Is that a Mustache?!?

The Jones boys on May 3, 2020, seven weeks into the pandemic 

and two full months without haircuts.

Note: this post was written in late May, as I was nervous about an LM deadline. The photo is from early May, the day before Boyd and I would get our first haircuts in over two months, and I had a mustache for the first time in my life.

***

Hello from the Hall of Justice. Just clocked out. Cleaned the kitchen because I needed to do something different with my brain. Decided to bring the laptop next door, in case I get motivated to write that advertorial.

But when have I ever been motivated to write an advertorial?

***

Who puts mayonnaise on a hot dog?

***

I haven’t been blogging much these last few months. Kind of a weird time to make that move. I haven’t been going anywhere, but I abandon the blog?

I think it’s because I’m mentally exhausted a lot, and also, I don’t have as many photos of us out and about, to share. “We went for a walk today!” Is only exciting maybe once or twice.

But at the same time, I’ll bet I look back and I’m disappointed that I didn’t document the first few weeks of the pandemic/stay-at-home more.

***

We have been doing good here. Staying busy. Work has been kicking my butt. 

Here’s what I’ve been doing to occupy my time when I’m not at work:

— I put new CDs in the jukebox, along with new playlist cards, which I drew/designed by hand

— I cut a path out of the woods to the creek, replete with a dirt staircase 

— Yardwork, mowing, string trimming, branch removal. It’s a solid three hours to spruce up the yard each weekend.

— I started organizing Mark LaFleur’s CD collection he gifted me in a bookcase (about 600 CDs)

— Grilling, cooking dinners. The flat-top grill has been IN EFFECT on the weekends, especially for breakfast.

— Watching movies with Adro and the kids (I, Robot; Mr. Mom; Hobbs & Shaw; Wonder Woman (terrible) Groundhog Day; Young Frankenstein; The Shining; Good Will Hunting (awful, it should have been called Jenius Janitor); Vertigo)

— Playing Jones Creek National with Bub

— Cleaning/organizing the Hall of Justice

— Cleaned the garage a few times

I started watching Breaking Bad, but gave up on it… again.

***

Beautiful Kansas evening tonight. Me and the kids have been outside since about 5:30 or so. I was picking up while the kids rode bikes. Then we got out the tennis ball and saw how many times we could keep it in the air, hitting it to one another. After we worked up a sweat, I sat down in my lawn chair. Evey rode her bike a bit more. Then she got a juice box, Bub got a freezer pop. I suggested we get out the Uno cards, and it was GAME ON. I’m on a three-game winning streak. Evey also has three. Bub has one. Next game coming soon…

***

Shinobi went on the fritz! SHIT! So bummed about this. I talked to the guy who replaced the screen about… 18 months ago? He’s going to take a look at it, but I have to take it to him… ugh. Could be a $30 part. But if the monitor went out again? That might be the end of Shinobi for a while…

***

I’ve said this a few times, and I do think about it often… the pandemic is awful and scary. But I think about where I am in my life right now, and I think that in terms of my age, and the age of my family, it’s not the worst timing. My kids are both still at fun ages (13 and 8) they both are young but not too young… and we just moved out to the country eight months ago. So we’re still in the honeymoon stage with our new house and the adventure of living in the country. I recently turned 43, and without a doubt, age 42 saw me in more cities in a year than I’ve ever been before… and away from my family a lot.

I think about one of my co-workers who just had a baby, her second, and now she has two little ones in the house, and I think that has to be stressful. I think about the empty nesters who are used to getting out and about to enjoy themselves, and this has to be a damper on their new lifestyle. Or the people who are even older, maybe their kids are grown up and moved far away, and they have grandkids they can’t see. That’s terrible.

For me and Adrianne to be here at a new house, with a 13-year-old-girl and an 8-year-old boy? I think it’s just about the best case scenario of a quarantine experience. 

Evey and Boyd might disagree but that’s my take!

***

The kids are swatting bubbles now. Adrianne is inside relaxing. I’m going to keep going.

***

I do think I’ll regret not being more productive in the first 10 weeks of the quarantine. I could have finished Moby Dick. I could have created a YouTube TV series. Or made a year in review video like I used to do when Evey was a baby (someday I’d like to get back to that… I can see doing it.)

I look at the above list of stuff I did, and it’s really pretty weak sauce. I’ll give myself a bit of a pass based on the overall stressful mood, it kind of stymies creativity. And also I’m in front of my laptop so much during work hours, I don’t want to flip it back open again when I’m off the clock!

I’ll say this: as someone who worked from home for nine straight years… it was a cool gig. I could keep up, mostly. Then put everyone else in the same boat? It’s amazing the work people have created for all of us that really is just busy work… because they’re frightened that they won’t look busy working from home.

We produce two magazines a month, and we also host three websites. We deploy between seven and 15 emails a month for our various readerships.  We do videos, social media, webinars. It’s sufficient, it’s plenty. We have a combined readership of 100,000+ that we worry about, we worry about their businesses and how we communicate with them so we respect their time.

So we don’t really need to create new ways of burning business hours, just because some people are skittish about the idea of everyone working from home.

***

I don’t know what the kids are doing now. I half expect Evey to have an apple on top of her head here in a minute, and Boyd with a Nerf bow and arrow. That’s what it looks like from here. And by the way kids… it’s clearly raining out right now.

*** 

End blog post, May whatever-whatever-whatever, 2020.