Like walking on stage and then putting on a tie and running a comb through your hair.

Note to self...

A piece of sidewalk etiquette I imagined up yesterday was that as people approach each other, they should stick out their arms (to approximate 3 feet from each direction) to calibrate how far apart to walk and whether to step off the sidewalk.

You know those videos of dogs who can't get in the door because they're carrying a wide stick in their mouths? We could just carry around wide sticks in our mouths. For simplicity.

Once there's a reason, it won't be fun anymore.

2: Constantly windmill your arms as you walk, like a little kid bothering their sibling. "I was already doing this when you were walking here! Your right to put your nose somewhere ends where my arm-span begins!"

I just let my son out the door to play tennis with someone from another household, which he asserts has been quarantining appropriately. He assures me that he will maintain social distancing, and will be cautious if the other fellow coughs or sneezes on the tennis ball. I am still nervous.

It's tough to play tennis without touching each others' balls.

I just let my son out to watch people demolish a building.

Honestly, I kind of kicked him out because of too much YouTube.

Totally on board with you about presenter mode. Must not project before program start!!!

This weekend I stopped at a café to order some cannoli after my bike ride. Cycling gear, sunglasses, N95 mask. I apologized at the register once I realized that I looked like a third-rate superhero.

Cycling gear always looks ridiculous, because the butt pads look like you pooped. The mask probably helps.

Oh my god. So much YouTube. How many damned classic Pokemon lets plays can a person watch?

I just let my son out the door to play tennis with someone from another household

The Tennis Channel was televising a low-stakes pro match (Opelka v. Tommy Paul) over the weekend. It was pretty surreal -- for a couple points I thought they were just warming up, because I didn't have the crowd roar to cue me in to the start of game play.

Anyway, there were no ball boys/girls, and the returner was apparently not permitted to touch the ball with his hands. Each player had a bag of balls to serve from, and the server could pick up his own balls. But if the ball died on the returner's side of the court, he either scooped it up with his racket and batted it to the server's side, or else kicked it/putted it with his racket into a collection bin on his own side. It seemed doable. Tennis courts here are still closed though I think.

So many more online meetings, in so many platforms. I'm pretty good about muting by default in work meetings, but doing it for social interactions at home is counterproductive. Muting gets in the way of the "hanging out" feel of players around a table that's half the reason we roleplay online; it's a shadow of normal camaraderie around a table, but so much better than missing another week of socializing.

I had to move piles around because our work meetings are now video instead of audio.

I've been fantasizing about becoming a cause celebre. If we go back to in person instruction then I plan to require all students in my classes to wear a mask. I'm pretty certain some won't, in which case I will tell them they have to leave my classroom. When they don't, I plan to then walk out. Shit storm ensues with students, faculty, admin, union, parents, BoT, and general public all involved.

Yes, I'm exhausted, sour* from finally having finished all the grading for my 155 students this semester, and ready to be done with it all. At my age seems appropriate. But I figure, why not stir the pot and go out with a bang?

* Usually I'm ecstatic at this point but not this year.

15: I was having a conversation about this the other day - how many people now how a "video corner" that is kept uncluttered.

I am blessed with large windows on all exterior walls that wrap around East-South-West, but my video camera doesn't handle back lighting well at all. As a result I need about three different spots, depending on time of day. Or make the other people suffer with constantly adjusting white balance and contrast.

We're going to have a very contentious central committee meeting by zoom tonight. I'd skip it, but I have a proposal, and, anyway, my vote is needed.

I'm finding that I detest online meetings and even the pleasant socializing ones aren't worth it. I need to start turning them down upfront because we aren't actually going to enjoy that. I see the need for work, but I'm certainly not going to do any more voluntary ones.

10: an N95 mask in the community is kind of overkill.

M94 is good enough.

I've been working more the last couple weeks than I ever did before WFH. Today is continuous video calls 8am-5pm. 11 different meetings.

Catheter time.

