Category: lockdown

I woke up early enough to hit the beach but I slept so terribly that I just went back to bed Friday morning. Got up an hour before work and goofed around a little.

Work was a little better, if slow. I did the background on three new stories and got them rolling, asking for email introductions to some peope I’m interviewing. Nobody got back to me, so I couldn’t set anything up, but it felt good to create the new folders and start my note-taking.

Someone initiated a new meeting to talk about my new way of doing proposals. I don’t know why it caught me off guard, but it did. I wasn’t expecting new meetings with my boss and my new tutor’s boss. It’s a lot more formal a consequence than I was hoping for. I am just not at my best in meetings; I feel like I’m at a huge disadvantage, like the blind person brought into a meeting heavy on PowerPoint slides. I can manage; I can even contribute. It’s just such a mental strain on me that it exhausts me.

Plus, if you’re the blind person in these meetings, the dread you feel anticipating the meetings is also a strain. I don’t think it’s very understandable to people who thrive in meetings, but it’s real. Yes, I can do them, just as I do my administrative paperwork and just as I did all those report cards, once upon a time. But at least with paperwork and grading, I did it on my turf, generally on my terms, albeit on someone else’s timeline. These meetings are always someone else’s turf and someone else’s terms. It’s tough for a guy whose work is mostly staring at a computer screen.

I was determined to hit the beach Saturday morning, so I spent most of my after-work time doing some chores and getting ready for bed. It was an abbrevited day. I expect a lot of them will be this way as I try to get swimming back into my life the way it was before all this.

Okay, breakfast was some English muffin pizzas. Once I start enjoying these they are a difficult habit to break. Lunch was a couple of quick burritos. If the ground beef I still have in my fridge from last weekend is still good, I’m making some more filling this weekend. Dinner was Korean instant ramen with a mountain of bean sprouts and two eggs. I don’t think there was any snacking.

I FB messaged Melissa to ask some questions about the Kakaako Farmers Market. I told her crowds freak me out nowadays, so she steered me away, saying if I go later in the morning to the Pearlridge one, it’s a lot more sparsely attended. It’s her job to hype anything Pearlridge related, but she also never gives bad advice. I also FB messaged F5 girl, who lives in Wisconsin, to see if she’s okay. This led to some strange conversation about Bob Uecker.

Traded a few small texts with Crush Girl. That was it.

This weekend: more podcast prep. A little bit of work on the Beast. Halt and Catch Fire season two (the first four episodes). And a bunch of reading, I hope.

Reach out if you’d like someone to connect with. I’m here.

Thursday work was busy if not the kind of productive I’d have preferred. There was a bit of proofreading and editing for the staff newsletter. It’s kind of a big deal, and putting it together is one of my favorite parts of the job. Otherwise, it was a lot of finishing touches on stories I’ve psycically moved on from.

Strangely, I got started on laundry an hour later than usual. I usually set the alarm for 2:00 or 2:15 in the morning, then get to the laundry between 3:00 and 3:15, but for some reason I set the alarm for an hour later, throwing everything off and making a beach stop impossible. I didn’t finish my laundry until around 6:00, which is far too late to hope for parking at Kewalo.

So I stopped at Safeway for just a couple of things, including some tomato sauce and tomato paste. For pizza sauce. Didn’t stop anywhere for breakfast since I wasn’t getting any swimming, and just went to bed for an hour before work.

After work, I got ready for bed early after a few chores and then fell asleep without putting myself properly to bed. Argh. I was waiting for some ice to freeze so I could fill my thermos, and of course I lost it and just dropped off. I woke up around 1:00 in the morning and finished things up before getting back to bed. It took me pretty long to get back to sleep.

The nice thing about my work tasks Thursday: they enabled me to listen fairly attentively to some music. I went through twenty songs or so, looking for music for the podcast. I took notes, jotting down stuff that interested me about each song, and what each song might be used for. I was sort of pleased with the candidates in the “metal” genre on the service I’m looking at, but when I switched to “thrash metal,” the very first song made me say aloud, “That’s what I’m looking for.”

