my life. It is part of my family’s life. My daughter doesn’t know anything else. In her mind this is simply what people of like minds do – they get together to enjoy their favorite things.

I’m not going to any conventions this year. None.

That is at least the plan as it stands right now. Most cons have “shut it down” and declared they will return in 2021. Some are making the effort to push ahead with the program parts they had lined up and are creating methods for holding virtual cons. I am amazed at how quickly some of these fan run, volunteer organizations have turned around the parts they need in order to make something like this work. I applaud them. It’s fantastic to see that they’re doing what they need to in order to survive. I wonder how many of them will. I just don’t see myself doing a virtual con. It feels too much like work at this point.

I understand the value of meeting virtually. I am, on average, attending between 5 and 10 virtual meetings every week now. I have adjusted my computer settings, arranged my working spaces differently along with changing and upgrading some of my hardware… and it’s still not the same. Gathering with friends in the same physical location matters. A hug, a handshake or even a simple hand on the shoulder are very important. Yes, there are down sides to meeting in person. There is expense. It’s time consuming. Scheduling is a challenge. Meeting with your friends is great, dealing with everyone else… not as much. Even with all the challenges (and occasionally the terrible smells) I hope to see the very best of them return for live and in person events. They are what recharge my batteries. It’s how I level up my creativity.

For the first time in decades I will be home on Memorial Day weekend. My family will be having a small gathering to celebrate my sister’s birthday. That’s it. That’s the entire schedule. There are no festivals going on, there are no events other than on the computer. We’ll see how it all goes. It is an odd feeling to know I won’t be part of something so dear to me. Hopefully it will come back around. Until then I’ll have to navigate my way around “the new normal”.

The virtual con is going on!

Being Back

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I’ve survived the first week back in the office since the global pandemic shut things down. It was as surreal as I suspected it would be. It was going through the same motions as before, but with something missing. While working from home I used all the discipline I had to stay on the same schedule I had when I was leaving the house and going to the office (thankfully). Getting up at ‘the regular time’ and getting ready for work wasn’t really any different.

Leaving the house was different.

There’s normally a level of activity and noise that are going on in the neighborhood where I live. In the mornings on the way out the door there’s a feeling, a sense that aligns with people going through their daily routine. There are cars I recognize from the area, delivery trucks, buses and all sorts of… well, people. This past week did not have that feeling. It was weirdly quiet when I left of the office. Traffic around the house was down to a handful of cars at the most. It wasn’t terrible, it just gave this sense of something being off.

It became more pronounced once I crossed the bridge. The state capitol building is literally two blocks from my office. It’s always busy on all those streets and alleys during a business day. Three lanes solid to or from either highway, trucks, buses, delivery drivers of greater variety… and none of them were there.

Sure, there were other cars on the road. There are a large number of people that fall under the tag ‘essential worker’, but it was nothing like it was before. I have always attempted to get a feel for the ebb and flow of when traffic was the heaviest and slip in between those times. Some days worked better than others. This week? This week it didn’t matter. I was at the office in what seemed like mere moments.

The biggest thing about actually being at the office? Inconvenience.

Yes, you read that right. We have a relatively small staff with ample social distance. There’s nobody else even sitting in the room I’m in while I’m at work. I’m back on the beefy work computer and connected to the servers. I’ve got two wide screen monitors and all the bells and whistles. So, what inconvenience? Everything is closed. Our communal kitchen with the microwave is closed. The water cooler is shut down. The ice machine is closed off with the kitchen. The restaurants around us are super limited in choice and delivery options. It has actually made certain aspects of getting work done more challenging. I didn’t have to worry about where and how I was going to get some water during the day. I didn’t have to give a second thought to lunch when I was home – I could stroll into the kitchen and get it. It’s odd, but it’s almost like being back in the time when I worked for a construction crew and we had to have a thermos and a lunch box because there were no amenities. Sure, our bathroom is WAY better than a port-a-potty (or a shrub), but it’s almost as if I’m back at a construction site inside the office. If you don’t have it with you, it doesn’t happen until you’re back home.

It took a day or two of adjustment along with a corrected grocery list, but I think I’m back on track and ready for things to start picking up. Construction is underway and requests for all manner of paperwork and sketches are flowing again. Hopefully people will continue to be safe and we’ll get things up and really moving again soon.

Flexible

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One thing that the pandemic has done for me is given me a certain amount of flexibility. There are a number of times when I’d have the motivation to write and then need to be running off someplace where I’d lack the ability to actually get things typed up. Now, since just about everything is locked down it has given me the chance to take advantage of those moments. There is no place to run off to right now.

It’s nice to have the options to say, “I think pajamas and slippers all day today while I work at the computer”. No pressure. It has certainly helped.

It was never going to last. Intellectually that was easy to say, but emotionally it’s been difficult to track. It feels as though this change is never ending. Well, time is up for me.

I have been working from home (thankfully) since things have been shut down. Yes, the hours have been reduced, but I have still been on a schedule. Working days has meant that I don’t have constant ‘free time’ but outside of those hours has still been available. Starting on Monday May the 4th (Star Wars day!) I’ll be back in the office. Construction and related construction activities are coming back on line. Projects are getting underway.

In the future, when we look back at this time I wonder what we will make of the dream like state we floated through during these days of being stuck at home. I look forward to seeing how it has changed who we will become.

Written Work

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Programming note: Writing is still hard.

I’ve seen a ton of posts about all the time that some people have on their hands these days. I’ve seen posts, some joking, some serious about how much some people accomplished in the past when under quarantine rules. I’ve seen numerous posts about how one should feel about all this time, your personal level of anxiety and how much work you should get done.

A friend of mine posted an update on how much had been written during this time of not leaving the house… and questioned its value.

