Another Week of COVID-19

Sunday, March 22nd

The days are becoming a blur now, and because I got started with this blog a bit late it feels as though I'm forever playing catch-up.

Woke up, went for a run on the East River, showered, breakfast. You know the usual. Only the world is slowly melting down around me as this happens.

Governor Cuomo has been lauded for his handling of the crisis, especially in comparison to the buffoonery of Trump. He had a hilarious presentation today when he discussed how politics works in DC, typically. In pointing out that we are beyond a politics as normal point, his presentation included the point that it was "baloney" to proceed in this fashion - which they actually bulletted out. Loved that.

Otherwise it was reading, writing, wrestling and booze as per our individual Sunday rituals.

Monday, March 23rd and Tuesday March 24th

What can I say - work has actually been quite busy as I deal with my existing projects as well as the short-term urgent project I'm handling for COVID-19. It will be done soon enough, but man are there a million and one things to coordinate to be sure that is the case. I can't complain though, it certainly makes the day go faster.

I'm still struggling to get myself back to my normal routine, which would involve working out BEFORE work. I know I'll feel better once I get to that point, but Travis and I are addicted to WestWorld and it's such an involved, intricate show that it's hard to resist the binge.


Wednesday, March 25th

Work is still busy, but the most "interesting" aspect of my day was that I actually left my neighborhood for the first time since Friday, March 13th. My last writing class was this evening and I needed to submit hard copies of my two remaining stories to the professor beforehand (or so I thought - she actually extended the deadline due to the virus, but I did not realize that). So in the afternoon I had to:

1. Apply finishing touches to both stories - not perfect, but good enough for submission.
2. Go to the UPS store down the street (an "essential" business and therefore still open) to print these out (ironically we just purged the printer last month).
3. Debate with myself whether or not it was safer to use CitiBike or my own bike to get up and back:
1. CitiBike
1. Pros: Ride one up, park it, pick up another, ride it back
2. Cons: Last rider could be dying from COVID-19
2. My Bike:
1. Pros: Almost certainly not infected with COVID-19 (although in this day and age, who da fuck knows?!?!?)
2. Cons: If I can't park it near the entrance of her building, somebody could easily break my piddly-ass lock and make off with my bike.

I decided to go with my own bike, hugging the Hudson River on the way up to be "safe", before driving through the heart of the village to reach her place on 8th Street. It was an easy transaction once there and feeling enthused and adventurous, I biked through Washington Square Park and the middle of Manhattan back home. Nothing particularly exciting happened in the end, but it was insanely quiet (in most ways) yet remarkably busy (despite the warnings).

The course itself was encouraging and a group of us promised to stay in touch as a writing class after the fact. We shall see if it happens.

Saturday, March 21st

I woke up in bed, alone, around 4am. For a brief moment I thought to myself "Did Travis sneak out?!?", but then realized we were under quarantine. I got up, checked the couch. No Travis. What the hell? Then I realized where he was - yup, in Myndi, our roomies bed. Or rather, on top of the bed so as not to mess up her well made bed. I let him sleep, and went back to bed myself.

After 11 hours of sleep I woke up good and rested. Travis was still not in bed with me, so I made a point of nipping our disagreement in the bud as soon as he arose. This quarantine was just getting started; it would be a long few weeks (months?!?) if we were fighting throughout it.

As evening set we once again headed over to South Street Seaport. It was the most neighborly hoods in our area and the most likely to have things opened we figured. We walked around and grabbed beers from 

Later that evening I spent a very enjoyable 2 hours with my friends from high school on the Houseparty app (if ever trapped indoors during a pandemic, I highly recommend!). We hadn't all communicated collectively together in nearly 10 years, or so, when our friend Russell got married in Portland. It was great catching up on each others lives. Three of the five life in Portland, one of the Steve's lives in Anchorage (although is dating someone in upstate New York and may end up there eventually) and I, of course, live in NYC. 

By night's end I was good and toasty, but it was a fun night overall.

Friday Night Fights

Friday, March 20th

This will be a quick post - work has been crazy busy. In addition to all of my normal projects we have a fire drill for one of them, in response to COVID-19. So today was just a long day at work that didn't end until 630 or so.

At the end of the day I did manage to meet a few of my neighbors on my roof. It was a beautiful day and I went up there to do my workout on the roof. They were trying to do a yoga routine but the ambient noise was over-powering the audio on their routine.

The two guys were roommates on the second floor, in one of the far apartments that are part of the add-on to the original building. I asked them how they managed the noise from the garbage trucks across from their apartment. Marty, one of the guys, told me how he tracked down one of the 4am culprits, spoke to that buildings management, and how they voluntarily fired that company as they were unwilling to alter their time. I found that to be quite respectful.

