Bike Newbie

Well, I figure I should talk a little about work since I am more or less back to a “normal” routine, although it feels anything but normal. I guess one good thing about the pandemic is I don’t drink nearly as much coffee or caffeine drinks as I used to. I still have a cup or two early in the morning, but then I’m done for the day, where I used to continue drinking caffeine up until about 10 a.m., then often again from 2 to 4 p.m. at work. It’s not that I have more energy now; if anything I have much less energy than I did before. I think it’s that I’m just not as concerned about staying high-energy throughout the workday to maintain my level of productivity.

I get my work done on time. Before, this was not enough for me…I felt I had something more to prove, like I needed to either produce a superhuman quantity of work or re-edit my products until they were masterpieces (in my opinion). I’m not sure why, but that desire to prove something is gone. And the funniest part is, I’m completely OK with that. Good enough is good enough, and that’s good enough for me. If it’s not good enough for my bosses, they can tell me so (they haven’t yet), and everyone else can suck it.

I did refuse an assignment (sort of, not entirely) which might show up on my annual performance review (we only get them once a year, in March, so there’s a good chance this episode will be forgotten anyway), but on which I feel I’m squarely in the right. Before, I would often attend governments’ public meetings as part of my job. Of course, with COVID-19 all the meetings either stopped or went virtual, so I went along with that. Now that some counties are starting to reopen, some of the in-person public meetings are resuming.

Let me break up the narrative a bit by explaining that I am not one of these hiding, Grub Hub-using, online-shopping, ultra-germophobic hermits through the pandemic. I go to grocery stores. I get carry-out from restaurants. I walk and ride my bike out in the open air, often without a mask if I know I can maintain at least a 20′ distance. But one thing I try to avoid like the plague (pun intended) is going into an enclosed space with a large group for extended periods of time (basically the exact description of a government’s public meeting), especially if there’s a viable option. I was recently asked to attend one of these upcoming meetings by one of my bosses. There is an option to stream the meeting online. I emailed my boss back I did not feel comfortable attending the meeting in person, but that I would be happy to stream it online and give a full report afterward. I haven’t yet received a reply and this was two days ago.

I love my job, I need money like everyone, and I understand that there is inherent risk in all things. But if I can help it at all, I’m not going to unnecessarily put myself at risk of contracting COVID-19 with or without symptoms. I don’t want to be the reason my wife or anyone else dies, and oh yeah I don’t want to die myself.

Reap The Whirlwind

Where I live we have yet to complete our lockdown due to the virus. Now we additionally have an 8 pm curfew to further instill order.

Work has gone as well as it can go given the circumstances. My personal life has gone well too. On the rare instances I am out and about, I’m noticing an ever-more-drastic dichotomy of experiences. I’ll try to explain.

Usually in the time “BC” (before Covid), most of my experiences in public were mixed, that is to say they had high points and low points but were pretty medium when everything was summed up. Now, each experience is clearly either good or bad, with very little nuance or balance.

On the bad side, it is as if everyone and everything I encounter is pushing back hard on the world events that are unfolding. It’s like their actions are saying “We don’t care what the news is reporting, we want things to return, to be identical to 2019, and we will kill you to make that happen if necessary.”

But what if 2019 (and before) was the problem in the first place? What if we are finally paying the price for our economic, judicial, and social misbehavior? What if the cure requires more than a bandaid over society? If that’s true then pushing back will only worsen our problems.

On the other side of things, acceptance and compassion mark the experiences I label as good. It’s as if everyone and everything are saying “I know what you’re going through and I’m sorry. The bright side is this is how the planet achieves balance. Things won’t be perfect going forward, but they will get better. To teach you patience and understanding I will now be patient and understanding with you.”

I have to think this drastic dichotomy is mostly in my head. But maybe the fact I’m applying more judgment on my daily experiences says something about the world’s experiences right now. Maybe it’s time to take a hard look at what humans, especially white males, have been doing in and to the world. If our world today is the outcome, then change is long past due.

