Monthly Archives: December 2020

Break from the Pandemic Diary: Detox this

Subtitle: Consider that part of the problem in your fixation on toxic relationships is you? Could ya’?

On Christmas Day and Boxing Day, in between people, tears, and naps (it was a weird-ass Christmas, what can I say), I binge-watched Bridgerton, fell in love with the gorgeous Simon (not so much with Daphne, but oh, when Heloise gets her own storyline, yes, and also, Lady Danbury, yum, and Marina and Sienna? OMG), and knew immediately it was only a matter of time before someone would try to ruin it all for me with some kind of perfectionist analysis.

It ain’t perfect. But it’s gorgeous and sexy and I loved it. Why can’t you just let me enjoy it?

I didn’t—I haven’t—I won’t—read any of the critiques, btw. But I see the headlines, and I hear my friends jabbering about them. The ones that piss me off the most are the ones that dive into the “toxicity” of the relationships in the story.

So let’s get two things straight, right now. First, in a patriarchy—and we live in one—it’s virtually impossible to have a relationship—any relationship, between people of any genders, not just a man and a woman, but especially between a man and a woman—that’s free of misogynist overtones.

(Just like in a white supremacy, it’s impossible to not be a racist, no matter what colour your skin or how ardently you value equal human rights  for all. But let’s keep things focused on gender right now. It is easier.)

Second, it’s impossible to have a perfect relationship. Period. THERE IS NO SUCH THING. There are more or less functional ones, more or less co-dependent ones, more or less frustrating ones—if you’re in a perfect relationship? You’re delusional (probably due to the hormone cocktail that makes us fall in love). And if you’re looking for a perfect relationship and refusing to settle for anything less?

Good fucking luck, Your Grace.

Perfection occurs occasionally on movie screens and within the pages of a book, because the creator yells cut before the hard stuff starts. It’s fiction. And fiction is also delusional.

But sometimes, we need our delusions, you know? So lay off Simon and Daphne.

By the way: perfect relationships make for fucking boring plots and screenplays. You know this. Do you want to watch a movie about a couple who come together, experience no difficulties and misunderstandings caused by conflicting values and priorities, miscommunication, and the fragility of being human and fallible? You do? You lie. Those stories are unreadable, unwatchable. They bomb at the box office. You want drama in your onscreen relationships. You devour it.

The problem comes when you want and thus create that drama in your real life relationships.

I find the term “toxic” in general, and in reference to relationships in particular, somewhat triggering these days, and I would love to see it disappear or at least diminish in popularity in pop psychology and on my friends’ social media timelines. There are a number of reasons for this, the first of which is that the people who use the term the most… tend to be, to be honest, kinda toxic themselves. I wouldn’t use that particular word to describe them, a) because I dislike it and b) because there are many others: negative, whiny, pouty, querulous, waspish, petulant, self-victimizing, other-blaming, generally not a pleasure to be around, and rarely contributing in a positive way to my relationships with them, because, at any given moment in any given interaction, they are likely to start complaining about their toxic relationships with their exes, currents, parents, friends, bosses, colleagues, etc.

This, of course, makes me wonder what they say about me when I’m not around. It’s probably not good even when our relationship is smooth, and once we hit rough waters—and all meaningful relationships hit rough waters sometimes—I know what they’re going to say about me.

“She was so toxic.”

“That relationship was becoming just too toxic.”

Ugh.

To all the people who keep on airing their toxic relationship laundry on in my newsfeeds… I don’t want to gaslight you. Shitty, exploitative and downright evil relationships exist, and if you’re in one of those, with a friend, lover, or family member, get da’ fuk out. But could ya, like, maybe consider that if all your relationships are toxic… maybe the problem, is, like, you?

I’m not saying you’re toxic. As I’ve said, I dislike the word, and I don’t throw it around. But, like… maybe you could use a detox. From, like, thinking that what’s wrong with all of your relationships is the other person. Like… dude, dudess, sponge cake: at least some of it is you.

And until you figure that out, and change your role, reactivity, and responsibility in them, every relationship you have will be toxic.