Travis and I started out with the intent of having a good night out (which in this case meant grabbing a to-go drink at one of the few open restaurants in the neighborhood and dinner) but quickly got in a fight about something stupid. In the end went for a solo walk around South Street Seaport, boiled some simple ramen and conversed with my family on the phone. Travis chatted with his friends on the couch all night. I read and went to bed early, happy to not have to set my alarm.

Facebook Groups

Wed, March 18th

As the workday wound down, I suddenly realized that I had not heard from the instructor of my writing class regarding whether or not we were going to have our weekly course that night. I reached out to her around 4pm - seemingly she had a distro for the course that she must have forgotten to add me to. Logically, and since the city was essentially on a lock down, she had moved the course to be online, hosted through an easy to use, simple conferencing application called Zoom. However, she also move the class up a half hour and as per usual, I had failed to wake up early enough for my workout. 

Around 4.30pm I sprinted out of the apartment for my run, this time choosing the always less populace East River bike trail system to run along. These trails are not as new as those on the posh west side, nor would it be getting as much late day sun, so I knew it was unlikely that I would run into the crowds I had encountered the day before. And I was right. The highway sign had been updated for the crisis though as seen below....

I made it a quick trip, sprinted back to the apartment and hopped on the computer to participate in the remote learning session. A writing class is an interesting thing; in essence you pay an instructor to read your pieces and tear them apart, all in the hopes of creating something publishable in the media. I'd taken courses from Sue Shapiro over ten years ago and was excited to take her class again when I signed up. I wasn't sure how she would handle teaching over a video conference call setting, but in all honesty it almost went more smoothly than when we all cram into her apartment in the Village.

The New Normal

Monday, March 16th

Anxiety took a hold of me most of the night, and for the few moments that I slept, I was continuously bombarded by nightmares. As is always the case when I have a restless night, when my alarm goes off I'm finally deep asleep. I am tempted to go back to sleep but I know that gym closures can't be too far off so I push through it - my body is so accustomed to morning workouts that when I miss it I feel lethargic throughout the day. So much to the chagrin of Travis, who is perpetuated of being someplace so public, I go.

His fears have settled themselves on me though, and for the duration of the workout I avoid my fellow crossfitters to the best of my ability - which is easy to do. I'm glad I went though - later today all gyms in city are ordered to be shutdown. My last WOD (Workout Of the Day) for some time, at least in a formal setting.

Today was the first day that essentially everyone was told to start working remotely, so nearly everybody on work is getting adjusted to a remote work-life. By the very nature of my job, much of what I and my colleagues can do is accomplish-able remotely, so today was actually quite busy.

Otherwise an uneventful day... outside of Travis rearranging the furniture in the living room - twice. And of course his happy hour conference calls with his work colleagues...

Happy Hour Travis!

Tuesday, March 17th

So of course as soon as crossfit is closed I sleep in. Ugh. We were up late, watching television - getting started on a new show - WestWorld (let the binges begin!). I told myself that I would go for a run around lunch, but of course that didn't happen. Once my work day gets started it's difficult to hold it up.

In the early afternoon our neighbor, Rachel, knocked on our door to inform us that the building had announced that they were going to close our little gym down until the virus passes, per order of the governor. We immediately sprung into action, grabbing two sets of dumbbells and a barbell along with some weights to bring back to the apartment. We of course thoroughly wiped the equipment down and set it aside for future use. If we are gonna die, we better look damn good doing it!

On that related note, as the work day wound down I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and go for a run along in the Hudson River Park. Apparently everyone else in the city was thinking the same thing. As anyone who has been in this park before, it's a long 100 meter wide section of land running up most of the west side of the Manhattan, with a walking path along the waterfront, a bike path next to the West Side Highway and bits of lawn and garden separating the two, at least for the first 6 or 7 miles of it. Being a conscientious runner, I chose the walking path for most of my run, dodging families, lovers and errant kids all the way. On the return, halfway back, I said screw it, and jogged over the much less populous bike path, breaking my own rule of following the foot path vs wheeled path rules.

Generally speaking it seems as though the risk with an activity like running is low, it still made me nervous being around so many people. Is this the future of the world? Fear of crowds?

Saturday the 14th - If you thought Friday the 13th was bad... (and Sunday too!)

Saturday, March 14th

I have this vague memory as a kid of this movie, Saturday the 14th - a pretty terrible spoof of the Friday the 13th series I guess, although I seem to recall a ton of other monsters. I guess just a spoof of the horror genre in general I guess.

Coronavirus-speaking, I suppose the 14th is worse than the 13th though. Numbers are growing much faster than they are dropping.

After my weekend run, we went to brunch at Malibu Farm, an organic Cali-themed restaurant out on the pier at South Street Seaport. It was moderately busy but we were appropriately socially-distanced and enjoyed the food greatly. I don't think they knew it yet, but the entire pier shutdown later that day, none of the restaurants would be serving food any longer.

