Memories of the Plague: A Covid 19 Reminiscence thread

My one on-point comment at the time to Kate was that we were about to see who could actually live with themselves if they had to stay put and chill for a bit. I still think that the very idea of it drove people beyond a boundary that they have never recrossed; I get human connection and its need and all but the sense of a slew of extroverts who absolutely had no idea what to do was pretty clear.

― Ned Raggett

i'm managing to live with myself better than i used to. my ex-wife, on the other hand...

it's hard to sort the memories out. i'm glad i have a journal for it. it all blends together in my mind. transition, COVID, Trump's invasion of Portland, the slow collapse of my marriage. looking at my journal i talk about there being what i termed at the time a "phony war". it was serious and not at the same time. there were all these random product shortages. everything seemed like a harbinger to me then. it seemed like everything was going to fall apart. so much of a sense of personal disappointment. i'd just socially transitioned a little over three months before, i was just on HRT. after a lifetime of isolating, of avoiding people, i wanted to get _out_, i wanted to be _social_, i wanted to be _me_. i wanted people to see who i really was. for a lot of people, covid isolation allowed them... to see who they really were, without being judged by other people. it helped a lot of people to transition. the wave of COVID transitions, i think of that as a new generation, a separate generation. i felt differently.

looking back i see what i remember. a lot of fear. a lot of panic. when the smog hit that august i pretty much lost it completely. i think i quit ilx at some point because i couldn't handle communicating with other people like that.

All I did was practice viola, play video games, cook my way through Marcella Hazan and drink too much every night. It was a weird year. I didn't want to reach out to friends over text or call them because I had nothing to talk about, nothing was happening, which was weird.

I remember the 4th Feb 2020, my son's 18th birthday and the last time I travelled on a train and also the last time I visited a public swimming pool. iirc it was a few days after the first UK cases and I was nervy + pulling my t-shirt over my mouth on the train and my son was getting annoyed with me and pulling it back down, he does the same if I pull it over my face when he does a disgusting fart in my proximity! I was convinced my mum and stepdad would soon contract it because he goes in Wetherspoons and casinos every evening and she was dismissing it as nothing to worry about when I told her to try and minimise the time she spends in supermarkets and shops. As it turned out neither of them or myself have ever contracted it yet.

What sticks in my memory is about a week before lockdown and buying milk and bread was a struggle, walking past this 50-something bloke with a bag of clinking bottles that looked like a random hodgepodge of just any booze that was left on the shelf. And he had a really grave look on his face and said good luck to you, lad.

And more ominously I was nervously queueing in the Co-op, and it was panic buying season. There was a very scared looking woman in front of me who was the only mask wearing person in the shop and she had half a dozen bottles of white wine in her basket. In front of her was a loudmouthed high-viz bloke having some banter with the tiller about how he was an essential worker and it wasn't right there was no milk or bread left for him. Tiller replied, you only water daffodils in the park, what's so essential about that m8. Then the whole queue went momentarily frozen when he said: no the council have moved me from Parks, they want me to dig graves now.

wow, I just went momentarily frozen...

my wife died in February 2020 so after her memorial at the end of the month I basically had to deal with that completely isolated for 5 months, I knew nobody where I lived at the time. I don't really know how I managed to get through that but somehow I did. I think the first person that I actually knew that I saw in person after things opened up was mark s as he was in town visiting his sister (my mum came down for my birthday a couple of weeks later)

I was in my last semester of graduate school, already writing my thesis, teaching one course and taking another one. I got basically zero instruction on how to take my course online, thankfully it was only a twice-a-week meeting and largely based on video instruction from the start, so I started recording talks for one meeting and basically having open hours for the second meeting. The course I was taking was a disaster, the instructor was totally inept at anything online and the whole thing devolved into chaos. Everyone got As and we didn't produce anything (it was an art course, to be clear.) I defended my thesis via Zoom a week after the riots following George Floyd's murder cooled down (I went to UMN in Minneapolis.)

