Category: Uncategorized

That we’ve now made it a full year into official, all-across-the-country (if not the world, but let’s keep things in some kind of sensible perspective) COVID-inspired lockdown is the kind of thing that has inspired multiple threads of journalistic coverage over the past week or so: retrospectives of where we were one year ago, oral histories of whatever particular industry you want to think of about just how their specific slice of the world has been impacted by what’s happened in the past 52 weeks, and so on. As with every notable anniversary of anything, there’s been a substantial amount of reflection happening and being shared across media.

Which means that it’s time to take note that, as of writing, we are somewhere like 54 weeks since I decided that I should really take my laptop into a repair shop to take care of the fact that the “O” key is broken, and has a tendency to come off when hit, or else not work at all, and therefore force me to type more slowly and deliberately — or else have to retype certain words after the fact. (It doesn’t escape my notice that the last sentence had a fair amount of “O”s in it; does that count as irony?)

Weirdly, I remember this so clearly because I more or less made the decision to deal with the problem — which had actually started when I was on the plane to Brazil, months earlier — just before lockdown started, but I procrastinated as is my tendency, and suddenly, the word was given. Specifically, I remember thinking innocently, fine, I’ll just put it into the shop when lockdown is over, it’s probably only going to be a few weeks and I can put up with it until that’s done.

Ah, if only I knew then what I know now…!

Of course, what I know now is that I can be remarkably patient with typing if I need to be, and that somehow I can survive without a fully working keyboard longer than I’d expected. Admittedly, I did almost buy an entirely new laptop as a solution at one point last year, but at least I knew enough to know that was an overreaction at the time…

In two separate conversations lately, I’ve been giving friends updates on my current work and financial situation — spoilers: both have been better than they currently are — only to receive roughly the same response: “I’m surprised how upbeat you sound, despite everything that’s going on!”

I’m paraphrasing; one of the responses was more along the lines of, “Why do you sound so happy?” as if I was doing something wrong by not being more depressed, which I admit that I love. There’s something amusing to me about admonishing someone for not being distraught enough in reaction to dire circumstances, as if they’re doing it wrong. Aren’t we… supposed to not surrender to the history of the world, and all that kind of thing…?

Nonetheless, I’ve been caught with the idea that I am happier than I have the right to be over the last few days. Not that I feel as if I’m being criticized, per se, because that really is just a funny idea to me — be more sad, dammit — but, instead, that maybe I’m missing something that means far worse things than I have properly taken into account. What if I really should be more sad, or more worried, or more angry, than I currently am?

Ironically, that concern — that I’m missing some implication or meaning that others are instinctively, immediately grasping, and it’ll all end in tears — is what’s been keeping me up at night, almost literally. I’ve had dreams about things going worse and me not seeing it coming, and woken up uncertain and wishing I could remember the details more clearly, just in case.

The idea that there’s worse around the corner and I’ve been blissfully unaware has slowly been becoming the worse that’s been around the corner all along, and now it’s derailing whatever good mood I was in before this. Is this a sign that memetic warfare is possible and potent, or merely that I’m particularly impressionable when things are up in the air?

One of the unexpected side effects of getting back to pitching and sending out feelers for work is that I suddenly have to pay attention to my email again. That’s not to say that I’ve been completely ignoring my email before now — although I have, I confess, been guilty of paying less attention to it than I should — but there’s a new hunger and need in me to pounce every time a notification appears that I have new mail: what if it’s someone saying yes? What if it means I get to write one of the stories I really want to write?

(This suggests that I’ve pitched stories that I don’t really want to write; reader, the truth is, I’ve pitched a number of those stories, mostly because I think they might be useful to editors and/or outlets, and I want to be someone who appears useful to editors and/or outlets. I’m my own worst enemy, especially if those are the pitches everyone says yes to.)

