So yeah: not to jinx anything, but just as life is slowly returning to a semblance of normal, so shall my posts. Or at least my post titles.

Patios are opening in Toronto, though I haven’t been on one yet. Friends are coming over to hang out with Lindsay today. My family back in NS had a get-together last night to celebrate my niece’s graduation. People at work are thinking about going back to the office, though I’m not quite there yet. I grabbed takeout for lunch yesterday, a delicious fried chicken sandwich from The Cider House.

I don’t know if I’m feeling hopeful about this…but I guess I feel like we’re all a little better prepared? Lots of people still aren’t wearing masks when they ought to be, but I can’t control that. And social distancing seems to be taking hold: even the drunk guy ahead of me in line at the LCBO yesterday stayed 6 feet from everybody.

Fingers crossed, I guess.

Let’s see: what happened this week in my little box? I worked. We played more Pandemic: Legacy. I won a Lauren Pelc-McArthur painting. The Constantines released a new song; Bob Dylan released a whole album. It was my niece’s birthday back in NS.

We got outside and social-distance-drank in an alley with friends last night. I hadn’t been outside in a week. It was warm and exciting.

Also, this is very real: Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Post-Pandemic Wish Fulfillment Fantasies

My mood and psyche were somewhat better this week. The news was no better, with what’s happening in the US and video of Indigenous people being murdered and clotheslined across Canada. (Since COVID broke out, there have been as many Indigenous people in New Brunswick killed by the police as total COVID deaths as of June 14.)

I feel like so much of this writing is happening from within the little bubble we’ve been told to hold, while the rest of the world percolates outside. Things are beginning to lift. Ontario is relaxing rules slowly, though not as much for the GTA just yet. My company is beginning to think about bringing a few people back to the office, on a voluntary basis. White Lily is doing takeout, thank god. Things are happening, but I still feel very cautious.

Yesterday, in a move that feels both timely and untoward, we began playing Pandemic: Legacy. We’d been fans of the original Pandemic, playing quite a bit before all this happened. Legacy is just as confusing as the original was at first; I’m hoping it feels a bit less daunting in the coming rounds. It does feel weird playing a game one-way (destroying things along the way; you can’t re-play it) but honestly it’s been so frustrating and tough so far I’m not sure we’ll want to go back to it once we’re done.

Hard week. Hard to focus on work, or deal with the work load. Hard to watch the news or read Twitter.

BUT. But. The part of me that gets excited about change is trying to instill some energy in the part of me that feels sand-blasted. I’m reading and donating and trying to watch the news through an historical lens. And I feel hopeful.

I want more of this.

The week started with a upward turn — 2020 jumping straight from Winter to Summer in Toronto, though I’m sad that Spring 2020 seems never to have existed — but slid into an almost surreal spectacle of seething rage south of the border. It’s hard to focus on much else; recounting TV shows and virtual wine tastings and Peloton rides seems silly.

I read a Harvard Business Review article this week about regression among leaders working from home, especially as we’ve come out of “crisis management” mode and settled into simply managing once again. I know I’m feeling it. I’m feeling the cramped space as well, especially with Lindsay totally heads-down trying to finish papers. It’s not that I miss the office so much as I miss the separation of personal space and work space.

Still, as ever: these are minor things about which to worry, in the grand scheme of things.

The pre-COVID plan for this weekend was to be in Montreal. Attending a work conference, sure, but also seeing friends. Getting proper bagels. Taking away coffee from Différance and Crew Collective. Maybe trying to sneak in a tasting menu at Toqué.

But.

Here we sat, once more. At least the weather seems to have finally turned. Not because we can be outside in it very much (unlike all the knob ends infesting Toronto’s parks right now) but because we can have the windows open to receive fresh breeze, and hear birds singing.

I finished The Last Dance this week, which somehow led to us watching Space Jam, which Lindsay had seen many times but I somehow never had. I’m desperate for a new show to hold my attention. I’m desperate to find the time to have a new show hold my attention.

I should just be getting back from London today. Back, with my brain full of whatever was at the Tate Modern, and my belly full of Hawksmoor steak. But I’m here, and we’re here, and that Hawksmoor money is going to support front-line workers instead, because the worst thing I have to deal with is not going to London.

This week was somewhere between hard and monotonous. I’ve been using the Calm app a lot to help me de-stress; work gave us all a free subscription, which is nice. Lindsay’s creating some very delicious sourdough. I’ve been enjoying The Last Dance, the Michael Jordan documentary on Netflix. Things are slowly re-opening in Ontario. The weather’s finally turning nicer. I dunno though. I just can’t shake a shaggy gray feeling over the whole thing. So, yeah. Not the best week.