Outside of school things I spent a lot of time taking the dog to the park, meeting people there but being cautious about distance. Had a few backyard hangs but March in Minnesota isn't great, weather-wise, so most of that didn't kick in for a couple more months.

Some of the big things I remember from March/April of that time was how quiet the city was, how gas prices kept falling, getting good at planning our food menus for two weeks at a time (learning to appreciate, even love, frozen vegetables), my wife learning to work from home—four years later and she's still remote, and drinking way, way too much. Eventually we hauled ass to Michigan where I bought as much legal weed as I could (it wasn't legal in MN yet) and sweating a lot while bringing it back to the city.

I actually got covid watching the first Dune movie, but that was late 2021 so things were a lot more 'known' by that point... I spent my birthday alone with a 12 pack of beer a buddy dropped by lol

Dan- should there have been another dash after 'remote' ? lol

memories include

my wife and I had been separated, but I had not moved out of the house we owned together, at her suggestion when the lockdowns hit in mid-March I moved back in and eventually we rebuilt our relationship <3

started weekly online D&D sessions with user ian and former user 69 plus two other record dorks, sessions continue to this day

not gonna lie, the ILX Slack video meetups really helped, I remember hanging with Colonel Poo in particular as he dealt with all that shit he posted above

started working remotely and have never looked back

I also vividly remember being at a record show in early March where I was selling at a table, this was in the "wipe down everything and wash your hands" times, before masking. I remember bringing an entire roll of paper towels and a bottle of alcohol, and washing my hands a lot. Nobody had masks.

and hearing about the Washington choir practice outbreak, which was a truly terrifying "holy shit it travels through the air and you get it by breathing" moment

Chastening to read this thread, look back, and realise that aside from not having to work for 18 months(an unequivocally good thing) that absolutely nothing about how I lived my life changed aside from masking once a week to grocery shop. Definitely one of the lucky ones.

I had a half-baked idea to go shopping and stock up on tinned goods and stuff, and the local supermarket was the busiest I'd ever seen it. What I remember is that it was bustling and hectic, but not really loud or chaotic, because everyone seemed really focused on what they were doing, and a lot of people were obviously scared shitless. About a week later, my parents got an emergency flight home from a Spanish Island that had gone into lockdown, I went out to run some errands for them and I had never seen the town so quiet - almost no cars, no people.

My workplace eventually let us work from home, but it took some time to happen. In the first two months or so, we had to sit over two metres apart, so every second desk could not be used. I usually started my shift later in the afternoon, and because the 9-5 people were still there, I'd spend a farcical amount of time wandering around the whole building, looking for a spot to work (and hoping that spot actually had functioning equipment)

Dan- should there have been another dash after 'remote' ? lol

Ha, probably, but yknow, who cares? :D

There are some really moving posts above and I read through and thought "I should reply to that" but then got overwhelmed.

I remember being in north Norfolk on holiday the week before "we" were sent home from work. Swerving people on sea walls, conscious of people running out of things like Calpol.

I remember reading this and being moved and scared by it: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/a-letter-to-the-uk-from-italy-this-is-what-we-know-about-your-future

I have nice memories of (once it was possible) making the most of my social life: walking with one person is probably my ideal!

I remember feeling privileged to order some food (Cheese! Wine!) deliveries from Oxford shops.

I remember loads of horrible, sad things.

oh man i almost forgot: the 2020 norcal wildfires that summer on top of all of the pandemic craziness really spun things out for me, and i think everyone in the region

i really started getting cabin fever then

yeah, the fires added a visually apocalyptic element to the weirdness

super fucking scary

Chastening to read this thread, look back, and realise that aside from not having to work for 18 months(an unequivocally good thing) that absolutely nothing about how I lived my life changed aside from masking once a week to grocery shop. Definitely one of the lucky ones.

