Up at 8 a.m. watching the interview with Mary Robinette Kowal on National Book Festival. Didn't take notes, though, as the questions were about the same as I've seen answered before and it was only a half hour. She did say that given the patterns of how things are going, things are going to get a lot worse before they get better, so...

More National Book Festival: I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar, The Ray Bradbury Effect. I listened to this and it was hard going.

I signed up for an online meditation class and cried through the whole thing. Camera off, at least. Then I started looking at Baby Yoda firefighting videos and started crying during that too. I did order that Baby Yoda Bop-It yesterday and it comes next Saturday but now I really want it.

I didn't do much all day, really. I read outside on the patio for hours in nice weather. I knit another Ruth Bader Ginsburg collar I found today. I decided to make up a striped shrug with all the tiny skeins of yarn I bought at Stitches. I finished reading "The Princess Will Save You" (it's all right) and "Designing Your Work Life," I don't know about the viability of that one. I wonder why I always want to go back to being trapped in the job rather than do anything else. I seriously just do not care about any other options that have been mentioned to me and if I could easily transition into somehow being a technical writer, sure, but I don't care enough about the promise of the position to somehow work on becoming one? I watched "Staged" again now that it's on Hulu in America.

I am really tired of things being the way they are.

10 Questions: 10. When September 2021 rolls around and you receive your answers to your 10Q questions, how do you think you'll feel? What do you think/hope might be different about your life and where you're at as a result of thinking about and answering these questions? I think I'm going to feel pretty depressed. I would like to hope that SOMETHING has improved in a year (at the very least, vaccination is in process even if I haven't gotten one by then), but I fear so strongly it will only be worse by a lot. I fear all the lost people, lost friends, stress making me a worse person, etc.

Supplemental Question: Six months from now, do you think that you'll look back on the time before the COVID-19 pandemic and feel irrevocably changed, or do you think you'll return to the person you were before? Which changes do you hope remain? Which do you wish will disappear? Nobody's going to be able to return to who they were before because we're all scarred for life now. We're all damaged. We're all in fear. (Or should be, anyway.) I wish having to live in fear, social distancing, constantly having to be scrubbing surfaces, not being able to go into public buildings, etc. would not have to happen, but six months from now that's all still going to have to be happening. I wish all of that could be gone, but it won't be. As for changes I hope remain....I'd be fine with throwing it all out to have that back. But it won't. If you'd asked this question about three years from now, I might answer differently. But it won't be over in a year. Maybe not even two.

30 Days: How different are you from your former self?
I don't think I'm very different. I never feel it, you know? Others have to tell me.

-How much progress have you made in the past 30 days?
None, I'm backsliding. Okay, not quite true: I did start contacting Scott when I wanted to rather than going down the shame spiral of "leave him alone," even though I am literally doing it again and again even this week.

-How much progress have you made in the past 90 days?
I was doing a lot better within 90 days--I stopped crying every day, I got (most of?) my brain back, and I was doing theater.

-How different is your life than it was 5 years ago?
HAHAHAH YOU'RE ASKING THIS NOW?! I LIVE IN MY OWN SAFETY JAIL BEING UTTERLY ALONE CRYING AND WAITING TO CATCH A DISEASE AND DIE!!!!!! Sorry, but I can't get past that. If we answered that before the pandemic, I'd say that my living situation and job are about the same but everything else has improved, though.

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