A Spectrum of Behaviors

All of us who are tuning into news and/or media are seeing the photos. Depending on where our political and social views are at, some photos will make us angry while others will fill us with hope and gratitude. You’ve seen the images. On one side there are the mask-shunning, partying crowds on beaches and in pools. On the other side there is the grandparent & grandchild separated by a pane of glass, with masks and distancing prominent and on proud display. Or, if not a parent & child exactly, some sort of brave and compassionate person, perhaps a healthcare worker, suited up to fight the war against COVID-19. Images, images, images…set up and captured to evoke strong emotions about what is happening and who/what is to blame and whom we should praise (and quite successfully so, I might add).

Then there are the images in between, which you probably don’t see as often on news websites or social media, that are far more likely to be seen “live in person” by you (they’ve certainly been seen by me lately). These images are more nuanced and harder to summon a lightning-quick, emotional reaction to…maybe the backstory is much more complicated than the eyewitness can possibly know, or maybe the line of sight is poorly lit or harshly angled so as to render the scene more dramatic (good or bad) than it actually is. If the scene is a social faux pas (e.g. mask off, standing too close, or rubbing one’s face), maybe that is the one 3-second mistake the otherwise flawless person has made all day…and maybe there are good reasons behind the mistake that I don’t know about. If the scene is heroic or at least mildly admirable (e.g. giving others wide berth, or masking up even when inconvenient), maybe the person is normally a wretched, inconsiderate, spitting, spewing bag of germs most of the time…and maybe the heroic act is far more self-serving than I will ever know. The point is we can’t know a person from a few seconds, even a few minutes, of observation. And unless we happen to perfectly witness the person committing a crime or saving a life, we certainly aren’t in a position to deliver a profound judgment on them, whether good or bad, whether high praise or damnation.

But we do anyway. We judge. That’s just human nature, just as it is human nature to make mistakes, become complacent, or even convince ourselves however momentarily that this is all just a manufactured crisis and there aren’t any real consequences to going around maskless and unwashed because have we ever actually seen anyone die from COVID-19 with our own two eyes? The point is we are human, and I have to admit as bad as quarantine is it is making me see the humanity of all the millions of strangers surrounding me. It is making me see that each of us is far more complex, robust and dynamic than a snapshot or Tik Tok can convey (isn’t Tik Tok just Vine remarketed for kids?), whether that snapshot is of us at our best, our worst, or in one of the trillions of spots in between.

Maybe the next time I want to rush to judgment on a person, I will remember this. And maybe the next time I’m tempted to stumble or sit down, or I’m slow to jump up and do what’s right, I’ll put myself in the position of observer and wonder what I would think of myself, if this was all of myself that I could see.

Back At Work

We are fast approaching a whole quarter (3 months) of the COVID-19 crisis. Now that I’ve been “back in the office” for a week, I feel I have enough perspective to write about it. Overall, it’s more or less what I expected: some things have barely changed, while other things have changed dramatically, and some of the dramatic changes I believe are pretty much here to stay. So I’ll go through each type of thing in turn.

The Things that have Barely Changed. There is still an expectation that I be at the office by 8 a.m. There are still timesheets, reports, and purchase orders to be processed. I still find that I sit in my office chair too long, and need to be reminded to get up and move around from time to time. I still get the afternoon “drowsies.” I still get frustrated from time to time by ignorance, apathy, incompetence, and excessive self-interest. There are still meetings, rumors, gossip, announcements, requests for favors, and negotiations.

The Things that have Changed Dramatically (But are Unlikely to Last). There are temperature screenings every morning…anyone with a temperature above 100.4 F is not allowed into the office. Every building has only one entrance for control (we can exit through any door for safety and distancing reasons). Everyone is required to wash their hands immediately upon entering the building. Masks or face coverings are required at all times, unless we have an enclosed office (I do) and are in it alone. All touch surfaces are to be sanitized at least daily. Food and drink are not allowed to be consumed in break rooms or common areas. Even the largest restrooms are to be used one-at-a-time only.

The Things that have Changed Dramatically and Probably Permanently. Travel, other than to and from the office, is very closely scrutinized and generally prohibited. The only in-person meetings allowed are very small, very brief, and masks + distancing are required. Zoom, GoToMeeting, Skype, and Webex are the new PowerPoint, Excel, and Word. Just about every meeting is remote, and there seem to be a ton of remote meetings. Emails, texts, and IMs fly around more prolifically than ever before. Very little is actually printed out on paper. People generally keep to themselves all day and it’s much quieter than ever before in the office.