It was a productive project, but I left it hanging at that first thrash song. Now I had a great place to start sometime this weekend, for a second search.

Not many texts Thursday. Crush Girl sent me a photo of her dinner, asking me if I could guess where she got takeout from. I got it on the first guess. She was impressed. It’s a spot where Grace and Penny and I often stop to pick up food on our way to Reid’s house. Then I told her a little bit about my dinner.

Wow. That looks like it.

Breakfast may have been a slice of pie. Lunch was some English muffin pizzas with my own pizza sauce. Much better. I cut the tomato sauce in half for this, and it came out pretty great. For dinner, I had one more slab of meat in the fridge I had to cook before it turned. When I was at the supermarket last weekend, I splurged on a ribeye. I almost never spend that kind of money on steak, but my experience has been so good lately, I went for it.

Delicious. Seriously. Probably could have cut it with the edge of my fork. I ate it with the leftover veggies from Wednesday afternoon (oyster mushrooms, tofu, baby bok choi, bean sprouts). A great dinner and I hardly noticed the absence of rice or potatoes.

If you need someone to trade some conversation with, leave a comment and I’ll send you my contact info. Hawaii’s numbers keep going up and they’re going to get worse. It’s going to be a long time getting through this, so reach out if you need to connect.

Got up around eight. I felt pretty rested even though I didn’t have great sleep. Probably carryover from my couple of days of vacation. I had a 9:00 meeting to prep for, but it turned out that my coworker scheduled something else for 9:00 (weird, since she’s the one who suggested 9:00, but then this meeting was not at all urgent).

So I went through emails and finishing up the tasks they suggested. It’s part of the job I pretty much don’t mind, and a good way to ease into the workday. Can I send you a copy of what? Sure! Typety typety click *send*. You need me to add who to the proposal? Okie dokie! Clickity clickety tap *send*. It’s at the same time kind of robotic and not absent a decent amount of brainwork to get all the gears and levers in my cranium warmed up.

Then it got terrible. I mean not tragically terrible, but terrible enough because of a spelling error I made on someone’s name. A donor was very displeased. This was actually last week, but when I corrected the misspelled name, I corrected it incorrectly and the donor was livid. That was today. Oops.

The day ended with my supervisor on the phone figuring out where to go from there. Rough day.

My goal was to be asleep by eight, so when my workday ended at six, I got started on my pre-laundry day tasks. I don’t disinfect my water jugs every time I refill them; I’ve found it unnecessary, as far as I can tell, but I do it every three weeks or so. This time it was four. This takes some time, as I’m working with one-gallon jugs (five-gallon bottles were impossible to find on this island when the lockdown began in March). I’m up to ten jugs now, and there’s bleach involved, so it takes a while to get everything taken care of.

Ate lunch, did the dishes, and took care of the getting-ready-for-bed stuff. Conscious sleep preparation the way I’m supposed to do it. Got to sleep sometime after nine. Dang it.

I had a steak to cook (a cheaper cut than last time) before it got bad. I was going to prepare it, along with a large stir fry, and have it for breakfast and lunch. But two morning phone calls threw off my timing, and when I had a moment to have a bite, I only had the steak ready. I didn’t mean to have the entire steak — and only the steak — for my breakfast meal, but oops (again).

It was pretty good except for a little bit of stringiness on the outer edges. I think I’m learning a way to prepare steak that works for me, even with inexpensive cuts.

I stir-fried the veggies (oyster mushrooms, tofu, bean sprouts, and baby bok choi) and ate half of them for a late lunch. They were pretty great. I’m less likely to miss rice when cubes of firm tofu are involved, and I mean enough tofu that I’m not pacing myself so I don’t run out before I’m through with the meal. It’s a problem I’ve had with tofu-involved dishes when I dine out.

