Everything is awful

Today was not a good day. I can feel it in my neck and shoulders, which have ached unbearably pretty much constantly for weeks (gee, I wonder why?). After the governor’s announcement that all California large events are most likely shuttered “until we have a vaccine” - aka, late fall of 2021 or later - well, the floor just dropped out from under me. People keep forwarding me articles about it and I’ve gotten into contentious, bitchy sparring matches on Facebook declaring it insane and unsustainable while being pushed back upon by the “stay at home” crowd with their comfy secure work from home high paying jobs and platinum employer-paid health insurance and no kids so they have plenty of time to bake endless round loaves of artisanal bread and make whipped coffee and organize their closets and isn’t it great we all get to slow down like this and isn’t the LA sky so clear with nobody driving to work???

Fuck them. Fuck them all.

I talked to the hotel on Monday. The whole staff is furloughed until end of May (at least) but I got a very nice lady on the phone who listened to my unfocused ramblings and assured me the hotel would “work with me” whether I’m forced to cancel or have to continue at a reduced attendance...so my fears of being slapped with a giant cancellation fee shouldn’t be a concern. They’re hurting, too - the last thing they want to do is alienate a decades-long customer. I thought as such but it was good to hear. She and I vowed to check in every couple of weeks. 

I was also able to commandeer two school chrome books for the boys - I had originally thought their iPads would work, but they are outdated and useless, and trying to have two boys do school work on my one clunky old laptop is also turning out to be untenable. So after a long, frustrating bout of re-setting up the 8,000 accounts we finally got them both working, and it did make a huge difference. We’re still behind on the work but at least we’re able to do some of it. And they like the technology, so that’s something. 

Yesterday the work went well...today, not so much. After Bobby took over an hour to do one lousy math problem because he was too busy screwing around while I was helping Theo catch up on weeks of ignored math assignments, I snapped at him and he burst into tears. Mother of the year, over here. So I hugged him and apologized and walked him through the problem very patiently. But yeah - the procrastination, the falling over and getting hurt, the constant dropping of pencils, the wanting to see what the brother is doing - it’s all infuriating. I couldn’t deal with making him do any of the work he still had to do after that nor practice violin - I had had it. So that was our night. 

Word is kids won’t be attending school next year at all. I don’t even know what to say to that. 

One thing I’ve been screaming like a crazy person all day on FB is doesn’t anybody realize that living like this is not sustainable? That people are going to snap and start hurting themselves and each other? That you can’t just take away people’s livelihoods and expect them to quietly starve in their homes? Exactly what the fuck do they expect us to do with no income for two fucking years?!?

The problem is, just because I don’t want something to be true doesn’t mean it isn’t. It’s insane, ridiculous, outrageous to me that schools, sporting events, concerts, amusement parks, weddings, any gatherings at all are expected to be closed until 2022. This is insanity. But it’s true. My BF was right months ago when he said that soon we’d be living in a different world. I laughed in his face. How can everything just end? How can normal life as we’ve known it for hundreds of years just end overnight? Well, apparently it can. And all the rage and frustration and incredulity and disgust in the world doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. Just stay home. “Just”. Just watch everything you’ve spent your entire life building be snatched away and just shut up and stay home. And by the way you have a degree in early childhood development now and you’re a full time school teacher to two different grades at once, and you’re working for free and have to buy your own health insurance. Surprise!!! 

So I lie here in my rage and can do nothing but get up tomorrow and do it all over again. Cook and clean up three meals. Scoop cat hair out of the corners with my hands. Struggle through hours of schoolwork. Trim someone’s disgusting black fingernails. Tell them to stop yelling 19,000 times. Do laundry. Rage-scroll FB and decide all of my friends are effete privileged idiots. Read depressing doomsday articles. Check the latest numbers (come on, two million, almost there!!!). Watch something stupid on TV and be amazed by scenes in restaurants like I’m looking at a foreign planet. You know - quarantine stuff.

Will tomorrow be better? Doubtful, when it’s a fasting day for me. Honestly? I may put it off until Friday. Days are meaningless now, and we’re out of my comfort diet food that makes fasting tolerable. I did get a notice that *someone* checked my credit; in googling the name, it was a mortgage company. Does it mean anything? I don’t know; it might just be the mortgage guy doing preliminary paperwork. But it’s a start. If I just had that money I wouldn’t care anymore. But I’m weeks from knowing if that’s even possible.