war zones & quarantines

Dr. Aisha Ahmad is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto, and the director of the Islam and Global Affairs Initiative at the Munk School. She’s also chair of the board of Women in International Security Canada. During her time in conflict zones, she has been stuck in a home for days and days, sometimes months at a time, in order to reduce her chances of being killed by gunfire or a bomb. She sees parallels in that experience and people who are currently adhering to quarantine: they are scared, but mostly, they are bored and anxious to DO something, just as people are in war zones stuck in a home. In those experiences, she learned that one of the most therapeutic things she could do was go outdoors.

She's featured in this profile, Lessons from a war zone: How to emotionally survive and flourish in the pandemic. 

"In places where there has been gunfire outside my window, the ubiquitous threat of terrorism and kidnapping, even still, I needed to go walk in green space, because the internal distress of being confined — the green space was a magical remedy."

I so get it. As I've mentioned, I've been fine in the pandemic world, because it's not that different from my pre-pandemic world, and I get to walk around a beautiful, empty neighborhood with my dog every day. But her column made me remember Afghanistan in 2007, when my life was confined to my guesthouse room, my office, and an SUV seat getting me there and back. I spent eight weeks and then went on my "mental health leave" that's required of all UN workers in conflict zones, a leave I thought was frivolous before deployment. That first eight weeks of confinement almost broke me. I almost quit. But some harsh, stark advice from a friend in Spain snapped me out of it, made me realize what my priorities should be, and I went back after that break with a completely different attitude, and that attitude got me through the next four months.

But also... what got me through was some carefully planned outdoor trips... one was a trip to a lake. One was a walk around a high school running track. One was a walk to a wood-working shop. And one was another trip to that lake. Those few outdoor experiences in those six months got me through and, thankfully, were worth the risks.

She wrote this article, How to Salvage a Disastrous Day and it's also excellent: realistic, not "chirpy."

I've got this. You do too.

Class of 2020 high school graduation

My high school graduation wasn't much of a celebration. I went to it, I liked wearing a cap and gown, and I was happy to be with my friends, but we had no featured speaker, I was SO ready to move on and be at university (I thought I was going to Purdue and couldn't WAIT to get there), my Dad was drunk (of course) and my Mom was in a hurry to leave and "beat the traffic." It wasn't a milestone event, there are just a few photos of me (in other people's photos - my parents didn't bring a camera) and my friends were all in a hurry to get somewhere else that night. No big deal for me, my family, and it felt like, for anyone else.

By stark contrast is the class of 2020. I am so impressed with how many high school seniors, teachers and parents this year have made such a big deal out of these graduations. I bet some of them wouldn't had it not been for the pandemic. Seeing the video of the senior in the passenger side of his mom's car as she drove him by his school, by his waving teachers, for a drive-by graduation, him waving his diploma and crying - it got me. He was proud. He was reflective. Everyone rose to the importance of the moment. That's what graduation from high school SHOULD be. And his was a far more weighty event, in a long line of cars, people at a distance, than mine was.

Congrats, seniors. Now go fix this mess we've made.

Things to do during home quarantine

I've been on home quarantine for almost 15 years - it's called chronic unemployment.

Here's some of the things I have done with so much time on my hands that you can do now while staying home and saving lives. What's great about doing these is the payoff later and for years to come:

• Scan photos. You probably have albums full of photos of family and friends over the years. The photos of family, in particular, are important to scan, so that you can share them with other family members and preserve them for the future. Preserve the digitized copies of your photos on your hard drive and a site like Flickr as well. 
• Add descriptions to those digitized photos. Otherwise, you won't remember who is in them.  
• Scan some precious letters as well. Have a file full of notes and letters from your grandmother? This is a great time to scan them so that they are preserved for other family members. You could also create transcriptions of them, just in case other family members cannot read someone's handwriting like you can. 
• Set up a remote backup system for your computer if you don't have such already. You've been putting it off for so long - now is a great time to do it. 
• Get all the photos on your phone onto your hard drive and a site like Flickr. I regularly hear people lament losing all of their photos when their phone gets stolen or gets broken. Don't be one of those people. 
• Trace your family tree. Get an account on ancestry.com and get busy with tracing your family tree. A great time to call family members and get accurate information about names and birthdays. 
• Transcribe some historical documents for the Library of Congress. There are even more virtual volunteering activities here.
• Start and maintain a compost pile. Composting is ridiculously easy and helps fight climate change. If you don't have a garden and don't want to start one, still start that compost pile and let one of your neighbors that gardens know they can have compost from it. 
• Walk your neighborhood. Even if you have driven all around your neighborhood many times, you do not know it until you walk it. You will be amazed at what you will discover. If other people will also be out, wear a mask. 
• Pick that guitar back up. Or sit back down at your piano. 
• Write. Seriously, even if it's just a list of what you did today. Buy a cheap notebook and WRITE.
• Read books. Turn off the TV, put down your phone, close the laptop and READ something REAL. 

