Traumalympics

I've talked around this topic before, but never come right out and said it in so many words.

This is bigger than you. 

It's bigger than you, your family, your health, your business, and your personal needs.

This is about living for everyone.

And a disease that kills this quickly and has tons of people who are asymptomatic but contagious... it's a trifle more immediately obvious than the somewhat vague phrase "climate change" or the less accurate "global warming."

I have friends, real-life-I-love-them friends, who think it's all overblown hype. I have had to snooze or block these friends where I do still see them online because honestly, why are you like this?

It may be overblown hype, but so what?

Honestly, I'm a big proponent of better-safe-than-sorry, and for many more people than my fat, asthmatic, at-risk self. Maybe that's the issue - the people who are seeing it as solely hype or only about their ability to make a living just don't possess (or were never taught) the ability to see past their own noses.

It's my goal to get everyone out of this physically healthy and reasonably sane, and I feel like anything else is icing on the cake. I'd love to learn Japanese, lose fifty pounds, and make a million dollars during this time, but I'll be satisfied with getting out of it as healthy as I went in.

You are not more traumatized because you can't have your weekly mani-pedi or your school can't deal with your kids long-distance or you haven't been to a baseball game or the opera for weeks.

And before you get all holier-than-thou, know this: I still worry (and complain) about my Quarantine Mullet and how much I need a massage and whether I'll have work next month. Of course I do.

I just don't advocate putting everyone on the planet at risk so I can have those things now.

Calmer Now

Oh, I'm still angry about the way my federal government is doing... well, almost everything, to be honest, and the Covfefe Covidiots out there risking infecting us all because the more responsible state governments are apparently restricting their rights to what... eat in restaurants? Shop without protective gear? Steal our bootstraps?

Anyway, having gotten that out of my system, had a shouting match (from a safe distance) with someone I love and trust, blocked or at least snoozed several real-life people who have apparently joined the CC or the Not-All brigade, revamped our household systems to make it easier for all of us to be decent in several areas, and blamed Guilder for it (we always blame Guilder), I'm calmer at least.

Still angry and indignant and grieving the Before Times, but calmer.

I'm privileged in many ways. I still have a little work through the end of the month at least, and maybe the end of the school year. I have a screening interview online for potential remote work through the summer. I have federal income at least until Abby turns 18 and probably through the end of her senior year of high school, and then somewhat less until Lizzy ditto. I have enough food, clothing, electricity, bandwidth, physical health, mental health, and tools to help me maintain these (everything from old books and video games to Disney+, a new printer than just arrived, and the SodaStream my mom got us for Easter). I have things to do to help me feel like I'm helping without infecting myself or my kids. I have supportive friends, family, and educators on my side (even if we don't always agree on things less earth-shattering than pandemics).

By two PM I'll have fresh banana bread that Lizzy and I are making together. 💖

So yeah, is life kinda sucky on some levels right now? Sure, but life is like that.

And there's a whole paragraph of Good Things to help balance out the Bad Things.

Plus banana bread.

And that helps a lot.

The Little Guy Needs Help Too - So I'm Asking for It

CW: language

That's 'guy' in a gender-neutral blanket term sense.

And no, I'm not talking about the truly down-and-out folks here. "People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy half a slug who must tighten his belt." ~Lazarus Long, Time Enough for Love, Robert Heinlein. The safety net is there if you look hard enough for the broke-in-a-big-way folks. 

And evidently, it's there for the medium-sized Little Guy as well, as the "small business" loans coming out of the stimulus package are apparently being granted to the under-500-employees (expanded from under-50-employees) businesses before the smaller groups. I mean, sure, it's anecdotal, but I have anecdotes from six different local business owners (running the gamut from personal services like physical therapy and event planning to goods like bakeries and children's clothing) that they applied for the small business loans as soon as the applications were available, jumped through all the hoops, and at the end of the day were told... nope. "Sorry, but these other (bigger) companies requested larger (probably) loans earlier (no, not unless the loan institutions put the smaller loans at the bottom on the pile), so there's not three grand left for you to retrofit your business to sell x online. Sorry! Please come again!"

This. Is. Wrong.

And it's ass-backward.

We're told to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps... but then they steal the boots they promised and sell them to someone else at a profit. I'm not a communist, I'm not even a proper socialist, but I'm certainly not a 21st-century capitalist. This shit is suicidal in the long run and maybe even in the short term.

I've been in this boat on a personal level most of my adult (and all of my parenting) life. I make (just) enough and I own a (mobile) home (with a mortgage) so I do *have* assets. The fact that I can't liquefy these assets to buy food and medical care in our beyond-shitty so-called "system" is beside the point. 

But this isn't about me. And I am definitely not advocating for "reopening the economy" when there is still a very real risk of all your customers dying.

People are so concerned about their livelihoods that they risk their lives and those of their fellow humans. And they've been convinced to do so by our Dear Leader, who is literally inciting to riot and the people who are supposed to be keeping a leash on him are waving a red flag in front of him instead. 

This. Is. Wrong.

And many of you people who support him... you claim to be Christians. Shame on you.

I'm rambling, and I'm sure I'll get trolled by a bunch of not-all apologists and the folks who think their right to X supersedes my right to breathe in and out, and you know what? I'm beyond fucking caring at this point.

I'm starting a fundraiser. I don't mind doing it, but I'm pissed as hell it needs to be done by me, a random private citizen, so I can disburse it to people and small businesses  I think really need it. If my government doesn't give a shit about the little guy, I will.

