It's back! No? No, it's not back? I'm not back but I'm elsewhere? I'M ELSEWHERE!

Also: more masks, Janet Jackson, Weird Al, and also this fact: Dilbert sucks

Aug 05, 2021

Yeah so this was pretty weird to see

My new show being introduced on the feed of my old show because my old show doesn’t make new episodes anymore except for this one new episode, which is actually an old episode of my new show. Got that? It will be on the midterm.

This is something that has been in the works for a while with them. For months. It’s called an episode drop and it’s super common and very very simple. I’m glad it finally got done. And that’s all I have to say about that.

I don’t like to use the term “surreal” unless it’s actually about surrealism. A melting clock is surreal. This convergence of my old and new shows is not surreal but it sure makes me feel weird. I unsubscribed from the old feed. Unfollowed the old show’s Twitter. Might have blocked them. Because it’s hard, man. It’s difficult to put everything into a show, get laid off, and not keep what you made to try to succeed elsewhere.

It’s meant starting over, building a new business, and hoping that people walk in the door. Meanwhile, all these people are at the old store and wondering where the employees are. So at least now a sign has been hung.

On More Masks

The idea behind cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is that you are not bound by your emotions to demonstrate particular behaviors. Involuntarily, an emotion appears in you and after that, a behavior might appear. For many people, certain emotions always have particular behaviors that go with them. So if you’re angry, you’re going to yell or throw something, for instance.

CBT says hold up. CBT says when you get that emotion, you have agency and can decide what - if any - action you want to take. Maybe it is yelling. Maybe it’s smiling and nodding your head. Maybe it’s calmly discussing or maybe it’s writing it down or doing a dance or walking away. The point is that you get to decide and take your own power. Because if emotions are involuntary and we assign involuntary behavioral responses to them, then we’re living lives out of control.

Some fuckheads in our society still refuse to get vaccinated and the result is that covid and its variants are still rampaging. I hear about this and I want to scream until my eyes bleed. But I don’t. I choose the behavior of wearing a mask. Again.

The clear solution here is to require vaccination to do anything cool: go to ballgames, movies, any public places. Let’s make these people absorb the inconvenience. This is my rational thought.

The covid mental health crisis people forget about

A big CDC report came out about a year ago, detailing the mental health effects of covid in its opening few months. Some of the groups hit hardest were ones I expected: young adults, people of color, front line essential workers. But there was one group I hadn’t stopped to consider: unpaid healthcare workers. That is, people providing intense, sometimes 24-hour care to a family member in need.

Vox takes a look at those effects and what to do about them.

Suddenly, much of the outside support became too risky, and Scott needed to provide round-the-clock care in her grandmother’s Harlem apartment. She helped Lillian with basic hygiene, prepared enticing meals to encourage her to continue eating (Scott herself subsisted mostly on oatmeal, grits, and sausages), and spent long, sleepless nights trying to ensure her grandmother didn’t leave the apartment and risk exposure to Covid-19. “From March through October of last year, I did not have a break,” Scott told Vox.

The article outlines the burnout and suicidal thoughts that are running rampant among these caregivers. It also points to some legislative responses:

A handful of states have invested more resources into support of this critical unpaid workforce. In 2018, Hawaii piloted a program making caregivers who also have paid jobs eligible for financial assistance for care expenses, with the aim of helping them stay in the workforce — and of saving the state and taxpayers money on outlays for otherwise more expensive care. The same year, Washington state also launched a pilot program to provide a monthly stipend for services to caregivers who don’t quite qualify for Medicaid benefits. This helps the caregivers and recipients, while saving the state money. Washington is set to evaluate the program at the end of this year, and if it’s deemed successful, it could be replicated in other states.
But policymakers can’t help caregivers unless they can locate them in the first place — which can be more difficult than it sounds. “Most people don’t use that term to describe themselves,” said Jennifer Olsen, executive director of the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers. “If you ask them, they would say, ‘I’m the sister,’ ‘I’m the daughter.’” And it’s not a status doctors typically discuss or screen for — despite the stakes — as they might for family medical histories.

Offices are bad and we shouldn’t go back to them

It takes forever to get there and then you gotta park or deal with the bus. You have to wear stupid clothes sometimes and then there are those annoying people. Someone makes fish in the microwave. Your life is a Dilbert cartoon and Dilbert sucks and life sucks and it’s all because of offices.

I may exaggerate and oversimplify. Sorry, MOM.

Anyway, 1 in 3 people said their mental health was negatively effected by returning to the office.

Parents and caregivers of children are more likely to be stressed about their return. Some 44% of parents back in the workplace say their return negatively impacted their mental health — compared with 27% of people without children — because they worry being in public could increase their chances of contracting the virus and spreading it to children at home who are too young to be vaccinated.
Meanwhile, researchers have cautioned that returning to a physical workplace can increase burnout, which can show up in three main ways: exhaustion (a depletion of mental or physical resources), cynical detachment (a depletion of social connectedness) and a reduced sense of efficacy (a depletion of value for yourself).