April
Michigan Stats, April 9
Total Confirmed Cases: 21,504
Total COVID-19 Deaths: 1,076
Daily Confirmed Cases: 1,158
Daily COVID-19 Deaths: 117
A thousand people dead. Jesus Christ.
***
Sleep left me a long time ago.
I'm so tired I feel like I'm underwater. Every night I stay up so late, so late, like the world depends on it, like I can't be bothered to crawl in bed, like there's always one more thing to do, one more thing.
Nobody's sleeping, Steph told me yesterday. Doctors are talking about it. It's the anxiety.
The anxiety. The anxiety of a world ending with people locked in their houses watching Netflix. Of a disease so virulent it spreads almost by magic. Of waiting to see what happens next. Of just wanting to go outside.
Of mourning a way of life we never thought to see as fragile. Not here.
***
T.S. Eliot: April is the cruellest month.
Can confirm.
***
Promotion notwithstanding, I offered to assist Douglas while his new assistant was out for the day.
"Can't do this every time," I texted. "But I have capacity and it's a good time for it."
His answering text was everything.
FUCK YA!
***
Settling into a new position in pure isolation in the middle of a crisis is not ideal.
I whipped through a binder for Douglas on an empty morning, happy to be doing a task I hate just to feel the familiarity, the soothing trance-state of sinking my awareness into numbers and formatting and alignment, the assurance in all this uncertainty of knowing what I'm doing, the lick of ferocity up the inside of my spine that comes from knowing that I'm the best.
And all the unspoken warmth and regard between the terse efficient lines of our communication. A world in a grain of sand.
Monday would be ideal but if you need it sooner we'll make it happen.
No. Client keeps asking for it. Should be pretty straightforward.
Here's the index. Need a few more docs but if we get them should be able to get it out tomorrow.
perfect
I miss working with Douglas so much some days that it cuts into my gut like glass.
***
Acid reflux was so horrible that I disgorged electric yellow bile immediately upon waking and kept burping, bubbles of hydrochloric acid crawling up my throat like tapeworms, crowding out the words I was trying to speak in trainings, in meetings. I nibbled a handful of saltines and carefully sipped a Manhattan all afternoon until the nausea finally eased.
Hours later the deep, raw ache still lingers in the back of my throat, a stretched burning, like crying, like fear.
***
April is cold. I long for sunwarmth but am grateful that the apartment air hasn't clotted up with the unbearable stuffy heat that rolls in earlier every year. The trees are still budless. The grass is quickening to a bright jewel green.
***
I wonder when I can go outside again.
Total Confirmed Cases: 21,504
Total COVID-19 Deaths: 1,076
Daily Confirmed Cases: 1,158
Daily COVID-19 Deaths: 117
A thousand people dead. Jesus Christ.
***
Sleep left me a long time ago.
I'm so tired I feel like I'm underwater. Every night I stay up so late, so late, like the world depends on it, like I can't be bothered to crawl in bed, like there's always one more thing to do, one more thing.
Nobody's sleeping, Steph told me yesterday. Doctors are talking about it. It's the anxiety.
The anxiety. The anxiety of a world ending with people locked in their houses watching Netflix. Of a disease so virulent it spreads almost by magic. Of waiting to see what happens next. Of just wanting to go outside.
Of mourning a way of life we never thought to see as fragile. Not here.
***
T.S. Eliot: April is the cruellest month.
Can confirm.
***
Promotion notwithstanding, I offered to assist Douglas while his new assistant was out for the day.
"Can't do this every time," I texted. "But I have capacity and it's a good time for it."
His answering text was everything.
FUCK YA!
***
Settling into a new position in pure isolation in the middle of a crisis is not ideal.
I whipped through a binder for Douglas on an empty morning, happy to be doing a task I hate just to feel the familiarity, the soothing trance-state of sinking my awareness into numbers and formatting and alignment, the assurance in all this uncertainty of knowing what I'm doing, the lick of ferocity up the inside of my spine that comes from knowing that I'm the best.
And all the unspoken warmth and regard between the terse efficient lines of our communication. A world in a grain of sand.
Monday would be ideal but if you need it sooner we'll make it happen.
No. Client keeps asking for it. Should be pretty straightforward.
Here's the index. Need a few more docs but if we get them should be able to get it out tomorrow.
perfect
I miss working with Douglas so much some days that it cuts into my gut like glass.
***
Acid reflux was so horrible that I disgorged electric yellow bile immediately upon waking and kept burping, bubbles of hydrochloric acid crawling up my throat like tapeworms, crowding out the words I was trying to speak in trainings, in meetings. I nibbled a handful of saltines and carefully sipped a Manhattan all afternoon until the nausea finally eased.
Hours later the deep, raw ache still lingers in the back of my throat, a stretched burning, like crying, like fear.
***
April is cold. I long for sunwarmth but am grateful that the apartment air hasn't clotted up with the unbearable stuffy heat that rolls in earlier every year. The trees are still budless. The grass is quickening to a bright jewel green.
***
I wonder when I can go outside again.
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