Edit:

She was actually very sweet and I was being overdramatic.

She's a boomer, her daughter is an egyptologist, and she's taking her 4 year old grandson to Germany tomorrow.

She told me I can travel when I'm retired. I told her I work in non profits so probably not.

5/12/23

Riding Amtrak today, a different train than I'm used to. And guess what!!! Assigned seats!!! Usually I go all the way to the back and get lucky enough to be by myself so that I can watch twitch without looking like a weirdo but today I'm sitting next to an older lady to whom I'd have to explain why watching people play video games is a thing.

AND!!! no tray.

None of this really matters in the grand scheme but jeez.

I found this journal entry from 2020 interesting given the perspective after few years. Looking back it is melodramatic but I stand by it. Also I still feel like I had covid and the doc didn't take me seriously but whatever.

3/23/20

I’m sitting against the pillows of my bed, listening to the whines and running paws of Hermes and Nailah, Trying to keep sane in a world that is falling apart. I keep repeating the phrase “the sky is falling, and no one listened to chicken little”. I didn’t even like chicken little, maybe the claymation freaked me out, maybe it was too dark with the world being too blind.

Today is my seventh straight day with a fever, a consistent 100.5*, but luckily my week-long headache has subsided. What hasn’t gone away is the feeling of freefall every time I get on my phone, the feeling of hopelessness and terror as I find myself jobless, unable to pay my rent, unable (potentially) to graduate this May.

I left the house for the first time in 192 hours.[G] drove to Caseys, I stayed in the car. Even though what I have is most likely the flu, I can't expose my illness to others. While I have always been a homebody, comforted in my introvertedness, I never appreciated my job for forcing me to leave the house and interact with others. Being stranded in my home is something I could never have prepared for, mentally. ( I have an even larger respect and admiration for people like Chris Hadfield. If you haven’t heard his rendition of David Bowies’ “Space Oddity” I encourage you to listen to it. An abundance of inspiration and worldly connectedness flows from that song.)

I wonder if the world will be better or worse after this pandemic. If class warfare will be waged in this recession, or if people will gladly fall back into the status quo, their blind faith in a system that breeds and sustains evil. I wonder how many people will die by the end, from the virus, from the recession, xenophobia… isolation.

I wonder a lot of things when I am forced to face myself.

In Quarantine,

Sam

P.S. Last week, at the infamous lakehouse, I decided (against my better judgement) to Trip. My mistake was going on twitter during my comedown. March 12 (the day after America started giving a fuck), I had a panic attack.