Of course, you can do all that other stuff other people are recommending: learn to cook, cook more, take an online language course, learn to knit, binge watch something, etc. Speaking of binge-watching, here's what I've watched over the years that has kept me sane in 15 years of downtime:

• The original Twilight Zone series.
• The Buffy the Vampire series (not the movie).
• Firefly. 
• Battlestar Galactica.
• MadMen.
• Breaking Bad (although I admit to like Better Call Saul better0
• Fleabag.
• Killing Eve. 

If you never saw the BBC's Sherlock, that should be at the top of your list to watch in quarantine.

The universe is trying to talk to you!

When friends tell me to trust the universe, that the universe has a plan, this is what I always, always think of - three-minute skit from Amy Schumer featuring Bill Nye:


I loathe being told the universe has a plan for me. Just like I loathe being told a god has a plan for me. If either is true then either is shit - absolute shit.

I've been thinking about the millions of people whose entire careers, entire livelihoods, are paused and, potentially, gone forever, because of COVID-19. I know so many people personally who are going through this (if you don't, please don't ever tell me you don't know what privilege or living in a bubble is). They are scared. It's more than just the loss of the income (which is horrible enough) - it's the potential loss of everything they've worked for and been all of their lives. It is a loss of identity and purpose. You have to go through that yourself to know what that's like. And I so understand.

I have been more unemployed than not since February 2005. Not many people know that, because not many people read this blog and because I don't talk about it except with just three or four people. I don't talk about it because it's humiliating - even though logic tells me it's not my fault, I feel like it's my fault. Plus, it's been easy to hide: I've lucked out with some full-time, short-term, high profile gigs a few times over the years, landed some part-time work that lasted several months here and there, and I kept really busy with personal projects that I could make sound really important. I've frequently talk about those experiences - not the in-between time - and, as a result, people think I've done really well professionally these last several years. If you look at my résumé, there's no misinformation or misrepresentation on it, ever - but if you really looked at it and did a little math, you could figure out there are some BIG gaps between gigs.

I've been okay financially, despite my chronic unemployment, because I'm doing something I vowed I would never, ever do: I'm supported by a spouse. It's been humbling. Not in a good way.

Lots of people have tried to break my spirit over the years, and still I persisted - but chronic unemployment, and the 2016 election, and being completely reliant on someone else, did what they all failed to do. Yeah, I broke. I'm so full of fractures I'm surprised I don't crumble into a pile of rubble. I'm still working to embrace the new me, the oh-so-shakeable woman who walks away from fights rather than jumps in, who doubts herself even more than before (and it was a LOT before), whose career is over.

But I've realized something about myself as I've watched so many people in the USA struggle with being on home quarantine during this pandemic and with challenges I've been dealing with for well more than a decade: I've done pretty damn well living in isolation for several years.

Since February 2005, I've gone MONTHS without seeing anyone except my husband and whoever I might see when I walk my dog or go to the grocery, and I haven't lost my marbles. Me being home so much, for so long, week after week after week, is

• why I go on epic long walks most every day, something I never did before I became mostly jobless.
• how and why I learned to cook. I can walk up to the pantry and fridge and throw something together that's more than edible. I couldn't do that before, not at all. 
• why I have professional blogs written months in advance and my web site looks like I'm flourishing. 
• why I've been able to retrieve all sorts of pioneering materials I've produced over the years and reproduce them on my web site so they will have a much longer life. 
• why I have had time to really delve deep into some of my professional interests, like regarding public health misinformation - I'll never get paid for all this research, but I have loved the journey.
• why I can edit videos.
• why my family tree is now traced back so, so far back.
• why I have raised garden beds full of tomatoes at the end of every summer.

