THE WANDERING LAPTOP

Work has been relegated to home.  For many people, this would be an easy transition.  However, I am a teacher, and right now the federal and state governments have our hands tied in student equity laws.  Meanwhile, I am attempting to find a comfortable place to set up my quasi office/classroom.

Folks -- It's just not working.

First I set up on the kitchen table, an excellent work space with about as much room as my school desk.  I can spread out all over the place, but that is part of the problem.  First of all, I am, indeed, spreading out all over the kitchen: table, counter, breakfast nook, stools, chairs...  Secondly, I can hear my next door neighbor, which means that she can hear me, so my early morning video calls and texts and general ranting must be bothersome.  Lastly, I am IN the kitchen, too close to food and beverage that is preventing me from fitting into my work pants (yes, I try on a pair this morning and it isn't pretty).

So, I set up in my expansive hallway under the staircase and landing, kind of like Harry Potter but with more space and ambiance.  This is great, but I am still too close to the kitchen and the food.

Third stop on my office adventure is my actual office/sewing room/den, a large room that has a 270 degree view and four large windows.  I set up on my real desk, which is next to my home computer set up.  This is great except that when I am working, I am distracted by my home computer, and when I am writing or playing on my home computer, I am distracted by my work computer.  They are exactly three feet apart, and I bet if I try hard enough, I could reach between them and type on both at once.  I worry again about my neighbor because my personal office is directly above her apartment.

Downstairs I go again, taking my work office into the living room, a dangerous move because the furniture is very, very comfortable.  I find quickly that I must sit on a folding chair in order to be productive.  This lasts about a week before I get bored trying to relax in my living room after hours.  The work computer is right there, and it is soooooo easy to do work instead of sit still.

Back to the hallway I go, a different location closer to living room and not to the kitchen.  I sit and try to work, but the front door distracts me.  I am also directly under the doorbell - a dangerous move for someone as jumpy as am I.  Suddenly, my neighbor turns on her television set, and I realize that the hallway is not going to work at all.  If I can hear her, then she can hear me.

Okay, so the living room is the farthest away from bothering neighbors on either side, below, above, all around the mulberry bush.  But I really, really don't have enough work surface without cluttering the living room and turning it into another den.

The den.  Damnit.  Back we go to the den.  Okay, so it's not too bad.  I can look out the window into my landlord's office building, and I can see some of the shops uptown as I work at the desk.  There's a futon, a daybed, my sewing stuff, a dress form I can talk to if I get lonely, and a television in case I decide to watch old B-horror movies on the Comet channel (because daytime TV totally sucks and there's nothing ... NOTHING ... else on that is worth watching).  I have a comfy chair and all of my office supplies are up here; I have enough pens, pencils, and lined paper to open my own school right here.

Of course, the den is a total mess.  There are boxes from the move that still have not been unpacked, and the daybed, in full view of the computer cameras, is loaded with piles of sorted paperwork and photos and picture frames.  This means that every time I have to video conference, all people can see is that I am an abysmal housekeeper.  So, maybe I should go back to ...

Damn you, school laptop.  It's like you're taunting me.  Believe me, I don't want you here any more than you want to be here, you wandering nomad of nuisancery (yes, I just made up that word).  Well, at least I am farther from the kitchen, so perhaps my pants will be the biggest winner in this battle.

POSTING RECIPES: WHY I WILL BE DEAD FOR BREAD

Okay, people out there in COVID-19 Land, you need to STOP right now.  Stop it, stop, stop it!  You need to stop posting recipes on social media.

I'm serious.  That Buffalo chicken pull-apart bread recipe that somebody posted?  I hate you right now.  Seriously.  I risked my life for that recipe.  I ended up finding some of the ingredients and maybe I will be able to Mickey Mouse the rest of it.

The pizza dough was the problem.

That's right.  Pizza dough.  The store didn't have any dough, so I went for canned pizza dough.  Nothing.  So I looked for yeast.  No yeast.  Apparently everyone in the world bought up all the yeast when they also bought up all the flour.

