The grackles are gorgeous here. Magisterial in their rich blue hoods, shouting from their treetop covens.

i correctly identified a duck before Viv could the other day—a common eider on choppy blue depths. i am gaining confidence!

Today or tomorrow i will be putting a blueberry bush in the ground. And perhaps also this potato that has been growing on the kitchen windowsill for a while. i’ve been watering it. i tried to grow the herbs you sent in September, but they didn’t make it. i would like to ask that you send more, but i don’t know how.

i heard you made Fae’s favorite dessert as we were collectively, remotely wishing her off. Viv and i sang “Spirit in the Sky” on repeat. What a team we all made—a perfect sendoff for Fae. i made some lemon chubbies (they are quite too plump to be cookies) and peanut butter muffins yesterday. It felt really good to bake again.

A group of finches is called a “charm”. i hope yours is thriving in this beautiful, strange spring.

i just realized that the whole world is in liminal space right now.

This is a lonely time and too few people have adapted to being on video chats, which means extroverts are lonely.

i do not love being an extrovert. i am also an empath. this combo makes for real difficulty, and often.

So now i recognize my need. To be around people, even if they aren’t my people. i miss the world. i miss overhearing inane conversation. i miss the random chatter of other humans. In an effort to help myself from.. myself, i reach out.

i would like to hold gatherings. Dance parties, crafting, etc. i’m not sure why i haven’t been invited to more happy hours. i am not drinking now precisely because of isolation, but i would like to hang out.

i understand why people are rejecting invitations. i get it and it’s okay. But it’s hard not to notice that every single one of them has at least one peer at home, if not a lover.

Check on your extrovert friends.

This is the season of learning. We are forced to recognize that arrogance and humility can exist next to love and spite along with fear and happiness, and so on. There is nothing but this learning, a strange but relentless discomfort bringing forth a bunch of shit you never wanted to know. Do you contradict yourself? You do. You will fight these understandings, but ultimately they can serve you. We can grow now. We can rely on each other. We can get up in the morning and check in on our friends and try to make something good happen. We can nap all day and try again tomorrow. We can dance, even if no one is watching.

i watched Someone Great at my weekly Netflix Party romcom night. (Yeah, let that sink in and let’s move on.) i thought this movie would make me miss my ex. Instead, Someone Great made me super depressed about not going out to bars and parties and yes, i also miss doing drugs and drinking. i miss strangers and bathroom friends and live music and sticky dance floors and fast bartenders. These are opportunities that simply do not exist right now. i miss them. We all do.

So i decided to dance. i am not a great dancer but i like to do it. i like a floor with a few people that isn’t too crowded. i like a DJ who pays attention to their audience. i decided to dance at home and be my own DJ.

A cute plan, but it doesn’t scratch the itch.

i decided to invite my friends to dance. Showing up at a video chat where a few people are dancing and listening to music with questionable sound quality is not the same as showing up at a dive bar, but it might even be better in some respects. i invited my friends and i play music that people would have to shout over to hear each other.

Tonight one of the people with whom i’ve most enjoyed dancing in my life showed up and we listened to several songs i’d prepared specifically thinking of her. We were beaming and so stoked to be looking at each other while we shook our booties! Another friend popped in for a sec and waved his arms around. These two pals actually knew each other so they yelled hellos and he hung out for like half a song before he took off. We danced just we two for a bit, then came the high energy, latin-flavored “Danza Kuduro”. My mom took that opportunity to show up and share a dance with us before blowing kisses as she left the floor.

Dancing just feels good, especially with other people, friends and strangers alike. People coming and going as they please, freely as if they were in the actual world, unfettered by the still-uncomfortable social norms of virtual meetups. i hope this can help people who are feeling camera shy. i hope people bring someone else from their house to dance along. i hope to see babies and millennials and old folks and everyone in between. i hope i get to see strangers, too. i hope to see them on my screen but also i just hope this catches on. There must be others in the world already doing it!

A half hour of playful movement, good beats and bright smiles. i will do it every night for as long as i can, at 7PM EST. Get at me to baila conmigo, or have so much fun creating your own party.

Everyone is saying the same thing when you get them on the phone: “I’m okay! I have food and shelter and toilet paper and some money for now.” Maybe they will be lucky enough to still have a job, not know anyone who’s sick, genuinely enjoy the person/people they’re stuck with (i have all three thus far, miraculously, gratefully).

Then they will hesitate. They will reiterate that they are okay not defensively, but clearly trying to convince themselves. They will laugh and say, “but that’s everyone right?” as if that makes it suck less. Often then they will admit it, “I’m a little bit not okay, I guess”.

Honestly if anyone was genuinely feeling okay right now my first question would be about their sanity in general. i’ll have what they’re having, if y’know what i mean.

If you are not okay, congratulations! You’re a regular degular human on an epic historic journey with all the several billion rest of us.

It is reasonable and sane to not be okay. Sure, there are silver linings and beautiful moments. There always are. But we just got our world flipped upside down and we don’t have any idea what the future looks like, collectively or as individuals.

How about some science? Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs includes two—out of five—human needs that are deeply threatened if not fully removed by the effects of COVID19. These are: a sense of social belonging and acceptance, and esteem gained by achievement. Isolation is wearing at the former of these pretty brutally, while the latter was totally ripped from those who’ve lost their jobs. You shouldn’t feel okay about these losses. They are real.

If you feel like you are trying to maintain sanity most hours of the day, you are probably doing it right. Your empathy, sympathy, fear response, adrenal glands… everything is in working order.

It is okay to not be okay. There are multiple billions of other humans just out of reach and feeling exactly the same way. These are the days to (virtually) lean on your loved ones. They need you as much as you need them. Think of it like Bubba and Forrest—a mutual lean. Because nobody should have to sleep with their head in the mud. Call your loved ones and let them know: i’m not okay—you’re not okay. But we might be okay, together.

Extroverts should maybe listen to live albums on headphones with their eyes closed during isolation. i miss crowds.

This is an opportunity to get better at so many things, in particular: listening. The internet has lag time, phone calls are weird. We have to wait more patiently to hear whether someone’s thought has finished. No discernible body language means we have to get better at paying attention and giving people time to say their piece. (Also: emojis.) My students are already adapting so well to each other over video chat. i know a lot of millennials with aversions to phone talks, i think precisely because it has this curve. Now we learn.

There is wayyy too much time to examine my shit and i need a therapist. (i had finally met my new PCP and put therapy calls in just before this happened.) Thank fuck for the Fetlife community, who in particular understand my need for physical pain at this time, and my smattering of amazing friendships strung around the world, all of whom have something in common besides being loves of mine: courage.

i’m fundamentally jealous of people who have touchable playmates at home. i have been hugged exactly once in three weeks. This has nothing to do with getting laid, just touch. How do humans live like this? i am hella not interested, honestly.

We need a groundhog emoji for these weirdly dull, tense days.

i personally see so little potential in my life without encountering new places and people on a regular basis. i don’t actually have any clue about how to be happy otherwise. i search now for something clear to look forward to. i know half the world’s population, at least, is doing the same. This is not as reassuring as i’d like it to be.

i hope so hard that there’s an anarchist writing about our future by now. Economic depression is on the table and therefore so is a leveling out of the playing field. There is a long darkness before the light in this situation, months at least. It took too long for us to take the whole thing seriously, and then to realize that we have to adjust for the long term. This week it feels like that’s finally sinking in. Are we ready for the fact that this is going to get much worse? Only after that can we start hoping for better. Maybe. Where is the anarchist who’s writing from ahead of the game? What happens when capitalism collapses?

i’ve never wanted a dog more.