come senators, congressmen, please heed the call

March 17, 2020

My Spotify Discover Weekly playlist had a decidedly apocalyptic feel this week, but it opened up with this gorgeous cover of “The Times, They Are A-Changin’’’ and I thought I’d share it with you all.

I think for now I may use this space as a “stories from being stuck at home” repository, plus, of course, whatever song or media happens to catch my fancy that day.

I hope some other soft, chill tales of sitting at home with my cats can at least be a comfort while stuff is super weird.

Today was day one of So Let’s All Work From Home. I don’t work for a place that has a ton of love for the WFH life, so it’s been a scramble to get everything set up and to try to find some normalcy in it all. My department did start our day with a staff call which we very quickly derailed into non-work topics, and I very quickly started getting emails that made me roll my eyes, so some things never change.

I haven’t quite gotten around to setting up a real work station yet. I figured I could indulge myself of at least a day of working from my couch, cats nestled nearby. I did a little bit of prep to actually work from, like, a chair — dragged out my old wireless mouse and keyboard from my desktop computer, scrounged around for batteries to make them run, tried to figure out what cord I need to connect my old desktop monitor to my tiny tiny work laptop. (Eight million cords in this house and somehow I don’t have a VGA-to-VGA cord anywhere.)

My cats refused to make an appearance on the one video chat I did, although they both did take turns laying in very awkward ways around me and my laptop.

I’m sure this is going to get old after a while. I’ve always been Extremely Online, so the only transition in my social life is a new Slack workspace with some real life friends, and trying to plan for a way for our weekly D&D group to do a virtual meetup. But the idea of getting to work at my own pace, sans interruptions, with music on in the background and a cat in my lap — or, okay, in this instance, trying to barge his way onto my laptop — so far is kind of the actual ideal.

I haven’t really used my “extra time” that productively today. I used my extra morning not-commuting-time to sleep in and then finish editing a podcast. I used my extra evening not-commuting-time to snuggle a cat on the couch and close my eyes for a while.

Eventually I’ll do something more useful, like actually cook something, or read a book, or knit some. Not today, though. Today: cozy naps.

I hope you are all well, and as cozy as can be. I’ll start trying to remember to leave a comments button here, so you can all share how you’re doing.