6 month roll call - check in here please

<3 to everyone here. I've been away from posting much due to...things but was always comforted to know I could check in and catch up.

aw Jaq, sending you good vibes

Well this is a nice idea, let's go...

There was something on daytime TV that mentioned 'have you had a good lockdown?' and the funny thing was, was that I thought to myself, yes I have. We both had a trip to Sorrento booked for early March, and even as we drove to the airport we wondered 'should we go?' but we did and it was great:Covid hadn't got to South Italy, (it had to south England), and on return I was suggested I should WFH for a fortnight. A few weeks later (after I'd returned to the office) most of my colleagues were furloughed but I and three others were kept on full working from home. Which I have to say helped, as my wife was also wfh for the same five months. (oh and BTW, hell yeah!)

Anyway, come August and I get made redundant as most of my team get brought back, so I should be angry but it's been a relief in a way. Nice bunch of money, and a chance to go do something more interesting. OK, it's been a week. It might go horribly wrong. But, I've had the payoff before and managed to come back so we shall see.

Anyway, we've had no Covid illnesses in the family, we've managed to get through lockdown alright, and managed to get out and see people 'responsibily'. We've had to cancel a trip to Malaysia in Nov, but that's about it.

I've read some but not all of the entries here, but I shall do, now.

Jaq, warmest wishes to you. Sounds like a rough time.

And Chinaski, I have a dear friend with a teen who has some similar symptoms and preoccupations as yr boy. Love to yr family.

Good vibes to all, especially those dealing with losing loved ones. Just before lockdown, I lost the only other left-wing person in my family to cancer. The space she occupied in my life is immense: she would have my back when others in my family were being mendacious, racist or gaslight-y. I find myself wondering if the viral pneumonia she caught about six weeks before she died was COVID-adjacent but it’s a thought I mostly keep to myself. Since the killing of George Floyd, I haven’t spoken to my sister or mother because they try to share anti-BLM bullshit with me; my cousin would have agreed with me and backed me up. At least my mom and sister don’t indulge in weird COVID denialism.

With all this other stuff going on, lockdown itself was not a chore for me - I work from home anyway, and don’t spend a lot of money generally. Central London didn’t have as many weird shortages as a lot of other places and I’ve been doing ‘essential’ work on a farmer’s market stall once a week (it’s good to have a job like that as a freelancer to take the edge off waiting to be paid for everything else). During lockdown I was scrupulous about masks and gloves, and didn’t touch alcohol unless I was sanitising my hands. I got a nice chunk of SEISS money, and replaced my ancient computer, which means I can now do zooms and look for a WFH job. Since there’s no way I’ll be able to travel outside the UK for a while, I’m finally going to get a dog of my own.

Thanks for the kind wishes, table is the table. What a fucking year. All the best to everyone here.

I adjusted quickly to the restrictions, and haven't experienced any significant difficulties since. I lost my DJ income, but have made up for it by stepping up my Discogs sales. My partner, although not currently earning, has indirectly been made a great deal better off financially due to Covid, so that's eased a lot of anxieties. We count our blessings, and there are plenty to count. We are helping a number of people out, in various ways. I've taken to Zoom far more than I thought I would. We live in the middle of a small market town, so I bump into people I know all the time, which keeps isolation at bay. Everything is more or less fine. Weird, but fine.

Really sorry to hear from those who've had/having an awful time - Jaq, CP, and Chinaski that sounds tough as hell. This whole thing has really been an assault on all levels imo.

Feeling lucky to be in a situation where we've not had to change too much (already setup for home working etc) and a location with low case numbers, although I'm wary they are rising. The biggest blow Covid-wise was the schools closing which felt scarily dystopian and limbo-like. It's been a weird few months, with deaths of old and new acquaintances, but nothing directly related to Covid as far as I can tell. Until the recent case numbers it did feel like a slow return to some kind of normal - was able to go on our planned trip away, even ate in a pub for the first time in 6 months. And lockdown forced me to find new, quiet, places to visit near home, which have been great finds.

Bumping this cos November and it’s just shit all round, isn’t it.