Writing is still hard.

Extra time at the keyboard doesn’t change that. Some people might not even get extra time at the keyboard. Some people might not be able to take it. I am extremely lucky to still be working. I am on the same hours / schedule I was before the modern plague hit the world. I still can’t sit here in front of the machine for 12 or more hours at a time. I reserve a great deal of time for work here on my computer – the day job kind.

That is not to say that other projects are still lagging. Quite the contrary actually. I’ve been chipping away at things little by little. The biggest boon to me is the reduction in travel times along with the reduction in number of meetings. There are no places I have to go, no drive time involved in going there. Very few people clamoring for my attention. that has made a certain amount of focus easier for me, so I’m getting more writing done than I have in a while.

That is not to say that it’s good writing. There is a lot of anxiety floating out there and as I have stated in other posts, the panic can and will rub off. I’m hoping that as we adjust to the way things are right now that the new schedule will allow for even more work to get done.

In the end – writing is still hard. IF you’re creative and you’re struggling – that’s OK. If you’ve got scads of free time and you can make a go of it – then you go! Get cracking and make something awesome. If you’re not a maker, be a consumer when you can. Authors, freelancers, small businesses are all going to undergo changes in the coming months. IF you’ve got the time, dig up a new author or a small press and see if you can find something you like.

Hopefully I’ll be able to pull my bits and pieces together and keep forging ahead.

The New Normal

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And there it went. The first full week of the “new normal” is in the books.

Covid-19 is rampaging across the world and killing thousands. Everyone is getting a little crazy about the whole thing – with some justification. Something like this has not occurred in our memory. There was the Spanish Flu back in the 1920s, but there are no people alive who can relate to us how society was at that time. We can read about it, but that’s all we’ve got.

We’ve also got a dramatically different method of communication at our disposal. We know more about what’s going on in the world around us at a faster speed than ever before. Hopefully this will allow us to get ahead of this virus and stop things from reaching Spanish Flu levels. Right now thousands are dying and that’s bad. The other one? Yeah, that killed somewhere between 20 and 50 MILLION people.

Million.

I would never attempt to diminish the loss of a person, or collection of persons, but as a question of scale we’re doing… as well as can be expected. Honestly, probably better than can be expected. Yes, the virus has forced us to change the way we conduct ourselves. No, we don’t know how long this is going to last. Yes, after two solid weeks of news, media and home grown “experts” yelling at us about coronavirus it seems like it’s been here forever, but it hasn’t been that long. How long will it be? No idea. Nobody knows. Lots of people are making predictions, but until we get there we won’t have any idea.

I am fortunate to still be able to work, at least right now. I have shifted to working from home and connecting to everyone via my internet connection. My lovely wife has been given the same opportunity and has a similar computer station set up next to this one. We’ve been in the same house along with the kiddo for a full week + and haven’t gone completely insane. In fact, we all seem to quite like it. We’re much more relaxed. Work has a lot of the same kind of stupid, but it’s muted by the overwhelming noise of change. I’ve heard there are people out there not handling the social isolation very well. I hope those folks take advantage of the technology we have access to and stay as connected as they can without actual physical presence.

So – big changes. Things we were told would never be a thing have come to pass (particularly the sudden ‘realization’ that certain jobs CAN in fact be done remotely). Life will be forever changed by this event. My daughter will have this as a marked point in her life that she will remember long into her adulthood much the same way I remember events like the shuttle disaster that happened when I was in high school. No where close to the same level of impact – but a bright and clear memory of that time for me.

Forging ahead. I’ve gotten a bunch of things done around the house. That’s the thing – when you can’t leave, you have to make it a point to actually create and stick to a schedule that works for your household. What am I trying to say? Well, just this: I’ve been working essentially the same schedule as before. Sure the commute is a hell of a lot better and the dress code is pretty lax, but I’m still on schedule. It means that I’m spending all that work time here on my home computer. So when I “get home from work” I have even less desire to jump on here and keep working than before.

I’m hoping to pick up some creativity soon – but given the circumstances of the world, I’m not sure I’ll get there. Maybe I’ll start cranking out the words. Dunno. Hopefully you’ll keep coming back here to see.

Historic Context

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I’ve been distracted by the real world again. I’d love to spend tons and tons of time here in writer land but sometimes things happen. What I need to learn to be better about is actually writing down the things I’ve got bouncing around in the ol’ noggin.

Right now, here in the United States we have a panic happening about a global pandemic. People are getting sick at an alarming rate – and being terrible to each other at an even more alarming rate.

I’ve got a number of thoughts that I want to put here, but I’m still formulating how to pull it all together. For some frame of reference I tried to think of another event that really changed things across the country in such short order. The one I could think of most recently was the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.

I was at work that day. I remember it quite clearly. I know where I was sitting and could paint you a picture of my surroundings. What isn’t as clear in my memory was the thought process I had going on. I was writing then. I didn’t have things in electronic format. I didn’t have a blog or really even understand what was involved in starting one at that point. What I did have was my sketch book. I always have a sketch book at work. It’s part of the job. I track my hours on projects, but a lot of other things land in there too. I’ve pulled 3 pertinent pages from that old book (it was almost 20 years ago at this point – a bit staggering to consider) and have them here.

That day

I knew a number of people living in NYC at the time and made an effort to reach out to one of my closest friends of the time. I was lucky to get a response, and get it quickly.

What a day indeed

I recall a number of things about price gouging, hoarding and people being terrible – but more than that I remember people reaching out to help each other.

Did terror win?

I am seeing some things about the pandemic that are similar here in the US, but I am also seeing a number of differences. I want to give this all a lot more thought before I try to write up how I feel about it all. I need to put all the thoughts someplace. Having some historic context is going to matter to me at some point in the future.