Kinda true for me, too. The only person I knew personally who died was my landlord, whom I thought was an OK guy but wasn't exactly attached to. His widow and sister taking over management of the building we lived in, and being fucking terrible at everything, was another big push to get out of there, though.

I've got a million scattered memories, like lining up outside of stores and being let in one at a time, or spending a lot of time (eventually) volunteering at vaccine clinics and seeing the people ecstatic at getting the shot (especially when their little kids could finally get them), or seeing Opeth with my friend on Valentine's Day 2020 and knowing things were already getting weird, or seeing my friend's cover band do a night of Rush on March 7 and feeling that that show might be it for a while. But one of the foremost things I recall is not quite panicking but definitely considering what supplies I should stock up on, then blanking. Eventually the only two things that came to mind were maraschino cherries and Chemex coffee filters. (Right?) I'm just now on the final jar of cherries, but more amusingly it turns out that Chemex coffee filters *were* in short supply, but I had no idea, because I had stocked up!

Honestly, 2020 through the end of 2022 was all a blur to me. I was not well the entire time, have forgotten much of the details of what happened when, few clear memories. A couple of lost years from my life.

Oh, and celebrating New Year's Eve (or some sort of Christmas thing?) outside in the sub-zero weather with our good friends where it was so cold the shrimp literally froze, and we had to thaw them out to eat them under the heat lamp (which was also a covid thing).

This was late July 2020, so the furor over masking had already begun, dividing the nation along the usual polarizing political lines, with Trump egging on his supporters about Freedom! and ivermectin.

I was backpacking in a very remote wilderness area, about 9 miles from the trailhead. A solo woman backpacker was coming up the trail toward me wearing a bandana for a mask. There was plenty of room to step off the trail, so I stepped aside about 20 feet to let her pass. Seeing me, she stopped and asked me to put on a mask. I said sorry, but I didn't have one with me. She then stood about 100 feet from me and spent the next five minutes vehemently berating me as an irresponsible lout and public menace. Once she slowed enough that I could respond, I asked her if she'd feel more comfortable if I moved even further off the trail so she could pass. Very reluctantly, she assented to this solution. So I did. And she walked by and was gone.

Afterwards I realized I was wearing a bandana on my head during all this, but I didn't think of it because it wasn't "a mask". It was also visible to her, but she evidently didn't realize it, either. It was a strange time.

I've told this story before. Exactly four years ago I left Chapel Hill after a Destroyer concert for NYC to meet a guy I was seeing. I kept hearing that line by Treebeard: "It's likely we march to our doom." The Raleigh-LaGuardia flight was the emptiest I've ever seen; both airports were deserted. In NYC cabbies and Uber drivers had already put up plastic sheets b/w them and us. I met a friend for cocktails who said that two weeks earlier he'd been so sick he couldn't even think; he thought it was COVID. Cleaning crews were scrubbing subways. Arriving on a Thursday, I was already in a panic on Friday -- I thought Cuomo would shut the airports down, requiring me to drive down, as if it were 9-11 again. I was supposed to stay through Monday but changed my flight for Saturday morning (I rode those airline credits well into 2022).

Quick memories/thoughts:

* In February 2020, I kept refreshing a Guardian Covid Q&A webpage that included the question "Should we be worried?" and the answer "No." Sometime in early March that question disappeared and I finally accepted we were fucked.

* For a while, if I left the house, I would shampoo when I got home, in case I caught Covid off my own hair.

* Our daughter was born in September 2019 and I quit my job in December 2019, so I could spend six months as a stay-at-home parent. It turned out to be two years! Finding a new job was fucking impossible, but the extra time with my daughter was priceless so it was certainly worth it.

* It was incredibly sunny in the UK in 2020 and I spent a lot time reading books outside with a beer while my daughter slept inside, and that was pretty good really.

