just skimmed a couple of days of the feed from march and it's strange to remember how the west coast snapped for about a week before the rest of the country did.

One of the last things I did was go to a talk at Berkeley on March 5. I remembered feeling very awkward about not shaking someone's hand. That liminal period, when were already on alert but not on lockdown, feels outside of time.

The day after, I got a bagel and lox at beauty's bagel on telegraph. Panicked a little about how I was washing my hands. Opened all the doors with my elbows or with a paper towel.

The hardest stretch of it for me was April, after the guidance on mask reversed and they became ubiquitous. I was living alone, with no irl contact with anyone, and no longer even able to read lips when I went to the grocery store.

I've mostly gotten used to it now. I'm back in Chicago and all of the precautions have become second nature to me. I try to politely fake my way through the checkout line interactions. I still get internally mad when people say we should all masks forever though.

Zoom is a little bit rough, hearing wise. My comprehension is fine, but it feels like a very high-energy kind of listening. But my zoom requirements are mercifully light.

There are lots of little psychic scars. I miss busses and trains, people and places. I miss being surrounded by purposeful action. Seeing familiar faces. Spreading out my life spatially. All the small things that makes city life feel vital and interesting.

I absolutely do not miss living alone during all of this. That kind of experience almost never gets discussed in the media, but it was an absolutely hellish experience. Almost complete social isolation, extremely high, completely unshared cognitive load. It was a nightmare.

Don't really know the purpose of this thread, other than I think it's useful to periodically record your impressions, if only to give a little bit of texture to time.