The mushrooms also add some nice substance. I don’t think they’re especially nutritious, but they make me happy, especially when they’re on sale.

I had a slice of pie for a snack before bed.

Dinner is the quarter-pounder combo from McD’s I’m enjoying right now at the laundry.

Not a banner day, but maybe all that rest prepared me for it, because I was unstressed all day long, and even kind of looked forward to doing the laundry, something I haven’t felt in a few weeks. I didn’t still feel that way when the alarm went off, but oh well. I’m here now and it’s fine.

I sent a little text to Julie telling her I’m working through the back episodes of Judge John Hodgman, the podcast she turned me on to a few years ago. The archives go back to November 8, 2010. I’m up to October 26, 2011. A ways to go. This podcast’s earliest episodes have been good listening while I do household chores, especially those weekly attacks on the Monster and the Beast.

I got one text from Crush Girl responding to some little, unimportant thing I asked the night before. Then the Julie-Cindy-Suzanne group text lit up just before bed with a meme I didn’t recognize.

Not a lot going on there, but the day was busy anyway, so it was okay. If you want in on all this exciting conversation (well not all of it; or not any of it, really, but we can start our own), just leave a comment and I’ll send my contact info. Weird days continue, and you don’t need to go through them separated from human interaction.

Tuesday soundtrack: Presto by Rush (1989). I somehow had forgotten about this song “The Pass,” one of three singles released from this album, but wow. Midway through, I said aloud, “What in the world is THIS?” Amazing song. Great song. I did a little bit of reading and learned it’s one of the band’s favorites as well. Rush’s stuff post-1987 (the year I graduated high school) is all kind of a blur to me, despite their being maybe my third favorite musical acts. So this has been fun.

Tuesday was a bit more like a good weekend day off than a vacation day, but since I didn’t really have a weekend, I’ll take it.

I woke up at 3:00 in the morning, took a while to get up, and was finally rolling at around 4:00. The drive to Kewalo was really quick — maybe ten minutes, and I caught red only on three lights. The way I go, that’s kind of amazing.

Pulled into the lot close to 4:15 and it was already approaching capacity. I locked the car and immediately wandered around the pier for a little while and then *bing* it occurred to me that I haven’t had a latte in a million years. Checked the app to see if one of the two Starbucks within walking distance was open, and the one on Ward Avenue was. Helllloooooo vanilla latte. I wandered around the area in javanated bliss, then walked around the pier some more, took some photos of the pre-sunrise beach, and by the time the sun was up, I’d walked 7500 steps. It’s a little more than half of my usual goal but also far more than I’ve been walking at all lately.

And then I hit the water and it was glorious. Beautiful. Lovely. And very sparsely populated. Totally worth having to wake up at 3:00.

I had to change the way I kicked, because I could feel it in my knee, but it didn’t take long to adjust. Swimming is weird; it’s generally much easier on your joints than running or walking, but the motion is also less bidirectional. You don’t notice it when your joints are healthy. You do notice the weird twisty motions you subject them to when they’re ailing.

I stopped at one of the breakfast spots in the hood on my way home. Picked up a shrimp and bacon omelette and a side order of something it calls “boom boom chicken.” Hard pass on the chicken, which was a boneless, spicy chicken fried in something like cornmeal. It wasn’t bad; it just wan’t great, and it was ten bucks. There are better things to spend the money and calories on. The omelette was pretty good, just not as good as that Veggietopia omelette I had a couple of months ago.

Read the news. Did the crossword. Snuck a peak at my work email. Took a nap! Goofed around on my phone. For lunch I had some English muffin pizzas. They were okay. I need to stop using canned spaghetti sauce for my pizza sauce. I have a good, easy pizza sauce recipe based on my mom’s old recipe that works much better for bready pizzas like these. It’s not as saucy, so it doesn’t seep into the bread. I wish I’d picked up the ingredients the last time I was at the supermarket.

