So what have you been doing with yourself during lockdown? There’s a show-off side to social media that can make it look like everyone is baking bread and writing King Lear while teaching their kids Chinese, but of course that’s bollocks. If you’re anything like me you’ve just been going crazy working from home, taking walks, drinking more than usual, and shouting at your kids to stop playing video games.
Time feels like Shrödinger’s Cat existing in two states at once at the moment, simultaneously flying by (it’s August!) while it also seems like we’ve been living this way forever. No wonder we all feel discombobulated and in limbo. Chances are I’m going to be working from home until early 2021 so this is life for the forseeable for me. I’m luckier than most in that I have a job but it’s still hard on the brain and the soul, six months is a long time to live like this and I’ve had my moments of depression and cabin fever — not to mention the anger I feel when I think this could have been almost over by now if we had competent leadership.
There’s something about working from home that is way more tiring than going to an office. Maybe it’s the cheap IKEA chair I’m sitting in, but my brain and body are mush by the end of the day and I don’t have the energy to do anything else. It’s taken me two months just to write this blog post. I’m afraid we can’t all be Charli XCX and Taylor Swift who made us all look like slackers by recording entire new albums while stuck at home. I have designed a few new t-shirts, but mostly when I finish working I just want to lay on the couch, close my eyes, and turn my brain off completely. What I really want to do is close my eyes and not wake up until this is all over.
Download: Life During Wartime – The Staple Singers (mp3)
cryingallthewaytothechipshop.wordpress.com 
Hi.
You deserve a comment for writing this post that took you a long time to write. But I didn’t see it appear before today. And I passed here before …
This is not easy times.
I would prefer to stay home (I did 2 months but went back to work) as public transportation at 32 degrees with a mask is not fun at all. AND some stupid people.
«if we had competent leadership»: this is an understatement.
Anyway, my note is to say: hang in there. It will pass.
We don’t know each other but I came looking for your posts for a good many years now. 10 ? more ?
You made me discover much. I Thank You.
(from Montreal, Quebec).
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Thanks Ravel, appreciate it
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I think we can all recognise at least some of what you write about Lee. It will be over at some point but that point still looks some distance away. On the positive side, its looking more like you’ll get a change in leadership in November (even if he has to be removed from the White House by force in January).
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Hope so but Clinton was way ahead in the polls at this point too. But this virus has really exposed him, he’d been skating by on bluster and bullshit until then
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‘if we had competent leadership? so glad there were no covid cases and deaths anywhere else in the world!
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Compare the numbers in the US and UK with other countries Benny. It didn’t have to be this bad
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Any fair minded person would acknowledge that this pandemic is a once (we hope) in a hundred year event and this or any administration would have struggled to deal with the extreme and unusual events and the problems that emerged, it has been a somewhat painful learning experience for the president and the state governors/mayors
I get it that you all hate your president, as a Canadian observer I think it is really sad how this covid-19 virus pandemic has become so politicized in the US, I thought Americans were better than that.
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Yep, strange how the handling of Covid 19 has become so politicised. Its almost like the leaders of the USA and UK are extremely partisan political leaders who politicise everything else but then complain when they get criticised.
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I agree, party leaders Pelosi, Schumer, Harris/Biden, Starmer and Corbyn should be more supportive, offer solutions and be less political.
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Funny how all those people you listed are liberals. Like Trump and Johnson aren’t actually, you know, the ones in power right now
I think we’re done
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They are not liberal they are socialist, I voted for Justin Trudaeu twice and if my memory serves me he heads a liberal government, a true liberal much like the democrat party of Kennedy and even Clinton, not the radical anarchists of today.
It would have been refreshing if these ‘leaders’ had offered constructive criticism to help in the fight against this virus instead of performing the ‘orange man bad’ routine.
Oh well lets see how Biden goes about eliminating the virus if he should win in November.
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Benny, I don’t think you need to batter London Lee round the head right now. Love your blog Lee, have missed your posts. It’s fucking hard right now to keep your head above the water, drowning seems sometimes easier. Keep swimming, the end of the pool is in sight ! X
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Yep, Benny’s right- government works much better when the opposition support the government of the day. Then we don’t have pesky things like criticism of incompetence and holding people to account.
Nothing wrong with socialism either- the welfare state, the NHS, comprehensive education, pensions for all, sickness and disability benefits, to name but a few achievements of socialism in the UK. Radical anarchism would seem to be something else I think.
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I lived in England through the socialist experiment in the sixties and could debunk most of what you wrote but what would be the point.
I apologies if I have hurt anyone’s feelings here it was not my intent to do so.
Stay safe and I hope the outcome in November will make you happy for a time at least
I will not visit your site again so goodbye and good luck
Cheers
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Has he gone?
I was mildly worried about the long silence but I’m glad you’ve kept the plates spinning.
With my wife working in a public service office my only hope of shielding is for her to quit and us to hole up in a tent in a string of National Parks. So that’s where I’ll be for the foreseeable.
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I think we have to put things in perspective. Our parents’ generation lived through six years of war, deprivation and food shortages, while so far we’ve had to bear six months of home deliveries and streaming. It’s not pleasant but it’s not the end of the wor…aaaggghhhhh
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