Doing the work to figure that out, though, is hard. It’s much easier, instead to point out how the fictional relationship that I want to enjoy in my book or Netflix binge-watch is toxic and rail about that.

But you know what? Go ahead and rail and rant. Maybe that’s part of the process—maybe that’s how you work it all out for yourself. I’m not gonna read it though, and I’m gonna watch Bridgerton again, because Simon, Heloise, Marina, Sienna… and of course, Lady Whistledown, perfect in all their imperfections.

And then, when it’s allowed again, I will embrace you and tell you that I love you in all of your imperfections, despite all the conflicts, miscommunications, drama, trauma, stupid decisions, outright mistakes.

Deal? No? I’m toxic and you’re pursuing perfection?

Good luck. Your Grace.

xoxo

Jane

Pandemic Diary: COVID Christmas Canticle

December 25, 2020

Two years ago was the worst Christmas ever, a year ago was the most awkward and delusional Christmas ever, and so, this COVID Christmas morning, which finds me alone in bed, a steaming cup of coffee (with cinnamon ) beside me, and cranberry cake too, and, of course, Morning Pages—well, it’s weird and different.

But it’s not bad. Not at all. Things have been so much worse.

I hate it that that’s my yardstick. But it is a pretty effective one, you know? There have been a number of occasions over this past year when I’ve looked at someone totally losing their shit over a quarantine-lockdown first world whine, and all I’ve been able to think is, “Wow, so you’ve never suffered before, not even a little bit… how incredibly lucky you have been… and how ill-equipped to deal with this stumble you are, you child of good fortune…”

To be clear—if I could wave a magic wand and take away Flora’s suffering over the past two, three years—and my own by extension—I’d do it in half a heartbeat. However. As it is the part of the package of my life as I’ve lived it so far? Zoom Christmas Eve was lame but hardly the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, you know?

In my family and culture, we celebrate on Christmas Eve, an orgy of food and presents. This year, we celebrated in three households—the kids and me in my little hobbit house in Sunnyside, my brother and his family in Auburn Bay, my parents on the hill in Signal Hill. One city, three neighbourhoods—I pretended we were in different countries. It was okay. My Mom still cooked all the foods that I still don’t know how to make (I should get on that, perhaps). My over-enthusiastic parents played Santa Claus and braved the winter roads to deliver the grandchildren’s presents after supper. My children gorged themselves on pierogis—the dogs on the Christmas cookies they liberated from the dessert table while the rest of us were opening presents (don’t ask about the results of that). Afterwards, we played Anomia and watched a couple of episodes of Community on my laptop. Laughed.

I walked the kids to their coop house just before 10 pm—the night was warm and beautiful, and it felt like a very, very good Christmas Eve.

I will miss—I do miss—being there for their Christmas morning. Earlier in the week, a friend suggested that there was no reason why I shouldn’t be there. Wouldn’t it be better for the kids if we just did Christmas the way we had before? We’re getting along well, polite and kind, why not spend Christmas together?

I didn’t bother to explain. I’ve learned a lot from watching friends divorce badly for the past 15 years. It behooves me not to repeat their mistakes—I am committed to making only new ones.

So. Christmas morning alone in bed with my morning pages, coffee, cake—maybe a movie—Bridgerton premiers today, no? Christmas night with you—sushi, Bailey’s, Christmas leftovers. The middle of the day? I might write. Walk the dog.

Or stay in bed and binge watch Bridgerton.

A day off.

Not such a bad thing, you know.

Thigs have been worse.

This is actually pretty good.

December 26, 2020

Christmas Eve is good. Christmas Day is good. Boxing Day is passing in peace. It all feels like the calm before the storm though—storm hits in the evening. Nearly breaks me. Ender doesn’t want to come over to my house for supper; his reasons don’t matter—his rejection breaks me into little pieces, makes me barely capable of breathing and paying attention to his siblings. He is my smallest one, my least forged one, the one who needs—needed—me the most, the one who I fear will be the most damaged by our separation.

I scream in pain for hours, cry myself to sleep.

