Self-distancing update

I haven't been very regular in my posting lately. I know.

The virus has made things considerably worse for my situation. It doesn't disrupt my ability to work, because I continue caring for my mother at home. It does take away some of the options that we used to help placate her, and it has really hampered my ability to get out of here and away from her for respite.

To be fair, the extent to which the virus has made life worse for other people is much bigger, but then I also had enough debits already that my impact might be felt more. It's hard to say; this is one reason not to compare suffering. 

As an additional snag, Twitter keeps having lags and down times, I assume because of the increased internet use, and that has been an important source of connection for me. On the other hand, I expressed some of my feelings on Facebook, and now at least four friends have me on suicide watch.

I should probably not express myself on Facebook.

As it is, I am not suicidal. I am down a lot, and a lot more tired and stressed now, when I was always pretty tired and stressed before. I was trying to think of helpful, productive things I could do, and it's just not going to happen. There are many needs in this world, but anything that doesn't go into my mother is going to need to go into me right now. I hope that doesn't last too long.

One sad loss is time for music listening. For now, I am not able to give bands the amount of time it would take to do a fair review. There are still three that should go up. One is an album review that I had already listened to a few times, and then I just wasn't able to write on the intended day.

Another is a concert that I went to, the night before it would have been canceled in fact. I have to document that; who knows when I will get to go to another? I had thought this would be a great year to do some reviews of Blues Fest, and maybe see if I could talk to some people there. Nope, not this year.

(That is not arguing with any of the policies. It is just disappointing.)

Then my favorite musician released three previously recorded but not released tracks for one album, and I think I can do that. Otherwise, it will be a while.

There are still seven director spotlights to cover, and I could write a lot about mental health and Nazis. I mean those as two distinct subjects, but there could be room for overlap too. I mean, a lot of the reading on psychopathy I have done relates to Nazis. And Bertrand Russell.

I really do want to do more interviews. I had thought of interviewing former classmates who are doing interesting things as we get closer to my reunion, though now I wonder if there will be a reunion. We'll see.

For the record, you may have seen that I have done three interviews, all with musicians whom I have also reviewed. There have also been five interview requests that did not get responses: three musicians, one politician, and one activist. Most of those were through Twitter, and I don't know if they even saw the requests, so I am not holding grudges. Also, there was one musician whom I reviewed but did not want to interview. I could tell I was not going to like it that much. I already have enough guilt about bad reviews; I do not need to add to that.

I do have some thoughts on people and politics and how they are responding to Coronavirus. I don't know if I will have it in me to write about those things, but I might.

In summary, I cannot offer any guarantees of prompt, quality content, but that's been going on for a while anyway.

Hang in there everyone. I will too.