21: I bring M-80s with me, and threaten to light them if anybody gets too close.

i've been appointed to an absurd temporary current-events driven advisory board in an absurd community, of course the meetings are videoconferences everyone can watch so i receive a constant stream of e-mail and text commentary on two subjects - 1) my what a lot of books you have, this stream of commentary seems to be evenly divided between wow substantively that is a lot of books and wow great interior decoration flex; and 2) gossip filling me in on everyone's ex spouse current inamorata deathly enemy etc. very very self obsessed gossipy community. most of my fellow appointees appear to be completely bonkers, reading off their contributions from the rantings they scrawled in red crayon on a damp cocktail napkin the night before. my favorite co-appointee bc he's sensible and has intelligent things to say is an actual honest to god celebrity hairdresser. i know bc that's how he described himself ("i have no idea what i'm doing here, i'm just a celebrity hairdresser! so honored!") so i looked him up and sure enough, no exaggeration that is exactly who he is. strangely everyone feeding me all the gossip didn't fill me in on this, they all assume i know these things already.

25: Wow! I've never met a celebrity hairdresser! Or even anyone who met a celebrity hairdresser. Are you a celebrity?

within my extensive presidentially-assumed realms, bien sur! or jawohl, i guess? in my real life so much not. just happen to be going through a patch of projects in this craaaazeeee community right now.

gossip filling me in on everyone's ex spouse current inamorata deathly enemy etc

That's all the same person?

I'm dying to know what this committee is! I'm definitely picturing you on Hollywood Squares right now.

20: at the beginning of the pandemic we had some left over from our remodeling two years ago. Overkill but also less fiddly than the cloth masks I have.

19: That's closer to where my wife is; online board games don't appeal at all (our Sunday group met once in the last month, and that's fine with her). For online roleplaying she's been willing to play in our weekly ongoing game-- it's a pale second, but a good excuse to chat with our friends.

It's not my favorite, but I happily join Jackbox games or board games over the internet with existing friends. One of our friends ran us through Action Castle over a google hangout, and that was quite fun.

A pun so bad and relevant I think it could only be appreciated here.

A particular nonprofit org is suing a particular city. It's tricky to figure out how serve them given city hall is closed and everyone's working from home. The city is in communication and says they'll accept service by email. The org is concerned the city could go back on this later and argue they were never properly served. The org could argue estoppel in that scenario, but it's unclear enough they don't want to risk it.

Kibitzer: "If you serve the lawsuit over e-mail, you get to call it e-stoppel."

Have you ever met a celebrity, peep? If so you have met someone who has met a celebrity hairdresser.

How about you put this lollipop someplace deep.

Meeting was 4 hours long. 83 people. In the end, all my stuff got approved, and all the trouble-makers' stuff got rejected.

