More Days Of The Pandemic (May 2020)

It's now been about two months since I last worked. I've been home on leave the whole time, leaving the house only for exercise, the grocery store, and maybe one visit to my parents' house. Anything else--shopping, theater trips, travel, appointments--just hasn't been happening and likely won't for a long time yet.

Living with the pandemic this long has made the last 50-60 days pass by as a homogeneous blur. It's surprising how fast it can fly by, but I imagine it drags for other folks. As an introvert with no shortage of home media, I've always managed to pass the time. What helps the most is that I've taken the time to accomplish a number of things that I've previously pushed off--this way, it hasn't been merely a matter of filling time as it was setting goals and finding a sense of purpose.

It's amazing what one person can achieve with two months to oneself. In all this time, I've managed to do all of the following:

• Clean the house more thoroughly than usual.
• Organize all the stuff in my closets.
• Organize some of my collections of stuff (primarily buttons, keychains, cards).
• Organize and rip my CD collection.
• Organize all the stuff in the bathroom cabinets and such.
• Clean and reorganize the garage.
• Yard work.
• Write a novel.

That last bullet is probably the thing that's preoccupied me the most, since I spent many mornings getting up, going straight to the computer, and typing all morning. When that routine is set, reaching 50,000 words in a month became a breeze. With a plotline already mapped out, blocks rarely stopped me. The book is still unfinished, but it's exceeded 70,000 words now and coming close to the end. Chances are strong that I'll reach the end before June--I might even start editing by then, following a break.

When I wasn't working on anything specific, I managed to fill the rest of my time with these activities:

• Played with Legos. Why not?
• I must have seen over 100 movies. Biggest highlights include:
• Some recent films: Onward, Ip Man 4, Underwater, Birds of Prey, and Easter Holocaust. 
• Caught up on some 2019 films: Ford vs Ferrari, Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil, Judy, High Life, the Charlie's Angels reboot, Midway, The Dunes, The Mandela Effect, and Doom: Annihilation.
• Ten Star Wars films in 4K (the only one I skipped was Solo). Proceeded to view the vast majority of documentaries and interviews.
• Viewed 1974's Rollerball in 4K, an imported UHD from Germany. I'm surprised it actually shipped to me.
• Several Clint Eastwood movies: Joe Kidd, Two Miles For Sister Sara, The Beguiled, Coogan's Bluff, Play Misty For Me, and The Eiger Sanction.
• A handful of martial arts movies: Police Story I and II, Project A I and II, Eastern Condors, The Magnificent Butcher, and Zu: Warriors From the Magic Mountain.
• All of Shoah--a nine-and-a-half-hour documentary on the holocaust.
• The last two thirds of the Human Condition Trilogy (I had seen part one almost a year ago). The two parts combined are over six hours, but these really are some of the best films ever made.
• The entire Bolshevik Trilogy--three silent films from Russia, best seen for their innovative cinematography: Mother, The End of St. Petersburg, and Storm Over Asia.
• Viewed three movies with commentaries: Big Trouble In Little China, The Last Temptation Of Christ, and The Passion Of Joan Of Arc.
• Revisited old favorites: The Great Escape, The Fifth Element, M, and McG's versions of Charlie's Angels.
• Rewatched and re-evaluated Up and The Mask of Zorro, both in 4K.
• Viewed some that may be considered classics, some for the first time: Dog Day Afternoon, Midnight Cowboy, Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), Dark Victory, The Ox-Bow Incident, Alfie, Stagecoach, and Late Spring.
• Viewed a few TV shows. I had started watching all of The X-Files some time ago, so I picked it back up again with Season 8 and finished it. I also finished McGuyver Season 1, all of The Tiger King, and all of Seven Worlds, One Planet.
• Listened to music. In retrospect, I tend to be a rather passive listener, so there are some albums I've tried to evaluate more actively. I did start a thing so that I may eventually post about my favorite albums, but I wanted to make sure I listen to more of the classics first.
• Heard some newly released material: NIN's Ghosts V and VI, Delain's Apocalypse & Chill, and Nightwish's Human .||. Nature. From a recommendation on a forum, I also listened to Architect by a band called Ist Ist, and it seemed like just the right thing to inspire some of my writing projects.
• I acquired Def Leppard's Early Years collection, so naturally I listened to all of On Through The Night and High 'N Dry. Hot dang, these are great. Also listened to Hysteria, which is an album I've been familiar with since childhood.
• Led Zeppelin I. I had heard it a few times before, and I still find it enjoyable--probably my favorite of theirs.
• Black Sabbath's Vol. 4 might be one of the best albums I've heard over the past two months.
• The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band--I'm not even a big Beatles fan, so this was my first time hearing the whole album, but it was surprisingly solid. 
• Quite a few David Bowie albums: Diamond Dogs, Aladdin Sane, Earthling, Outside, Blackstar. 
• Went through a phase where I listened to a lot of prog rock. This includes Yes' 1969 album, Close To the Edge, and 90125. Also listened to Emerson Lake & Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery. If it counts, I also listened to Colosseum II's Strange New Flesh. It's all quite interesting.
  
