Everything is awful, obviously. Also, being separated from friends isn't fun at the best of times, but this current Weirdness has been educational for me in highlighting just how much I rely on my friends for emotional stability and refueling, how unbalanced and un-myself I am when I'm cut off from my people. I hadn't realized how long I've had my head down, focused on just getting through the hour, the day, the week, until I saw a friend at work (she was there on work-related business). I'm really good at getting through active emergencies, good at the grit-your-teeth-and-deal-with-it stuff, but not as good at maintaining relationships in a crisis.
I'm gonna start writing on my old, unused blog in an attempt to stay more connected with the ones I love. I think about all of you all the time. The first few weeks of the quarantine were so hard, so scary and exhausting and when I'd have a particularly bad customer or situation, I'd picture your faces in my mind to help me feel less alone, and you guys are so wonderful, and I love you all so much that it actually helped me deal with things. Even now, if someone is yelling at me about flour or thermometers or meat shortages, I'll take a couple seconds to picture a friend's face and it helps me stay calm. Is this a weird thing to confess? Whatever. I helped a middle aged man in a long, blue plaid bathrobe and blue fuzzy slippers find some bagels yesterday, and his outfit barely BARELY seemed unusual. It mostly just didn't seem strange at all. This new job has been really, really challenging. I'm used to various crises and emergencies and used to thinking about worst case scenarios because of my climate work, but the emotional minefields in a grocery store in the midst of a pandemic, during the political... what?? Unrest? Insanity? What do we call current events? Some people have written at length about 'the end of the American experiment.' Others say we Americans are following a Weimar Republic timeline (I agree with them, unfortunately). There's talk of looming Civil War, analysis with which I partially concur.
Sara Kendizor https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior says "This is a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government." (She's been horrifyingly prescient in her books. I recommend her Twitter feed as well. Las Vegas bookies could make serious bank by betting on her insights and predictions. Plus she's from Missouri and a metal-head mom, so she's dope as heck just generally).
I'm mostly stocking shelves lately which can be physically intense, but it's not as fraught as cashiering. I think it's probably safer right now, too. Cashiers are the most vulnerable to public transmission of the virus (not to mention the emotional burdens that come with every-day type public facing work that involve money and food). I worked all day and night during the 'rona version of Black Friday and had customers lined up to the back of the store, had the credit card machines go down SEVEN TIMES. Seven. Times. Many of the customers were terrific, many were competent humans behaving brilliantly under the pressure in spite of a lack of leadership from anyfreakingwhere, but I'm sorry to report that a few people did not bear the weight of bad news well. I'm actually kind of surprised by how dang fast people fell into cliches. I thought it would take longer, but the good people have risen to great heights of humanity, and others.... haven't. Grocery-store-broad (so so so broad)-cliches-in-a-pandemic/political meltdown would make the least sensitive undergrad psyche student swoon with joy. You'll be shocked to discover that my worst customers are middle-aged white men. Old white men are the next worst, followed by youngish white men. There are many Karen's, and they deserve more than a little scorn for their bad behavior in stores and restaurants, but the real stand outs have been mostly A Certain Kind Of Guy. I have actually told a few of them to not come through my line again, actually said to them: if you see me at a register and there are other lanes open, you need to pick a different one because you have appalling manners and you're un-invited from the lane I'm working. Some of these people, I mean, jeeeeebus.
The good people have been wonderful. I complimented a woman on her homemade mask fabric (I think this was on week two of the quarantine) and she went home and made one for me and brought it in that night. This woman went home, unloaded her many groceries, then sat right down and sewed a mask for a cashier that she'd never met and then went back out into the tired night, into an overcrowded, under-managed, dangerous public space to find me. She was worried that I'd finish my shift before she could get the mask in my hands. It's got lovely fabric, black with green leaves, very pretty and botanical.
Another woman bought a bunch of fancy cheeses and I said I was a cheese fiend, just chattering, the way you do when keeping a customer occupied and calm for the ten minutes it takes to ring up a quarantine-sized order of groceries. She took her groceries out to her car, then voluntarily went BACK into the store, got back into my line (she probably added at least an hour to her errands) and bought more fancy cheese, which she then handed to me and said, this is for you, I'm grateful for you. I'd never had really expensive cheese, let alone cheese that was dry rubbed with pepper and spices, and lemme tell you, it was so dang good. I sat in my bed, in my dark room, much later that night, skin burning from the strong soap I used (three times) in the shower after work, and ate almost all of it. Woke up in the middle of the night and ate the rest.
I have an extra handmade mask that a dear friend made for me, it's in the right pocket of my store apron. I brought it as a backup mask, but it turned into a good luck charm, always with me now, only recently realized that I've been taking it out and holding it, the way you would with rosary beads, when things heat up at work.
I'm lonely. I'm sad, so so sad. I'm burning up with righteous rage. And I'm tired, really, really, really tired. But I feel all of you around me, keeping me sane and safe, keeping me going.
Anyway. This is me checking in. I'll write more later, gotta get ready for work.
xoxoxoxo
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PS: links for vids I liked this week (I'd recommend books but I haven't read a book for two months)
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