Hello folks!
I haven't been around these parts at all for a long time but I might as well say hi.
I already hated my job and struggled with work avoidance so this situation hasn't helped. Trying to do it from home is frustrating - all the support staff were sent home for the duration, they get the government employer payment, so the fee earners all traipse in for few hours several days a week to do their own printing / copying /scanning / envelopes for post. (We get topped up so far to our old salary but the government is still subsiding our pay substantially. I think it's better than the UK system where getting the govt. payment means they can't do any work. We stagger our times of attendance but even so I occasionally see one of the others (at a suitable distance) which is generally my excitement for the day. My existing tendency to procrastinate is ten times worse right now. Have applied for several jobs in the public sector so fingers crossed I might yet make good my escape. The business is going to be badly hit after a few months so I might not have a job there anyway.
I can't see any of my family until 20th July and that's if all goes well. My mother is an "older person" but a reasonably healthy and very resilient 78 - she has a good sized back yard and garden so even before they "allowed" vulnerable people out for walks she was better off than some. Ireland has had a sort of medium-good response - bit slow off the mark, nursing homes not dealt with swiftly enough, some other mistakes - but the overall response has been sensible. Our own home grown lunatics /conspiracy theorists just lost an attempt to seek judicial review of the government regulations.
I live alone so that can be a bit isolating but it's a nice apartment with a balcony and a little park right beside me. I can't do most of my hobbies which are usually what keep me sane. I have a Pilates class which is now by Zoom and also a folk song learning thing also now by Zoom. (I'm not very good at it. Last night - teacher says, well, you could sing this bit just straightforwardly: sings line, or you could do this ornamentation: sings line - to me both sounded exactly the same. But it is a pleasant pastime and the people are nice. I miss going for a drink in the Cobblestone afterwards. )
I am not becoming super fit or eating sensibly, in fact struggling to retain existing levels of exercise.
I had let my broadband connection go about two years ago as I really wasn't using it - took a month to get a new connection installed. I had more or less accidentally given up watching TV too but now I can take that up again if I want. I find I'm still slow to be bothered but I am watching Normal People more or less as the episodes are released in this country (only watched one of last night's which was the 5th). I've read it so I don't feel the need to find all the episodes somewhere and binge them. It's surprising how much it grips me as I'm a lot older than the characters. I doubt anybody here needs cultural translation of any of the more Irish bits in it but let me know if you do.
I feel guilty for not leaving the house so far today because I have plenty of official latitude to do so for exercise and I know I should for my mental health as well. I find I have to shop every few days as stuff goes off if I try to e.g. buy veg for a week - I wear a bandana type thing inside the shop which also helps to make it a chore rather than a tempting highlight.
Every year I tutor on a couple of seminars for trainee solicitors so those will be coming up in a few weeks, online this time. I'm only down for the roleplay sessions /assessments this time so I just have to be a pretend judge and then do a collaborative assessment with my colleagues. That meeting is usually a very rewarding experience in real life but it will be a bit dulled this year by being over video.
Objectively I'm better off than many many people but I still find myself in a bad mood a lot of the time.

mOuseover.

Just yesterday we got our first purpose-made masks. No more bandannas.

Masks so much I hate. Sweat sweat sweat, which I always do around mouth and chin, especially just after shaving, or leaving the blissfully ACed cool dimness of my cave into the blisteringly humid, or as is the case most mornings, all three. And then breathing in a tent for an hour of transit, and hours of classes (and the goddamn vectorous brats are themselves bemasked 50% of the time at the outside), and arrive at last home with a feeling like a learned inability to speak, as if the jaw-throat muscle workings all atrophied, and teeth bemortared. And heave a gasping breath, and wonder if corona-shortened, but no ffs it's mask-all-day shortened, and scrub scrub scrub, and do human stuff, and thence prolonged half-consciousness with phantom-mask feeling pressing yet again on my airways. Fuck you, Winnie.

39: Winnie? What did the Silly Old Bear do to you?

and the goddamn vectorous brats are themselves bemasked 50% of the time at the outside

At least they're outside!

especially just after shaving

I've been growing a coronavirus beard and I look like Jerry Garcia now.

emir!

And I posted above in the wrong comment thread, too. Should have been the check-ins / updates.
I had to see my doctor today over a non-virus related ailment - actually she's a newish doctor to the practice so I met her while she was wearing a mask and I was wearing a bandanna. She asked me a lot of questions about how I was coping right now, what my overall situation is etc. and I ended up getting weepy becuase I had mentioned my mother and got sad about missing her. This is not fun behind a bandanna and I think it had a lot to do with my elevated blood pressure reading. But now I have to do a 24 hour blood pressure test in a few days. Childishly I don't want to find out that I have to give up salt or take medication.
Anyway I wondered if she does this at the moment with all her patients or if it was part of trying to establish a relationship in these weird circumstances where it's harder to build rapport.

I have thoughts on blood pressure medication. The one I'm on really works, but the side effects are getting to annoy me. I'd switch medicines except even without a pandemic, I don't like going to the doctor.