This was an un-exciting week except for yesterday, when I went to Mahoney’s with my sister Isi and her girlfriend Sym, who are both living with us, to get plants for the vegetable garden. This article by comparative immunologist and bio professor Erin Bromage about the relative risk of infection in different situations was useful for deciding if going there was a tolerable risk. Mahoney’s requires all customers to wear masks, and has laid out tape arrows and lanes to help people with social distancing. It seemed fairly low-risk since most of the plants are outdoors and we weren’t going to be spending more than an hour in the greenhouses. But a lot of other customers seemed to think that wearing masks meant they didn’t have to keep their distance. Yikes. Me, Isi, and Sym were not in much danger of being infected, but I worried about the Mahoney’s staff — they’re exposed to a lot more people over an 8-hour shift than we were over a short shopping trip, and the Plexiglas barriers Mahoney’s has set up for cashiers can only block so much germage.
Outside that trip, I haven’t done much but take pictures. My only paid work right now is editing a home renovation podcast. I’m having trouble making myself work on editing my novel again. The main activity trends for me were 1) working on my many abandoned/never-started craft projects or using up old craft supplies and 2) trying to improve the aesthetics of my immediate surroundings, mostly by bouncing light around. These are likely to come together soon in a project where I make odd-shaped disco-ball-adjacent objects out of rhinestones and an as yet undetermined structural component, maybe paper clay. But I’m trying not to expect myself to be particularly productive right now. The most important work I’m doing is avoiding outside interaction as much as possible. Everything else is just icing on the cake.