Afterwards we wandered the streets of South Street Seaport, keeping an eye open on what was still open, what had closed. On our way back we made another stop at our local grocery store to stock up, but ultimately in the end we had a nice dinner at our local, Delmonico's (the grand old restaurant at the base of my building) bar. It was the last meal they served before being shutdown - I made Travis promise that on it's first day back open, whenever that might be, we would return for another meal.

When we got home we decided to rewatch Paris is Burning - a documentary about the Harlem vogue scene from the early 80's, when Manhattan was last in the midst of a plague, one taken less seriously since it primarily impacted gay men. It was a great movie, although if I'm honest we got so drunk that I don't have strong memories of how it ended. Will need to rewatch the last few minutes again.

It was a good day overall, despite what was going on. Up until yesterday Travis was adament that we go out to our friend Rob's place on Shelter Island. T is still new to the city and the though of being trapped here as the virus escalates was scaring him, understandably. With Myndi departing yesterday and the risk of our getting her sick no longer an issue I the tension has dropped some. Our neighborhood is actually quite relaxed - many of those that live here have most likely headed back home to family or to homes up north or on Long Island. There was a day earlier in the week in which our grocery store apparently had a line, but since then everything has run smoothly.

Sunday, March 15th

We woke late in the morning, particularly myself, and in so much pain. Not just from a hangover, but from the persistent back injury that gets reignited every time Travis and I drunkly wrestle. I could barely walk for a bit - ugh. Trying to get a 35 year old to understand and relate to such pain is nearly impossible!

When I finally dragged my ass out of bed I knew the only way I was going to make myself feel better was by taking a long bike ride - which I did! The usual ride, up the west side of Manhattan to it's very tip - a 24 mile round trip in total. It was a typical sunny, blustery day for this time of year and more crowded than I would have anticipated. Although since there isn't much else that can be done, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised.

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, making dinner at home and watching the Nina Simone documentary, "What Happened, Miss Simone?" on Netflix. It was beautifully done, very insightful piece of work about a brilliant artist who tried to fight the "machine" and in many ways succeeded, but in others lost. I was shocked to hear about how abusive her relationship was with her husband.

Friday the 13th: Working from Home

Friday, March 13th

Friday the 13th was the day that I decided to start working from home. I still did crossfit, although I waited until the 8am class since I didn't have to commute and, well frankly, there would be many less people there.

After class, I ran home, stripped down and immediately jumped into the shower. As I mentioned - it's a controlled environment at Crossfit, but it was still making me (and, I could tell, others) being so close to people that I don't know that well. Sure, I'm taking precautions - but are they?

I got to work as Myndi (my roomie) and Travis busied themselves around me. Travis was off work for the day and had begun making trips to a variety of stores to stock us up and start preparations for our impending home quarantine. Myndi, who is a preschool teach, was preparing to teach her first online course to 3 to 4 year-old students while also getting ready to head south to stay with her boyfriend in Philadelphia for the duration of this epidemic. Which is crazy as none of us yet have any idea how long that may be for.

I was working at my desk when at 11am I began hearing Myndi singing nursery rhymes from her bedroom, clearly being directed at her laptop. It was quite adorable. A few hours later Fred arrived, having driven up from Phili so that she could bring more down with her than usual (and so that she could avoid public interactions on the train). It was odd, giving her a hug on the street just before they took off - on the one hand we didn't know when we would see each other again, but on the other it seemed like a hug was worth it.

I can't recall if I mentioned it before, but she was in a higher risk age category, but very healthy. I think it was best for all that she was able to go south so that Travis and I wouldn't have to worry about our accidentally getting her sick. The community aspect of this disease is the most dangerous after all.

After a long day of work, Travis and I decided to take a risk by getting dinner at a Mexican restaurant we hadn't tried before. By this time they had mandated social distancing in restaurants, meaning that you could not be set up within more than 6 feet of another party. Not that this was difficult to accomplish - any other Friday night we would have needed a reservation, but that was not the case this evening. The food was excellent, and I hope to go back - assuming it can survive the impending recession that is sure to come.

Little Fires Everywhere... And It's Spreading

Thursday, March 12th
Today started the same as most, however every step, every move was made with an extra ounce of caution. The numbers in NYC were still very low, the likelihood of my actions leading to infection were minimal, yet I was leading a life riskier than that of my live-in boyfriend and 65 year old roommate. The two of them were already self-quarantining / working from home and were annoyed with me for not doing the same. For me, it was important to put in that last day of routine - I knew it may be the last for a period of time. But their justified concern was weighing on me - it's not just my health that's at risk, it's theirs as well. In fact its the health of everyone in the city.

Still, there was a knowing sense of doom percolating throughout the day. In Crossfit the 9 of us participating that morning distanced ourselves on the floor, the impending dread silencing the jokesters among us.