The problem with this is that I’m not entirely sure that it’s healthy to get as excited — or, perhaps “agitated” would be a more appropriate term to use — whenever I get email, given just how much email I’m still getting from the days when I was writing for two high-profile outlets and therefore placed on seemingly every PR person’s mailing list. I’m seeing notifications come in and thinking, maybe this is the one, and it’s really just the one from someone I’ve never heard about telling me that this is the time I need to start listening to this particularly country artist, or that I need to treat myself and they have the ideal product to help with that.

On the one hand, these emails aren’t really a problem; I scan them and, for the most part, delete them, all of which is easy enough to do. But I’m getting tired from the emotional rollercoaster of thinking that things were about to change, only to realize that the only thing changing is the exciting life story of the creator of a new and exciting vegan restaurant in Los Angeles.

Of all the fake names ever used in spam comments on this site, “Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine” is perhaps the most amusing and the most timely. I’ve been thinking a lot about the vaccine lately; about its availability, about when I’ll be able to get it, and about just how successful it’s going to be in the grand scheme of things.

In some abstract way, as we approach a full year in lockdown — although, it strikes me, few have fully observed the lockdown for that entire time; the seemingly increasing number of people wandering the streets without masks makes that all too clear, sadly — the idea that the vaccines will work, and that we may one day return to something close to what we used to call “normal,” feels almost impossible.

This, by now, is normal. This weird world where we don’t really go out and do things, is the world as it is and has been for the length of our short-term memory; even moreso, the idea of doing something else, whether it’s going to the movies, or going to a restaurant, or anything that used to be considered an usual social occurrence, feels not only alien, but more than a little unsettling to boot. Imagine being that close to strangers without wearing a mask at all times!

(Or two masks, even; I’ve taken to wearing two masks out in public after reading advice that it would be advisable considering the new COVID variants, and even that has become less strange and uncomfortable incredibly quickly — it was only a couple of weeks ago when I felt as if it was too much, and that I was breathing oddly, but now I do it without even thinking and feel entirely normal when I do.)

Perhaps this is just what happens, perhaps it’s just how our brains work. All I know is that, this far into COVID lockdown, the very notion that there’s an “other side” to the virus and to lockdown that we’re headed towards feels as if it’s science fiction.

I spent some time yesterday writing a pitch for a piece that I might be working on in the future, if all goes well; it’s something that I, ironically, was hoping to do for THR, before I was laid off and was then invited to pitch for elsewhere. The plus side of this is, I have a pretty good idea of what I’d want to do, given the chance. On the other hand, my pitch alone turned out to be longer than some stories I’ve written for outlets in the past, so it would be a significant undertaking.

(But, oh! If I had a chance to do it! It could be so much fun, despite the workload…!)

I am returning, in my head, to work — or the idea of working, anyway. I’d planned to use February to step away and get my head straight, to plane future moves and take a break before returning to things properly in March and pitching everywhere, writing some things for outlets old and new, and generally discovering what the future “swing of things” would look like. It felt like a good idea at the time, not least of all because, while I didn’t realize quite how much I’d been affected by being laid off, I knew the answer was “probably more than I know right now.”

Now that I’m here, though, I find myself both excited at the thought of working again — which is, in itself, surprising and exciting — but also quietly terrified about the vague plan I have for my future. Really, the fear centers around a very simple idea: what if I fail? What if I can’t make a living doing this anymore?

It’s a fear born of rejection anxiety after being laid off as much as any practical, “real” concern, I’m well aware. It’s also coming from the knowledge that I really did have it unnaturally good before, with my relationships with THR and Wired, and that things will never be that good again. I’m trying to be okay with knowing that, though, and embracing whatever is next, in whatever shape it comes. Even if it means writing enormously long pitches and crossing my fingers that someone says yes.

When I first moved to Portland, the concept of a snowfall that lasted more than, say, an evening, felt like an alien concept. I can remember with embarrassing clarity how ill-prepared I was for the first blizzard here, which arrived within a month of my arrival; I wandered out in what had felt like a heavy coat by California standards, only to end up huddled in a doorway, shivering and wondering what the hell was going on and could I get back to the house without dying of cold. (That’s only slightly more melodramatic than what I was actually feeling at the time.)

