Today has been a perfectly lovely day of, in no particular order: writing, sunbathing, reading, margarita-ing, napping, and, in general, relaxing.  I’ve stayed off my phone for most of the day, except to watch a few minutes of the DeWine presser.  Last night we watched JURASSIC PARK and got Blizzards from Dairy Queen.

It’s been a pretty fantastic start to the holiday weekend.

We went to the camp Jess works at yesterday to do a volunteer thing for a few hours.  This was my first time at camp.  The grounds are beautiful and the facilities I saw top-notch, and the volunteer thing was fun and for a worthy cause.  I took a few photos, including this one:

At this point, you might be asking yourself, “What’s up with the T-Rex?”

Well, near the end of the day, we had to transport a lot of boxes from one building to another, and were using golf carts to do so.  I was riding on the back of one, in a rear-facing seat.  The combination of being outdoors, in a remote, park-like setting, and riding in a golf cart made me think of JURASSIC PARK.  Specifically, the scene where they’ve just rescued Ian Malcolm and are speeding away in a jeep, with the T-Rex in close pursuit…

Anyhow, the comparison amused me greatly, and I was compelled to make this subtle and totally believable piece of realist art.

This has been another episode of “A Glimpse Into Josh’s Mind.”

We went to the Greene yesterday to pick up dinner from Pasha.  While we were waiting, we hung out in the car, in the shade cast by an American Eagle, and watched at least two-thirds of the people strolling about not wearing masks.

From someone who is still mostly quarantining and physical distancing, it’s kind of surreal to watch the world pretend like we’re back to some kind of pre-COVID normal.  Especially when, from a risk perspective, nothing is significantly different than it was a month ago.  Instead, it feels like we’ve said “the hell with it,” and are just barreling full steam ahead, hoping for the best.

No wonder there’s been a sharp uptick in COVID-19 cases in the greater-Dayton and greater-Cincinnati areas.  So much so that DeWine is calling for everyone in certain zip codes to get tested.

It’s not to say that some elements of the quarantine can’t and shouldn’t be relaxed (and I recognize my privilege as someone who has been able to work from home the past several months).  I’ve enjoyed being able to support local restaurants by getting carryout during quarantine, and to begin to see see family and friends, outdoors, in a physically distanced way.

But it all has to be done responsibly.  And a key component of responsible is wearing a mask in public.  It’s literally the least one can do to prevent the spread.  It’s like wearing a seat belt in the car, except instead of protecting yourself from injury, you’re potentially not killing the people around you.

Pasha was delicious; they have the best hummus.  Now, please — wear a damn mask when you go out in public.

We took the dachshunds on a brief excursion to Caesar Creek today, so they could have a chance to stretch their stubby little legs and frolic on the beach.  The sky was overcast, and if we were there to hang out on the beach, it could almost have been chilly.  But for walking the dogs along the edge of the water, the slightly cool breeze was perfect.

The dogs had themselves a fine time,  and then had equally fine naps on the way home.

Messing around with a plugin to see if WordPress posts will auto auto-post to Instagram. So here’s a sassy Molly.

MyFitnessPal tells me I have 877 calories to go today. Totally disrespected that limit tonight.

Our local Mexican restaurant was insanely busy on Cinco de Mayo, so we reluctantly stayed away that day. Great news for them, not so much for us. (We survived.) So this year we instead celebrated Siete de Mayo, and it was wonderful.

Not pictured: the second margarita. It’s been that kind of week.

Quarantine looks continue to evolve, perhaps inevitably, towards peak dystopia.  Or, as a friend pointed out, steampunk Indiana Jones.

I was largely out of commission the last ten days or so.  It started with a headache a two days after Easter, persisting for several days, until it transformed into a stomach flu for most of last week.  By Friday I was starting to feel mostly human again, and was able to work.  I’m not usually this prone to being sick, but the last six months have been rough.  Fingers crossed I’ll be able to go for more than a month without some part of my body crapping out on me.

