Time, It Moves So Weird

 

It's been a long decade. Or year. Whatever. 

Bob, however, is excellent at time. 

Specifically, breakfast time 

and dinner time.

Part of what makes 2020 so long is, of course, COVID-time, where each day lasts approximately 2 minutes or 3.5 weeks, depending on the phase of the moon and/or whatever game mode the hypersentient beings who are playing this video game called Earth are using (currently: combat mode).

Part of it is that due to the Nature of My Job, I have actually worked an entire extra month (in overtime) since March. We'll call it Julaugbrilay. I'm now working on another one, which will be Septovberary. (If I'm still earning overtime after Septovberary, we'll just call the next overtime month "Despair.")

Part of it is that I inherently suck at time anyway. Despite the fact that all I have to do to attend meetings is click on a button, I still manage to be late to them sometimes because my brain is absolutely convinced that I need to arrive EXACTLY ON TIME, which means that at 9:59, I have an entire minute to do things, like respond to email, go to the bathroom, and get a glass of water. Shockingly, this never works out. 

Since I have been doing a lot of writing professionally, I have not been writing creatively. This is actually the first non-work-related bit of writing I've done since February. Mostly, by the time I'm done working, all I want to do is silly tablet games, with a side of social media. 

Things I have NOT done (or not done much) this year:

1. Read things not related to work.
2. Write things not related to work.
3. Finish the meditation class I started in February.
4. Tarot, except for one special request.
5. Knit.
6. Finish editing my book of short stories.
7. Complete most of the 4,932 items on my mother's to-do list.
8. Master the alto recorder, or as Eleanor refers to it, the toodle-oo. 
9. Baked bread. I think I'm down to every other month or so.
   

So what I have I done with my pandemic, besides work and silliness?

Oddly soothing it is. And

the tiny postcard size 

is great because adult 

coloring book pages 

outlast my attention span.

1. Mastered the art of cooking roast. For years, I was hampered by the ridiculous necessity of leaving the house to go to work. I had to stick a roast in a crock pot and leave it to convert into shoe leather 10 hours later. But now, I can take a 10 minute break to sear the roast at exactly 2:30 and leave it to simmer the rest of the afternoon. We've been eating a lot of roast.
2. Finally made my own postcards. As I mention every year, I participate in the August Poetry Postcard Festival. I bought some postcard blanks on Amazon last year, in case I felt brave enough to attempt art. It finally occurred to me that, while I am fairly hopeless at drawing things, I have always been a first-class doodler. It helps me focus in meetings, while simultaneously feeding my colored pen addiction. 
   
   
3. Discovered the local farmer's market. It's one outing we can make while socially distancing and picking up pretty produce. We've become addicted to Chef Flaco's salsas and quesos (motto: put some Flaco on your taco, which does make you question the ingredient list), and Murphy's Mallows makes the best homemade smores. This is also where I get my roasts. The girls love to go with me, because of the fresh squeezed strawberry lemonade. (Betty's job is to stop me from buying too much produce. Sometimes she succeeds.)
4. Watched a popular TV show. That's right. I haven't watched an entire TV show in eight years. I haven't been to the movies in five. But I sat down with Eleanor and watched "The Tiger King" in its entirety, which I believe the rest of the world calls "binge-watching." It

   

   Sort of the thread equivalent of doodling,

   actually. No plan, no vision...just, "Hey, look!

   a blank space! Let's put something there!"

   was a dumpster fire on a train wrecking into a shark tank. Highly recommended. And mercifully brief, because I just don't have it in me to sustain TV watching beyond about 8 consecutive episodes. 
5. Did some embroidery. Betty wanted to learn, so I showed her a few stitches. Really, she only wanted to learn backstitching so she could sew encouraging words for her friends, but I got carried away and now I have a thing that I absolutely have no idea what to do with. I guess it could be a very small pillow? A large coaster? IDK. But it was fun.
6. Engaged in slow, methodical destruction of an electronic device. Of the many jobs of a modern parent (Cook, Chauffeur, Personal Secretary, Entertainer, Supervisor, Referee), my least favorite has always been Household IT. But when my tablet, which had long outlived its design parameters, abruptly died for no good reason, I first tried to be responsible by going through an entire Google of troubleshooting. So what do you do when nothing works, but your device died before you could wipe your personal info from it? You spend an entire evening attacking it methodically during the ads between anagram games with a small screwdriver, that's what. I now have teeny tiny tablet pieces in the trash and a small collection of magnets. 

Not bad for six months, I guess. But COVID is here to stay, at least for a little while, and that means before we know it, we'll be almost through with Septovberary and heading into Despair, and I only have one more dead electronic device to dismember and Betty won't let me buy more than two shopping bags full of produce. Maybe it's time to revisit the whole writing for fun thing. Or at least bake a loaf of bread.