• Santana's Abraxas--so smooth.
• Queen's News Of The World--few big hits there, but the rest is just okay.
• Norah Jones' Broken Little Hearts, one of many CDs I own that I wanted to review to see if I even want to keep them. This one's a keeper--the melodies got to me.
• Death In Vegas' Dead Elvis. Just because. I've heard this one a few times before, it's a good album to pop in when I can't think of anything else worth playing.
• Surprisingly, I've played very few video games. There are some though.
• Doom Eternal--duh.
• Saints Row: The Third. This in itself has taken up 40 hours, and I'm still a ways away from finishing it to earning the platinum. It's an easy grind though, I expect to plat this by summer at the latest.
• Started White Knight Chronicles--one of the last few PS3 games I've had sitting around that I never touched. This one could take a while, but hot dang, the first couple of hours have me hooked.
• Dabbled with my Steam library a bit. Played the first part of Space Quest 1 (yep, the original, non-remastered version--I usually can't even with these text-input type games, but I might be getting the hang of it). Also played a bit of Frostpunk (dang, this one's brutal), and a few smaller games (Runes of Avalon, Big Money, and...I'm not sure if this is appropriate of me...but Plague Inc is still really addicting).
• One game I have played frequently is Warcraft III, largely because my dad is on it too and we play together online with it. We mostly do co-op against computer players. I know lots of folks hate the Reforged version for various reasons, but it's been working just fine for the two of us.
• Few books read. Wish I could have had more under my belt, but everything else tends to suck up all the time (maybe in the future I'll watch fewer movies).
• Finished reading a horror anthology entitled What The #@&% Is That? Loved it.
• Finished Time's Eye by Arthur C Clarke and Stephen Baxter. This was a book I checked out of the library at random, and I found it enjoyable.
• Finished Fan-Tan by Marlon Brando and Donald Cammell. Even though this was the actual Marlon Brando who co-authored this book, I was not a fan of it.
• Read a book on the artwork of HR Giger. And I read it, not just flipped through the pictures. This guy was wicked.
• Read the first three volumes of the graphic novel version of Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?
• Finished reading Michael Crichton's Rising Sun. It was alright.
  

There are a few little things that I thought about doing, but never actually made time for. This includes sketching, doing origami, and playing with some of the other tools I have on my PC (like the music-maker program). I could probably find time for these things by cutting back on other activities, but I don't begrudge the time I've spent. I've accomplished much, even if a lot of this seems passive.

It is getting to the point where I'm becoming restless. Movies and games can pass much time, but when you binge too much it becomes more of a chore. I might actually come out of this with a desire to spend less time on such things. As events and weather permits, I'll probably look forward to getting outside more to explore and take photographs, just like I used to in other places.

Tomorrow, after so much time off, I will return to work. I question how much of an e-mail and tasking backlog I'll have to wade through--however, it will be gratifying to spend my time on something meaningful, rather than something idle. Even if I have to do it with a mask on and staying six feet away from people, it's still more engaging and healthy than spending day after day being idle.

It's funny, because I've had my fair share of days where the stress of work, expectations, and personalities made me yearn for a lifestyle where I could just bum around the house and work at my leisure. You know, like a novelist. And while working on a novel project, I didn't mind spending my days that way. However, if it wasn't for my writing, my days would have been a pointless slog. To spend a career doing this requires many income streams set up through many novels. And for a writer to remain relevant and profitable, one would need to write, edit, and publish constantly--the number I've heard is around six books a year. Professionals can handle this effortlessly, thanks to sharp skills they've refined through years of practice, and some may have better aptitude than others.

I chose to work a standard, eight-hour workweek because living independently demands money, and writing just doesn't pay unless you're well-established. Even if I was established like that, I have the feeling this hobby would become droll work. If I garner any success, I'd rather it be for a good off-brand piece of hand-crafted literature, and not a bunch of mass-produced trade books. And that's something I expect to handle as a side thing. On top of that, work offers experiences, skills, and knowledge I would have never had otherwise.

In short, spending the last two months cooped up at home had the perverse effect of helping me see the value of a day job. Any workplace has its drawbacks and dramas, but without it, life would be surprisingly stagnant. It's strange how an event like the pandemic can make one appreciate the things that once seemed mundane.