In many ways, as an introvert, I actually prefer this new way of doing business over the old way. Meetings seem to be a lot more efficient and things are easier to document and recall when necessary. So far, the toughest thing to replicate from “the old way” is what I call the hallway conversation. The little, usually brief, usually informal, conversations that happen when bumping into a coworker in the hall or in the minutes just before/after a conference room meeting are especially hard to mimic by dialing or texting the coworker directly. And at my workplace, we don’t have Slack or Microsoft Teams or anything like that. Maybe this is the next tech problem that my organization needs to solve, because I don’t see the “traditional” conference room meeting or hallway encounter returning anytime soon, if ever.

I do like the fluidity and flexibility of some work hours now, especially in the afternoons. I have always had difficulty with concentration and productivity in the middle of the day. I’m not sure why…for decades I’ve done my best work in the mornings and early evenings. Now, I can go to the office in the morning, go home before 5 and exercise/eat/do chores, then catch up on a little work right before dinner. I hope I can hang on to this even after the pandemic crisis, because it matches my own daily rhythms and makes me both happier and more productive. It will be a tough sell to my organization to adopt this scheme permanently, but I can dream.

GDIDTT (Gonna Do It Differently This Time)

Tomorrow I make a supply run for face masks and hand sanitizer so that my office can reopen on a very limited basis starting Monday. This is both exciting and anxiety-inducing. On the one hand, I am eager to do something that even partially resembles ‘normal’ living again. On the other hand, I realize that ‘normal’ living had its downsides: stress overload, strict adherence to a M-F, 8-5 schedule that often didn’t make logical sense, excessive prolonged sitting, boardroom culture…the list goes on and on.

So I’ve decided that this time around I’m going to make some positive choices for myself where I have that ability, because I’ve seen how good working life can be. It’s going to be about the job, not about the timeclock. I will sit only when I cannot stand or walk, not the other way around. I won’t sweat anything that isn’t life-or-death, which in my line of work means I pretty much won’t sweat anything.

Most importantly, I live close to my office, so I’m usually going to be going home mid day for a long workout & lunch, returning to the office for a couple hours in the afternoon. My health and well-being are infinitely more important than my job, and exercise & good healthy eating are the core of it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to be as professional as I ever was, if not more so. But I’m going to call more of the shots and do things that make sense for me, versus letting vague but pervasive guilt feelings dictate my behaviors. I’ll still be me, and I’ll never be perfect. But I’ll be good enough, and more importantly I’ll be happier.

Bicycle Training and German Football (soccer)

Two days ago I went out to the small town I moved from, because the paved farm roads of this agricultural area are excellent for bicycling, and the weather was perfect in the morning. It got unseasonably hot (86 degrees F) in the afternoon, but I was finished by that time.

The ride was as close to perfect as it ever gets. There were some headwinds on the way outbound, but that only meant they would be tailwinds on the latter part of the ride. There was relatively little car traffic even on the short sections of highway that I rode; this was especially true given that it was Saturday. The route was about 36 miles (57 km), and involved about 1,200 vertical feet (366 m) of climbing. I stopped 3 times; once for a quick stretch/bathroom break about 6 miles in, again for a stretch/water break about 19 miles in, and finally before the big hill about 27 miles in.

The route took me just under 3 hours to complete (not including rest stops); this means my “moving average” was over 12 mph (over 19 km/h). Not bad at all, considering two things: (1) this was my first ride of more than 15 miles in over 6 months and (2) there were lots of hills on this route including a big one towards the finish, and those tend to push the average way down since one is spending a long time climbing slowly.

Overall I feel really good about it. Ideally I would ride one of these every week, gradually increasing the distance to about 75 miles (120 km) with about 3,500 feet (1,067 m) of vertical climb. This way I would be ready for the Tour De Fox in late August benefiting the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s disease research. If the Tour De Fox ends up getting canceled due to COVID-19, I will do a “virtual ride” meaning the same or more mileage and vertical on my own (recorded by Ride With GPS).

