doomscrolling 2020

I am finding myself in this weird place where things mostly seem normal,  where we go about most of our usual business and things seem ordinary, but are not really at all. Or at least things seem ordinary compared to the spring and its hibernation lockdown status.  Since I am not particularly social or prone to getting out a lot, my life remains relatively untransformed.  While I occasionally get a summer weekend outing, dinner, or a night at the movies, they are infrequent enough not so much to miss them, but more to occasionally fondly remember life in the before.  While I miss thrift stores a little, I don't particularly miss others or even restaurants/bars all that much.   My schedule is slightly different, and I work from home a couple days per week, but three days I am still commuting.  I did get to visit family in June, and am planning another short trip in September if the world doesn't fall apart before then, but I know better than to try to make plans in 2020. Everything is playing it by ear.

Still on the surface, it's pretty much looks like any other summer. --the Library and irs ordinary tasks--reserves and ILL and planning for fall. Breakfast and daily writing and commuting downtown. Making books in the hours after I get home (the only change there is not being in the studio at night.). Dinner. Some exercize on my recumbent bike.  Netflix. Sleep. I wear a mask when I go out, but am still working my way through my summer wardrobe of sundresses, which I finally pulled out from the bins under the bed this weekend.

Scratch the surface and there is much to be worried out.  The virus burning through the southern states who still won't take it seriously, despite packed hospitals and mounting death tolls.  An uptick in Chicago cases. The scary things our government does and hides (sometimes in plain site.) lor just tries to pretend isn't happening.  I read an article earlier today on "doomscrolling" and indeed, I am perpetually guilty of it.   There were a couple days last week that just got really busy in terms of work and focusing on other things and i realized I was feeling mentally better. Now, I realize I wasn't looking at the news so much over those couple days.  Over the weekend, I got really excited and engaged in playing with video again and realized almost a whole day had passed without me doing the doomscroll.  I'm feeling a tension between wanting (needing) to know what's going on and knowing too much and at length.  Particularly when it comes to things, like the virus, I can't really control on a national scale. I'm having a hard time figuring out how much is too much.