Hello folks! It’s time for yet another dispatch from the Dow Bunker where we are holding it down and attempting to social distance the fuck out of this crisis.

It’s been another crazy week for sure. Looking at the local statistics, it looks like the cases as of yesterday were 738 in my state, and 41 in my county specifically — although, it doesn’t look like any data was supplied from my county yesterday, so both of those numbers could be higher. As such, we have started wearing gloves when we go out — we already had some that we’ve had for years for when we handle meat and poultry, and we managed to find a small box at a Harps when we picked up my birthday cake. They’re not medical grade, by any means, they’re just meant to be an additional preventative.

In that same vein, we ordered some cloth masks from Etsy. It seems like everyone has become a medical expert online, so some are screaming at everyone for not wearing masks while others are screaming at people for wearing masks because they don’t work. It appears to be somewhat in the middle? They don’t really stop you from getting the virus, but they have been shown to be somewhat effective if used properly, and in any case they are far more useful for preventing yourself from spreading it to others. I’ve been basically operating under the assumption that we already have it simply to ensure that our habits are safe — gloves, 6 feet away, wipe down anything we touch after being outside with Clorox wipes, etc.

I hope things go back to some semblance of normal — meaning that I hope that we don’t stay locked up for a long time and that the virus becomes contained and manageable. We bought tickets a couple of months ago for the My Chemical Romance show in Dallas, and I’m worried about going. This is a once in a lifetime show, but I don’t want to put us at risk. It’s not until September, so it’s still too far out for us to try to sell the tickets or get refunds, and the band hasn’t made any announcements I’ve seen for canceling or delaying their tours, so it’s all very unsure and worrying. And I recognize that this isn’t a major concern — there are for more pressing and worse things — it was meant to be our 10th anniversary celebration, and a honeymoon that we never had. So it hurts, all the same, but it’s a hurt that won’t resolve until we know more. The waiting is killer.

While I hope things get back to normal, I’m honestly not optimistic. I’m not medical expert, but given that the most optimistic timeline we’ve been given is 12-18 months for a vaccine, I’m sort of expecting that things will be like this for the next year or so. And if not, as I mentioned, I worry about deciding in July or August for everyone to go back to work…and then the virus kicks up again. With no vaccine, there’s not way for my wife and I to protect ourselves outside of self-isolating, and if we don’t have governmental direction to do so…I worry what will happen to us.

Anyway, I don’t want this to be an anxiety riddled screed, so let’s get to the other updates, yeah?

What I’ve Been Writing

I haven’t done much writing unfortunately. The blog posts you’ve seen up here have been the most of it. Part of that has been from the anxiety of current events, but part of has just been that I’ve been weirdly busy. Work has kept me busy — somehow busier than I was in the office, which is funny — and when I wasn’t doing work stuff, we’ve been doing birthday related stuff.

I’d really like to get back into D&D, so I have one more update to write to catch us up on where we were last time, and then I’d like to jump back in and get started with things. I’ve missed it. So that’ll be where some of my creative work goes. However, I’m hoping to use some of today to get more done from Story Genius.

Unrelated to my book, I’ve been heavily considering writing some short and flash fiction and posting it here, maybe even podcasting it? I doubt there’s an audience for it — I think maybe five people read this blog? I don’t think even my friends read it, ha ha. But it would give me something to do, and since I recently bought a nice new mic for our podcast, it’d be nice to have an excuse to use it.

More on these thoughts as they develop.

What I’ve Been Reading

Again, anxiety about the current situation has kept me from doing a lot of reading, but I did make my way through more of Story Genius. I’ve been marking in Kindle with a note for each time that an activity comes up, and then going back to work on them as I have time.

I’ve also started reading Cottonmouths again. I am absolutely smitten with this book. There are so many details that are so specific to my life — a character just talked about how their family kept a large, knee-high bottle that the put change in, and I was instantly transported back to my childhood where we did the exact same thing. I don’t know if it’s regional or what, but it was a crazy detail that I hadn’t even thought about in years.

Besides giving me childhood flashbacks, the book is also very good. It’s got a sort of southern noir-esque vibe that I really dig, and the characters are all fleshed out and believable. If you haven’t picked it up, you should.

What I’ve Been Watching

We’ve been doing more comfort watching recently, which means revisiting earlier seasons of Brooklyn 99 along with rewatching Community now that it’s on Netflix. We also dipped into Living with Yourself, and I am loving it.

I feel like it’s been really slept on? I don’t remember really anyone talking about it, but it’s surreal and tense and captivating. Paul Rudd is always great and charming and enjoyable to watch, but being able to pull off two versions of the same character and making them feel distinct is just…it’s really something. And having to do so in a way that doesn’t feel like cartoonish exaggeration for a joke, but a realistic portrayal of a “better version” of yourself…it’s really something to see.

What I’ve Been Doing

First, I should mention that we’ve dropped episode two of our Podcast Classic. We talked about Urban Legend and Theatre of Blood, which was an amazing pairing on my brother’s part. I’d never seen the latter, and it was a real treat of a Vincent Price film. I hope you’ll give it a listen if that strikes your fancy.

Anyway, as I mentioned, my reading and writing time has been eaten up with birthday related activities. We’ve actually been a bit more social this past week, which is really helped with my mental health. There are some of my friends who seem to be closing themselves off, and I suppose if they’re able to do so and maintain their mental health then I am happy for them. It’s been hell for me, though. The first couple of weeks without really talking to anyone sent me in a depression spiral. Getting some folks together to play some goofy Jackbox games and relax has really done some miracles for my state of mind.

I never really know how to handle situations where you miss your friends, you know? Like, I don’t know how to say, “I miss you, we should hang out,” without making it sound like you are owed social time? But still, I miss my friends.

Besides streaming Jackbox, my brother got me Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 on the Switch, and I’ve been playing with my wife. It’s been really nice just hanging out with her and relaxing. Most multiplayer games are competitive — like Mario Party and Mario Kart, etc., or require playing online — like Splatoon. It feels really old school, like when my friends and I used to play Lord of the Rings: Return of the King on multiplayer. It’s nice for us to site down next to each other and have a common, shared goal. The only example I can think of is the Lego games, and I don’t really like multiplayer in them — the characters feel like they move too sluggishly and it drives me crazy.

As a side note: I really miss local multiplayer. If I could find a fun shooter that did local multiplayer, I would be on cloud 9. We used to play Timesplitters 2 all the time on the Gamecube, and goddamn I would love to find something like that with local  multiplayer.

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That’s all the updates from the bunker for now. I hope that you and your family are staying safe and healthy, and if not the latter, I hope recovery is quick. There’s more than just coronavirus out there, and it sucks to be cooped up sick quarantine or no. How are you faring with quarantine week 4? Have you done anything fun you want to share? Any uplifting stories? What are you watching/reading/doing to stave off boredom? Comment below! Or, if you’d prefer, you can drop me an email or hit me up on Twitter. I’d love to hear from y’all.

‘Til next time!