It's been a couple of weeks since I last wrote up my Sunday Freewrite... I decided it was something I didn't have to do if I didn't feel like it on a Sunday.
Pandemic Thoughts
I have to say that I'm increasingly alarmed by the situation - and honestly, I don't mean the "virus" itself. I mean the government response and the attitudes of the people.
Humans are social creatures. We are meant to live in a small (often migratory) tribe. We move to our summer grounds and follow the buffalo (or whatever) to the winter grounds so we can have enough to eat. At some point, we decided that growing our food was easier, so we stayed put a bit more, but we still chased the buffalo whenever we could.
Today, we still have our small, migratory tribes, though we may belong to more than one. There's the tribe for our school, the tribe for our place of work, the tribe for our place of worship or our place to hang out - the gym, the club, the bar... These days, we also have our online tribes - whether Hive/Steem or Facebook groups or whatever forum we participate in if we don't want to give Zuckerberg our info. It doesn't matter what they're officially called... they are still tribes. And our small families (compared to what they were in the past) still fit in around our various tribes... mostly.
Right now, during this pandemic, we have been isolated from most of our tribes. Those of us who tend to be more insular anyway, don't mind so much because we just hang out online more. But those who thrive on the day-to-day socialization of their schools, jobs, "tribes" are having a lot more difficulty.
In fact, I'm beginning to predict that the human cost of isolation is going to DWARF the human cost of Covid-19!
I mentioned this on Facebook last night, in fact, and someone replied with the figure that in California, the calls to their suicide prevention hotline have increased by 7500%!!! (She insisted that wasn't a typo!) And what about those who don't call?
In other words, social isolation is going to kill us much faster than Covid-19 is... even with the most pessimistic of figures going!
What happened to "being sensible"? Doing our best? And boosting our immunity? Sure, some people (in high risk groups) still need to self-isolate - and if you know you've been exposed, you should self-isolate (14 days, they've been saying.) But most people can handle a 14-day isolation. Most people can not handle the months and months that is being said by our governments. (In various parts of the UK, they're being told a YEAR now...) How many people are going to die from isolation in that time? How many old people will just never see the light of day again and they're isolated so who knows when their bodies will be found?
And some places (like the Philippines) are now being threatened with DEATH if they break quarantine!!! What?!
All for something that kills up to 3% of those who catch it? So, we kill the other 97% - just because they dare to come out of their homes? How does this make sense?
And are we just prolonging the pandemic anyway? If isolation would truly break the connection, why haven't we done this to get rid of the common cold or influenza or chicken pox or measles? Why do we use vaccines instead? If the virus is in the community now, why not just suck up and catch it while it's in the news? Get it, get over it, get immune the natural way - like measles... and stop killing people with social isolation.
That's not to say don't prepare. I've just ordered some homeopathic quinine (china, if anyone wants to know) - in 10X (to prepare) and 200C (to treat) as well as some cinchona bark to make tonic water (with quinine). This treatment (well, the synthetic - chloroquine or hydrocholorquine) has shown promise for Covid-19. (Be aware of dosage as it can cause problems - which was why I looked for homeopathy - which can be used along side conventional medication.)
(BTW, we were looking at figures this morning and it looks like higher humidity = higher morbidity and mortality. So, if you want to do something to improve your odds, get a dehumidifier.)
But honestly, we need to stop the panic!
Be sensible, but let's get back to living... right now, we are living as if we're already dead!
/soapbox
Writing - more Plague
As I'm winding down my current story (2 1/2 weeks to go), I'm writing like mad to finish the first of my Decima stories. I've completed one, but I realized I strayed too far off the main course (pandemic) and am now madly working on the prequel to this.
This set is meant to follow some of real Earth events while taking it for a conspiracy ride that's far more sinister than what's going on here on Earth. I even found the perfect (existing) character to pin it on... All while keeping plenty of romance and erotica to make it fun to write! (As well as being true to one of the Balan goals anyway...) But that's for another time.
March saw me complete 50k words over the month and I've chalked up nearly 20k words just this week, especially as I plot out this prequel Decima: Ground Zero.
Chicks
These guys are growing leaps and bounds! We have cut down our visits partly because people weren't feeling well and then we had more snow (April Fool's joke from Mother Nature - 6 inches of joke...) And now I had a charlie horse the other night which has caused some muscle damage... so waiting for that to stop hurting me. (BTW, the china homeopathy remedy is also recommended for leg cramps! 10X pre-emptively, 200C for an acute problem.)
I do plan on sitting down with my books and the Cackles website again because I am not 100% convinced our "white cochin" is either white or a cochin. Her feathers aren't quite right nor her body type... very different from the other "cochin". One of those two birds isn't.
Let's see if I can find a good picture to share from this week... Here we go...
(@emberskydragon holding the houdan.)
Organizing
Self-isolation time is a good time to get organized!
For me, this took two main forms - working on organizing my Daz 3D studio third-party content again - and fighting a new external harddrive to back everything up from all our computers. (Fighting, because Ubuntu is quite forgiving, but Windows is not. You have to format it on Windows first... not the other way around.)
I also reinstalled my Kubuntu machine to Lubuntu 18.04 (which I like much, much better.) I know that 20.04 is now out, but so far my husband doesn't like it and is trying Xubuntu 20.04. We'll see what happens, but for now, we'll stick with 18.04. Unfortunately, until Daz 3D Studio becomes completely Ubuntu-capable, I will be stuck with at least one Windows 7 machine for the foreseeable future. (Yes, I know it's no longer supported. No, I will not install Win 10!)
Photo taken on April Fools' Day with my Nikon D7200.
Past issues...
Feb 2, 2020 - Flu Sucks!
Feb 9, 2020 - Planning 2020
Feb 16, 2020 - Skating and Eating and Writing, Oh My!
Feb 23, 2020 - Chicken Scratchings and Graphics
Mar 1, 2020 - Inspections R Us
Mar 8, 2020 - New Chicks
Mar 15, 2020 - Pandemic Hits Writing
Lori Svensen
author/designer at A'mara Books
photographer/graphic artist for Viking Visual
(Buy my work at RedBubble, TeePublic, PicFair and DeviantArt.)
verified author on Goodreads
(Buy my books at Books2Read and at LBRY)
find me on Twitter
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