The subway during the morning rush was nearly empty so really no fears there. At work it was mostly a normal day, however there were a few moments in which people actively distanced themselves from me during a conversation - so much so that it was awkward at times. Towards the end of the day, in addition to my laptop and some paperwork, I packed up some books that would be a higher priority read for me. And then I bid farewell to a few colleagues.

I gotta say - it's odd saying goodbye to people, not knowing when or if you will see them again. Most everyone I work with is youngish and healthy. But if things get bad here in the Big Apple, there is only so much that can be done from a response perspective. And even in the best case scenario they have been saying that this could be with us for much longer than a couple of weeks.

Reads: Finished Celeste Ng's "Little Fires Everywhere" - I honestly probably wouldn't have read this if I hadn't enjoyed the preview for the upcoming series so much. But once I got a general sense of what the series would be about I made sure I had a chance to read this prior to the show debuting. And man, am I glad I did. What a fantastic novel - a quick easy read on the one hand, but one so insightful regarding the human condition, especially regarding family structure on the other.

There's something about the title of this book that make's me think about it in relationship to our current situation. There really are Little Fires Everywhere - let's just hope they stay "little."

The COVID-19 Diaries: In the beginning...

I'm playing a little catch up here on what has been going on over the last week or so regarding our new life under this COVID-19 virus that has been infecting the world. The following is a diary of sorts...

I recall first hearing about the disease in early January, around the same time as everyone else. It appeared to be a uniquely Chinese problem at that time - something they would be able to control. In a worst case scenario, our international and/or national health organizations would be able to help them wrestle control of the disease, but it seemed incomprehensible that it would spread much further. However, I think we all feared that the problem may be much worse than what we were hearing, as the Chinese government is not particularly forthcoming, is it.

Now, in hindsight, I don't know that we can blame the Chinese leadership anymore than we can blame our own or those of other countries. Far too slow to respond, and far too concerned about the economic impacts, especially here in the United States. Money is meaningless without people, without stability.

Early last week (the week of March 2nd) I became aware that leadership within our company was putting together a task force to respond to the crisis. We knew at that time that the virus has begun to appear on our shores, predominantly in the state of Washington, but still, it didn't seem possible that this could turn into something serious, could it?

Thursday, March 5th

With very short notice, my boss put a notice on all our calendars, an hour out, informing us that we were going to shortly see an announcement from the CEO informing everyone at work that we were developing a tiered system of escalation for responding to the corona virus. 

• Tier 1: Awareness and preparation to work from home
• Tier 2: Permission to begin working from home
• Tier 3: Mandatory working from home - no further staffing in the office.

Essentially we were entering Tier 1,which was an easy one for me as I already worked from home frequently, especially during the summer. I had to run off to a meeting but I distinctly recall thinking that it would never get to Tier 2.

Wed, March 11th

Another last minute meeting from our boss, followed immediately from another message from our CEO - Tier 2 goes into effect immediately. Everyone is encouraged to begin working from home. While there were (as of yet) no cases reported in the office, the sense was that it was only a matter of time and that the commute, public transit dependent in NYC, was too risky to mandate of everyone. So if you could, you should work from home.

Personally I was not worried yet - my day to day routine did not feel high risk to me so long as I avoided putting dirty (re: potentially infected) hands to my face and being coughed directly on. Weekday morning consisted of:

• Crossfit at 7am: In my perspective this was not a high risk activity as membership was limited and the ones that were there were clearly healthy (and yes, I realize that it takes awhile for the symptoms to arrive - and that sometimes they never appear). So long as I washed my hands immediately after (and frequently during) the workout my exposure (while greater than not going at all, yes) was low risk. I would run home, shower and then head to work.
• Commute to Work: I take the subway everyday to and from work and to anywhere in between as required. People have begun to noticeably freak out early and ridership has already been dropping, dropping, dropping. I felt pretty safe - there weren't many people and so long as I cleaned my hands once I got to work (or home) I didn't feel concerned. I had started wearing my gloves on the train though.
• Coffee (and lunch) at Balducci's: I've been getting all of my weekday calories here for years. While I know everyone there, my physical interactions and touching of surfaces were limited. So again, low risk.
• Working 9 to 5: Much of my job takes place at my desk, on a computer, typing away or leading calls via WebEx. Many meetings are in person but we had already begun to dial those back. So unless somebody was licking my keyboard or headset each night I felt pretty secure at work. And being in a cubicle also did not feel risky.

Bearing all this in mind, I decided to go to work in the office the next day. I didn't want to have to carry all of my stuff to my writing class, which would occur that evening, and I felt safe about going into the office.

However, during the writing session that evening, where things were less in my control, I made sure to sit in a particular seat that kept my neighbors at a distance. Social distancing, a term I would become very familiar with in the coming days, had begun.