December 27, 2020

I am loved and I sometimes make bad decisions—but that’s okay, that’s part of life. I am loved even when I make bad decisions. It’s kind of strange mantra for the day, but it works. I do things that make me feel good enough to get through the early morning, and then Ender and I end up going on a mega walk with the dogs and with Grandma. I manage to not cancel a socially distanced walk with a friend, even though I really, really just want to crawl into bed and cry some more—and it helps, a lot. (It helps even more that my friend, seeing the state I’m in, says, Fuck Covid, and hugs me, holds me.) I cancel—or rather, skip out early—on a Zoom meeting when one of my people asks me to come run some errands with him. The request, I know, is not company for him, but company for me, because he knows I ache.

We run here and there, accomplishing not very much, end up eating South Indian dosas and Albanian sausages in an idling car for supper.

I am loved.

Ender and I skype: “I love you.” “Me loves you too.”

It’s hard, it’s hard, everything is so hard right now.

I am loved.

I am alive. In 2020, that’s the bar.

December 28, 2020

Morning pages, Laundry Monday, walk the dog, drive Cinder to work—attempts to work sabotaged, interrupted, by self, by life. A text—“We’re just walking past your house. Walk?” And I’m outside in a flash, boots and snowsuit on, exhausted but elated. When was the last time I’ve done something spontaneous? When was the last time that was allowed?

We walk. Talk. Walk.

I am loved. I love. I am alive. I survived this fucking nightmare of a year—and so did you. We did it. Lots of others didn’t, but let’s not think too much about them right now. You and I, we’re here, we did it.

Three more days to go.

December 31, January 1, just days in the calendar… but… aren’t you going to be glad when 2020 is over?

December 29, 2020

I am happy.

In 2020 (in 2019…), these are rare moments, and when they happen, I fuck Buddhism and practice attachment with all of my might. Don’t leave. Stay here with me, for this entire day, DO NOT LEAVE.

We walk in winter wonderland, and I understand why some people call it church—I’d still rather be in my sheesha lounge, to be honest, but I’ll take this, I’ll take this—and for a few precious hours, everything is okay with the world.

I am happy, I am loved, I love, I am alive, I am a tiny speck of light and life in a vast universe, insignificant yet infinitely important. Fine. Church.

Perfection.

Return of pain—memory of the moment of pure happiness—hold on to that.

Breathe.

I was happy—I will find that feeling again.

xoxo

“Jane”

Pandemic Diary: No, the pandemic hasn’t changed you—prove me wrong

Let’s start with this quote from the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas:

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you; if you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do  not bring forth will destroy you.

…which I bring to you via my re-reading of Stephen Cope’s The Great Work of Your Life. Cope—and others—use the full quote in the context of finding purpose, vocation, dharma—the meaning of your life, as a kind of life journey encouragement. Find your purpose and do it all out (if you bring forth what is within you, it will save you) or… well, perish and die (if you do not bring forth what is within you, that act of self-denial will destroy you).

Today, I want to fracture and pervert the purpose of this quote, because what I’ve been finding out all through the pandemic is that crisis and stress really excels at bringing out what is already in you. So, if you’ve got an entrepreneur inside you, as soon as shit hit the fan, you were distilling hand sanitizer, sewing face masks, and repositioning your coffee shop into a full catering service for white collar workers trapped in their condo towers. Avowed and formerly secret artists made pandemic art—performers found ways to perform, however inferior. Me, I reverted, on a dime, from writing escapist fiction to documenting the drama and trauma of the moment—the thing most within me is the desire to document and tell the true, real story, not the false, fantastic, soothing fable. You—well, you did your thing.

What was it?

No, really. What’s that thing, your thing? What’s within you that you brought forth during the dumpster fire that was 2020?

The end of the year always makes me pensive and reflective, a combination of the darkness and the turning over of the calendar. The first blank page of 2021—what lesson can I bring to it from 2020? What pain, baggage can I shed?

The exercise is hard in 2020 (I didn’t do it in 2019; it was impossible).

But still. Even though it’s hard, I want to do it. So. What did I learn, about muself, about you, in 2020?

