Liz’s big karaoke comeback — my thoughts on restorative exercises and the lack of them throughout the pandemic

Last night, Liz hosted a joint birthday party for Jenn, Julia and I. It was a fantastic time. It was great to not have any pandemic restrictions in place, to see so many friends in one place, to be able to sing karaoke again, to see people cut loose again. There were too many lovely, heart-warming moments for me to list them but one moment in particular stood out: Liz was dying to fire up the karaoke and kicked it off with Cher’s If I Could Turn Back Time. I’ve heard Liz sing that song many times, and I’ve probably heard Liz sing literally hundreds of karaoke songs overall, so in the past this wouldn’t have been a standout moment. But last night, when she started belted it out in her inimitable voice — deep and full yet simultaneously adorably squeaky, and always full of passion and dramatics — I felt a real, “whoah, it’s been a long time, and I’ve missed this” moment. There were actually a lot of similar moments throughout the party but that was the most potent one for me.

It got me thinking about shit we do that is restorative. I don’t even like using that word because to me, it smacks of annoying kumbaya “let’s sit in a circle and talk about our feelings” bullshit, but I also do believe it is a legit thing. Several years ago, I took a workplace course about how to deal with stress and traumatic events, and my big takeaway from that course was there are things we do to relax, and things we do to restore ourselves mentally and emotionally. Both of those things are necessary for us to keep our heads above water, to not go crazy from the stress of dealing with heavy shit.

But throughout the pandemic, I — just like everyone else — have dealt with a lot of added stress, and while I’ve still been able to do things that help me relax, I have not been able to do a lot of the things that I find restorative, due to pandemic restrictions. Now, I’ve obviously been aware that I’ve been feeling even more grim than usual over the last year and I knew that was probably due to pandemic stuff but I wasn’t aware of this specific lack, and now that I see it, it seems really fucking obvious why I and everyone else in the world has been struggling lately — what could the powers that be expect from two years of restrictions, of not allowing people to do things that are necessary to help keep them sane? I took that course just a year or two before the pandemic and at that time everyone was like “mental health is so important and this is what we need to do to keep it up,” but as soon as covid hit, that was all forgotten. How fucking stupid. It’s comical in an absolutely unfunny way how short memories are.

At this point I don’t believe pandemic restrictions will ever go away. I bet that in two months, they will be back in full force (although I think there will be a lot more push back at that time) — this shit has gone back and forth too many times already for me to believe otherwise — so I’m going to squeeze as much restorative shit into my life while I can. I need all the good vibes I can get right now so that I don’t completely unravel during the next lockdowns. Time for maximum fun, full throttle. I need a lot more Liz karaoke in my life, stat.

Jeez, I thought this was going to be a warm, happy afterglow-type of post, but it sure went in the other direction. I guess that really speaks to how fucked up I am. Just another illustration of how many more Sambuca snorkel nights I need to get back to normal. To be clear, I do feel really good this morning. Last night was fantastic, I loved it. So many great friends and wonderful moments.

i am sick of covid restrictions but want nothing to do with the ‘freedom trucker’ movement, aka everyone sucks (what else is new)

I hate all the covid restrictions we are still dealing with 2 years into this fucking pandemic, but I also hate the movements against those restrictions. Said movements are so full of dumb white trash who think they are smarter/more savvy than the average citizen (despite being septic truck drivers who never finished high school) that I don’t want to be associated with them in any way.

Let me be clear though: I also don’t want to be part of any kind of turbo-vaxxer “be kind, stay safe, have hope, stay the course no matter how long it takes” head-in-the-clouds dipshits either. They’re just as out to lunch and annoying. I imagine the people who staged anti-freedom trucker rallies are as insufferable as the freedom truckers. Jeez, I hate even writing “freedom truckers.”

But I want to focus on the FT (ok that’s a little bit better) movement right now: I hate how the FT movement has taken on this weird “love, peace and unity” schtick, like the FT’s aren’t just fighting covid restrictions, they’re fighting HATE and DIVISION and are working to bring PEOPLE back TOGETHER, because TOGETHER WE CAN DO ANYTHING!! It’s so bizarre and incongruous, these mobs that are largely composed of angry dumb white trash slobs, spouting a bunch of flowery hippie dippy nonsense. I heard one trucker on the radio, waxing on about the love of the movement and how it was so beautiful to see all the smiling faces, with no masks on, just smiling and happy again, yada yada. I’m not exaggerating, this is what he was saying. And you could tell by the way his choice of words and inflection as he spoke that he’s dumb as a fucking rock. I wanted to puke.