I wasn’t exactly hungry, but I did get the munchies around bedtime, so I ate a few potato chips and had a slice of pie. Then it was to bed shortly after midnight. Later than planned but rested. A day off I needed. My brain felt clear and my spirits were pretty good.

Ali and I texted a tiny bit about my being at the beach. I sent her a short video I took for her of the waves on the sand. Jenny texted to ask if I was interested in leading a little online seminar on writing appeal letters, for the local association of fundraisers. I said I would speak to my supervisor. Then we talked a little about some of the funny stories I could share. Cindy texted me to ask the Mac keyboard shortcut for emdash, but by the time I looked at my phone she’d already figured it out. Sylvia and I talked a little about the new Lay’s chip varities. Crush Girl and I texted a little bit about some cooking she did over the weekend.

My knee howled at me all day, so maybe 7500 steps before a swim just won’t work. If I can get in the water four times a week, which will kill my arms and shoulders for a while until I get used to it again, I might not need to do the walking, or I could just do a lot less. Must think about this.

In this spot every day, I offer to connect with anyone who needs it during these mad times. Here it is now: just leave a comment. I’ll email you my contact deets. You may get a photo of Ala Moana at dawn.

I was up late Sunday night, far too late to enjoy my Monday off as fully as I’d hoped. It’s my fault; I know. I let that stupid article kill my long weekend and my envisioned five days off in a row. I got to sleep close past 5:00 and didn’t get out of bed until 10:00 or so Monday. Sleeping in was definitely part of the plan anyway, so I didn’t feel too bad about that, but I didn’t have it in mind to wake up at 10:00 sleep-deprived. I was supposed to wake up at 10:00 rested and relaxed.

I’d set my alarm for 10:00 so I could run to the stripmall and drop my Netflix DVDs in the box before the 11:00 pickup. I thought if the place wasn’t teeming with my Kalihi neighbors, I might get a few things I’m sure I didn’t need, but it looked like any weekday in any month in any year, but with masks. It was stressful and alarming.

The Korean takeout place had just opened (a lot of joints are opening later in the day now), so I got a BBQ chicken and meat jun (it’s a Hawaii thing) plate with bean sprouts, shoyu potatoes, kim chi, and choy sum. I was the only customer in there except someone who came in while I waited. She breezed past me and picked up her order and left.

The Baskin-Robbins was empty too, and I suspect it was the real reason for the errand. Ice cream and vacation go together. I had a scoop of Jamoca and a scoop of cookies and cream in a cup, which I enjoyed in my car.

Got back home to finish watching The Banker while I had half the Korean food. That was breakfast or lunch. The rest was lunch or dinner. There was a slice of apple pie somewhere in between.

I did crosswords. I watched some YouTube videos, something I almost never do. Listened to podcasts. Took a short nap. Watched and read the news.

I took care of those loose appendages of the Monster. It was the same task, but not as much of it. It was almost exactly half what had been my usual chore, quantity-wise, so it took just over half as long. It was equally disgusting and unpleasant.

There are still tiny little stray pieces of the Monster to deal with, but they won’t be the same task, so I’m not dreading them as much.

I had enough energy to do what would be half a week’s worth of attending to the Beast, my now-directed, focused decluttering project. Threw out some old hardware, mostly, stuff that was taking up ridiculous amounts of space in very inconvenient places in my home. Sweat the big stuff first, they always say.

That was a rewarding, sweaty way to end my vacation day. There were all kinds of things I meant to do but did not. Perhaps I’ll take care of them Tuesday.

I meant to put myself to bed by 9:00, but didn’t get to sleep until 11:00.

Not that many texts Monday. Crush Girl knew I was taking a day off, so she asked if I was enjoying it. We traded a few messages about some new TV she’s watching. I mentioned Halt and Catch Fire, not really expecting it would perk her ears up. A description of the series doesn’t really sound interesting to anyone, and it wouldn’t have sounded that great to me either, if I hadn’t heard some people on the Ringer talking about it during its first or second season.