My last week consisted mostly of sleeping and watching a ton of movies, usually mixed together, which felt a little hallucinatory.  Watch 20 minutes of a movie, fall asleep for 30 minutes, watch another 15 minutes, fall asleep again, then wake up as the credits role.  Insert new movie; repeat cycle several times a day, for several days in a row.  A bunch of movie scenes jumbled together in my head with a litany of bizarre dreams, some of which were inspired by the movies.  “Hallucinatory” is not far off the mark, I think.

The plan for this next week is to reset, fitness and diet-wise.  Onward and forward.

From my local Mexican restaurant: a bottle of Patrón repurposed as a hand sanitizer dispenser.

Been a quiet weekend.  We made pills yesterday and and sat around reading a bunch.  The last week was another busy work week and in general a bit of a struggle, though we did do a happy hour thing with friends on Wednesday, which was a welcome relief.

Currently reading: Just finished CHANGES in preparation for the newest installment of The Dresden Files,  PEACE TALKS , due out in July.  About to start the next (for me) Jack Reacher book, TRIPWIRE.  Such is the state of my attention span during all this shit that I am having trouble focusing on anything more complex.

Currently watching: Doing a rewatch of VENTURE BROS, somewhere in season one, which is uneven but fun.  Finished STAR TREK PICARD, which managed to stick the landing for the most part.  The other night we watched THE MALTESE FALCON.  It was good, although I think I prefer Bogart as Philip Marlowe to Sam Spade.  Which reminds me that I still need to order THE BIG SLEEP.

I ordered face masks from Etsy last week.  Because I’m me, I tried to find some that had a little style to them.  The real question is, should I also order a set of goggles, to really complete the early-days-of-dystopia look?

The quarantine beard is starting to fill in.

I just started week three of a four-week round of prednisone to treat a thing, and it’s been playing hell with my ability to sleep, and my appetite.  Today, for instance, I was wide awake at 4:30am and willing to commit bloody murder for a stack of pancakes.  I had a yogurt instead and logged onto work at 5:30am, which my primitive brain was sort of meh about.

Very glad to have this week be nearly over with.  Tomorrow my plan is to nap as much as I want, and annihilate some pancakes, of course.

Checkpoint time: a little over one week into what I’ve seen referred to in a couple of places as The Great Pause.  It’s interesting living in the middle of a rapidly unfolding historical Event — big E — that people are already assigning names to.  I don’t remember when the Great Recession started being the Great Recession, but I don’t think it was quite this fast.

I can’t wait for the inevitable thriller that will arrive a few years from now called THE GREAT PAUSE, about a rough-and-tumble anthropologist who finds himself drawn into a plot surrounding millennia-old curse tablets discovered in an Athenian well, which unleashes a deadly plague upon the world…  Not that anything like that could ever happen.

Things that helped me get through the past week, in no particular order:

* Being busy at work.  The world doesn’t stop just because the world has, in many respects, stopped.  Last week at work was insanely busy, which I’m not complaining about; I’m aware of how fortunate I am in my situation.  But it’s legit been helpful to have something to focus on during the days.

* Making dinner.  Cooking is far from being one of my favorite things in the world, but we made dinner every night last week, which was actually fun.  Then on Friday and Saturday night we ordered takeout to support some of our favorite local restaurants.  The pappardelle with Venetian pork & beef ragu from Grist was outstanding.

* Exercising.  With doing the full-time work from home thing, this has been very helpful towards making the mental transition from “work” to “off work.”  My gym has been closed, for obvious reasons, so I ordered some adjustable dumb bells and a bench, but they didn’t arrive til the weekend.  So with nothing else to do, last Monday I went for a run/stagger.  It was rough in the moment, but afterwards I felt pretty okay.  In the three or four times I’ve since gone, it’s been a little easier each time.  I hope to keep up the pace. (har har har)

* Cleaning.  Our basement is starting to look really good.

* Writing.  Last Sunday I started working on a ghost story that’s been bubbling around in my head for a while, and I’ve been working on it in the evenings after I come back from a run.  The off-work reset that exercising presents is apparently also shaking loose some creativity from my fusty brain.

That’s my coping strategy thus far.  I’ll be curious to see how it mutates as time wears on.  Hope you all too are finding ways to get through this weird-ass time we’re living in.