Mostly, my biggest lesson? (You will hate this). People don’t change. Crisis, suffering, trauma—we pretend they temper, shape, save people? They don’t. Experience, good or bad, does not so much change people as it accenctuates—brings forth—what is already in them. So assholes, in 2020, just became more assy and more perforated. Martyrs found more extreme forms of martyrdom and self-righteous self-sacrifice (“I will leave the house never, and, also, not have any contact with anyone at all, not even six feet apart and while wearing a mask, because I want to do everything in my power to keep you safe”—no, honey, you just get off on suffering and sacrificing more than everyone else, and you want your suffering and sacrifice to be more profound than everyone else’s. No judgement here, just so long as we’re clear that you’re engaging in a coping strategy and a stress response just as much as I am—and we’re not pretending that you’re so perfectly, smilingly selfless here.)

For me, I find this year of pandemic has accentuated both my mood swings (see rant above) (also, perimenopausal hormonal shifts probably aren’t helping—but chocolate sure does) and my already unforgiving self-awareness, and also, that ruthless part of me that looks at you and says, “Meh, my life will be fine, if not better, without you, you’re too much work, screw off,” and also the “You’re my people and my responsibility and I will die for you—what do you need” unconditional lovely part, and also, did I mention, mood swings.

It has also amped up the characteristic that had made me such a good journalist back in the day—that part that goes, “Actually, there aren’t two sides to this story, there are two hundred, but this is the most compelling one—why isn’t anyone telling the story like this? Fine. I’ll do it.”

That part of me, I value and like. (The moody, ruthless bitch, less so, but. People don’t change, so I’m stuck with her.)

So what has the pandemic amped up in you? Tell me. Or—it’s probably too personal. Tell yourself. Don’t cheat. Fight the temptation to say, “The way the pandemic has changed me is…” You didn’t change. We don’t change (at least, very, very rarely). But what, that was already inside you, did this crisis bring forward, spotlight, accentuate?

The only wrong answer:

“I’ve always been am empath and, OMG, the pandemic has just made me so much more attuned to the feelings and suffering of others.”

Self-proclaimed empaths, I’ve been watching you all year, and this crisis has made you ever more attuned and aware of your own suffering and very committed to expressing it to others—and generally whining about how your suffering on behalf of others is not appreciated and recognized. A) Pretty sure that’s not empathy—do check the definition. B) Not asking you to suffer on my behalf, so, like stop. C) Asking you to shut the fuck about it, though, ok? Tx.

Um. Did I mention—mood swings? Ruthless?

And also—documenting the drama and the trauma?

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.

Bring it forth.

xoxo

“Jane”

PS Do, by all means, bring forth genuine expressions of empathy—we’ve never needed real empathy more. Hint: such expressions generally do not need to be preceded by the phrase, “As an empath, I…” Empaths focus on other people, notice and respond to what other people are feeling. Narcissists focus on themselves. I know it’s a blurry, hard-to-discern line, but it’s there. Find it.

Pandemic Diary: Of aliens, erectile dysfunction and pillow forts

i

You’ve probably heard by now that COVID-19 may lead to erectile dysfunction among men,and if you haven’t, well, you have now, so spread the word. I’m very excited about this rumour—and, sorry, it is not backed by any scientific claim, just one dude talking out loud and claiming the title “expert” because, I don’t know why, well, he has a penis, so I suppose that’s enough, so he’s just talking and grabbing headlines, because, limp penises are newsworthy, in a patriarchy, anyway—but anyway, I’m so excited about this, because if COVID-19 negatively impacts men’s sexual performance, the vaccine is so gonna work, and also, there’s gonna be a cure just around the corner.

Prove me wrong.

I’m being silly (maybe) but, really. Prove me wrong.

ii

You’ve probably heard by now that the mass inoculation program against COVID-19 has been masterminded by aliens who… what? You draw the line at that? You sure? Alien conspiracy theories are my absolute favourite. Come on. If you’re gonna go that way, go all the way.

I dare you.

No, I don’t think you’re stupid. Desperate and thus gullible, yes.

Anyway. I’m just in a mood and I want to poke at you.

Where were we? Right.

Aliens.

iii

I want, I want, I want—today, I want to build a pillow fort in my bed and never come out—some things I need to do, children, dogs, work—I want to want things but all I want is this blanket around me. So. Today, I don’t resent the lockdown even though the lockdown is the reason I don’t want to get out of bed. Funny, hey?