Julia told me about her job interview. I sent AJ a link to a Washington Post article about advice for people renting RVs. That was it.

It was a decent day. I was productive in menial ways which had positive psychological payoff. Maybe Tuesday will be about being creatively productive instead. Here’s hoping.

And here’s hoping that if you, in these days of staying home, staying safe, and staying away from others, need to connect with someone, you’ll reach out in the comments. I’ll delete your comment after I send you my contact info, if you wish. I’ve done it for others, whose texts I don’t mention in this space. I’m here if you need some witty banter and lame photos of Korean food.

Sunday soundtrack: Rush’s a Show of Hands (1989). It’s the next Rush album after Hold Your Fire, and it continues the band’s long tradition of releasing a live album after every three studio albums. It’s a killer live album, probably the group’s second-best to the date of its release, after Exit…Stage Left. I had it on repeat most of the day.

Sunday was pretty much a repeat of Friday and Saturday, with me sitting at my desk trying to write the stupid story and getting through it one painful character at a time. But it’s 3:53 in the morning and I got it done about an hour ago. Not done-done, but first draft done. I have no confidence in it, so I’m prepared for major revisions, but at least it’s a completed draft. A start.

I also wrote my monthly one-minute writing tip for the staff newsletter, and I’m working on my monthly film review for the same newsletter. Got midway through The Banker (2020, depending on how you mark these things), which is an Apple TV+ exclusive. So far, so good. Samuel L. Jackson does a surprisingly restrained job, and ohhhhh Nia Long, my sweetheart.

One of my sweethearts.

It’s been a long, frustrating, three-day weekend. Sometimes the writing is just impossible. Sometimes it’s like opening a vein, I swear. Sometimes it’s like I don’t know what the heck I’m doing. Sometimes it takes three whole days just to write eight short paragraphs.

I’m off for the next couple of days, though, so I guess Monday and Tuesday will be my weekend. I’m considering taking Friday off as well. Somebody’s got a lot of vacation saved up, and somebody’s brain is pretty fried.

For breakfast, I had a slice of pie. I didn’t mean to; I just wanted to get through the crossword quickly and have an easy breakfast so I could get to that story. Ha. Ha.

At lunch, I took a break from staring at the same two paragraphs all morning, and made burrito filling. It came out great. I had a couple of burritos for lunch, then whenever I got the munchies during the day, I picked up a spoon and had a bite of the filling. Maybe not the healthiest thing, but I guess better than Oreos or chips. I had a couple more burritos for dinner because it was convenient.

The negative consequence is that now I probably don’t have enough filling for a week’s worth of breakfasts or lunches, which is what I had in mind.

Mostly short text conversations today. Ali and I talked about Ahn Trio. Or really we talked about talking about them. Sylvia and I mused about whether or not it’s a good idea to have so many potato chips in one’s residence at one time. JB gave me a War and Peace update. Jenny and I had a long conversation about Bloody Wednesday, about layoffs in general, about passive-aggressive emails, and about learning to be a Super Bitch. She was a development executive for a couple of prominent nonprofits, and now she’s running her own consultancy, so we’re in the same business, probably $100,000 apart.

I’m exhausted. I’m going to bed. Hit me up in comments if you want my contact info so we can trade texts or DMs.

Saturday soundtrack: Rush’s Hold Your Fire (1987) on endless repeat. It’s been one of the more forgettable Rush albums for me, which I think comes mostly from not listening to it enough. It’s not bad — there was one semi-hit, “Time Stand Still” with Aimee Mann, and one track I’m super-familiar with for reasons I cannot remember, “Turn the Page.” It’s definitely sticking now, though. There are some great songs here.

Today was all about getting that story done while also not getting the story done. I made progress; I’ve got three decent paragraphs and need three or four more. I’m at the pivot now, where I write about the thing the article’s really about, then give another example and then wrap it up. So I’m in the homestretch, but the words come very slowly. I’m going to finish it Sunday morning.

