Bibliomama

Although I did just get this notification from the library: IT'S A MYSTERY, I swear! I keep seeing people talking about how important keeping to a healthy routine is during all this. Exercise daily, eat at the same time, go to bed and wake up at the same time, etc. etc. I tried that and I felt like absolute shit. It just made me realize that much more how fucked up everything is. So that's great if that's what works for you. I started feeling better when I said fuck the routine. Start reading a book at midnight, finish at 6 a.m. and sleep until noon? Why the hell not? Cook eight things in one day so I don't have to make dinner every single goddamned night? Sounds good to me! (Eve said Matt came up and confided that he thought I'd gone slightly loony the other night when I was making three kinds of chicken, pulled pork, a vegetable stir fry and taco meat and biscuits. WHO'S THE LOON NOW, HONEY? (Still me, but we have lots of food, so...) My arm has been...

A couple of weeks ago I was on Twitter and I saw a hashtag that I wasn't familiar with - I think it was describing a disease. I punched it into the search bar, but instead of THAT hashtag, it gave me another hashtag that was in enthusiastic use in Gay Twitter. As in, I was suddenly face-to-NOT FACE with a close-up of an erect penis (I'm not being coy with the "it was an accident", if I was looking for dick pics I would cheerfully admit it). I snort-laughed because it was unexpected, but then I started reading the comments, and it was a thread of men complimenting each other exuberantly on their erections and saying "We should all destroy each other's holes!" It was all kind of.... wholesome. A few days into near non-stop virus coverage, Eve looked up from her phone and said "Pornhub is giving isolated people in Italy free subscriptions! Isn't that nice?" In non-penis-related news? Yesterday I had a lovely Twitter exchange with one of my...

Yes, theoretically I have more time to blog now. Practically, I look at my computer with a grimace of distaste and think "what's the point?" I am trying to overcome this feeling of overwhelming malaise. I am immensely comforted by the fact that we're all going through this together. I've commented on a couple of blogs, agreeing that it would be worse if this was a Terrible Thing that had happened to just one of us, or just one of our children, taking them out of college, derailing their hard-won successes, throwing everything into uncertainty, and then watching the world move on without us/them. That happens, and it must be such a lonely feeling. This is not that. Eve has said that she's fine if she doesn't go back to school until next year, or even has to take an extra year of high school. "You always said we should still have grade thirteen", she observed, which is true. She is still working on a baffling English project - it's on the L...

I haven't been able to settle to anything the past few days other than obsessively going from the news to Twitter to Facebook and back again. I went grocery shopping three times in four days because I did one normal grocery shop and then a thing happened on Sunday that I will tell you about later (it's a long story and I come off like a loon in it, but why be coy) and then we found out Angus was coming home yesterday so I took Eve for her bloodwork (masked gloved person at the entrance with hand sanitizer and screening questions, only two other people there, chairs all placed a metre apart from each other) and then went to the grocery store in the same parking lot (very few people, easy to stay far apart, wiped down the cart). I got to the checkout with milk, bread, meat, cereal, fruit and vegetables and snacks and glanced back at the bearded hipster dude behind me who had.... two cans of Guinness and a pack of gum. I felt like he was doing the apocalypse better than I was. A...

I had a weird day yesterday - went to my regular gig in the morning then got called to go over to my Wednesday school for the afternoon because the other library tech was out sick. Teachers at both place said thoughtless things that made me disproportionately angry. The weather was nice but I could feel that I'm entering that weeks-long period in spring(ish) or fall when I'm just hot all the time and in order not to die I have to underdress for the weather and steel myself against everyone and their dog saying "but aren't you COLD?" Anyway. Will save that for Thursday. Saturday was super fun - my lovely neighbour invited Eve and I to share her box seats (from work) for a Lumineers concert with her and daughter. Eve and Victoria were born one week apart (Victoria came a little late, Eve came a little early) and used to be constantly in and out of both our houses with paints and sidewalk chalk and Barbies (I used to write down their hilarious conversations: "...

It's a bit of a dark and trying time, what with the looming prospect of another four years of an absolute horror in the White House and the uncertain spectre of COVID-19. While we're all hoping against hope and washing our hands singing various twenty-second song snippets, I thought I would share some entertaining weird things that I've noticed about myself lately to pass a few minutes. Do you ever read those articles about the best way to wash your face or hair? Apparently the new thing is shampoo that's not really shampoo - what is it then? I'm not entirely sure. Regular shampoo, though, apparently is mostly water and sodium laurel sulfate, which dries your hair and perpetuates the need for products. Oh, here it is. Bumble & Bumble's no-shampoo shampoo is 'aloe vera and a combination of essential oils'. This matches another article where a woman talks about never using soap on her face - to clean off her makeup she has a ritual that only involv...