Lyrics: “Faithful Son” Frank Turner, 2009
Hello there. Yes, it’s me. Still around here. Somewhere. This stage of the pandemic is really really REALLY not helping me to be more focused. On anything. I could try and write a recap of how my monkey mind made me switch from one activity (using this term loosely here, not as in literally active) to the next this weekend. Starting things and dropping things. But it would be quite boring and pathetic and I’m not sure I want to share that part of my brain with you (yet). On the other hand I did get some bits and pieces done from my long to-do-list, so maybe I should give myself some credit for that. But it’s hard. For me to give myself credit for anything and that might be part of the bigger problem.
This morning I woke up quite confused from a vivid dream in which I had lost my mind. Or at least I thought I had and that was scary as fuck. It all started with me driving to some place to do some shopping after work. In my dream I obviously was familiar with it, but looking back now, I had no idea where on earth that was. When I got back to my car it was boxed in from all sides and it was a hassle to get out of the parking space. The next thing I remember I was walking somewhere down the same street. I went back to check on my car, which wasn’t there anymore. And then all of a sudden I was home, still without my car. No idea how I got home. No idea where my car was. Very worried I had lost my mind! Luckily I woke up after that, but it threw me off a bit. I admit the first thing I did was to go to the kitchen window to check if my car was parked outside. It was.
Nice segue to the mandatory snow stories. I walked to the bakery this morning instead of driving, which was some decent exercise and kind of nice, even though it was freezing. It was nice to see other people outside all in a good mood, because of the snow. Parents with small children on sleighs. Smiley people, not wearing masks, because we were outside in a residential area and everybody respectfully made way for other people to keep a distance. You could almost forgot what strange times we live in right now.
Anyway, what else has been happening this week so far? Not much. Obviously, because… pandemic! For the first time in a while I didn’t feel like I was in over my head at work, which felt good. Let’s just hope I’ll manage to carry that mood and attitude over to next week.
I bought more books. I started or continued reading some I had, even though not with as much enthusiasm as I had hoped those stories would evoke. Hopefully that’s just a slump, I’ll get through. I started another Regency Romance for now. This all goes well with the “starting and dropping things” I mentioned above.
These days I’m still not good with routines and tasks I want to set for myself. I started using my “dump notes and tracker in when I feel like it” journal as a bullet journal at the beginning of the year, but it still hasn’t quite stuck with me and I’m once again starting to think this might not be “my thing”. All the while knowing that it COULD be my thing, if I just made myself utilize it more. Take the time to sit down a few minutes in the mornings and evenings to write things down. Maybe putting it down here will make feel more compelled to do it as a form of accountability?
On Thursday I experienced something for the first time in my 25 or so years “online”. I was caught up in a racist Nazi troll bot attack on a live stream chat. Frank has the details here. Holy shit, that felt weird and a bit uncomfortable, if not really scary, because those were just sad pathetic racists at a keyboard in “patriotic” England. It was an nuisance more than a threat, because the only way to deal with it in that moment was to just close and ignore the chat window. We did. And we also did not. We just shouted back with hearts and rainbows and drowned them out after a while. Which was cool and typical for the Frank Turner Army, I’ve gotten to know for the last eight years. Proud to be a part of that.
I miss my seeing / talking to my friends. I might suggest another Zoom call to some of them next week. I’m usually good on my own and before Covid (BC *g*?) I was often happy to not talk to anymore people once I got home from a busy chatty day at the office. How things change, eh?
I wish I had the mental capacity (focus, motivation, persistence) to write something with substance. Like a scathing recap about the messy way German government on all levels and German society in general has been (mis-)handling certain aspects of this pandemic recently . But I just can’t be bothered a the moment. I’m frustrated and pissed off, that’s all I’m saying. And it’s dragging me down.
“Better times are coming, better times ahead” right? Right!