For breakfast, I had leftover chili and rice. I’m almost done with the chili, thank goodness. This was actually leftover leftovers. I served myself too generously for dinner Friday night, and I only ate half of the bowl I heated up. So I just put the whole bowl in a zippered plastic bag and threw that in the fridge. Warmed it up for breakfast.

Lunch was my fresh bread and some tuna fish. I didn’t make sandwiches; just spooned the tuna onto little slices and ate it that way. Yummy.

Dinner was McD’s Chicken McNuggets and fries. I was feeling lazy.

I did a few small chores. Goofed around on my phone. Watched the news. Continued to clean out the old fridge. Didn’t take a nap, ‘though I kind of wanted one. I told myself there would be no naps until the article was finished. Ha. Aaaaand I never got there. I also watched The House Bunny (2008), finally. Anna Faris, Emma Stone, Rumer Willis, Colin Hanks, Kat Dennings. It’s terrible. Likeable, but just really stupid. I dig the be-who-you-are and accept-people-for-who-they-are messages a lot, but wow. The trip there is painful.

Half an hour before it closed, I hit the supermarket. I bought a lot of veggies. And some canned things to add to the hurricane stash. I bought a few steaks, too, because I was so pleased with those steaks the other week. Oh, and burrito filling stuff. Not just for lazy burritos (which I know I still haven’t explained), but like for real burritos. My something different for this trip were a head of cauliflower, which isn’t that different but I’ve only purchased it once before in my life, so it counts, and a tray of oyster mushrooms, which I’m calling different from those king oyster mushrooms I got a few weeks ago.

Jennifer texted me a link to a fairly well-known local blog reviewing junk food; she said my IG posts remind her of it. The guy who writes it is nice enough — we’ve even played a few word game apps against each other at the urging of his wife. It’s just a little awkward for me because his wife is one of my former students, a wonderfully nice forty-year-old mom who I still remember as a seventeen-year-old student in my speech class.

I texted Ali kind of late to ask her if she’s ever heard of Ahn Trio, a group I for some reason think she might like. I texted Crush Girl to tell her something about a traffic situation I thought she might be interested in. Then I texted JB to ask how War and Peace is coming along. But that was a little late too, and he’s in Virginia. Oh, then I FB messaged a friend in Hilo to ask how her Hawaii Stories submission is coming along. And I FB messaged my friend Wendy in Manila. She posted an FB story showing her Kindle. I didn’t know she had a Kindle so I sent her a link to my loanable books list. We talked how-are-you-coping and stay-safe. People in her immediate neighborhood have tested positive. Ugh.

I let my past go too fast
No time to pause
If I could slow it all down
Like some captain
Whose ship runs aground
I can wait until the tide comes around

Hey, if you need some connection or to share some introspection in these crappy days of stay-at-home insanity and mundanity, hit the comments and let me know; I’ll send my contact info so you’ll know where to go.

I didn’t get my work done Friday. Major fail.

I think I got to sleep close to four-thirty. Woke up around nine-thirty, unable to get back to sleep. And treated the rest of the day like the holiday it was, like the holiday I didn’t deserve or plan. I sigh resignedly.

I thought I might just take my meds, do a crossword, and get back to bed for another couple of hours of sleep. My alarm was set for eleven-thirty, so I had time to get back on track. My meds go better with some food in me. I had a handful (or three) of the Philly Cheesesteak Lay’s chips. The crossword was a bit of a bear. I did it in forty-four minutes, compared to my Friday average of 21:52, but I worked it and worked it, and got a clean solve. I much prefer getting them done quickly, but sometimes the ones that take forever are more rewarding.

It took so long that I thought I might as well have a real breakfast, so I had a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats, mostly because I was keeping an eye on the half gallon of skim milk in my fridge.