Funny?

xoxo

“Jane”

PS It is a lockdown even though the malls are open. Do you not understand? I do not care about the malls. You can keep them closed until the end of time. I need my people in my pillow fort

Pandemic Diary: Let me scream, let me scream: Christmas is cancelled, and it’s okay to be really, really mad about it

i

I am doing my best to let everyone deal with the dumpster fire that is Alberta’s second wave lockdown as best as they can. I’m letting people scream—not that I could stop them (control reak much, Jane? Yup, not just a little), but you know what I mean. Regardless of whether they are “it’s a hoax” anti-maskers, herd immunity libertarians or “lock ourselves in iron lungs and never come out” extreme protectionists—whatever they are screaming feeling? It’s all valid. Yes, even the hoaxers. This situation sucks so much, and angry, frightened, confused—disempowered—people don’t make good decisions.

So I let them scream.

(By which I mean, I don’t leave nasty, contradictory or disempowering comments on their rants. I just let them… be.)

I know I’m doing better, myself, because I can let them scream, and I can listen to them. In mid-November (fuck, mid-October), I couldn’t, and I’d look at the tweeting masses and kinda go, “God, I only wish this virus was more deadline—none of you deserve to live.”

I’m slightly more compassionate now—this week… this day… this precise hour, anyway. Scream, baby. Scream all you want to, need to, my pissed off little love. Christmas is coming, ditto Yalda and Solstice, Hanukkah is here, Kwanzaa just around the corner, and all of this sucks ass.

In my newsfeed, a meme like this: If you’re moaning that Christmas is cancelled, then what did you learn from the Grinch?

That Christmas is about holding hand with your people and signing together around a naked pole, then carving the roast beast for all the members of your community and, like, celebrating together. What did you learn from the Grinch? That it’s about sitting alone in your cave and hating the Whos?

Dammit, sorry—that thread of compassion in me… it’s thin and it just snapped. Sorry, sorry. You too are screaming: you’ve missed Christmas Day celebrations before because shift work, travel, university, illness. Whatever. But you know it’s not Christmas Day we’re mourning.

It’s holding our people, tight. And babe… I know you gotta scream. But you also gotta let me scream. Because I want, I want, I want to be part of the three generation pierogi-making assembly line. I want to have Christmas Eve brunch with my friend and get kinda tipsy if not outright drunk (with my friend) so that I go to the over-the-top Polish Christmas Eve dinner at my parents’ house with a buzz. I want to experience all the family fights and the over-eating and the present orgy that on other years frustrate me. I want to do it all with my kids, my parents, my brother and his wife, my nieces and nephews, and any and all orphans we’ve gathered around us that year. I want to end the night at my beloved neighbour’s annual Christmas Eve open house. I want to wake up on Christmas Day not knowing who will drop by that morning. I want to swing by your house mid-afternoon with your present and disappear into your arms, into your love for a few exhilarating minutes. I want to spend the evening, night with everyone I love.

And the fact that I can’t do that –it really, really sucks. And you—I’m talking to you, lockdown lover, so in love with the righteousness and self-sacrifice of your suffering—you need to let me scream that it sucks.

Because it does.

ii

I am, of course, doing new things this December so that Christmas does not utterly suck for me, my parents, and especially my children. (I don’t have an awful lot of energy to spare for my friends, to be honest, forgive me.) I might even make it beautiful: I came up with a fantastic idea for the kids Advent calendar, and I’m doing a Yalda/Solstice thing for the first time, and… well. Stuff. But when people tell me, with relentless positivity, to embrace this lockdown as an opportunity to create new traditions? I want to kick and scream. Just… let me mourn the old ones, okay? Let me be ad. And let me hope that in 2021, I’ll do all the old things again. (Maybe some of the new.) With my people, tightly in my arms.

iii

I’ve seen this type of messaging too: “This isn’t the first Christmas that I’ve spent away from family. You’ve never worked shift work, travelled, gone away to uni and been to broke to come home for the holidays? Suck it up.”

