ceponatia

What a strange time to be alive! I've been on a self-imposed quarantine for the most part for two weeks and I'm getting stir crazy even with all of the lessons I'm taking and university courses. We've gone down to essential staff only in my county which includes me but only for one day a week. I'm trying to volunteer for more time. We get paid anyway so it's more of just a way to pass the time for me. It's nice, though. People who've read my journal for a while might recall me mentioning that I work with two entirely unbearable women who complain all day... well I don't have to work with them during this crisis. Lol. It's actually only me in my office so I've just been listening to music and doing what little work trickles in (we're closed to the public). I did end up signing up for Andrew Huang's Monthly course. It starts on April 1 and I'm pretty excited to dive in. There were some prerequisite videos and activities to do that I've already finished. Without working every day though, my schedule is super messed up. I'm going to start setting an alarm and getting up regardless of working. I've been sleeping til noon on most days which kind of highlights another issue... I'm always tired. I don't know why. I'd been thinking about going to the doctor to inquire about it but that's not really possible at the moment. Official "shelter in place" starts at midnight tonight. Judging by the rest of the country, nobody is going to pay attention to it. It's going to take some sort of legal threat to get people to actually follow directions... that's just human nature. Selfish until the very end. In Oregon they've made leaving your house for anything other than the essentials a criminal action. Eventually the rest of the country is going to have to do that. I guess until then we'll just have to sit tight and wait for people to start dying by the thousands.

The game I've been playing is counting the number of times my mother runs up the stairs to tell me some "breaking news" she just heard from CNN. She is locked to the television during all of this. It's depressing and somewhat funny at the same time.

Socializing is a skill that we lose very quickly when we don't practice it, I've found. If you don't practice an instrument for a year or two, you might be rusty but you'll be able to motivate yourself to play again if you really want to. With socializing there's all sorts of added baggage that comes with it that makes it more difficult to just jump back in like we would with any other skill. The perception that people judge us, feeling worthless because we've let ourselves get so isolated, comparing ourselves to other people who are vastly better at speaking (only because they do it regularly). It's genuinely the hardest thing I've had to deal with on my recovery journey over the past couple of years.

The Expanse is my jam. Best sci-fi in a loooong time.

Thank you. 🙂

I really should start listening to the podcasts. I finished Respawn way quicker than I thought it would take, kinda left a void... but there's always things to learn and the program technically never ends I suppose. 🙂 Welcome to the club, Laurie! I think a lot of us share those desires and also the fears that surround them. Gaming was a safe way to distract me from not being able to be the man I wanted to be or to have the friends I knew I deserved. Without gaming, I'm forced to face a lot of my issues head on but that's really the only way to do it. Look forward to reading more!

I have a pretty horrifying memory from the last year I was still actively drinking. My garage had become infested with mice and one day while drunk I killed a couple of them rather brutally. I won't go into detail. I'm not that kind of person though, so now thinking about what I'd done just haunts my memories. I'm like you, I don't think we should just arbitrarily kill something just because it's near our home but on the other hand you're right... wild mice are not healthy to have in your home so I think in that situation humanely exterminating them is the right thing to do. But I'm the kind of person who doesn't kill house spiders, too. Lol. Morality is just words. It's just a set of standards we've all decided is the right way to live... but these days none of us can even agree what those are anymore. Do what you have to do but treat other people and creatures with dignity when you can, I say. 🙂 If I do have to kill something, I can at least do it quickly.

You know the one good thing about all of this is that I am relieved that I didn't invest all of my tax return in the stock market like I originally intended to, lol. I'm torn on a national lockdown in the US. We don't really have the same kind of government that countries in Europe do and I don't feel like people would be very well taken care of here. Hell, my county has been routinely criticized so far for not taking any action to thwart the spread of the disease... then the county executive went on the news and said people need to stock up on water which made all of the old people freak out like they were thinking about shutting the water supply off, lmao. It's not in the water, people. I'm not sure why he would have even said to stock up on water. He's just so out of touch and worthless as a leader, but I digress. I don't watch the news, personally, so I can definitely advocate for distancing yourself from it. I used to obsessively be on Twitter, Facebook, and news websites every time I had a second of downtime. Gave all that up about a year ago and honestly it's completely changed my attitude about the world. When you're not bombarded all day about how horrible everything is, you start to see the happier things in life, I guess. Sure, there's definitely value in being informed about things that you need to know, but we don't need to know 99% of what's in the news. Anyway... just a rant. Lol. Stay well.