I circled that damn store four times, risking my health and my sanity, because someone posted that damn recipe.  And ... I am pleased to report ... that I did, indeed, finally find a package of Italian pizza dough in the refrigerator section on my third pass through.

But then, oh, and here's where I really damn you, I began thinking about the refrigerator chocolate chip cookie dough.  You know, the kind you can break squares off and bake a few at a time.  Yes, I was trying to leave the store, trying to get to the check-out, and I had to turn around.  My fourth pass by the dairy section wasn't even for dairy, damnit; it was for cookie dough!

All because YOU posted the Buffalo chicken pull-apart bread recipe.

Stop it, people.  Stop posting mouth-watering recipes with things I do not have in my house that will force me to convince myself that I must venture out into COVID-19 Land or die never having tasted the succulent masterpiece you've posted on social media.

I can see the grave marker now:  DEAD FOR BREAD.  Truth.

SHARING AND HOARDING

COVID-19 is here, folks.

It is in my school district, and it is in the trial court where I served jury duty (and was impaneled under oath for several hours during jury selection) on Monday.  With schools shut down, the kiddos are now being driven into the regular population, rather than controlled inside the walls of buildings.  With public transportation still operating, we are all sucking in the same air as those around us, and, subsequently, allowing expelled air and germs to settle onto our clothes and in our lungs.

It's inevitable.  And because I find the whole thing hysterically hysterical, I'll be the ironic one to die of it.

By hysterically hysterical, I am, of course, referring to the  hoarding of certain items.  I can understand things like bleach cleaners and hand sanitizers.  I even semi-understand the toilet paper situation, except that COVID-19 is a respiratory illness, therefore tissues should be going long before TP.  I suppose it has to do with quarantine situations.

There are some hoarded items that I do not understand, though:  flour and trash bags.

I mean, truly, what are you going to do -- BAKE away the virus?  FLOUR DUST it into oblivion?  Maybe baking snacks, I guess; that I can understand.  Except that if you end up as infected, now everyone who eats the baked goods will also be at risk, and so on and so on.

But, people: What's with the hoarding of trash bags?  Are you going to duct tape together your own Hazmat suit?  Are you covering your windows?  Are you waving the bags at the virus like a toreador? Dare I even say it ... makeshift body bags?

So, be kind to each other.  Share your food, share your trash bags, and share your friendship but let's try to NOT share this damn virus.

DRIVING MY OWN CAR INTO THE SUN

A few weeks ago my car got hit.  A woman jumped a stop sign and, while looking to her left, completely ignored my car coming down the road on the right (with the right of way).  Surprisingly, it only took five days to fix my car.  Last time this happened I was without my car for almost three weeks.  Anyway, before dropping my car off for its repairs, I cleaned out a bunch of stuff I figured I would need: loose change, about five pairs of reading and driving glasses, and several pairs of sunglasses.

When driving the rental car, I realized that I did not have my sunglasses with me, at least not the ones with the 1.25+ (or 1.50+ ... don't judge me).  While I can wear the non-RX sunglasses, it's much safer if I drive with the ones that actually correct my driving eyesight.  I figured I must've put them in my backpack when I cleaned out the car, so I went searching.  Nope.  Not there.

Dang it.  I must've left them in my car when I left it at the body shop.  Thankfully, the time I was sans my own car was a relatively sunless few days, so it was not a huge problem.

Friday when I went to pick up my car, I immediately opened the center console.  No sunglasses.  I re-opened both the top of the center console and the big under-part of the console, as if perhaps I missed the sunglasses the first (five) time(s).  Still nothing.  I checked the side pockets on the driver's side door.  Nothing.  I looked in the mini-compartment under the radio, and I checked the glove box.  Still no sunglasses.

