Category: Uncategorized

  • The Day Went Sideways

    I thought I had a plan for today.

    That was my first mistake.

    What I had set out to do today was help out my friends. They had rented a car, and to help save them some dollars, I offered to drive them to the rental place, which was in New Jersey. Not really a big deal, just across the George Washington Bridge.

    Well…

    Nothing is easy in New Jersey.

    It took over three hours to pick them up, drop them off and get home. They say New York City has emptied out… but not on the GWB.

    By the time I had got home, I had lost the time I had set aside to blog and work on the novel. (Clearly, I’m blogging now, but I’m doing it while the kid is running around the park. Not the most attentive parent today.) I am afraid that the novel won’t get any attention and that’s just the way it’s going to be.

    But that’s okay.

    I don’t want to beat myself up if I don’t work on every project, every day. It was a good thing that I helped out my friends and got to spend time with them. Things go sideways, that’s just life. I need to be more forgiving to myself, and be more confident that I am committed to following through on writing.

  • 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.)

  • Coronavirus: Return

    And that is the word we kick around here, “Return.”

    Such as, “When we return to normal,” or “When we return to riding the subway,” or “When we returning to eating out…” When it’s late at night, and I can’t sleep, that’s when I start thinking about the things, and how we might not “return” to a lot of stuff quickly. Moving back to New York, I was ready to return back to the puppeteering world, but I don’t know when theatres will be opened again.

    The other thing I get asked, is what do you want to do outside of your apartment when things open up?

    See, there isn’t one thing I want to do, or go to.

    What I miss is coming home. That it’s the end of the day, I am returning to my safe space. The place I spend with my wife and kid. I miss the joy of coming home, and choosing not to leave.

    It’s so much work to be outside of the home in New York City, and that was the good old days. You can’t get anywhere quickly, and you are around people when you want to be alone and introspective.

    Got off the rails here…

    Anyway, one day we will return to something.

  • Coronavirus: Repeat

    What has been taking up our time is just getting used to this being what our life is like. I am working from home, and that doesn’t lend well to helping with the schooling of the kid, which the wife has to do, pretty much, alone. Grocery shopping has to happen during the week to avoid huge lines, and even then, it still can be a three-hour chore. Laundry just feels dangerous, and even though the laundromat I go to is clean, enforces social distancing with people by limiting the number allowed in at one time, but still, and this is an emotional reaction not a logical one; it just feels unsafe for some reason. And lots of walks, but not so much with the working out, and that does need to change soon. The weather is getting better, so hopefully we can get on that.

    And that is what life is sort of like, which is not bad compared to other people, but it also feels like this will go on forever. It feels like the only thing that changes is the weather, and we just wash and repeat every day. It’s like we are living “Groundhog Day,” and I do wish Bill Murray was here.

  • Coronavirus: A Month In

    I fell off cliff when it comes to writing. All writing, not just this, but I haven’t written in my journal, no short stories, and I haven’t worked on any of my novels. Just nothing. And I haven’t really been as creative as I had I would be in this time. I was thinking that working from home would allow me to power through my work and then have the time to jot down ideas, and then at night work on those ideas. That hasn’t materialized the way I though it would. Work takes all my time, and then I need to help out with the kid and her online schooling. With walks, making lunch and dinner some days, by the time we get the kid in bed, it’s booze time, and just trying to relax our way out of the day and this existence. I don’t want to sound too downer about it, but by the end of the day, everything has worn us down, and it’s like just a victory to survive the day and be healthy. But tomorrow, that might change. And it makes it hard to do the long-term work that is writing. You have to believe that you get to have a great many tomorrows so you can create a book, or even a decent story. This is the first opportunity that I feel that I have had in two weeks to sit down and think about putting words to what I am feeling.

    Thankfully, we are all healthy in the apartment, and generally dealing well with each other.