A thing I have realised about myself, much to my surprise, is that I do miss and need people.

My whole life, since I was about two, I have been pretty self sufficient, always as happy reading by myself as playing with others (and sometimes more). In work, I’ve been pretty good at pushing myself when I’m not getting any external motivation. And, like everyone else I work with, I hated our office!

Everyone I have said this to is a bit surprised, but none more so than me. When this all ends, I’ll be doing a lot more stuff with my friends and going home more than I was before. It’s necessary.

Amen. My dreams have involved spending time with loved ones every single night for months now, as if I'm only able to truly process the sense of loss subconsciously.

Agreed. I'm doing okay, all things considered, but an old friend is missing in the Bay, and I've got a bad feeling about it.

Been thinking a lot about how Arthur Russell/Dinosaur L's "Go Bang!" is truly the song of the moment...'I wanna see all my friends at once...'

i hate life and being awake but after the election and a few other moves, i'll be back to stodgy middle-aged crankiness.

Bumping because Neanderthal, that pic of your folks waiting to get vaccinated gave me a jolt of hope. Things emotionally and mentally have continued to be all over the map, but "retiring" at the end of September and having 3+ weeks of solid downtime and knowing I wasn't coming back to thousands of emails helped. Adopting 3 additional cats, beloved strays of a friend's father, who died of Covid in mid August, helped more. Fostering a 5th cat who turned out to have territorial peeing issues gave me something tangible and urgent to focus on and we found him an awesome forever home.

Therapy has helped, as has increasing the SNRI dosage. Reading a lot about PTSD and polyvagal theory has helped. The insomnia has lessened. I go out if I must, which isn't often. I started contracting on the projects I was involved in previously and it's going well. Thinking ahead to the next year, to the next 5 years, and realizing it doesn't matter where we live helped me feel secure enough to look into buying a place.

So things are better and hope is a stronger glimmer now than it has been with these occasional happy jolts. I've been reading more silly fun stuff, and cooking again, and watching My Cat from Hell and trying to train 4 semi-feral ruffians to be lap cats. And I hope you all are doing equally better, especially those who were finding the path dark prior, that there's a glimmer for you too.

aw I'm glad that it helped. and Im glad you are finding glimmers of light. :)

there was a bit of taking stock on the 9/11 "one year ago today" thread and it occurred to me that it would be a good time to check in here - the fact that it's taken this long to do so tells its own story but hey!

I am with those itt who said this year is a bust even compared to 2020, partly because it has been unendingly shit & stressful workwise, so would be good to see where everyone else is as the pandemic grinds on

for me it's been seeing all the communitarian goodwill leached away and a zombified version of the old status quo instated, oh and here's your bill! obv the vaccines were a HUGE relief & the one thing to hold onto (here in uk) is that it won't be as bad as it was last winter (I wish I could say "ever")(also the worst of that was this year which is another reason 21 can fuck off)

anyway I expect to be in a trough until spring but curious to know how everyone else is! 💖

i'm a fuckin mess tbh

don't even think i can really blame it on the pandemic, unfortunately

ah, mookie, v sorry to hear that.

I’m a mess too but only on weekends when i have time to myself. Idle hands are the devils playthings. Work keeps me sane and on track and on the wagon. On the bright side a couple of my photographs will be featured in a tiny magazine next month.

Sorry to hear that, mookie, and I think you should feel free to blame anything you want on the pandemic. It certainly hasn't made anything better.

I just booked my first flight since the pandemic started - I'm going to Chicago for one night in January to see the Vulgar Boatmen, assuming things stay relatively safe for the vaccinated. It's a silly sort of trip but I really want to go. I'm trying to make myself do more things like that because generally I feel like my life keeps getting smaller since the pandemic, like there are fewer and fewer things that I even think about doing. Even just going to a thrift store or whatever feels like a big undertaking that I need to structure my day or possibly week around.

