Category — Uncategorized

I mentioned in the last book roundup how much I loved Finna by Nino Cipri. It’s about two employees working at a knock-off IKEA chain who enter a wormhole that opens up in one of the showcase rooms. Inside the Narnia-like space, they encounter (among other characters), the captain of a ship who explains why she loved traveling via wormholes.

I keep recommending this book for this passage on page 100:

“It showed me that there were infinite possibilities, at all times. After I made captain of the Anahita, I worried over every decision, doubted whether I was brave or smart or strong enough to pull my mission off and protect my crew. I could remind myself that somewhere in the multiverse of possibility, there existed a world where I was all of those things. Maybe it was the world that I already lived in.”

It becomes a choice. If in one of the infinite universes, you are enough; you achieve everything you hope for and all of your effort pays off, why not believe that it’s the universe you are living in. That it’s not one of the branching paths but instead the life in front of you.

I love that so much.

I like to think of my brain as my emotional bank, and I store my weekly paycheck of emotional energy in its vault. Most of the time, I have enough energy to cover all of my bills—family obligations, work obligations, time with friends—and still have enough leftover for frivolous purchases, such as scrolling through Facebook and remaining friends with someone even after a fake pregnancy announcement for April Fool’s Day. (Please don’t do this.)

But the pandemic has thrown my careful budget into disarray. There is emotional energy I need to spend to keep the lights on—family obligations and work obligations—and I usually have enough in the account for Zoom calls with friends, though I keep the circle smaller some weeks more than others. But that leftover emotional energy I enjoyed before the pandemic is usually not in my account at the end of the week. It’s all spent. Zeroed out.

I don’t have the energy for social media itself much less fake pregnancy announcements. (Please don’t do this. It bears repeating.) I don’t have patience for other people’s poor decisions.

This article summed up how I feel as we round on one year of this. Sometimes I look at what needs to get done, and I think inside my head: “I can’t.” It’s almost like I need to let myself say those two words in order to make a withdrawal from the emotional bank. Those words have become like a password.

It’s not that what I need to get done is so much. It’s less than I did pre-pandemic because there’s less socializing, fewer meetings, no travel. But it’s more than I have energy saved in my emotional bank.

Except for the days or weeks when I feel fine.

Because that’s how it is now. There are the weeks when everything just is. It’s fine. We’re all fine. The word for “okay” in Hebrew is b’seder—”in order”—and that is how it is most of the time. My emotional account is in order. It balances, even if the amount in my emotional savings account is negligible.

One year.

Purim starts Thursday evening. Hint: if you wished people a Happy Chanukkah this year, you probably also want to wish them a happy Purim because this holiday is on par—importance-wise—with Chanukkah. Meaning, it’s a minor, not-super-important holiday. But I love this one and I don’t love Chanukkah, so we normally celebrate Purim big and Chanukkah very small.

When I say that we celebrate Purim big, we celebrate it as big as Christian people do Christmas. I have a separate freezer just for storing baked goods because I have to begin baking several weeks early in order to make gift packages for everyone. Our family always does a theme for our packages. When the kids were little, we did elaborate, hand-made costumes. We always go to a megillah reading and carnival.

Because the Hebrew calendar shifts within the world calendar, last year, we were able to deliver our packages and have a slightly more subdued Purim at the start of the pandemic. This year, we opted to send See’s candy to a few family members so the holiday wouldn’t go unmarked. No theme. No costumes. Zoom megillah reading.

It feels weirdly empty to not have Purim prep beyond a single tray of hamantaschen and chocolate chip cookies for inside the house. We’ve passed through much bigger holidays between last Purim and now; some that require just as much prep work and attention. But this one is the one I’m feeling. It’s a happy holiday, and it’s hard to do it happy over Zoom.

Maybe next year.

I am three minutes away from getting an Apple watch, and I blame the pandemic. Before the world fell apart, I would have described myself as a saver, not a spender. And that has mostly remained true with few exceptions here and there.

But lately, I have been coveting an Apple Watch with zero clue what I could do with an Apple Watch. I know it will count my steps. I’m not sure if it’s more or less accurate than leaving my phone in my pocket. I’ve been told that I can receive and send texts, though I have a hard enough time seeing them on my phone with that small type. I’m not sure how it will be more convenient to have it on my wrist. And beyond that, I have zero clue what an Apple watch will do that my phone can’t. Please remember that I’m not leaving the house right now. See, zero use for this watch.

And yet, it has become a family joke. I tell them that we’re all going to get Apple Watches and talk to each other through our wrists.

The Guardian recently had a piece on emotional spending. That is what this is: emotional spending. Buying an Apple Watch not because I have any use for an Apple Watch but because I want something new. Anything new.

Emotional spending isn’t a problem because I am also distrustful of online shopping (or purchasing anything I haven’t gotten to try on or touch) and spend more time thinking rather than doing. But the article hit close to home for me because I understand craving newness whether it was a complete revamp of my library holds list last weekend or a new pasta sauce or a watch that promises to solve all of my problems.

Except for… you know… that big pandemic one.

I’m not getting a watch.

The ChickieNob and I have started a walking club. We invited Josh and the Wolvog, but neither saw the appeal of walking in place.

But the ChickieNob and I are indoor kids. We think walking club is our most amazing invention.

It started when I read an article on Jazzercise and looked online to see if I could try out a Jazzercise class before committing to the digital subscription. This led deep into the bowels of YouTube where I discovered that there is a thriving community of people who make videos as they walk, and then other people walk, job, or bike in place, watching them. (Just go on YouTube, put in “virtual walk” + a place you want to go.)

It sounds sad when I describe it like that, but it has become my favourite hour of the day.

We’ve found that you need to watch most of the walking videos on 1.5x or 1.75x speed.

We’ve started with places we’ve already been, reminiscing as we walk down familiar streets. But we’ve started bookmarking places we want to go. Or dozens of videos around a theme—the Scottish Highlands, for example—so we can turn off the sound and listen to an audio book while we walk. We comment on the random people we pass (who have no clue they’ve been captured on video like a fly in amber) or talk about whatever is on our mind; just as we would a walk outside. Except it’s pandemic stress-free because it’s inside. And we’re not freezing. We’re not affected by rain, and we don’t need to be mindful of cars driving beside us. We don’t have to wear a mask. Yet we’re averaging between 5000 – 6000 steps per walk.

Like I said, favourite hour of the day.

I think we’ll keep it up even after the pandemic is over because we get to see the world vs. our neighbourhood over and over and over again. Plus, we’re indoor kids.