All Covid and No Work Makes Chad Something Something

"Go Crazy?" "DON'T MIND IF IF DO!"

So, after two and a half years in the clear, I tested positive for Covid yesterday. I felt like absolute shit on Tuesday, but tested negative, so figured it was just a bad cold. I actually felt substantially better yesterday, but ran a rapid test just as a precaution before going out to run errands, and there was the dreaded second line. Go figure.

So far, the most annoying symptom has been the fever at night— I spent the better part of an hour last night shivering under a big pile of blankets waiting for the Advil I took to kick in, then once it did and I got back to sleep, I woke up an hour later absolutely soaked in sweat. I could really do without that, thankyouverymuch. But, you know, Advil basically works to keep the fever at bay, so that’s fine. Other than that, I have a bit of a cough, but it was probably worse on Tuesday than it is today. Thank you, vaccines and boosters.

Really, the biggest issue for me as I ride out my isolation period is fighting off boredom. I don’t do well with inactivity as a general matter— I’m not a lie-on-the-beach vacationer, I’m a “Let’s hike around historical sites for twelve hours” vacationer. Being unable to leave home is thus something of a Problem for me. Especially in the evening— during the day, I can sit outside, where there’s at least some variety in the environment, but after the kids got home, and I had to stay in the bedroom upstairs, that was a struggle. I did watch a bunch of episodes of streaming shows (caught up on Only Murders in the Building and nearly done with Outer Range), but I actually don’t have the patience for binge-watching hours and hours of television.

Weirdly, one of the saving graces of this is that I have work I can do. I’m at a stage in the process of thinking about the Next Book Project where I have to read a bunch of stuff, and poke at some very tentative drafts, and those are things I can do here. I’ve also burned through a bunch of day-job tasks of the respond-to-email variety that I’d been putting off, just because it’s something to do.

Because I suffer from severe Take Poisoning, this made me think of some of the #discourse around the social-media photos of Joe Biden working in the Oval Office while he was isolating with Covid. There was a smallish number of loud people denouncing this as setting a Bad Example for everyone else by not completely shutting down and focusing on self-care. Because working when you’re sick is a pathology of capitalism, or something.

And, really, while I can’t speak for Joe Biden, I can say for myself that working from home under these circumstances is self-care. Because I am so fucking bored that I am actually rooting for people to email me requests for stuff, so I can have a little variety in what I’m doing. I may start working on lecture notes for my fall course, if I can figure out a way to get electronic access to some of the resources that are sitting in my campus office.

Anyway, that’s where things stand here for the moment. Kate and the kids remain Covid-free for the moment, and I’m giving them as wide a berth as I can (it’s not possible to isolate perfectly in this house, because none of the bedrooms have en suite bathrooms). If I end up posting repetitive nonsense here, though, you’ll know the reason why…

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