One positive development is that I finally started writing for that Springsteen blog, entirely bc of encouragement I got from ilx. It's the first time since college that I've brought myself to put any kind of writing out there under my own name, so even though it's a baby step it feels really big to me. I didn't write at all for the first year of the pandemic; it just felt like my brain wouldn't focus and there was no way to know what to say about anything. So being able to concentrate and finish anything, however small, feels like some kind of progress.

and congrats calstars!

thanks folx <3

I can understand being a mess, am blaming it on the pandemic

I can't say life is a bowl of cherries for me, but in the midst of seeing so many other lives around me in dire straits, I must confess my own life is pretty stable and reasonably stress-free, because the stresses I experience are (to borrow some nursing jargon) 'within normal limits'.

As weird as it might sound, 2020 and 2021 have not even cracked the top ten of the worst years I've lived through. God grant this doesn't change abruptly. It always could and I humbly acknowledge it.

everything sucks, news at 11

oh, VG! so sorry to hear it, even without the details. you aren't one to complain about a few nicks and scratches.

at least i still have this place to air my half-assed takes about north american sports

not joking in the least

Doing okay, working too much, husband is ever on the verge of quitting his job but has prospects elsewhere, dogs have some issues but doing okay...I dunno, I've been through some rough patches this year, but considering how terribly many other people I know are doing, I'm okay.

I'm also trying to figure out what I should be focusing on professionally. I'm getting paid to write and teach (in multiple formats to multiple age groups) and edit (both medical editing and manuscript editing), but I would really love to quit medical editing because it is more of 9-5 job and sucks the life out of me...though it pays better than any other gig I've ever had. Trying to ride it out until it seems like I'm able to quit it, but in the meantime, I'm dumb busy.

doing quite poorly! High five!

I didn't love everything about my pre-pandemic life but if I could go back 18 months and press pause on everything I wouldn't think twice about doing it. I hope everyone who is struggling at least feels the sense that this won't be like this forever.

honestly i'm doing pretty good, mental health is better than it has been over the past few years, relationship continues to be very good. work is ok, could be so much worse. i can pay my bills every month with a little left over. actual job is very cush, a few rough bits with the boss but i'm working through them. blocking out family has been a big help. we're entering inversion season here, which means low to mid grade brain pain for me for the next three months, but i'm hanging in there.

poor boyfriend has a bad job working for horrible small business owners, the prospect of what to do next has him feeling a little overwhelmed. seems like the one constant thing in 2021 is the feeling that horrible people demanding exhausting and meaningless work in order for us to survive are sort of retrenching themselves everywhere and everyone is playing along, like of course it has to be this way, and no one has any power to change anything. such whiplash after a year of being shown that all of this damaging shit we're doing is completely made up, unreal, and we could do something different if we weren't so impoverished in the cultural imagination department, weren't quite so addicted to pain and ignorance.

Checking in to report new house, new dog, new job on way and all well

such whiplash after a year of being shown that all of this damaging shit we're doing is completely made up, unreal, and we could do something different if we weren't so impoverished in the cultural imagination department, weren't quite so addicted to pain and ignorance.

This is so otm and what keeps eating away at me. Watching decision makers and people "in charge" slide immediately back into damaging and unhealthy patterns and ways of working that were proven to be completely unnecessary only a year ago has been so utterly demoralizing. It bleeds over into so much other areas of life that I just feel really hopeless, if this couldn't instigate meaningful change, what hope in hell do we have of tacking the even larger issues (i.e. climate change).

Typed out some despairing thoughts that I decided not to post, short response is mental & emotional health moderately worse over 2021. But career, relationship, & material conditions are all either the same or better, so thats good.
As stressful and traumatic as 2020 was, looking back the dominant emotion that colors my memories of it is gratitude - I often found myself almost physically overwhelmed with gratitude, counting blessings constantly, seeing everything with fresh eyes, understanding myself, my relationships, and my priorities in ways that I never before had, etc. At the end of 2021, lets just say that headspace is much much harder for me to access. But I am trying hard not to lose sight of it.

To keep it positive, one good thing is that after going through long stretches of the pandemic feeling like I basically never want to write or create again, I stumbled into a project that interests me & feels worth doing for the first time in a long time, and have been enjoying getting back in touch with the feeling of working on something youre really excited about. So, small things.