Come on, people. I’ve spent lots of Christmases away from my family—a country away, a content away, two oceans away (is that even possible? I’m not sure…). But in none of those situations was I alone. The first adult Christmas my brother and I spent away from my parents, we were together in Korea—and we organized an old school Polish Christmas Eve for my roommates. The next day, we had a Southern Texan Baptist meets Pennsylvanian German Quaker meets Toronto Atheist Christmas Day, and on Boxing Day, we celebrated Korean-style with our students. My Christmases in Montreal, all of us “orphans” came together. The Christmas my parents spent on a cruise in Australia—it was a great Christmas, but we all chose to spend it the way we did.

This one? It’s not a choice. It’s forced on us by circumstance.

And it’s disempowering, and it sucks.

Scream.

Scream as much as you need to.

Just, like… not at me?

xoxo

“Jane”

Pandemic Diary: On plurality, the weirdoes I love, and talking to strangers

drafted in late November

i

Flora: Am I still your “most likely to grow up to be a serial killer child”?

Jane: Yes?

Flora: You’re not sure?

Jane: I’m sure, but I’m not sure what answer you want to hear?

ii

Flora and I are walking briskly in the cold-not-cold November air from her house to mine (it’s still a mindfuck to me that this is a thing: her house, the kids’ house not being the same thing as my house). She’s going to watch my friend’s neurotic dog while the friend and I go out for sheesha (a perfectly legal act during this weird-ass non-lockdown, yes it makes no sense, yet, it’s totally fucked, but there it is). And suddenly—OMG—shiny things! A lawn of an apartment building strewn with treasures. Incense and Tarot books, candles, scarves, so many pretty things. Flora and I plunge into their midst.

“Are you moving?” I ask the woman who, from the safe distance of the balcony, tells us to take what we like and donate what we can, either into the jar or via etransfer.

“Just downsizing, decluttering, passing stuff on,” she says.

Her book collection is great, and lots of the odds and ends and knick-knacks make me smile. I introduce myself and tell her, “You have so many lovely things here. Also, I love your books. We should be friends.”

In another time—by which I mean, in a time unravaged by this modern plague—we’d exchange phone numbers and make a plan to meet for coffee tomorrow, probably at Vendome. Or maybe I’d ask her if she likes sheesha, would she want to come with me and mine to Cafe Med sometime, maybe even today? But in this time, in this stupid semi-lockdown, we just look at each other with hungry eyes. I make a note of the apartment building address, her balcony. Maybe in the spring, I’ll ask her to hang out. If we can, if it’s “safe.”

Flora and I resume our walk. She seems a bit perturbed. And, here it comes:

Flora: If that’s the way you meet people, no wonder you’re friends with so many weirdoes.

No one as judgemental as a teendager—no one as easily embarassed by a parent as a teenager either. Still. This is, to be fair, one of the less antagonistic things she’s thrown at me these days; almost an invitation to dialogue and conversation.

I take it.

Jane: I love my friends and they’re amazing. What? Who’s weird?

Flora: You’re friends with like, anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers! And people who are in cults!

Also, one of my friends is married to a Flat Earther. But I don’t think Flora knows that.

Jane: I only have one friend in a cult, and it’s not really a cult, more like an intentional community with cult-like overtones, and she’s one of the  most loving, thoughtful people I know.

Also, I didn’t meet her on the street. I met her in cyberspace, which I suppose is the 21st century version of talking to strangers on the street?

But I digress—Flora and I fall into what is now a common conversation for us, in which I tell her I think it’s important to spend time with, to listen to, to try to understand all sorts of people. Hanging out exclusively in a silo of people who think just like you is bad for the brain and bad for the heart—bad for the world, actually. It makes you lazy and narrow-minded and…

She doesn’t exactly disagree. She just doesn’t see the value of my point. She’s in the throes and the enthusiasm of that stage of life at which she’s just starting to find her people. With whom she’s forming a cohesive, supportive cohort from the safety of which she can judge all those are people… who aren’t like her.

Jane: It’s boring to just hang out with people who think just like you, right?

