We will run out of therapists. Plan accordingly. Now.
Seriously, you guys. Also: go to meetings as a critter, David Byrne, death
If I had access to some really good rooftops, a microphone and p.a. system, and a very effective shouting voice, here’s what I would shout from the rooftops:
THE STORM IS COMING! GET YOUR MENTAL HEALTH ASSISTANCE FIGURED OUT!
See that? Bold face.
The New York Times tells you what a lot of us have been saying. Don’t postpone getting an arrangement going with someone to help you out during this time of tremendous stress, anxiety, and depression. Because it ain’t going away. It’s going to get so much worse.
ACT NOW!
“Never at any time in my practice have I had a five-person waiting list,” said Brooke Huminski, a psychotherapist and licensed independent clinical social worker in Providence, R.I., who specializes in treating people with eating disorders.
Nothing in society is really built to withstand a pandemic. Our national mental health system is really really not ready.
Dr. Gregory Scott Brown, the director of an outpatient psychiatry clinic in Austin, Texas, said he recently had to hire an additional nurse practitioner to help care for more patients. “I’m busier than ever and just don’t have room,” he said. “I’m full.”
Seriously, if you think there’s a chance you’re going to need help, get a plan in place, get an appointment while you can.
Lots of rain ahead. Build an ARK.
I always enjoy the work of Andy Baio (of Waxy.org and the human meeting occasion XOXOFest) even though I sometimes have trouble wrapping my brain around it. In fact, that difficulty is a big part of why I do enjoy it.
He’s just unveiled a plan for a virtual meeting space called Skittish. He hopes it will be more humane and dynamic than, say, Zoom, and just more of a comfortable hang. Anyone who has been in a Zoom family reunion call is probably wishing for something more comfortable. In Skittish, I think we all get to be woodland creatures.
It’s in Beta now but I’m going to try to get some stuff going there for my new show.
Meanwhile, go watch the video on there because it is neat and short.
I’ve been thinking of the whole “other people biz” for a little while. I imagine myself as at least an introvert, if not a complete recluse. The idea of being at home and quiet usually beats any option that involves a lot of people. I stare gape-eyed at tv or movies that feature nightclubs as desirable places because I could not think of anywhere I’d want to be less. But through the pandemic and a Minnesota winter, I’ve been missing other people a lot. Their conversation, sure, but even just proximity. To know that they exist. To inadvertently harvest their human nutrients.
What’s the best expression of the joy of being with people? Might be David Byrne’s recent performances.
I can’t say it’s not.
If you have a Box Office installed in your home, watch the whole dang thing.
Here’s a website I’ve been checking nearly every day for most of the past year. It’s the daily update on the covid situation in Minnesota. New cases, tests, deaths, hospitalizations, ICU admissions. Daily incremental climbs up and down. Scary numbers in the spring, mellower numbers in summer and early fall, horrific numbers in winter, getting better now that vaccine is spreading.
It has made me feel informed, which is good because I’m more in touch with a sense of reality. Facts, not just feelings. But it’s also made for emotions that are pretty weird.
Mondays tend to be lower numbers because not as many people report new information over the weekend and today was pretty low indeed. One new death. One! It makes me want to celebrate. But if I did, I would be celebrating a person dying. Someone between 80 and 84 years old dead right here in Ramsey County, where I live.
Not to beat myself up about it but being happy feels pretty ghoulish.
This is a long and fairly complex article about covid. “A Quite Possibly Wonderful Summer” imagines a societal shift as the vaccine spreads. There is quite a bit about how the virus will continue to exist for a long time and we’re far from out of the woods yet but I mostly read the happy parts because I like happy parts and I wish to sway languidly.
For some, the summer of 2021 might conjure that of 1967, when barefoot people swayed languidly in the grass, united by an appreciation for the tenuousness of life. Pre-pandemic complaints about a crowded subway car or a mediocre sandwich could be replaced by the awe of simply riding a bus or sitting in a diner. People might go out of their way to talk with strangers, merely to gaze upon the long-forbidden, exposed mouth of a speaking human.
In short, the summer could feel revelatory. The dramatic change in the trajectory and tenor of the news could give a sense that the pandemic is over. The energy of the moment could be an opportunity—or Americans could be dancing in the eye of a hurricane.
If I’m gonna sway, make mine LANGUID. I want to be that “some” that is talked about. I’ve even started enjoying the Grateful Dead again.
