Category: Life

This is madness:

Medical professionals have publicly called on the president to discontinue his rallies. Seventy-five doctors led by the Committee to Protect Medicare, a health-care advocacy group, signed a letter last week asking Trump to cancel one in Erie. And on Monday, Meaghan Reid, an emergency physician in Drexel Hill, hosted a virtual news conference again asking the president to stop.

Trump blitzes Pennsylvania with 3 rallies as coronavirus spikes lead to calls for him to stop

Seventy five DOCTORS – people who went to school for a zillion years, paid a boat load of money, working long hours, made so many sacrifices – got together and said this!

I think the biggest thing I keep coming back to during these *unprecedented times* is this; there was a time when you could go to bed at night knowing grown ups were running the show, and watching out for everyone. Sure, there are policy differences, but we still listened to science.

“We cannot rely on herd immunity,” (Pennsylvania’s health secretary Dr. Rachel) Levine said. “That is not a good public health strategy.”

Like, we’re seriously not wearing masks. And then when a vaccine is available, there’s going to be so much disinformation out there on how it was developed by liberals, or aliens, or Hollywood elites.

I mean, 2,751 case today.

Timely words from track and field Olympian Tianna Bee:

“Whatever it is you’re facing-whatever the adversity or the obstacle- there is a solution. Yes. There is. The question is- are you going to take quitting off the table in order to free up the space needed for the creativity and new perspective to find it.”

Unbroken

During this season of a maddening political world, a national shit show during a pandemic, racial injustice, poverty and about a million other things – quitting isn’t an option. Not for Bee, not for any of us.

There are days of rest, tears, and eating cake out of a baking tin at 9pm on occasion, but then it’s back at it.

Quitting is off the table.

From James Clear’s recent email (read it here):

What is the little bit of extra work that has huge upside?

I need to look at this from the running angle, because I don’t always want to write about work stuff, but I guess it’s gotta be stretching.

Not stretching is easy, but making time to stretch is absolutely extra work. It’s a routine, it’s formative, it’s just a darn good idea.

Reminded of this article after a long talk with a friend today:

We’re feeling a number of different griefs. We feel the world has changed, and it has. We know this is temporary, but it doesn’t feel that way, and we realize things will be different. Just as going to the airport is forever different from how it was before 9/11, things will change and this is the point at which they changed. The loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection. This is hitting us and we’re grieving. Collectively. We are not used to this kind of collective grief in the air.

That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief

That article is from March 23rd of 2020, which feels like a life-time ago. And how did anyone hit the nail on the head just a week after we started shutting things down?

We’re grieving the loss of normal, of safety, of security, of spontaneity. Stuff is upside down right now, and just keeping our head up is an act of defiance and bravery.

We no longer have a commute. We don’t have shows, or dinners, or meet ups like we used to, to break up our days. Our weeks. The day to day is stuck on loop. Like the Groundhog Day movie, but way darker because it’s happening in real life, and the ending credits are nowhere to be seen.

Today I remembered going into the city. Driving to the bus station, the two hour bus ride, walking out of Port Authority Bus Terminal and seeing the NYTimes building. I fired up Google Maps street view just to remember what that was like. I strolled down the street, heading east to Bryant Park. Dammit I miss Bryant Park.

I miss being able to meet up with friends at shows, and all the talks and adventure that place before the doors even open. Late night drives home, and everything they reveal.

This year has stripped a lot of the possibilities away. Great conversations are still happening, and the random hangs with select folks, but still, this shit is hard.

Since Trump was diagnosed with COVID-19 (or was he?!), it’s been harder to focus. I mean, everything has been batshit crazy, but now? Now the leader of the free world has a virus that has killed over 200,000 Americans. I mean, aside from the Nelson-esque “AH HA,” this is some serious shit. Like, what if our adversaries were to strike? What if a major earth quake were to happen? What if some major electrical grid went down?

Leadership is bad enough at the moment, but them compound with that?

So it’s just been more unease. Like, working from home and all, or when going to sleep at night, you just sort of figure, hey, grown ups are in charge, and they’re handling things.

But more and more it just feels like that’s not the case, which makes it hard to focus on much of anything at the moment.

Sure, I’ve seen the news. Even if I didn’t check the news, alerts pop up on my phone. Friends message me. Today was quite a day for that.

Years ago I thought of the music media business as driving up a never ending mountain, with bosses in the back seat yelling to go faster.

That still exists, I guess, but now it’s on the consumer to keep ingesting everything. Put your phone down for 15 minutes and you could miss a big Tweet, a new update, a leak, some source coming out, a video, audio, so many things!

Keeping up is a full time job, on top of our full time jobs, of which we already have many. It’s not enough to have the work that we do, but also the work of not contracting a super-deadly virus. The work of staying away from people, only going out when we need. And it’s even overwhelming all the fund raisers going on, the organizations we need to support, the art and music that that we want to nurture.

I always come back to this; I can’t save the world. If I do one thing today, that’s enough. And if I don’t, well, that’s nobodies business. We’re all here to do what we’re all here to do. And that’s enough for today. Tomorrow? Hell, that’s not even here yet.

My Freelancer Workshop pal (we’ve been talking every week since November 2019) requested that I ask them what they said “YES” to this week. Then I thought about it for myself.

I said yes to a “virtual running form assessment” with Jess Wayashe. I can read all the articles online, and watch all the YouTube videos, but it’ll sure be nice to get some real professional feedback on my run form. I met Jess years ago in Philadelphia, through friends, and we keep in touch on Instagram. She posts a lot of informative running and fitness stuff, so give her a follow (here).

Proper form is important to avoid injury, and I want to keep running as long as I can, so saying yes to this will probably pay off in the long term.