* I feel like I hallucinated watching a whole season of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

* We started seeing my parents inside again (we saw them quite a lot outside) around June 2021 once we'd all been double vaccinated. And then my dad died in December 2021 (not of Covid). So because of covid, I missed way too much grandad-dad-grandaughter time, which fucking sucked.

there were some people a couple streets over from me doing the evening pot-banging thing, which somehow was supposed to show support for medical staff and essential personnel. They kept at it for a couple months, and then there was just this one young girl, about 10 or so, and she kept at it for a LONG time, still out there in the evening, banging on a saucepan. I'm sure the neighbors were glad when she finally retired her slotted spoon

My overarching memory is being very, very sacred and convincing myself if I got it I was going to be on a ventilator. I was more determined than anyone I knew not to put myself in a situation where I might catch it.

I could see which way the wind was blowing way before anyone else I knew. Several friends and my partner thought I had lost my mind as I locked myself down 2 weeks before the country was told to. I was all stocked up on all required supplies long before any panic buying had begun. I was a very early adopter of washing my shopping and pivoting to having everything delivered.

I can laugh about some of my behaviour now but even though a whole load of positives eventually came out of it - eg I got very fit, my partner proposed to me and I had a wildly creative period post summer 2020, I do think that initial level of heightened anxiety slightly changed me forever.

Yes, that May-June period was the most intensest creative period of my life.

one nice & lasting memory is my friend in Australia and I started a pandemic bookclub in Dec 2020 for just the two of us so that we could have something to talk about aside from the pandemic & trump (lol)

it’s still going -mostly an excuse to chat once a week but it really did keep us both sane through the worst periods

When Big Ears 2020 was cancelled I was in line at at a Starbucks for my afternoon coffee and I decided to tell my boss that won’t be coming in the next Monday. He was quite understanding— then Maryland shut everything down that week, including the commuter bus I took to work.

Also, I continued to see my girlfriend every weekend throughout and we stared a little pod. We wed last year.

Yes, that May-June period was the most intensest creative period of my life.

Just realizing now that I wrote two books during the pandemic.

Those kind of things were important, weren't they? A couple of friends and I used to listen to Glen Johnson's Arcane Delights radio show *at the same time* and message each other and drink wine, just to communicate with people that meant loads to us.

"my wife died in February 2020 so after her memorial at the end of the month I basically had to deal with that completely isolated for 5 months, I knew nobody where I lived at the time."

I'm so sorry, poo! its just such a terrible thing for anyone to go through. oof. When my mother died during covid a grand total of four extended family members came to her funeral and i couldn't see their faces or hug them and they left as soon as it was over. I feel like I never really grieved back then. It was all just so depressing and terrible and I never thought my father would make it through those days. The very beginning of covid was even more depressing and scary if that's possible but I won't go into that here.

But again, my apologies and sympathies to you and your family. A hug from across the Atlantic.

My condolences, poo.

absolutely terrible times. <3

I remember some moments of sweetness as well: I was on that crummy NextDoor site, and there were neighbors asking if any seniors or invalids in the area needed any help with groceries, picking up prescriptions, pet walking, yard work, etc.

Before the awful culture war began over vaxxing & masking (almost immediately), there was a really cool period of community engagement that was very touching and sincere

i'll tell you what, in retrospect, really did help me. after that part where everything was closed - i can't even remember how long that lasted - i kept my store open full-time throughout the whole thing and, while i am no one's idea of an essential worker, giving people a place to go during that time - just some time away from the house or apartment or their horrible family or whoever - gave me something to focus on and really did make me appreciate that i had somewhere else to go myself and wasn't trapped in some studio apartment somewhere because those are the people i felt really bad for. anyway, my store never got really full and people could browse and take their mind off of things before they had to go home or run the terrifying gauntlet of the supermarket. i felt good about that and it did distract me from my own screaming brain a bit.

you are a treasure, scott! i’m sure folks appreciated it a lot, i know i would

(it helped that i lived somewhere with a small population and low covid numbers for the most part. and we were as safe as we could be especially when my dad was in the store too after moving in with us toward the end when people were still masked but also getting shots and all that. maria was the only person in our house to get pretty bad flu-like covid and she isolated in a bedroom and it sucked really bad for her but the rest of us luckily stayed healthy.)