On that note: congrats Lily Dale, really been enjoying the Springsteen pieces you've been posting.

i felt like i could have written myself (in much poorer fashion) this excerpt from a recent Justin EH Smith substack

At many points over the past decades I have managed to convince even myself that I am cured. In fact I had managed to do this for almost twenty years, until the beginning of the pandemic, when the repressed returned with a vengeance. I do not believe that I “came down with depression” at that moment, and I especially hate the French habit of speaking of “une dépression”, as if the condition were as individuable and as temporally bounded as a cold. Just as inadequate is the oft-repeated Churchillian metaphor of depression as “the black dog”. If only it were a black dog, I could just kick the fucking thing away. I do not “have” “a” depression, let alone a depression hounding me in the form of an external malevolent agent. Rather, I am depressed, and certain circumstances make this fact less easy to ignore than others. In the event, the circumstances surely had something to do with the first lockdown of March, 2020, which we endured in Brooklyn, right next to the hospital in Fort Greene where they stored the corpses outside in refrigerated trucks. My own experience of covid was mild in its symptoms, but I emerged from lockdown transformed, physically and psychologically.

I will try to describe in a few words what it has been like since then. The most striking thing about this new life is that the whole world looks to me somewhat the way our elementary schools look to us when we revisit them as adults: a place we don’t belong anymore, a place that seems so much smaller and so much more modest than we had once taken it to be, so disenchanted that one is left perplexed as to how it could ever have been the source of such wild flights of the hopeful imagination. Life has a quality now that can only be described as “spectral”. I have sometimes imagined that I must have ended up in one of those refrigerated trucks myself, and everything I’ve experienced since then is just me haunting the old sites of my life, as in the Nicole Kidman vehicle The Others (2001) where she believes her home is infested by poltergeists but slowly comes to realize she and her kids are the ghosts, while the “ghosts” that torment her are just regular human beings.

A second feature of this new “mature” manifestation of depression (as opposed to its “juvenile” expressions in California, New York, Ohio) is what the diagnosticians sometimes call “derealization”. I have moments where I just cannot believe that any of this is real. I used to mock Nick Bostrom’s “simulation hypothesis”; now, most of the time, it seems to me intuitively obvious (if still not for the reasons he thinks) that the world is not at all what we take it to be. This shift manifests itself partly in a collapse of the system of values that had previously enabled me to take seriously all the clamoring after social distinctions —all the prizes and acclaim I used to find it meaningful to seek— that keep our institutions running and our little lives full. But more strongly, at certain moments I find myself literally unable to comprehend how I ever could have taken the social bodies that offer the prizes and acclaim, or indeed the opprobrium and rejection, to be in any sense real.

This derealization surely has something to do with the very real historical process of dematerialization: institutions really are disintegrating as they shift to videoconferencing and e-mail as the primary channels of their endurance. What made universities real for some centuries, for example, were in large part their august edifices. These still exist, generally, but they seem increasingly disconnected from whatever it is we still pretend to be doing under the universitarian banner. Anxiety enables me to keep doing my work under this same banner, but I find myself unable to recall how I once accepted it all, unquestioningly, as real. At its most intense, my incomprehension extends not just to social reality (work, recipes, “sport”, popular entertainments, and most of all politics), but to all reality: I can’t make any sense of what the edifices themselves are supposed to be, or clothes, or utensils. Unlike for Bostrom, most of the time the one thing that does not become “glitchy” for me, does not begin to show signs of its simulated character, is nature. But nature loves to hide, as Heraclitus said, and to have it alone as the one thing that appears real, while suitable for isolated contemplation, is hardly sufficient to provide the experience of community that sustains a properly human life.