Oh, the look she gives me—only a fifteen year old can give you a look like that. It’s not boring for her. Not yet. It’s new, and so it’s intoxicating.

We seem to, right now, as a society be failing to grow out of this normal, natural, necessary adolescent stage of development of surrounding ourselves with like-minded people… and only like-minded people.

This is harmful, to our personal development and to meta-social development of our culture.

I hear this all the time, and I bet you do too: “I want to be surrounded by like-minded people.” To be sure, who doesn’t? It feels nice. And we all need our safer spaces in which we can relax, and not be the culty weirdo.

But we also need spaces, relationships in which we are challenged, uncomfortable. Excited by the different, inspired to try to understand the inexplicable, oppositional, contradictory.

My most rewarding relationships have always been with the people who are not very much like me. They’re interesting to me. Hanging out with intellectual and emotional copies of me is very, very… dull.

iii

While Flora babysits a neurotic poodle, I spend time with a friend who is not very much like me at all—we share some commonalities but more differences, and that’s what makes our friendship interesting. Later that night, all three kids come over for supper and the teenagers argue over—well, everything. And make Ender cry. I navigate the emotional storm as best as I can; walk them to their house in the dark, thinking about the complexity of relationships.

On the way back I pass the lawn strewn with beautiful things. A couple is going through my future friend’s treasures in the black of the night. I turn on the flashlight on my phone for them.

“Is there any incense left?” I ask. “I was kind of thinking of getting that earlier in the day.”

“Yes!” the woman says. She introduces herself as we scavenge, six feet apart, and feel each other’s vibe.

She’s kinda like me.

“We should be friends,” she says. I ask her where she lives, and she’s not in the hood anymore, but her guy lives just over there. I know the house—I think, in another time, I’ve sat on its porch…

In another time, they’d invite me over for a drink and a joint, right then, right now. Tonight, we each make a mental note to find each other in the spring. Maybe.

They might be my kind of weirdoes. Or cultists. Conspiracy theorists? Or some other kind of animal altogether. I don’t know.

I’d like to find out. I think I’ll like them.

xoxo

Jane

Pandemic Diary: Pandemic fatigue, also, sniffles

I wake up with stuffed nose and sniffles and I don’t know how that’s even possible, unless it’s dog hair allergies, because, for fuck’s sake, I never go anywhere anymore. My fridge is empty and I don’t want to go to the grocery store, because I don’t want to be surrounded by panicked people—I also don’t want to send a minimum wage Instacart employee to the grocery store on my behalf, kwim? If you’ve done no reflection on how your ability to work from home and order in is an epitome of socio-economic privilege—no matter how poor you think you are—do it. Now.

I’m pretty sure it’s allergies…

Anyway, a stuffed up/runny nose is not a COVID-19 symptom. But I think my throat is sore too. Maybe? Is it store? Or is it just dry? Should I tell my kids not to come over today? Cancel my planned six-feet-apart—this is so not six-feet apart, but it’s too far to feel good, why did we even bother—walk with a friend?

Pandemic fatigue. Don’t mock. It’s a thing. People who are tired of making decisions make bad decisions. They decide to stop deciding.

They die.

Ok. The house is warmer now. I’m warmer. Sniffles gone, I think? How about that sore throat? Not sore anymore. But now I have aches. Am I stiff or getting the plague, or some other plague? Or is the pandemic turning me into a hypochondriac as well as an unbearable whiner?

I’m thinking today’s the day I stop drinking, for the month at least, because it’s safer, really, right? Instead of wondering, “Am I drinking too much?” … just drink not at all. I can do it. I don’t want to do it, but I don’t want to do anything, so what’s one more thing?

Damn. Another sneeze. Am I 100 per cent sure sneezing is not a symptom of COVID? Google. Yes. It’s not. But am I getting a cold? How can I be getting a cold? I don’t want to get a cold. Yuck. Or maybe I do. A few days sick in bed with a good reason not to do anything… would not be that bad. Right?

Ugh.

Decision fatigue. Pandemic fatigue. Sniff.

Yawn.

Do all the things, and do them without your friends and without leaving the house.

Yuck.

Also, fuck.

😦

Jane

But the sunrises are beautiful…