terabient

★ i have the dubious distinction of living in the state with the highest rate of new COVID cases in the country. i would like to say this has made life here difficult, but even with ICUs filled to capacity across the state absolutely nothing has changed. No state-wide mask, testing or vaccine mandates, no changes made to school attendance rules--this means that parents of high-risk children don't have remote schooling as an option until they're in close contact with a confirmed COVID case, but also, they're still defining "close-contact" as literally less than 6 feet from someone w/o a mask on, so even WHEN a child has COVID the rest of the class is *not* tested and then people act shocked, SHOCKED that schools have multiple COVID clusters :) :) :)

So anyway I haven't gotten COVID yet but I feel like it's only a matter of time, now, and I'm...resigned to this reality. i'm terrified that i'll be completely asymptomatic, the tests won't catch it and i'll end up infecting the children i'm working with--that's been my fear all year, but now it feels...inevitable? Maybe not inevitable but it did go from "somewhat unlikely" to "extremely fucking likely" and i would say my anxious brain is not handling this well, but honestly, i think it's holding up well enough, all things considered. i haven't quit working, for one thing. i even enjoy it! but my mind and my heart are exhausted.

★ i temporarily deactivated my twitter account. it just felt like it was eating up all my free time, and even some of my work time--I kept opening it up and scrolling through it mindlessly, with very little of it making any sort of lasting impact. i can't even call it doomscrolling because that would imply feeling, you know, a sense of fear or frustration. "i am numb, and i am also staying here for hours" describes most of my time on twitter for the past month, which feels an awful lot like uncontrolled depression and/or internet addiction, neither of which are good things, so i deactivated. i am not sure how long it will stay deactivated; i'm forcing myself to wait at least a week, to see how i handle the change and hopefully clarify what i want twitter for in the first place.


★ i took a trip down to Boston last weekend to check out the SoWa Winter Festival and also to just...walk around the city and enjoy the bustle. i miss living near the city, even though it's been *sigh* 15 years since i last lived in MA.

All of the places I used to hang out in the early 2000s have gentrified a lot. It's so strange seeing the blocks around the Pine Street Inn turn into expensive art galleries selling solid chrome shark sculptures for $4800 and boutique clothing shops. The vaguely terrifying building that once hosted raunchy dinner theatre productions was demolished and has been replaced with like a luxe apartment. Virtually every arcade I used to visit has been bulldozed down or bought out and replaced with businesses that are far more generic. But also cleaner. A lot cleaner.

Man, this was a downer entry, huh? But it's been a downer of a year, so.