Within a couple of years, though, I’d discovered Portland’s snowy secret: It snows every year here. It’s not as if I can say it’s regular, or “like clockwork,” but it’s somewhere close — it will almost certainly snow at least once in January or February every year, and more often than not, it’ll stick around at least for a couple of days. The years where that doesn’t happen are far, far more rare than the alternative. With that kind of frequency, it’s relatively easy to get used to the snow and prepare for it.

The funny thing — and it is funny to me — is that Portland as a city seems unable to do that. It feels like, every year, there’s mild panic buying in stores as soon as snow is forecast, and then when it’s started falling and lying on the ground, you can see people wandering around as if they’re in a post-apocalyptic landscape with handmade bindles full of supplies, their faces covered with scarves and goggles as they stare into the distance. That’s saying nothing about people abandoning their cars on the sides of the road if the snow gets particularly heavy, which I’ve seen happen more than once.

Quite what’s behind the city’s collective amnesia when it comes to cold weather continues to fascinate me. Things could be so much easier for everyone here if they’d get panic less and remember what it was like this time last year… but I can’t deny that it’s especially wonderful to me when, just like right now, the snow is falling outside my window and I suspect that half of my town thinks that the sky is falling.

There’s an irony to the fact that I struggled for longer than I’d care to admit about what to write for today’s post — no, really, I’m talking on-and-off for the past couple of days, an unusually long time for me, for here — without managing to come up with a topic worth my time or yours, before giving up and thinking, you know what, maybe I’ll just skip it. It’s more important to be kind to myself than force it, and then to realize, oh, that’s what I want to write about after all. It’s not a fun irony, because I’d like all that struggle time back, thank you, but I’ll take it.

I was going to write that I’ve been focusing on being kind to myself since being laid off last month, but the truth of it is that I’ve been trying to do it even before then. It’s still an unusual and occasionally uncomfortable and awkward practice for me, not least of all because I spent so long in a relationship that wasn’t kind to me at all; I still have moments where the concept of trying to identify what it means to be good to myself feels either greedy and selfish or, worse, a question I don’t have an answer to. It is, nonetheless, something that I’ve come to realize is a necessity if I want to be anywhere close to healthy and happy.

The form of being kind to myself changes regularly; it’s giving myself a break on self-imposed deadlines, or watching another episode of Project Runway while snuggling Chloe on the couch. It’s eating well, or being okay with spending time to clean the kitchen because I’ve been noticing small messes that frustrate me far too often. It’s basically understanding what I need at that moment and quickly doing the mental math of if it’s worth the cost (the effort, the financial impact, the whatever) before making what feels like the right decision. A simple practice, but one I never got around to actually trying until too recently.

I’ve been relaxing more than I expected since being laid off, and taking things slower. Sometimes I worry that I should be doing more, but there’s time enough for that later; for now, I’m working on being kind, instead.

The most surprising thing about my first week of unemployment was just how busy it ended up being.

I don’t want to give the impression that I was rushed off my feet the entire week, without any chance to sit down and relax, because that’s obviously not true; I spent more than my fair share of time in front of the television, enjoying the cinematic fruits of many people’s labor including some genuinely terrible, yet utterly enjoyable, movies. (The Meg, I’m looking at you pretty directly.) There was a lot of downtime, and it was particularly enjoyable; I can’t and wouldn’t claim otherwise.

Despite all that, though, there were things that I’d fully intended to do with that week that just… didn’t get done. And not for lack of trying, either; I would start days with an internal checklist of things to accomplish, with specific items on the list, and they would somehow still be on that list by the end of the day, and I wouldn’t really have any excuse for that other that, “somehow, things got in the way…?” What those things happened to be, however, felt as mysterious to me as to everyone else. Nature abhors a vacuum, and somehow, my days became filled by whatever it was possible to be filled by.