A third feature of this mature depression is the way it affects my moral character, no matter how much rhetoric is invested in the idea that it’s “just a disease” like any other. I have already described it is a “disease” that has dishonesty as one of its symptoms. Another symptom is that it makes a person —let’s be frank— a real jerk. In my own case I definitely discern a correlation between the occasional remission of feelings of depression, on the one hand, and my capacity for generosity or big-heartedness on the other. Eric Schwitzgebel has provocatively argued that if you are surrounded by fools, you’re probably a jerk. When I am depressed I tend to conclude from his argument, very much against the grain, that I must be a jerk, because everyone around me is definitely a fool. Schwitzgebel of course means to dispel the idea that others are really fools, by “reducing” their foolishness to a mere effect of the perceiver’s “jerkitude”. But depression militates in favor of a “Copernican revolution” in the new field of jerk theory.

Here is how the foolishness of humanity manifests itself. We have become familiar in the social-media era with the notion of “copypasta”, where people with no real thoughts of their own simply reproduce the language of others, and attempt to pass this off as political engagement, for example regarding the “problematic” character of Disney princesses. But in deep depression, every human utterance sounds like copypasta; everyone sounds as if they are simply channeling the language of others. Proust thus comes to seem a rare and loyal friend to the isolated depressive, when for example his narrator dissects the new phrases and idiosyncracies in the language of Albertine, to discern, in his own internal Académie Française, exactly who she has been seeing since she returned to Paris from Balbec at the end of summer. She thinks she’s just “being herself”, with all that language; he thinks she’s just delivering so much copypasta.

It is terrifying and alienating to apprehend all language in that way, and the easiest reaction is misanthropy. One is wrong, of course, morally wrong, to react in this way, and the Copernican revolution in this case cannot really succeed. It is, as Schwitzgebel claims, jerkitude that gives rise to the appearance of foolishness, and not foolishness that justifies jerkitude. But depression is a strange disease, and we will never be able to adequately deal with it if we pretend it’s just like diabetes or whatever. Depression makes you a jerk. One should not be a jerk. Ergo, if depression is a disease, it is a disease that it is morally wrong to have.

bruh

Though I don't feel particularly depressed (tbf I don't feel particularly not-depressed either; increasingly I don't feel particularly anything), this passage rings true to my current sense of the world.

This derealization surely has something to do with the very real historical process of dematerialization: institutions really are disintegrating as they shift to videoconferencing and e-mail as the primary channels of their endurance. What made universities real for some centuries, for example, were in large part their august edifices. These still exist, generally, but they seem increasingly disconnected from whatever it is we still pretend to be doing under the universitarian banner. Anxiety enables me to keep doing my work under this same banner, but I find myself unable to recall how I once accepted it all, unquestioningly, as real.

I'm not very good at holding things in my brain that are not in front of me, and so what's happening to my world seems sort of like a large-scale version of what happens when I open Spotify or go on Netflix instead of looking at a music collection or wandering through a video store; the huge range of possibility - people, places, friendships, activities - that I theoretically know is out there is almost entirely invisible and inaccessible to me. It's all abstract, hard to call to mind, easy to forget, because it's not there in front of me anymore. And so my world gets smaller and smaller as I cycle through the tiny set of options that are within my field of vision.

I feel like such an asshole when I "take stock" because both 2020 and 2021 have been pretty goddamn good years for me and my wife. The only person we personally know who's died of COVID is our landlord (bitter lol); I've been working steadily — in more or less the same field as table, though I'd really like to get some of that sweet medical editing ca$h instead of working on people's YA fantasy trilogies — and doing interesting personal stuff (wrote a book which is coming out in January, and had enough money to hire a publicist to promote it, so it might even sell). Work's slowing down a bit this month, so I'm setting up a big project, and of course I'm panicked that that's going to turn to shit somehow, but maybe it won't!

I turn 50 in almost exactly two weeks, and feel pretty good about that and pretty good in general — I've almost entirely given up eating meat and am noticing a lot of changes around that; I don't fall asleep immediately after meals anymore, and my blood sugar's going down. I have more ideas than I have time to devote to them (I'm working on a proposal for another book, and brainstorming a novel, and running a website/podcast/record label)... so, my sympathies to anyone who's having a tough time of it. I guess I'm just someone who was born to live this way.

2020 was the worst year of my life by quite a long shot, 2021 hasn't been a lot better tbh but nobody died yet so I suppose that's a win