I remember after a couple months of isolation I couldn't sleep in my bed normally anymore, I had to lie perpendicularly on it sitting up or I couldn't fall asleep. A laugh for Austinites: I would go out walking in the middle in the night and sprawl out on the greens at the Hancock Golf Course and pass out. Sometimes drunk but usually just exhausted. Also vividly remember going to the ER for a kidney stone and being absolutely delighted the entire time by how normal it was in there, and how fun it was to see and talk to different people.

wonderful that you enjoyed your kidney stone experience, that must be a first

i was thinking the same thing D:

lol f. hazel, that is some great imagery

I found myself getting nostalgic for that couple of months after lockdown had fully lifted and people were just starting to feel comfortable with mingling again. It was a rare period when the world felt less cynical than it had before or would after. That year, 2022, just felt like the year when everyone was excited just to be alive and to be able to go out and see each other and enjoy life

(When I say EVERYONE, obviously I don't mean everyone. One of my best friends works as an infections control nurse and was battling with demons, personal and vocational, every day and night. It was a traumatic time for people like her, and obviously everyone who had been affected by covid through losing loved ones or having their own health affected; so I don't mean to sound insensitive about the gravity of it)

We figured when Tom Hanks got it we were going to be shutting down work within 48 hours. We lost a fella who worked in the gear room very early in april. He had many preexisting conditions that made his passing seem inevitable, in retrospect, but he was a great guy and one of those people whose career i consider a happy “plausible outcome,” so to have him die from the disease as he was cheerfully winding down his working life was doubly sad. I got good at being in and out of market in 10 minutes or less and bathing as soon as i got home. I remember telling my now-wife that i wasnt worried about food shortages for humans but i was worried about food shortages for the cat.

I found myself getting nostalgic for that couple of months after lockdown had fully lifted and people were just starting to feel comfortable with mingling again. It was a rare period when the world felt less cynical than it had before or would after.

I know you referred to a year later, but for me it was April-early-July '21, what I call the Post-Vax Honeymoon before Delta came along: the first time friends and I actually met in restaurants. I also had my first sex since March '20. I didn't retreat again when Delta hit, just pulled back for a bit, but it was the last time I thought, "Oh, COVID's GONE, man!"

Memories of actual covid times

- livestreaming five hour DJ sets from my bedroom to my friends

- getting a positive test five minutes before I was meant to jump in the car (with a boot full of Christmas snacks) to see my family. Spent the week eating cocktail sausages in bed and bingewatching movies. I was so sad but also looking back, it was kind of a good time!

- summer days spent in this one field hanging out with friends because the pubs weren't open. We never go there any more. It was our covid field. I miss it

- losing my shit at my housemate for bringing a friend back to the house during a lockdown. I feel bad about it now, but at the time I was livid. I think I was going round the twist

- my partner at the time lost her job in events and got a temp job as a covid checker at the local college. I remember us getting up early mornings in the middle of winter so I could lift her there. It was grim, I won't lie

i mostly got the advance warnings from you all and a doctor that I knew who was sharing what was happening near him. the outbreak thread actually helped me understand the gravity of things better than the public messaging because it was kind of a repository of information in one place.

then fried my brain on twitter between 2021-early 2023

There's still some insane shit out there. I was reading otherwise sane Twitter/X feeds from mid 2020 that suddenly demanded total lockdowns between early December and late January. And it's a strange place to be when positions like this make you look like Ron DeSantis.

*b/w early December and late January 2023-2024

I have a friend that is sharing nonsense alarmism from a long-discredited crank, and the stuff they're sharing is so specific I know exactly who it is even though they've never specified it.

was amusing to get called a 'minimizer' when I basically lived under overcautious precautions for an extremely long time. but I just laughed.