Everybody get the Marco Polo app and let’s have asynchronous video chats.

My three-year-old is over here writing fix-it fic for The Velveteen Rabbit. 📚

I know this isn’t what actually happened, but I like to imagine that I summoned into being the latest issue of Josh Radnor’s Museletter. I had a dream last night in which he and I were friends.

I fell into a new COVID-19 spiral today. This went beyond anxiety and felt closer to depression. The world started to take on that bell jar feeling. For me, it’s not about being suffocated; it’s about distance. It’s about feeling as if there is an impenetrable plate of glass between me and the rest of the world.

I immediately unsubscribed from my email newsletters that are about the actual news, because what set this off was not fear for my own life or the lives of those I love, but disgust with the behavior of humans, especially those with a lot of power. I don’t care to go into the details, but it launched me into a feeling of hopelessness and I thought, I won’t be able to fight back against this sort of thing if I just keep steeping myself in news about it. So as I said, I unsubscribed and appointed W. my official news source.

I’m attempting to combat the feeling by sitting in the sunshine and reading The Artist’s Way.

Nobody has time for depression that they have the power to push away; so often depression itself takes away that power. Mine hasn’t taken it away yet, so here I am trying to shake it off.

📚 The library is closed, limiting my book borrowing options, but the gym is also closed, freeing up some book buying funds, so…

It’s nice to see that Alexandra Rowland has written a book for/about me. 📚

I’m having a down day. Not helping is this (extremely informative but also depressing) piece from The Atlantic, The Four Possible Timelines for Life Returning to Normal. I’m extremely privileged/blessed/lucky to have financial security right now, something I know is not certain for many, many people. Acknowledging that, this has disrupted my work in a way that is very specific to me (and other people doing research similar to mine, I imagine). Specifically, a lot of my research proposal hinges on cosplay being a blended affinity space, where fellow travelers/affines meet both in person and online. In particular, they have historically met at fan conventions. The experts in that Atlantic piece - a public health expert and an epidemiologist - suggest that large gatherings - including conventions - are probably off the table for a long time. Likely at least four months, maybe as much as a year or more.

I had hoped to finish data collection by August.

This doesn’t wreck my dissertation by any means, but it means a pretty thorough rethinking of my argument for the research’s unique contribution and value.

More gold from McSweeney’s: Self-Isolation or Graduate School?

McSweeney’s Frog and Toad are self-quarantined friends by Jennie Egerdie is my favorite art to come out of COVID-19 so far.

The Punky Brewster episode “The Perils of Punky” aired in 1985. In it, Punky’s dog is turned into a skeleton. It gave me nightmares about my own dog turning into a skeleton. Even now I can’t handle stories of undead pets. Punky Brewster is why I can’t watch Frankenweenie.