Not everything worked out: I tried a few times to remake myself professionally and go in new directions. I was intensely involved in civic and political activities for more than two years, expecting that it would both make me feel hope after the disastrous 2016 election and perhaps lead to employment. But I'm proud that I tried - and not half-ass tries, but a fully-invested attempts. I absolutely would regret NOT trying those things at all than trying and failing as I did.

And on the rare occasions I've worked in these last several years, I've done some of my best work, and I'm proud of that work. I went back and read some of the things I've produced in the last 10 years and, welp, I know this is arrogant, but some of this stuff absolutely kicks ass. I would read something I didn't remember producing and think, Damn! This is Good! I forgot!   

In her remarks to her nation regarding COVID-19, Queen Elizabeth II said, "I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge."

That really resonated with me, because during my years of social isolation, I tried to do things that, years later, I can look back on and think, okay, you didn't totally waste your time. And I feel like I can, indeed, say that.

Seeing people crumple over a month or so home quarantine is sad, and I'm sorry, I really am. I am not at all mocking them. This is hard, absolutely - I get that more than most. But it also makes me realize just how well I've done in all these years of isolation.

Life isn't that different for me in-home quarantine during COVID-19, except that I'm so scared of the behavior of others when I have to go to the grocery every two weeks, and we can't break my monotony by going out to eat, the way we could before. I had already given up going to the movies except maybe twice a year. The biggest difference is that I can't go to concerts or go on public transit to reach meetings (which aren't happening anyway). And, of course, no motorcycle riding. Unlike in many other countries, motorcycle riding isn't banned, and we are going to go on a motorcycle ride in May at some point, our first since we're back from Mexico, though it will be short - I don't want to use any public bathrooms through June, at least.

And Stefan still goes to work, which scares me even as that paycheck comforts me.

So many seem to be giving up on home quarantine and have picked their own dates to go "back to normal" - I've heard people say they are going to stop isolating on May 1, others say they are going to in mid-May. But I'm sticking with this: no crowds, no public performances, no movies, no mass transit, not having anyone over and not going to restaurants through June. In fact, I am not going to ride public transit through the entire summer, at least. I'm not getting on an airplane through the rest of 2020. I'm lucky to be privileged to choose to not do all that.

Stefan wants to go camping in September, and it scares me, because it means public bathrooms and restaurants. We'll see.

"We'll get through this." Well, no, not all of us will. As of the day I write this, more than 60,000 people in the USA didn't get through it - they're dead. It's probably twice that number from COVID-19 - many people who have died from this aren't being counted because they never made it to a medical facility or never got tested. And the people that loved them don't feel like they themselves have gotten through it either.

Plus, I fear that nonprofit theaters, theater festivals, dance groups, museums and a whole slew of arts-related nonprofits aren't coming back. We desperately need the arts to contribute to social cohesion, but it's never a political or civic priority for that to happen, and while everyone is obsessed with starting sports back up, no one is talking about the arts. And that hurts my heart beyond anything I can put into words.

It's amazing to think people thought this would be over in a couple of weeks. I don't think things are going to be "back to normal" a year from now.

I've updated my will and am trying to get some other things in order, in case I get sick. Because I know I'm not surviving this if I get it. I'm not making plans beyond 2020, because I don't really know if there will be such for me, if I get this, and there is still a big chance I could.

Don't confuse this talk with being with peace with this or resigned to this - I'm not at all I'm so incredibly angry that there is still no widespread testing, still no systems in place for contact tracing, and there's a President who wants people to put me and everyone else at risk so he can keep his hotels open. I want to have a future, and I'm not sure I do now.

And, no, the universe does not have a plan.

Financial literacy classes are delusional & blame poor people for being poor

An appropriate message for May Day:

...financial literacy standards frame economic well-being primarily as a personal practice, overlooking the various mechanisms that generate inequalities. They ignore the role of Wall Street, the lack of government financial regulation, and a financial system in which crises are par for the course...

Financial literacy is silent about the need for decent working conditions, unemployment insurance, paid leave, a living wage. It also leaves unmentioned the subject of rising economic inequality marked by income volatility and unaffordable housing. Mounting student loan bills are presented as a problem of financial smarts, not skyrocketing college tuition. Instead, a financial literacy narrative endures which maintains that people are in debt because they spend their money on luxuries like lattes and avocado toast.

The Financial Literacy Delusion: We need honest narratives about the distribution of wealth. Amazing blog from Agata Soroko, PhD candidate and part-time professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa.