Category — Uncategorized

I learned something veeeeeeeeery interesting due to my work on a local committee. I always assumed that library fines were kinda sorta a good thing for the library. Sure, the book stayed out a little later, pissing off the people behind you in line, but the flip side is that the library gets a little money. Right?

Wrong.

At least, not everywhere. It varies from library to library. Some libraries put the money into a general fund that is used to purchase more books. But some library systems transfer the money to a general county or town fund. Which means the library may not benefit from the fines at all—it could fund some other program or service in the county. That’s how our system operates.

Our library is trying to move to a fee-free system, eliminating library fines, which makes the most sense if you want people to use the library. Which librarians do because librarians rock.

If you’re traveling this summer and getting together with friends, this post is going to make you cranky. Click away. I promise, I’ll write something COVID-19-free tomorrow.

Josh linked to an article from The Atlantic about coronavirus restriction fatigue and doubt. This sums up everything for me:

It would feel so good to give up. To hug our friends, to visit our grandparents. To eat one meal, just one, at a restaurant table instead of on the couch, maybe even without the kids in tow. Even a mundane day of running errands—shopping, getting a haircut, going to the gym—would be glorious.

There’s no reward for abstaining from these things—just, hopefully, the absence of consequences. And lately, fewer rules are left to stop anyone, even as coronavirus case numbers in the United States surge. That means it’s on each of us to stop ourselves from doing unnecessary things that we know will put others at risk, even if those things are technically allowed.

We are on the super cautious end of things. We are still staying home. We have not gotten haircuts. We are doing only necessary errands—food shopping or the hardware store. I am letting the twins continue to do volunteer work because it’s outside and human-free. We are not socializing with people, even at a distance, with the exception of my parents. We only visit them outside, with over six feet of space between us. I restrict my water intake before we drop off their groceries so I don’t even go into their house to use the bathroom. In other words, we are very very very careful.

It’s our choice, and we make it because nothing has changed since we started it in March. The virus is still the virus. If we stayed home in March, we should stay home in July. Whatever we didn’t do in March, we still shouldn’t do in July. Our leaders told us in March to stay home and save lives, so we are still staying home and saving lives.

But it becomes an awkward daily conversation—no, we can’t join you even at a distance. No, we can’t go inside. No, we can’t do that. Because to do so would undermine the worth of our actions in March. We didn’t give up things then for no reason. We did them because we were worried about our health. It would be like eating a balanced diet for two months and then moving to eating Doritos for every meal. What was the point of the two months of vegetables and protein if we turn around and destroy our body with three meals per day of chips? We should have just jumped straight to the chips and enjoyed ourselves.

And I’ll be honest, some days it’s easy and some days it’s really hard. We know we’re making decisions that other people aren’t making. On one hand, I believe everyone should make their own choice after hearing the facts. On the other hand, it would make it a lot easier if we got strict guidance that everyone followed.

I really love this quote from the article: “If it’s a conflict between what the epidemiologists are telling you to do and what your friends are doing, the cost of getting [the disease] is high enough that you ought to summon your courage and stick with what the epidemiologists are telling you to do.”

This summer is hard. Not being able to do things is hard. Not being able to see people it hard. Mental health is just as important as physical health. But I’m still pushing on because I don’t want to have regrets.

Lifehacker proposed an idea to do with kids that feels like it would be interesting to do with a partner or friend. Maybe more interesting?

So the idea is to leave a journal on the table and write notes to each other, back-and-forth. Sort of like how you passed notes in high school, answering back and forth on the same piece of loose leaf paper.

The first person writes whatever is on their heart and then leaves the journal in an agreed-upon space with some indicator on the cover that there’s a new note inside. The second person reads it and responds or writes their own thoughts. The journal goes back and forth, giving you a space to look back on for advice or how you felt on a given day.

We haven’t implemented this yet, and I don’t know if anyone in the house would be as into it as I would be. I think there would need to be ground rules. Like the journal doesn’t feel like a space where you bring up issues you’re having with the other person unless you both already know about the issue. And it can’t be things that are super time sensitive.

What do you think?

I should not be here right now. By this point in my summer, I was supposed to be in Ireland and Northern Ireland. I was supposed to be showing the twins the Book of Kells and taking them to Bewley’s and listening to buskers on Grafton Street. We were supposed to be traveling to the Giant’s Causeway and seeing castles and learning Irish at Áras na nGael.

We shouldn’t be home.

But we are.

Back in March, we couldn’t imagine that COVID-19 would still be around in July. Back in April, we started getting nervous that we wouldn’t be able to go and plotted out Montreal as a Plan B. Back in May we realized Montreal was not going to be possible, but we hoped we would get to a nearby beach. Back in June we realized that we were not going to go anywhere. At all.

We consider ourselves lucky because as long as we keep staying home, there will hopefully be a point in the future when travel opens back up again. In the meantime, we will stay home as much as possible, wear our masks whenever we need to go out, and keep planning our trip.

Hovering somewhere between sad and resigned.

Hax does it again. This week’s posts have been a little weak—they’re reruns of columns from many years ago while she’s out on vacation—but Carolyn Hax was on fire in the days leading up to her absence.

Her column provided a formula for any hard decision you need to make, and it’s brilliant. As someone who spends too many time and energy in places where it is not worth it—where I am not getting back what I put in—it is a game changer.

Hax’s advice is directed at a woman who has a difficult relationship with her in-laws, but the advice is applicable to any relationship—whether it is to an individual or an organization. This is Hax’s formula:

Ask for what you want, kindly and plainly; don’t live and die (emotionally speaking) on whether you get these things; and invest most of your energy in people who welcome it.

So let’s say that you ask for what you need—here are my feelings and here is what I need you to do. Then you release yourself because your part is done. Ta-da! You don’t need to be invested in what they do because that is within their control.

In other words, your emotions should be tied to whether you asked for what you wanted clearly. If you did, feel good no matter how they respond. If they respond positively, you have your answer: this is a place to keep investing your emotions so continue the relationship as is. If they respond negatively, you have your answer: this is not a place to keep investing your emotions. Continue or don’t continue the relationship, but at the very least, find better places to invest your energy even if you’re remaining connected to this person or organization.

Does it feel good to let something go? No. But it feels better than letting something go and feeling as if your emotions were trampled on. Letting things go is hard enough. Don’t give them control of your emotions, too.

Thanks, Hax.