P.S. How do you know you are out of order at home/work

You find yourself stopping at a 4 way Stop Sign waiting for the light to change, including getting irritated that you have waited through two cycles. When this happened to me last week, I immediately thought to add it to the list of pandemic weirdnessity, but on my way home I realized I had done this on more than one occasion when most was well in the world, so... nevermind.

Feeling fearful when more than a few blocks from home.


Driving through an invisible border outside your comfort zone and noticing maniac drivers who are out to get you and your car. Truth is the crazy drivers have always been there, you were desensitized due to pre-pandemic normal living emersion.

You sometimes forget to fill out your timesheet daily because Time.Just.Runs.Together.

You keep a tally of how many rolls of TP you have on hand.

You have misused a permanent marker to draw 'use this much' lines on the sanitizing gel container so you can track appropriate use,  you keep a cute little notepad tally of disinfectant wipes used, wipes left. (Call it math already) Also, you keep a ruler handy, just in case you need to rap a wrist or remeasure on the fly.

You don't realize you are wearing a mask until you put a second one on as you leave the house. Note to self: There has been no research proving double masking helps avoid the wickedness any better than single masking, but there have been documented cases of what is now called the Dumbo syndrome in folks who double-mask regularly. Do you really want to wear a giant -ear flattening headband? I didn't think so.

On the upside of over-masking, though, are the times you don't realize you are doubled as you nearly asphyxiate on your walk. The obvious cause does not present itself as a possibility until after you have, amid panic, ruled out heart attack, being strangled by an invisible stranger, or drowning in the mother of all panic attacks. The flailing limbs knock off one of  masks and when you are reoxygenated, a wonderful sense of relief dissolves the adrenaline until the next time. Relief is a good thing.

The excitement of the upcoming weekend fun of Friday night and Saturday wanes because there is no difference between Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday with the exception of Sunday due to online worship services. However, even mentioning worship services being online as a regular thing makes them irregular.

Mother nature isn't helping clear this foggy thinking right now. She keeps giving us March and April chills and winds, but the calendar says May. Wait. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong calendar- BRB....... Nope, that's not it.

You develop a sudden interest in history. I've heard it repeats itself, and here we still are, so somehow we must survive this crud as we have other historic cruds, stuff, hard times.  Not a lot of luck yet on finding answers via the past to help me push through a little longer in present-day times, though. The documentaries on the Spanish flu are scary but I did notice the mask patterns seem to look the same now as then, though today's masks may be a little softer, not so much starch. so, hmmm. The Civil War, thank you Ken Burns, is all about a different kind of sickness-one that no masks help at all, I wish the mentality of 'We are all in this together' would have been alive then, but all I can see left from that time are ghosts in Gettysburg and I can't even go there to ask apparitions for advice, shoot. NOT THAT kind of shoot. Just dag.

The Biblical similarities continue with Stink bug overpopulation (anyone knows that stink bugs are the modern day locust).

The fact that you are now looking for such similarities.

Watching another staff person forget how to sign their name- in- out- on a letter, all of it.

Trying to drop off the mail at the post office, only to find the 'ready to go' outgoing mail drawer is full of addressed but empty envelopes that have no postage.

I'm glad it isn't just me. Of course, I realize most of these examples ARE me, but who's counting?

Ability to retain information. Repeating thoughts and statements. Ability to retain information. Did I say Repeating thoughts- dammit!