A few days passed and I was getting pissed off about losing my only driving sunglasses.  I'd have to get on Amazon and order another pair, not a big deal really, but the fact that I could find everything else, including stuff I had forgotten about like Dunkin's gift cards and hoarded plastic straws, was bugging me.  I checked under the seats, in the trunk, and I double-checked my backpack and my house.

Where in the hell did I put those glasses?  Did they fall out of the car?

It was nearly a week later when I arrived home after dark.  I shut the car off, reached up to hit the light and accidentally released the mini-compartment near the light button.  Yes, some of you have already figured out which mini-compartment I mean: the one for SUNGLASSES.

I was only away from my car for five days and I completely and totally forgot that my car has a SUNGLASSES COMPARTMENT in it, and that's where my SUNGLASSES live all day every day unless they are on my face.

I am pleased to report that my sunglasses are back in my possession and that it is safe for everyone, including me, to be back on the roads again.  However, I think to be extra cautious I might order another pair or two of 1.25+ (or 1.50+ ... don't judge me) sunglasses.  Truly.  I never know when I might forget that I am driving my own damn car.

BULLSHIT ON THE BULLSHIT ALREADY

I am getting a little tired of bullshit.  Bullshit on the news; bullshit on the radio; bullshit on television; bullshit in the newspapers; bullshit on the Internet; bullshit at work; bullshit at home.  I guess it's a damn good thing I am not a farmer or a rancher because bullshit would be my business, and I'd be damn tired of it.

There's nothing in particular to report on the bullshit front.  I mean, I got my car back from the repair shop and the body work (from an accident at which I was officially 0% responsible) looks fantastic -- even the dealer cannot tell anything has ever been done.  I did not lose electricity, not even for one second, during the recent two-day wind and rain storms that paralyzed several communities.  I actually went an entire week at work without having my ass reamed out for anything and/or everything.

I guess I am suffering from Bullshit Buildup.

This happens when one's constant state of high alert resumes to its pre-crisis homeostasis of near-calmness.  Apparently my system crashed officially about five days ago, causing me to go to bed early an be completely and soundly asleep by 8:45 p.m. on a weeknight.  When I awoke the next morning following eight-plus hours of nearly uninterrupted, dreamless sleep, my normal cynical self returned.

Since hitting the wall and resuming an almost even keel of mental stability, I've had a lot of time to reflect on recent events, both personal and global, and declare the entire first part of 2020 to be complete and utter BULLSHIT.  This revelation has morphed into systematic clearing of my personal belongings at work (if I disappear suddenly and the police are looking for clues, my desk and cabinets will yield nothing), the continued purging of my personal belongings at home, and a renewed fervor for writing (not all of it sane).

I have also developed a highly suspect and frightening obsession with the Guy Ritchie movie King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, a movie in which the completely wicked and horribly demented antagonist suffers total retribution and annihilation at the hands of the rabble-rousing commoners (led, of course, by an ass-kicking but clueless good guy).  I seem to have developed a psychic connection with Goosefat Bill, the hooligan you love but who also has a mental scoresheet of debts to settle.  He does all the wrong things for all the right reasons, and I suspect that I identify with his cause.

No matter.  I have discovered a cure for the Bullshit Blues: Pinot Noir.  Well, that and Ginaritas (Margaritas made with gin instead of tequila).  Okay, and beer.  Oh, and chocolate and cookies and cheese and crackers and pizza and salads with lots of feta and ham rolled up and dipped into mustard.  I might have to add cannolis and cake and maybe even hamburgers and ice cream as the political primary gets closer and the bullshit meter goes into high gear again.

Judging from posts online (sorry, Tic Toc, but you're just not on my radar) from many different sites, and judging from friends and coworkers and acquaintances, I'm not the only one suffering from severe bullshit buildup.  Remember, though, when it comes to the magic cure, commiserating is great, but never discount the curative powers of red wine and Hershey's.  It may not slay your enemies ala Excalibur, but it will certainly put that (double) edge back in your zest for justice.  (P.S. My "enemies" and their machinations have been warned.  Just kidding ... not.)