Birthdays are similar for me. I only ever get a message from my mother these days. There's a half-hearted celebration at work usually but I don't like any of those people so... lol. For me I think it's just a matter of not having any genuine friends right now and that is something that's totally in my hands, so I can't blame anything else. I used to be the kind of person who always got depressed that nobody ever called me or encouraged me but now I realize that I never did that stuff either. Now I try to at least be the one to tell people they're doing well in life... even for something small. I think eventually it'll lead to the kind of supportive friendships I've always craved. Not saying anything about you or your situation, your post just inspired me to realize that. 🙂

I struggle with videos as well and it's usually because I have a feeling in my mind that I am just tapped out for the day on intellectual or creative activities. It's always around the same time every day, not coincidentally right when my last dose of Adderall gives up the ghost (need to get back on a 3x a day plan but who knows when I'll see my psychiatrist again with all the offices closing for COVID). Like @DaBest said, it's a pattern we've been indulging in our whole lives so it's the "go-to" when we're feeling a certain way. Breaking it requires conscious effort to rewrite the habit into something better. Good luck and welcome. 🙂

What you said about the relapses being shorter is spot on. Same thing happens with other addictions when the people are actively trying to improve. Every time you relapse, you learn from your mistakes; it's not just wasted time like some people think it is. I would wager there are exactly zero people out there who ever got over an addiction without relapsing at least a couple of times. I relapsed hundreds of times with alcohol before I was finally able to figure out what was causing me to drink. Just keep working at it and one day it'll be permanent. 🙂

Lockdowns are kind of insane to me. From what I've read, the only way this virus is "going away" is once we develop herd immunity. But doesn't it delay herd immunity if we're only catching it in small bursts? IDK... I'm not a doctor and I try not to speculate. The way it's being handled in my community is waaay different from the rest of the world, it seems. The only thing that's really happened here is restaurants can only serve carry out food for the time being. For the most part it's still life as usual. A lot of people are being given the option to work from home but that's not going to happen for me... I suppose it makes sense that if the government employees stop working, there's nobody left to tell everybody else what they need to be doing. Lol.

It's awesome that despite being locked down you still figured out a way to work out in whichever way you're able. I have some equipment I could use as well (same stuff as you for the most part) but it hasn't even occurred to me until I read your post. It's kind of funny but the lockdown we're under (where I'm at, lockdown is not really what it is but close) is pretty much how I've always lived my life anyway! Had an incident at work on Monday which caused me to be home "sick" until tomorrow so I've had a lot of time to study and practice music. Loved it. Lol.

My mother obsessively watches the news and just terrifies herself, lol. I avoid it at all costs. I've watched a few videos from the CDC about COVID-19 and I'm pretty tight with my doctor so we've been in touch... but generally I have no clue what's going on around the world regarding this disease apart from what people mention in conversation (which is obviously quite a lot). Glad you're not having cravings. I'm playing a lot of piano lately as well! I have a private tutor (on hold until the world returns to normal unfortunately) and am also taking lessons on Skillshare which are honestly better than my tutor but it's nice to have real one on one feedback.

We have a certain reaction to articles like this given our history but to ordinary people this isn't really that bad. "Obsession" and "addiction" are just words people throw around that don't have any inherent meaning for them. When I first got out of rehab I got pretty annoyed when someone would say something like "I got so drunk this weekend oh my gaawwwd I'm such an alcoholicccc" but I got over it in time. People don't generally think about what they say, and as we've seen with the current situation journalists often don't think about what they write (shots fired). You're spot on though that we shouldn't use this as an excuse to "isolate" and play games all day. I'm not even isolating, to be honest. If I get sick, I get sick. I'm doing everything I can to not be around people who might be vulnerable to it but honestly most of us are just going to get a cold from it. Considering I'm still forced to go to work at a government office where the dirtiest, mentally ill people come in and out all day, I've basically just accepted that I'm going to get sick sooner or later. Lol.

Yeah it's really only a matter of time til we all get it... even if it's not during the "outbreak" it's probably going to be around forever now and eventually I'll get it, I'll just think it's the flu or something lol. It's been a lazy week with everything that happened... I never really noticed how much I rely on my work schedule to keep everything else in line. Got class caught up today, it's my final week of this sh**ty PC components course. The course itself isn't bad, it's the software we're using (MindTap by Cengage... universally voted 1 star by every student who's ever used it). There are questions that are impossible to answer, the reading material doesn't brief you for the tests at all, and their site is laggy as all hell so it can take up to an hour to finish a 15 minute assignment. Ridiculous. I seriously hope none of my other courses use this software but I'm sure they do. I learned an entire song on piano, finished it up yesterday. Moving on to a second one now which is much, much more difficult but challenge is how we grow, right? I'll post a link to a video of me playing the last song but I'm not sure if you'll be able to see it because of Facebook settings. I don't really have anywhere else to upload it at the moment. I have a website and domain but I haven't really done anything with it yet so I'm not even sure how it works, lol. I'm really thinking about paying $275 to take Andrew Huang's music production masterclass on the 30th. It's a month long and I've heard nothing but rave reviews about it. In the grand scheme of things, $275 isn't a lot to spend to improve a skill that you love (especially considering how much money I've spent on video games and beer in my life) it's just that with the recent car accident I have to really analyze my finances to make sure I can do it. The beauty of his course is that during it you make 3 completely finished and polished songs which is something I struggle with because I've been out of the "game" for so long. It'd be nice to have some direction in that regard. This is getting long so I'll end it with my video... it's a bit quiet, it's the first thing I've recorded using my Canon camera and had to use a lot of filters in Adobe Premier to get rid of some unwanted noise. Hope everyone is staying safe... sending love to our friends in Europe who are having a much worse time with COVID than we are in the states so far.