But the thing is, as much as I hate the majority of people involved in the movement and some of their reasons for the movement, I am in agreement that the restrictions must end. No, I don’t think any of this has been an egregious infringement on our freedoms (although it has started getting dangerously close to it in some instances lately). No, the vaccine is not fake. No, masks are not muzzles. My problem with the restrictions is that they have been half-assed right from the start because our governments have tried to serve too many masters, and in doing so they’ve pleased none of them — average people, small businesses, big businesses, the medical community, etc. I feel like the big, rich mega corporations like Walmart and airlines are the only ones who got what they wanted (which was basically to keep operating as per normal). The rest of us have been fucked with inconsistent bullshit restrictions, and finally after two years a lot of people are reaching a breaking point.

And that’s where I’m at personally, which is what this post is supposed to be about. I’ve been finding myself thinking that I feel totally fine, but then the dog gets in my way when I’m walking out the door and I fucking snap and lose my shit on her, which is (shockingly perhaps) completely out of character for me. I get into confrontations at work. I get close to road raging over stupid little things. I’m running into more and more of those kinds of things lately, and I feel like it’s a subconscious thing, some kind of depression or frustration that I’ve been burying and trying to be chill with. But I’m definitely losing it now, and I worry that if things don’t change soon, I’m going to end up even worse. I have no idea what that would look like but I know I don’t want it to get to that point — I don’t want to end up curb stomping some random prick who cuts me off in traffic and only be able to say “sorry your honour, I think it’s because these last two years have really been fucking with me.” I don’t think anyone would find that an acceptable excuse.

That’s why, after two years of incompetent leadership, I’d really like our politicians to pay attention to the number of angry people out there, admit that they have made a lot of poor choices over these last few years, and make some big changes, pronto. I want to see friends. I want to be able to do things again. I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I don’t want any more daily covid reports with more meaningless numbers. I don’t want any more restrictions fucking up our lives and businesses. It’s been two years, and I’m afraid that’s all I can take. Government has had more than it’s fair shake at sorting this out, now let’s please admit that we just have to live with covid like we do the flu and get back to normal living. Restructure the health care system to handle this shit better and let’s move on.

You can see where some of my desires for change overlap with the freedom trucker losers but the difference is our motivations. I am all for repealing all of the covid restrictions but our commonality ends there. So in conclusion, it looks like the takeaway here is pretty much my usual thing: I hate the truckers, hate the government, hate the turbo-vaxxers. I want all of them to fuck right off, and I want to get back to normal living with the few people I do care about.

after 9 months, I’m finally getting sick of coronavirus restrictions

The pandemic hasn’t bothered me too much until recently. I’ve been fine with the distancing and outdoor get togethers and whatnot, there have only been a few times that I actually felt personally affected and I was still grateful those times that my work wasn’t affected and I didn’t have anything serious to complain about.

But now it’s starting to get to me, like I’m sure it’s getting to a lot of other people in the middle of this second wave. I’m finally starting to wish we could see our friends more, have people over, be more social. Even misanthropes like myself have limits.

And what is really bugging me right now is that we are being asked to make all kinds of personal sacrifices, and small businesses that I value are having to permanently close, when I feel like a lot of this could have been avoided by some easy actions by our government right at the start. I think the biggest example is when COVID-19 started to show up in China, why did the Canadian gov’t continue to allow flights to and from China for, what, weeks? A month? I can’t remember how long it took but it was a long fucking time. Really, I think that all international flights should have been shut down immediately, no exceptions (regardless of what big company so-and-so was the head of), and maybe even domestic flights too. Anyway, I’m not sure if the lack of action was a sign of gov’t inept, the slow-moving multiple arms of giant gov’t, or big corporate interests influencing our gov’t, but regardless of what combination of things caused it, I think it’s inexcusable. And for our gov’t to be so fucking lax at the start when it would have made a big difference, and then to expect the general populace to make lots of shitty sacrifices now when it’s too late, is hard to swallow. The gov’t should have lead by example instead of “do as I say, not as I do.”

Other examples of what I consider poor pandemic response include gathering thousands of kids in schools everyday, and allowing people to continue to shop like addicts, crowding into malls and stores like Costco and Walmart like human cattle, as if buying more TV’s and iphones is “essential.” Meanwhile, I can’t have a small group of friends over for a campfire? This is absurd.

I feel like it’s never too late to completely revamp our pandemic policies. I think there must be things we could allow and other things we could stop allowing, or maybe we should try another full lockdown and get this over with in a month rather than dragging it out over the next six months or whatever. I don’t know, I’m obviously not an expert but I feel like even our experts are failing us right now. I feel like we could absolutely be doing much better, and it has to do with a lot more than just people wearing masks and not seeing family and friends.

I’m not sure what to do about it all at this point, besides blog and bitch about it.