Category: Cabin Fever 2020

Four-twenty. So blaze up if you’re in a place where that’s legal, and the cops won’t shoot you in your sleep. Yes, this was a find from Michael Malice I heard on a radio show today.

Today’s challenge? Play cards. Uh, I’m not sure I have a deck of cards. If I do have one, who knows where it is.

Hmm. Is there an EMACS Solitaire game? Yep. M-x solitaire. Yeah, no idea how to work this.

And you might ask yourself, “how di I work this?”

Yes, they were re-running the David Byrne performance on Saturday Night Live this past weekend.

(And if you’ve got GNU EMACS installed, it’s M-x solitaire)

Good session this morning with my therapist. She wanted me to look at I did have one of the sorts of dreams I started seeing her for. Oddest thing. I think it might have been related to an email response I was putting together to a friend that really hit on how out-of-place I feel sometimes when I’m in among the affluent in DC. She sent me this, but I’m having trouble seeing how it really fits.

Part of the discussion, too, was about my near automatic rejection of authoritarianism. The various governors’ stay-at-home orders give me more than a moment’s pause.

And that makes me a bad person. Or dangerous if you’re Chuck Todd.

This morning looks like this:

I could give the info on which coffee it is, but I’m too lazy to go look in the Keurig to see.

Probably this, with some heavy cream.

I’m not really seeing anything on the Cabin Fever page as a challenge for today, so I’m struggling to find something to write about.

Flashback to a decade ago:

04/19/2010 – 4/19/2010

This weekend was pretty good. My fiancee is so wonderful; words just can’t describe how much she has helped me, or what I know she will do. It’s such a difference….amazing how far the both of us have come in the almost four years we’ve been together. She did read the “spoon theory” of MS…made her cry. “Do you feel like this?” “Some days. I’m not really that bad, but it does kind of encapsulate the way I’ve felt the past few weeks, since I’ve been in this ‘episode.'”

Today, however, wasn’t as successful. While some of my symptoms have subsided, after a not-so-good night of sleep, balance and eyes were affected today. Numbness down below seems to be subsiding some. Work, of course, has been trying. I’m really not sure where to go with that — I feel under-appreciated, but what can I do? The local management have been pretty understanding, but I do wonder if I should be looking for something either less stressful, or better paying.

That said, my slot is safe through next July. Considering the job market these days, having a gig is a good thing.

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This morning’s background discussion. They’re talking about getting distracted from meditation by social media.

That I’ve tried to delete as many things as possible connected to Facebook and Google has lifted many weights. As I’ve been cooped up, I’ve looked at Facebook more often, and I’ve found myself less disturbed about many things.

It makes me a worse cable news acolyte, certainly. That I don’t trust Chuck Todd, and get upset about things makes me dangerous.

Okay, then.

Today’s prompt:

Bake or try a new recipe today.

No, I can’t do this. I don’t have the time, and the kitchen really isn’t my domain anymore. I can cook steaks (yes, I can do them on the stove in a skillet….nearly perfectly), or reheat leftovers in the oven.

But even before, I was never terribly skilled at baking. While I was pretty adept at Chemistry in school, as far as doing it at home, it’s been tough. Last year, my brother, his brother-in-law, and father-in-law were putting together some beer. I think I sampled some, and it turned out pretty good.

I don’t know if I could do that. We’ve got a garage now, but i’m not sure if I have the patience, really.

*gets sidetracked, and wonders if he wrote about the horrible-looking cake he made for his then-fiancee years ago*

Nope. Nothing.

Maybe I was too embarrassed to even write about it. At least it did taste good.

We’ll see what tomorrow’s challenge is. Maybe it’ll be something I can feel halfway okay about saying I completed.

Jitsi chat for HRGeeks tonight, per yesterday’s entry.

I wasn’t sure if I wrote yesterday, but it looks like I did put at least a little something up.

This is why it’s a compulsion, I suppose.

Today’s prompt was an urge to have a video conference with friends on something like Google Hnagouts, Zoom, FB Live, whatever.

Nobody really wants to see me, but I suppose there is something that someone might want to hear my ever-slowing speech.

On Friday nights, as all this has been going on, the HR Geeks folks have been getting together on Jitsi.

It was fun enough that I decided to drop some cash to buy a webcam I can use with this wheezing PC I have.

But it’s tomorrow night. Did I really meet the challenge for the day? (Yes, I said that I did in the self-scoring. After all, it is a different platform, maybe less open to random interlopers. Really. Nobody wants to see that, bro. Seriously. Because there’s something wrong with me, I can’t help but think of Fight Club when I hear stories like this on the news.)

The second half of the month is underway, and I feel like I should feel more shut-in. But I don’t.

And for whatever reason, although I’ve removed my CV from pretty much every job site, I can’t get the arts major corporate recruiters to go away.

Yes, I’ve got the skills you’re looking for. No, you don’t have the situation I’m looking for. I will negotiate, but with every single thing that’s not completely what I want, it’s going to cost you more money. I don’t have a lot of time or energy left.

Today’s thing was on meditation. I’ve not yet actually watched the somewhat in-artfully-linked video that went with it.

Do I meditate? No, not really. I’ve never been good at taking time to calm myself that way.

I do try to collect my thoughts, perhaps do some breathing, but I’ve never really been about the close-your-eyes-and-say-om thing.

Today’s work challenge was some odd version of ASCII Art. With my bad eyesight, I couldn’t really see anything, despite repeated zooms in and out, and attempts to change my perspective physically.

I am going blind. It’s one of my symptoms. Is it frustrating? Abso-fucking-lutely. Maybe I could just ignore that fact, and would feel better, but things like that just reinforce it.

I started plunking away at this while listening, again, to a podcast that’s causing petulance. See this. Ignorance is bliss, maybe, but you shouldn’t strive for it. Even if it makes you happier. How’s that for “truthiness?”

I admit I was very worried about getting my last Tysabri infusion because of what might happen if I get COVID-19. I spoke to my neurologist, and she said to go ahead with it. Unsurprisingly, I feel a lot better after I finally got my “recharge.”

But the bigger point, the point the Pod host, and Chuck Todd don’t get, is that people can handle continuous updates on information, even if there’s some small variances.

I swear, officer, I didn’t know I was fifteen over. I mean, I checked the speedometer three minutes before you clocked me!

Yeah, GLWT.

Rant kinda derailed by work. I’m going to step aside for the afternoon.

My company, which is more than a little awesome, is doing this challenge to ameliorate some of the cabin fever as all this stuff goes on.

I’ve not been out of the front door of my apartment in probably like two weeks. Since I came home from getting my infusion I’ve maybe answered the door once.

But I thought this might be an opportunity to revisit some of the things I’ve written before they knew what the hell was wrong with me.

I was going to share something from 1999, but I’ve decided against doing that.

Incredibly enough, that was probably not about ominous MS symptoms.

So, no, right now I don’t have anything particular to write about.

I will write about the challenges as I do them, and try to describe what I wrote about.

Today’s bit? A photo of what “cabin fever” brought about. Maybe. I don’t know.