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plague journaling
May. 7th, 2020 06:58 pmWe had our Thursday meeting at work today. It's been...a couple months at this point, I think. We all had to wear masks, stand six feet apart, and do it twice so that only half the team was together at a time.
Takeaway number one, the less important but more immediately annoying point: I can't read lips when people wear masks. Those meetings have always been difficult enough--semi-familiar voices using technical terms from several yards away--but now they are totally incomprehensible. To make matters worse, because they split us into two groups, that meant production was still running while the meetings were happening. During my time slot, one of the material guys started mixing up a new batch. With the hand mixer. Which is, to be completely clear, a power drill. A Black&Decker ass motherfucker with a funny attachment. The noise was ASTONISHING, as it ever is, and successfully obliterated the last of the audio data available to my glitched out brain.
(This, more than anything, might be what astonishes me most about allistic/neurotypical people. They can just. Understand language. Amid background noise. Without trying. What's that about???)
Takeaway number two: they're trying to make things be normal again. I don't just mean at work, though they're certainly champing at the bit. I mean everywhere. Reopening. They're even talking about it for California, which has generally been pretty intense about the lockdown. I haven't looked up any of the details of what the governor might have said on the subject; I can't cope with it right now. But I know they're talking about it.
I don't wanna.
I just. Don't.
I don't want people to try to make things seem normal. I don't want to reopen stuff. I don't want all those expectations to come pouring back into the void left behind by social distancing. I don't want to be expected to go out, or to let people touch me, or to show my face. I don't want to have to pretend that the world feels safe and fun and normal.
Damn me to Money Hell for my economic sins, I don't care. I'm not ready for any of it to start up again.
Takeaway number one, the less important but more immediately annoying point: I can't read lips when people wear masks. Those meetings have always been difficult enough--semi-familiar voices using technical terms from several yards away--but now they are totally incomprehensible. To make matters worse, because they split us into two groups, that meant production was still running while the meetings were happening. During my time slot, one of the material guys started mixing up a new batch. With the hand mixer. Which is, to be completely clear, a power drill. A Black&Decker ass motherfucker with a funny attachment. The noise was ASTONISHING, as it ever is, and successfully obliterated the last of the audio data available to my glitched out brain.
(This, more than anything, might be what astonishes me most about allistic/neurotypical people. They can just. Understand language. Amid background noise. Without trying. What's that about???)
Takeaway number two: they're trying to make things be normal again. I don't just mean at work, though they're certainly champing at the bit. I mean everywhere. Reopening. They're even talking about it for California, which has generally been pretty intense about the lockdown. I haven't looked up any of the details of what the governor might have said on the subject; I can't cope with it right now. But I know they're talking about it.
I don't wanna.
I just. Don't.
I don't want people to try to make things seem normal. I don't want to reopen stuff. I don't want all those expectations to come pouring back into the void left behind by social distancing. I don't want to be expected to go out, or to let people touch me, or to show my face. I don't want to have to pretend that the world feels safe and fun and normal.
Damn me to Money Hell for my economic sins, I don't care. I'm not ready for any of it to start up again.