Another update: the German football (soccer) league Bundesliga is back up and running this coming weekend. Normally I would not be excited about this at all. I am very excited about it now. Widely considered the third most elite football league worldwide (after the English Premier League and the Spanish Liga), Bundesliga will be playing games in empty stadiums–but they will be broadcast live on Fox Sports.

I’m hoping to learn more about the game of soccer, and about my new favorite team, Borussia Dortmund, in the coming weeks. Premier League has the green light from the UK government to start up as soon as June, and maybe I’ll have picked a favorite in that league by then. And, of course, these games are being played in Europe which means afternoon games are early morning games here, and any evening games are early afternoon games here. Live football!

A Cause to Fight For

So, my dad has Parkinson’s Disease (PD). He was diagnosed with it a few years ago. Around 2013-14, he started having some real difficulties…he would salivate excessively, have trouble speaking clearly at times, and was just finding it tougher to get around. For a long time he figured he was just getting old and those were the symptoms of it. But about 3 years later he was diagnosed with PD and began treatment. He showed immediate improvement.

But PD progresses as a chronic neurodegenerative disorder, and even with treatment he still has major physical difficulties to overcome, not to mention the untold mental toll PD takes on its victims. In January he fractured his skull when he sat at the edge of his bathtub to put his socks on, lost his balance and fell backward striking his head on the shower wall. Luckily he recovered from that injury, but it was a sign that he (and we, his family) would have to be extra cautious from here on out.

Around that time, I decided I was going to raise money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) and enter the Tour De Fox, a fundraising 70 mile bicycle ride in Sonoma County’s wine country. This year the Tour De Fox is scheduled for the end of August. I registered in January. I was going to do my first fundraising push in March.

Then, we all know what happened. In the U.S., there was news, confusion, uncertainty…and at least when it came to purchases of sanitizer and toilet paper, panic. As with most people, my near term plans evaporated like rubbing alcohol. Still, August seemed so far off, there was no way COVID-19 was going to affect my Tour De Fox plans, right?

As things stand right now, maybe the Tour De Fox ride will happen, and maybe it won’t. Cycle Oregon has now cancelled all of its 2020 rides, including its September and October rides. Tour De Fox and MJFF are keeping their options open right now, but as time goes by it’s appearing less and less likely. August is only three months away now.

On top of all this, the global economy has tanked, to put it mildly. Hundreds of millions worldwide are out of work and in need. For a long time I struggled with whether to send out any kind of fundraising email to friends and family. People are worried about where their next meal is coming from; who was I to ask them to throw money at MJFF and PD research?

But, after some soul searching and some conversation with my wife, I decided to just go ahead and ask yesterday. So far, the resultant support has been overwhelmingly positive and heartwarming. Donations came pouring in right away, with lots of virtual hugs and encouragement. It makes me realize how blessed I am to have such good, caring people around me. And I’ve decided that, even if the Tour De Fox event gets cancelled due to COVID-19, I’m going to ride the 70.2 miles. Even if I have to do a “virtual Tour De Fox” around the wine country of Oregon (western Willamette Valley), I’m going to ride the ride. It won’t be the same as Sonoma County, but it’ll be pretty darn close. If the Tour De Fox goes ahead as planned, so much the better.

Times like these show me just how much (and whom) I should be grateful for.

 

Wildlife

A lot of news stories have reported wildlife returning to cities and other normally-human-dominated areas where wildlife hadn’t been seen in decades, sometimes in broad daylight. I think these show just how resilient wildlife can be after humans have moved into their neighborhoods, and how easy it would be to bring back wildlife even to areas that many would “write off” as unusable by wildlife.

I myself have seen and heard a lot more wildlife, mostly birds, than I did before the pandemic. I’ve seen some deer, rabbits and a lot of squirrels too…but mostly birds. When I walk around the neighborhood, it seems like the wildlife is a lot less shy too. They still keep their distance, but instead of just scurrying or flying away from the scene, they eye me curiously while keeping just out of reach. I wonder if this is how things were in the 1840s, or if wildlife were even bolder toward humans at that time.

