Month: July 2020

  • They Stopped Making Algot

    Another strange coronavirus effect affected us this weekend, and I am quite surprised by it.

    You see, as we have moved to working at home all the time now, and being that our incomes have been cut in half by me being laid off, we have undertaken a project of updating our living room, to make a learning space for our daughter, and updating the home office. To complete this project, we were using items from the Algot system from Ikea. We had used Algot years ago for our living room to create book shelves, and a standing desk. Now, we wanted to repurpose those shelves, while leaving the original brackets in the wall. We had been planning this transition for two months, ordered the supplies from Ikea, and were ready to execute this weekend.

    On Saturday, when we went to switch out the shelves in the living room, to install them in the office, the brackets in the living room gave way, and became loose from the wall, to the point that we no longer felt safe that the shelves could hold any weight. With a quick look online, we found what could solve this problem which was a support rail, but oddly there were only three rails left in all of the Tri-State area. We quickly got in the car and raced to the local Ikea to get the rails, only to learn two details; one, they were sold out, and two is that Ikea had discontinued the Algot system.

    I cannot put into words how absolutely disappointed we felt. Our entire plan had gone to shit, and if we wanted to continue, we would have to use a new shelving system because nothing at Ikea was compatible with Algot. It was like every setback we had ever experienced in our entire life was wrapped up in this one situation, and we just felt like giving up on life. Sunday was a full-on mope festival of just not caring about anything.

    And at the same time, I can fully admit that out reaction to this is, also, fully stupid.

    The wife and I have had real tragedy and real setbacks in our life together. We know what honest disappointment is, and logically, this isn’t one of them.

    But why were we feeling this way?

    It was because we wanted to have control of just one little thing in our life, right now. Just one tiny thing, like, putting shelves together, and making a learning station for the kid, and making the office functional. To conceive a plan, execute it, and check it off the list, all the while, enjoying that feeling of accomplishment by completing a task.

    Because in the coronavirus world, we have nothing; no control, no ability to change out comes, no way to steer the ship in a direction we want. It’s not irrational to have the reaction that we did. I know full well that in the next day, we will come up with some idea that will accomplish the goals we want for the apartment. But, I was just so taken aback by the feeling of disappointment, in losing the last shred of control in my life that I thought I had.

    (Say, don’t forget to like this post, or share it, or leave a comment. I got bills to pay, you know.)

  • What is Up with Texas?

    What is Up with Texas?

    I used to get that question often when I first moved to NYC. I grew up in Texas, and when people would eventually find out I was from the Lone Star state, I would get asked, “Hey, what is up with Texas?” This was in 2006, the waning days of George W. Bush, and my adopted home state had an amazing reputation of crazy and gun crazy on top of that. (Luckily, Florida has seemed to taken on the mantel away from Texas in the last several years.)

    Today, The New York Times ran this story, “Red vs, Red in Texas, With Republicans Battle One Another After Mask Order,” and the title pretty much encapsulates what in now going on there. It even caused me to ask, what is up with Texas? It reminded me of this story The New Yorker put out a week ago, “How Texas Republicans Politized the Coronavirus Pandemic,” which goes into detail on how state Republicans were fighting each other to have a convention in Houston in the middle of an outbreak of Covid-19.

    My 77-year-old father, and  my brothers with their families are still in Texas, and I can only imagine that the anxiety and worry I have for them is the same thing they all had for us in March in New York. The difference is that at least the City and state of New York were committed to fighting Covid. Not that they did a perfect job, but at least everyone was aiming for the same goal. In Texas, it just seems like the state leaders are running around in a hurricane of chaos they have created under the guise of personal freedom.

    When people used to ask me that questions about Texas way back in the good old days of ‘Merica, I would tell them that growing up in Texas, there was a strong through line of independence balanced with respect. It seems to me that Texas conservatives have perverted this idea, and now it’s costing people their lives.

  • Playgrounds and The Kid’s Mental Health

    Playgrounds and The Kid’s Mental Health

    Yesterday, I talked about how the virus may affect us and our kids in the future. I think about this often, especially when me and the kid head to the playground.