The mail brought the final two episodes of Halt and Catch Fire‘s inaugural season. Now I had a real plan. Watch those two episodes, then reward myself with finishing the article, or something like that. I watched episode 9, and then took a short (like, not even an hour) nap, and then it was time to pick up the pie.

Brought it home. Had a slice, of course. Did some writing, but not work-related writing.

Oh, the mail also brought that review copy of the new Cathy Song book. I read ten pages, realized I was probably going to love it, then made myself put it down in favor of reading the news first. Then it was time for the broadcast news, and then I did the Saturday crossword. The New York Times puts the weekend puzzles up early, like just past noon our time. Weekdays they go up around 4:00 our time.

The Saturday puzzle was a bear too! I got it done in 22:36, a few minutes ahead of my 25:57 Saturday average.

I watched the season finale with dinner (leftover chili and hapa rice), which was something of a disappointment, acting more like a transition to whatever’s coming in the second season (DVDs are already in queue). I cracked my knuckles and got my materials ready for writing the story, but my back was a little sore, so I rested in my bed for a little while, and of course I drifted off.

So now it’s just past midnight Saturday morning and I’m going to just try again Sunday.

I got texts from Ali and Crush Girl. Ali and I got past the miscommunication the other day and talked about a couple of other things. I sent Crush Girl this photo of something a friend shared — it was related to something we’d texted about the day before. That generated a response and then a response from me. That was about it.

I didn’t listen to much music today, thanks to Halt and Catch Fire. Spun Rush’s Fly by Night twice, mostly while getting ready (and then driving) to pick up pie. Then some Ry Cooder, Jeff Healy, Dick Dale, and Siouxsie and the Banshees while I read the news and did some writing. The Siouxsie was especially and unexpectedly good for writing. A pleasant discovery.

There aren’t enough gothy people in my life. If I ever saw Crush Girl in black lipstick and black fingernails, I think I would just die.

I’m going to think about going to bed. Hit me up in comments if you’d like my contact info. You might need someone to connect with as these summer days turn into September, one of the most depressing months of the year.

After that semi-decent sleep Wednesday night, I awoke Thursday ready to kill it. With Friday a holiday and my taking two days’ vacation after the long weekend, I wanted to get all the checkboxes ticked so I could not think about work for a few days.

Yeah, that didn’t happen, and I’ll be doing a little bit of work Friday and a little bit Saturday, but it’s fine.

I can’t even blame other emails or other stories this time. I just had no focus, ‘though I sat still at my desk for longer periods of time than usual. Just couldn’t get the fingers moving.

Before work I drove to Rainbows and picked up plates for breakfast and lunch. Boneless chicken for breakfast. Barbecue beef for lunch. I baked a fresh loaf of bread, too, which was dinner, along with a few slices of extra-sharp cheddar. I snacked on some Philly Cheeseteak Lays. They were very good.

Then I ordered an apple-caramel pie from Hawaiian Pie Company for pickup Friday afternoon. I’m not sure what’s going on with me lately. I said I was going to get veggies for takeout. I got pie.

I listened to a lot of music. Derek Trucks Band, mostly, with some Mastodon and the Police before and after. Goofed off on my phone. Watched the news. Did the crosswords. Stayed up far too late doing the Friday 5. Paid a couple of bills. Wandered off to bed around 3:30 in the morning, the latest I’ve been up for quite a stretch.

I got a text from Julia, who told me she has a phone interview with the nonprofit I reached out to on her behalf. I hope she nails it. Sharon and I texted about my picking something up from her sometime soon, but she’s about to get on a plane for that wedding. I shuddered as I wished her a good trip. She’s going to have fun being quarantined for two weeks when she gets back.

Sylvia sent me a funny video. Julie texted via the engineering group chat that there’s a slight chance she’s coming back to Hawaii for her husband’s next assignment. I texted a bunch of people a photo of my bread.

I should have slain the day but it kind of swallowed me up in unproductive mundanity. I think it’s okay, as long as I can get done the work I have to get done before the end of the official weekend.