Some of this was filled by work stuff, or at least work-related stuff; I did an edit test for a gig I didn’t get, I sent a lot of emails, I made some phone calls and tried to set up future things that may or may not happen. I also found out about things that wouldn’t happen, or found out news about the landscape out there that made my plans feel that little bit less possible, and I feel as if those were the things that filled my week the most — the emotional labor of having to reassess things and deal with the bad news aspect of it all.

This might be the thing I wasn’t expecting, but will have to deal with the most over the next few weeks: having to deal with things not working out and having to come up with Plans B, C, D, and however far in the alphabet I have to go before something sticks. The perils of a previously charmed life, I guess.

As the song goes, who loves the sun? Who cares that it is shining, who cares what it does since you — wait, I’m getting carried away. Still, it is a very good song, let’s be honest. But still: I’ve been thinking more than I might have expected about sunshine lately.

I’m not sure if this is an age thing or, perhaps, a “not being in a toxic relationship that makes you suppress your emotions all the time” thing — maybe it’s some mixture of the two, who can say? — but I’ve been finding myself far more affected by weather lately in terms of my mood and overall good humor. There was a morning of unexpected sun yesterday, and it made me almost immeasurably happier and more willing to embrace whatever the day had to throw at me than I had felt in weeks.

Realizing just how deeply something as simple as a bit of sunshine had affected me made me wonder just how much of the past month’s emotional difficulties could be put down to the fact that… well, Januaries (Januarys?) in Portland are cold, dark places to be. That’s perhaps a little too simplistic; after all, last month had its own issues that had nothing to do with any weather pattern whatsoever, unless THR‘s accountants were basing their decisions on what the temperature was like down in Southern California throughout the month. (Well, I’d like to think that, at least. Stranger things have happened, however.)

That said, I do wonder how much the perpetual gloom of the past month — the continual cloud cover, the cold, the wind, and the general January of it all, with days getting dark before I’d even left the office each weekday — had doomed my mood to the point where any news headed my way, whether bad or good, was certain to provoke an anxious, unhappy response. That there was such news that was, if not bad, then at least unfortunate and weird, almost feels coincidental at that point.

If there’s a moral to this story, then it’s likely that we should all try and avoid anything happening in January as much as possible — or, maybe, that I should think about investing in one of those artificial sunlight lamps if this is going to keep happening.

The response on Twitter to my announcement that I’m no longer contributing daily to THR — spoilers: it wasn’t my decision, not that of my editors. The accountants of THR‘s ownership, however, are likely to be thrilled by the outcome — was a surreal and awkward thing for me to experience, I’ll be honest.

As someone who doesn’t really like oversharing on social media, or even sharing that much personal information at all there, even just announcing that I wasn’t at THR anymore felt like something I didn’t particularly want to do, for fear of drawing too much attention to myself. It felt somewhat inescapable, however, if only to get the news out as quickly and as broadly as possible, to prevent me from having to tell people over and over again.

In that respect, it was… almost successful? The announcement certainly went wide, judging by the (overwhelming, embarassing) response, and yet I still woke up this morning to pitches from people wanting THR to announce new projects, so… mission nearly accomplished, I guess. It was still better than having to announce it over and over and over again for what likely would’ve been weeks on end.

But that response…! I almost made a joke about knowing what Tom Sawyer felt like, and then finding some uncomfortable way to work in that it’s always been the case because I’m a white straight male in a racist United States, but… that whole thing about being at your own funeral felt particularly true as I got compliments both directly and indirectly — honestly, perhaps the most surreal part of the whole thing — that felt both flattering and horrifically unearned for hours after I posted that I was leaving THR.

I knew, on an objective level, that I was going to have people saying nice things. If nothing else, it’s only polite to sympathize in such a way. I wasn’t prepared for such nice things, though, nor for there to be so much of it. I should, I know, take this as a good thing, and yet. And yet.