    When the playgrounds were closed in the City, it was awful for all of us. We tried to stay active by going for walks twice a day. The one nice benefit of this was that we got to explore all the streets in our neighborhood, but nonetheless it was not a substitute for a playground. Every time we walked through a park, and the kid laid eyes on the playground, I would get the question of, “When can we go back in there?” There was never an acceptable answer.

    With the lack of physically activity, and having no social contact with other kids, my daughter was starting to act out, and undertake behaviors she had never demonstrated before. She was more prone to scream, argue, throw things, and have temper tantrums, the likes she hadn’t done at least since she was three. We had been lucky in having a child that loved to sleep, and went to bed with no issues, but since April, she has been fighting going to bed, and getting up several times a night.

    Now that playgrounds have been open for almost a month now, it has made this situation more tolerable for the kid. Her behavior has gotten better, and she is generally sleeping solidly again. There are still flair ups, from time to time. I am sure that with the kid having a chance to be around other kids, and act out her frustrations and fears, that she is finding ways to cope with all of this stuff. It has been our one glimmer of hope in this season of unpredictability.

  • What Will We Remember from This?

    I had a video chat with a good friend the other day, who lives in Kansas City. He has a three-year-old son, and any day now, will have a newborn on his hands. Besides talking about the general insanity of the world, we started comparing notes of how we have been surviving with cuts to our income. I being laid off, and he having his salary cut. We both have been finding ways to make food last as long as possible, and we throw nothing out. We both joked to each other that we sounded like our grandparents talking about living through The Great Depression.

    When I was little and did ask my grandparents about the Depression, and mind you all of them were in their early 20’s when it happened, they all sort of laughed it off, but also, they did talk about not having a whole lot of money, and making every dime last. I especially remember all of them telling me that thy learned how to fix everything if it broke.

    I might have grandkids one day, and they might ask me about this, but what I really wonder about, and so did my good friend, was what will our little kids take away from this? My five-year-old knows that there was a lifestyle before Covid, and she is already telling me she can’t wait to return to normal when Covid is over. But is she going to remember the anxiety, the uncertainty and the feeling of discord from around the country? How much of this daily, just dumb fuckery will stick in her mind? How will this influence her for the rest of her life? For my grandparents, the Depression made them thrifty, inventive, and they had a sense of common purpose with all Americans to solve big problems.

    I hope we can do the same.

  • Coronavirus: Moving Out of NYC

    Coronavirus: Moving Out of NYC

    I know that I am not the first person to talk about this, but it does need to be repeated; the amount of people moving out of New York City is enormous, and just might have a terrible effect on the City.

    Today, another neighbor moved out of our building. Yesterday, a neighbor also moved out. Last month, the first tenant in left on the top floor. There are only twelve apartments in our building, so we are 25% vacant. In better times, an empty apartment here would be taken in a matter of days. As soon as one person moved out, the place would be cleaned and painted, and another person would be moving in.

    Our building isn’t alone. In our neighborhood, I counted two moving trucks Sunday, three on Saturday, and another three on Friday. On July 3rd, the first weekend of the month, I counted six moving trucks. Now, I do this count when I walk the dog in the morning, so I have no idea how many other people are moving themselves over the course of the day. And that’s only in a five-block radius around our place.

    When it comes to this, what has been making the news around here is the amount of rich and middles class families that are leaving New York for the suburbs and upstate. What has not been making the news is all the young people, who moved here to start their careers and live their dreams ,are moving back home. I know its kids moving out because the moving vans aren’t big, and the furniture they are throwing out is crappy.

    If all of these young people leave, and most of them are in the theatre arts, it will have, I fear, a dreadful impact. Yes, most actors wait tables, but I was a temp when I started here. I did dull filing and office work. Where are the temps going to come from to do that when the City does open up? They are also the diehard audience members, and they also are the new ideas. This virus might cause a huge creativity hole for a generation of theatre.