Are you struggling to connect with people in these days of idiocy? If yes, leave a comment and I’ll be happy to send you some contact info. The days run together, but one thing that can give them some individuality is a few messages, photos, or silly conversations.

Wednesday was pretty mellow. Woke up ahead of my alarm and took my time getting to work, but still got started earlier than has been my wont in these lockdown days. Got my brain and typing fingers warmed up on some little tasks and emails, then called my supervisor to discuss a new arrangement.

My job breaks down mostly into three very different kinds of writing. I write feature stories about scholarship recipients, alumni, donors, and corporate giving. That’s the difficult but fun part. I also write acknowledgment letters from different UH people, thanking donors for their gifts. I’m supposed to rewrite these things every six months or so. It’s also difficult, because finding new ways to say thank you is tough, and I have to make certain university VIPs happy, since their signatures go on these things.

Since last summer, I’m also writing gift proposals for targeted donors. We’re talking about a three-page request to Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So for $200,000 to endow a scholarship in the College of Blank for students who blank-blank. It’s not difficult, but it’s challenging in a a different way, mostly in working with different people with different priorities. In pre-writing conversation, one person will tell me, “Here’s the one thing you must include…” and then in the first round of edits, this one thing will be the first thing someone else crosses out. I once had the dean of a college add a sentence to the very beginning of my introduction that was nearly verbatim the last sentence in my introduction, leaving the original sentence unmarked. I didn’t know if I was being asked to move the sentence or to be intentionally redundant.

I resolved it by adding “Again…” to the closing sentence, to indicate intentional redundancy.

Anyway, the phone call was to discuss bringing the other writer in our organization into the process, as sort of my tutor. She’s our grant writer, and she writes proposals all the time with researchers doing most of the actual writing. Her recipients are corporations, though, while mine are individual donors, which is one way our jobs are distinguished. We work well together, and we respect each other’s work, so my supervisor and I agree this arrangement could really be helpful. I look forward to it.

I spent the rest of my workday working on the story causing me problems. Didn’t finish but hoped to get it done Thursday. Friday is a holiday (Statehood Day), and I’m taking vacation on Monday and Tuesday. I had another phone call with the development officer involved with this story. It was our first time talking since we all got sent home, so it was nice to catch and share our thoughts about Bloody Wednesday. She said she felt as I did: that I was the one in our department most likely to be let go. I appreciated that she saw it my way.

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Breakfast was instant ramen with kale and choy sum, the last of the fresh veggies in my fridge. I’m not planning to hit the grocery store until near the end of the weekend, but I may have to adjust. Or eat some canned things. Or get veggie-laden takeout. Ooh, good idea.

Lunch was the rest of the bread, with honey-macadamia peanut butter. Dinner was chili and hapa rice. It’s going on ten days old and I had around three more servings of it, so I tossed it all in a pan and simmered it for a bit, to discourage any nasties from putting down roots. I’ve got to admit I’m already tired of the idea of chili, although I enjoyed it while I actually consumed it. Might need to make a smaller pot next time, or switch things up even more than I planned. Maybe some curry next time, or a radically different kind of stew.

Shortly before bed, I popped open a can of that hard seltzer I picked up as my something different the weekend before last. It’s a local brand, Ola, made with local organic ginger. I like flavored (and even unflavored) seltzers a lot, but I’m not yet sold on hard seltzer. I assumed they were all spiked with some kind of malt liquor, but this is spiked with alcohol fermented from organic sugar. So rum? I don’t know what makes a rum besides sugar.

I poured it over ice, and it was okay. At just under five percent alcohol by volume, it gave me a pleasant, low-grade, almost-buzz.

Jennifer sent me another screen shot of the baby otter. Very cute. That may have been my only text Wednesday. Weird. I didn’t notice less activity there. There were some IMs in the company Skype but I don’t remember them. They might have been work-related.

I crashed just after midnight and slept decently, around seven hours, the second half correctly strapped into Darth Vader.