My last couple of posts read as pretty dire, don’t they? It kind of makes sense; these are dire times.

I did indeed get out in the woods a couple of times since the last post; a nice hike along the river, and a refreshing 10 mile bike ride on Friday afternoon. Thursday’s hike was a bit eye-opening, at least as I entered the park to pass kids climbing and drooling all over playground equipment while their parents stood idly by, ignoring the “this amenity is closed because we can’t possibly sanitize it effectively, please stay off” signs posted prominently anywhere.

Ugh.

Beyond the bike ride though, I was kind of wrecked a lot of the weekend. I tried to muddle through; doing laundry, watching big, dumb, loud movies (The Fast and Furious series is wonderful for that), and tring to hold off the occasional sobbing brought on by this anxiety and the pressure of being largely stuck in the house. Reading the news didn’t really help, and neither did finding out a good friend on the West Coast managed to get infected with this thing (I’m not worried about him; he’s low-risk and otherwise healthy), which makes this business personal.

The one highlight was my online show on Saturday afternoon; earlier in the day, I was kind of struggling with the idea of doing it – as I said, I wasn’t feeling great. Still, I put it on the schedule (and then it made it to other schedules) and had a bunch of people respond and tell me they were looking forward to it, so I did it. I managed to fine-tune the sound on the streaming setup (at least for FB Live, which seemed easiest to pull off in short order), and played for about an hour an a half in front of the webcam in the back room, to an average audience of 30 folks or so, and and the video’s had over 250 views at this point. People (and not just people who know me) seemed to enjoy it, and I even made a few bucks from the tip jar. I figure I’ll do it again.

Beyond that, though, I’m kind of a wreck emotionally and mentally (and I know I’m not alone). Weird, troubling dreams; of long-dead relatives and authority figures from my past telling me I was living my life entirely wrong; and another last night where I kept trying to catch up with my dad, but we kept missing each other.

That last bit; that’s the real kicker. Today is my dad’s birthday, and for whatever reason, this is the hardest time of the year for me to work through, even though he’s been gone over 25 years; longer than I had him in my life at this point…but…yeah. The last couple of years I’ve had out-of-town con gigs with the band at this time, which serve both as a welcome distraction to get me out of my own head, and, strangely enough, as a way of feeling closer to him, because we bonded over music and sci-fi, and I think he’d really have enjoyed the kind of stuff I have the privilege of doing as part of that community; and it’s a community I’d have loved to share with him, but it wasn’t part of my life then. Other than playing some songs in front of my laptop Saturday afternoon, I didn’t have that this year. Knowing I made some people’s afternoon a little more interesting felt good, but it’s not the same as having a live audience to respond to.

As for the week ahead: as of today, I’m still being allowed to come in to the office in my otherwise empty building, so there’s something of a routine, which helps a bit. Otherwise, there’s lots of rain in the forecast, so I don’t think I’ll really be getting out in the woods much, which sucks. Not that I have much of a plan otherwise, but I think I’m going to try and cook some decent meals, keep watching dumb movies and not the news, try to support another local brewery or two, and listen to and comment on a rough cut of a friend’s album he sent me.

We’re all doing the best we can; I know. I just hope it’s enough, because I think this week’s going to be really hard.