Afternoon Pages: November 14th, 2020

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, I've been locking myself down until I think it's safe to go out again. To alleviate fear and stress, my writer's group has put together a daily "morning pages" get-together on Zoom in order to touch base before starting the day. Here's some of my brief thoughts.

I'm going back to the previous format where I post a blurb and then a blurbie (cute animal) since I don't like how I can only crop the Monsters Inc. reference by second.

Puppies: Just represent! Pull!

Yeah this format is so much better.

Things are turning out a lot better on the macro scale than I thought they might be. I tend to trend more Chicken Little than most, and I think this lowering of expectations helps in keeping emotions in check. Yeah I think we'll be safe-ish for the next two years. Maybe a 9/11-style attack next year since the DoD / national intelligence apparatus is beheaded, but shouldn't be any problems with nukes and stuff, and we had a 9/11 before so it's not new or anything.

It's been a few months since I came back to Virginia, and I haven't noticed any change in my gaining weight. This is worrisome, because the longer I keep on this weight, the longer it'll be permanent and the harder it'll be to release it. I think it's due to a phobia of doing anything that might cause me to need to go to the hospital (like tripping if I run and smashing a kneecap), but honestly I feel like that still leaves a raft of things that can still befall me. I could sneeze and get a hernia. Or get a brain aneurysm and die. Or trip on something because I didn't do my stretches and don't have my balance and coordination right. I should exercise because that is the least riskiest thing to do, and because it'll reduce my health insurance premiums in the future. Sigh. Maybe I should find a sports club again, and see whether I can exercise or compete virtually.

A friend reached out and asked me whether I wanted to have pizza inside a restaurant. I said no (because 150,000+ people are getting infected every day), but that gave me thought in terms of when I want to start coming out of my shell. Back in March, I thought I would be able to come out maybe June of next year. Now, I think it'll be September 2021 at earliest. Might be December.

I'm still super lucky, I have a circle of friends (?) who are sane and responsible, and feel good in the stable state I'm in. But this sucks in general. Looking forward to the day when everything can open back up safely again. While that's on the grill, I should focus on exercising and doing my job correctly and being happy.