Random Thoughts in the Time of Coronavirus

Whoever said that money can't buy happiness was never short of the former. Oh, maybe it can't buy actual happiness, but it can buy (some) peace of mind, and these days, we can use all of that we can get.

Just because you don't want to see or use it doesn't mean it shouldn't be available. This applies to everything from Covid-19 contingency plans to abortion to religion.

No, thanks, I still don't need viagra OR anything to enlarge my penis.

Lizzy should not be around other humans until after breakfast. Maybe even Second Breakfast; the child is a very grumpy hobbit.

About that; her teachers are all awesomesauce. Supportive folk.

People who feel that "everything is a spectrum" except for their own pet topic, which is an absolute, whatever it may be... those people are hypocrites.

No, Biden is not "just as bad" as Trump. Is he a good person? I don't know. Neither do you. But he is demonstrably less bad than what we've got.

Dear Leader needs to delay stimulus checks to put his name on them?! While defunding WHO? What. The. Actual. Fuck?

It's not a goddamn competition.

The party that has been championing States' Rights for ages is now screaming that states shouldn't take care of themselves when the feds won't?

Happiness (in this case, via money) is paying bills current and still having some leftover for (educational) toys and kits. Which is why we have still more books, LEGO, Snap Circuits, art supplies, jigsaw puzzles, and the like, either newly in-home or on the way.

Some people seem to think I am not qualified to speak on any topic. One person actually told me I am "not oppressed enough" to have an informed opinion, on a topic in which I am the oppressed class in question (neurodiverse women). I have seen a disturbing amount of this online - with me and some online friends - here lately. I try to remember that we're all under stress and lashing out, because the alternative is that the folks making these statements are shallow assholes.

Abby and I are a bit nonplussed that our current favorite anime to watch together (dubbed, because if we wanted to read it, I'd get the manga. Snob.) is about volleyball. We don't even sportsball here. But we looooove Haikyuu!

Being stuck at home is exhausting. I think it's the constant pervading sense of Certain Doom.

I have made liberal and extensive use of the Unfriend. Block, Snooze, and Restrict Notifications settings on my Facebook. For reasons. It seems to help. I don't want an echo chamber, but neither do I want to argue over every little thing that crosses my path.

Staying One Jump Ahead of Gaston the Candyman

That was an adventure.

See, Lizzy's having a rough time with piano - as I'm sure her music teacher could tell you if she weren't a much nicer person than I am - with focus just now. She wants to continue, but the realities of Covid-19 StayHomeSafe™ are really tough on her. Even under normal circumstances - which these emphatically are not - Lizzy has the following sensory issues with piano pieces:

1. It has to be a song she already knows from Girl Scouts or movies or TV or whatever. And the media with which she associates the tune can be an issue - she seems unable to deal with, say, Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," as to her it's "the victory theme for Peggle." Same goes for things where she learned a parody before the original... she gets distracted if the lyrics are different.
2. It has to "sound right." This means if it's in a different key or time signature than that she originally heard it in, she may or may not be able to cope. And god forbid someone arranges a piece to drop a note into a more accessible octave.
3. She resists - sometimes to the point of outright refusal - to attempt a new key or time signature without her expert (i.e. her teacher - I can read music but I'm really slow on treble clef) on the spot to hold her hand. But she still gets bored with old songs really quickly once she perceives her skill as "good enough."

Adding in long-distance lessons via Zoom (both school and music lessons), a homegrown routine instead of the usual weekdays-at-school rules, and all the other stuff and stress and anxiety going on right now, and well... she's a little unfocused and having issues. Issues with compliance, cooperation, and general crankiness.

I get it. I'm her mom, I'm very much the same and was more so in my early adolescence where she is now; the biggest difference now is that I have more coping mechanisms than she does. One of my coping mechanisms is to Do Something About It... no matter how small, my anxieties can always be relieved somewhat by Fixing a Problem... in this case, with helping her find a new song, as she feels she has pretty much mastered the outro from Adventure Time. Not that she'll prove it to her music teacher because of all that up there. ☝☝☝

So... here's what we did. We fed everyone lunch so nobody has hunger or low blood sugar as an excuse for not participating. We got out all of both Lizzy's easy piano books and Abby's much more extensive collection of audition songbooks, which have both voice and piano parts. We sat down and made a list of songs Lizzy would be okay with trying right now (nine songs, eight of which are from Disney films or their stage show versions) because she knows them well enough to satisfy Rule One above. We pared that down to three ("One Jump Ahead" from Aladdin, "Gaston" from Beauty and the Beast, and "The Candyman" from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) by applying Rule Three above. That left us with three, which she tried on her piano by playing the first line (and that's the first line of the lyrics, mind you; she needs to start there to grok it) after playing whichever major scale applied to that song.

I would have preferred this one. Maybe next time.

And the winner is... "One Jump Ahead" from Aladdin! Lizzy's just so charmed by the HIGH-low of "ONE-jump" at the beginning of the song that she's willing to try. And that's huge. And it took almost an hour; there's no way to manage this process in a half-hour remote music lesson.

If anyone could have managed it, that would have been Lizzy's music teacher; she's that awesome. But I'm not willing to put her through all that as an accommodation for Lizzy's needs when I can do it myself. And right now, I certainly have the time to spare on taking it slow and making sure it gets done. Teamwork in the Time of Corona.