Lol sorry I scared you guys. 😉 I haven't posted in a couple days because I generally post before work and I've been out of work on quarantine this week. Went home with a cough on Monday and someone started spreading the rumor that I had COVID so my work made me stay home Tuesday to go to the doctor. Doctor said all I had was a sinus infection but since he's a cool guy he agreed to write me a sick note to be out til Friday... just to make my coworkers suffer a little bit for being such vapid clucking hens.

Pretty great weekend! I feel like I say that every weekend these days which is a good sign. My Pocket Operator Arcade came... don't worry, despite the name it has nothing to do with video games. 🙂 Pocket Operators are these cool little calculator-looking synthesizers and samplers put out by Teenage Engineering and despite only being around $50, they sound extremely professional and have a lot of functionality. The Arcade has a chiptune design with lots of 8-bit drum samples and synths but there are all different kinds with some sounding like thousand-dollar drum machines. I plan on getting many more... you can link them together with audio cables and they all sync to the same tempo. The only downside, which is fine considering the price, is that they only have 4 note polyphony so it kind of limits your patterns. This can be overcome if you're using an external recorder like I am, though. There was an email sent out late Friday at work saying my county might shut down but no such luck. Every county around ours is closed. I don't want to get too political but ours is kind of f*****d up and generally makes terrible decisions a day late and a dollar short. It would just be par for the course if we were the county that was responsible for spreading the disease across the state. My Maschine MK3 might be defective... waiting to hear from Native Instruments. Everything I plug into it plays at such a low volume I can barely hear it even with my speakers turned all the way up. I spent a good part of Saturday trying every cable I could think of and nothing worked. Kind of a bummer, I really like NI stuff but their support is really terrible.

Some of the conspiracy theories are hilarious. I'll leave it at that. 🙂 I have recommended to all of my friends that they should really be getting their info straight from the horse's mouth. The CDC has a YouTube page and all of their COVID-19 videos bizarrely have less than 2,000 views. This is the actual organization studying and attempting to control the outbreak but people are going to places like Facebook and Reddit to get info from people who have no clue what they're talking about. I suppose this is nothing new. 🙂 I work for the government so I have a different perspective than many people I suppose. Our whole job right now is basically to get people to stop touching their faces. Lol

I'm so fortunate to work for the government. We can't shut down so even if the USA totally closes for business, I'll still have an income. 😛

I'm exhausted. I had a massive headache all night and only slept for 1.5 hours. I was kind of hoping I had THE DISEASE so I could get it out of the way early and also take the day off from work, lmao. No such luck though. No fever.

Haha thanks, that did it!

Honestly the hardest part about this whole coronavirus thing is listening to all the old bitches I work with spread blatantly false information to each other. Negative day in general. The new-ish hire who is supposed to work our switchboard is out sick again (pretty sure she's a drunk) so now I have to cover a 2 hour block of deadbeat fathers and broke mothers asking the same damn questions over and over.

Yeah I agree completely. Society has decided certain things are untouchable even though they're realistically no worse than a thousand other things that are strikingly similar. There is a reason, like you said, it's recent history and a lot of the victims or people who are related to victims are still alive. Also a lot of the people who rose to power and got to shape our perception of the holocaust were pretty clear that it was the worst thing to EVER HAPPEN in the ENTIRE HISTORY OF MANKIND. Any logical person knows that this is a ridiculous belief but you're definitely a dick if you challenge it. There's just no upside to it. Nobody laments the millions of people systematically exterminated by the Roman Republic (and later Empire). Genghis Khan and his people executed millions of innocent civilians yet he is lauded as a military genius and the reason so many engineering and scientific ideas were spread (with good reason). But like you said, pick your battles. Is it unfair that we can't joke about the holocaust? No, not really. Plenty of other things to joke about. I don't find holocaust jokes funny, personally. Not because of some righteousness for the Jewish people... I just think they all are basically the same joke. There is an audience for an entire set of holocaust jokes out there, the one that comedian was talking to just wasn't one. Lol

Yeah what you mentioned about being thick skinned is one of the reasons I've still never tried stand-up even though lots of people in the biz have told me I should go for it... I don't have a thick skin and the prospect of bombing over and over again potentially for years before finding success does not excite me to say the least!