 

Planning for the (Sort Of) Re-open

Today I learned that my workplace will be tentatively re-opened in the middle to late part of this month. Two weeks at the earliest, four at the latest. It won’t be anything close to a “full” re-open. Meetings will be by appointment only, and will be remote (not in person) unless absolutely necessary. Everyone will need to submit to daily temperature and symptom checks. Face masks will be worn and six-foot distancing will be practiced. Not to mention all the copious sterilization and hand washing….

On the one hand, it’s nothing short of thrilling to get a piece of normalcy back to my life after working from home for 2+ months. I’ll get a change of scenery, and I believe time will regain some of its meaning in my brain. And as limited as my interactions will be, it’ll be nice to talk to human beings other than the grocery cashier and my wife, even if it has to be through masks 6+ feet apart.

On the other hand, it won’t be normal at all. I’ll be spending as much time cleaning and sanitizing as I will working. There won’t be any guests, friends, or family at the office. No going out to lunch. And of course every cough, sneeze, or sniffle will be met with the utmost scrutiny and skepticism by coworkers, even though it’s the middle of allergy season. Perhaps most importantly, a lot of the stress of the job melted away after staying at home and adapting to a much more leisurely pace and style…will any or all of the stress come back?

Regardless, I’m beyond blessed to have a paying job right now, and I’m excited to be going back to the office even though I know it’s going to be weird.

Dreams

Well, seven weeks in the books. In another seven weeks it will be Summer Solstice time, and two weeks after that 4th of July Weekend. The most expensive gas in my area right now is $2.67 per gallon, about a dollar lower than at its highest in 2019. Will it be $1.67 in seven weeks? The future was very uncertain seven weeks ago, and seems even more uncertain now. Will it still be this uncertain seven weeks from now? Only one way to find out…

As time goes by in quarantine mode, I’m finding that my dreams are becoming more vivid and complex, and that I’m remembering them more. I’m not sure whether the cause of this is the reduction of all the mental and physical “noise” in my life and the resultant ability to “listen” to my subconscious more, or whether it’s something else. Either way, it doesn’t really bother me, it’s just something I’ve noticed.

My most recent dream took place in this COVID-19 reality. A friend or family of mine (not sure which) was having a wedding in Chicago at a huge Catholic cathedral. (Side note: I’ve never been to Chicago and have no family there; also I don’t know anyone planning a wedding right now.) My wife and I were invited, and we struggled with whether we should attend. Finally we decided to travel to Chicago and attend the wedding, mainly because we were assured the huge cathedral would easily accommodate social distancing.

We arrived in Chicago and found the cathedral, which was indeed gigantic. Much to our chagrin, though, the people in Chicago were acting as if there was no such thing as COVID-19. No masks in public. No social distancing. Most businesses were wide open and crowded with people. To boot, people were saying things to me like, “Thank God the virus never made it to Chicago!” I would emphatically rebut that the virus DID make it to Chicago and that they should be a lot more aware and cautious than they were being, but my admonishments fell on deaf ears.

When the wedding day came around, I walked into the mammoth main chapel of this beautiful Gothic-style cathedral in Chicago, to help set up for the ceremony. I did not recognize any of the people there, and more importantly they didn’t recognize me. They asked my name and I gave it. Then they asked, “Are you sure you’re in the right chapel?” I gave the name of the bride and/or groom (side note: I couldn’t tell you who that is now, or how I know them), and they said, “Oh no, they’re NOT getting married in the main chapel…their ceremony is in Chapel 7B.” I asked where this inferior chapel was, and they gave me directions.

Upon arrival at Chapel 7B of the sprawling cathedral complex, I found it to be shabby, poorly built, poorly equipped, unfurnished, and most importantly small. For more than 4 people to occupy the room they would have to violate social distancing. I don’t know how many people were attending total, but there were already too many people in that small room. I let the priest know, probably with less tact than I should have used, that this was not acceptable. The priest was smiling and trying to be as assuring as possible, saying something like “No, no, there’s plenty of room and we’ll be perfectly safe here,” but I was NOT buying it. And that’s where the dream ended.

What does this dream mean? Is the wedding my version of the afterlife? My version of the present life? Is it just my unconscious working through my fears and anxieties? Something else? Does it even matter?