What I learned from losing the internet for two days

A couple weeks ago, a band of nasty storms rolled across the Midwest, knocking out my sister’s power in Des Moines and my internet in Chicago. 

I was lucky that I kept my power. But to have electricity and no internet is disconcerting. My partner and I realized we lost service when we were pathetically trying to will Netflix to load, gaping like fish at the TV. How could it be gone???

If this had happened a year ago, I would have no trouble going to the cafe around the corner to go online. But under a pandemic, I don’t want to sit indoors in a public place for a sustained period of time. Planning a work day without online access and with limited options involved so many small questions I was tempted to say screw it and take the day off. 

How much of this report can I write without the internet? Where can I go to work now? Should I go into my old office? Will my partner be able to come with me? Can I book a study room at the library? That’s safe, right? Would it be worth going to a public place with WiFi for, like, an hour? Should we call Comcast again? Would that even help?

The first day sans internet I was able to work from home. I lucked out in that I had offline access to Google Slides so I could continue writing my research report, and the changes would automagically update once I got online again. (I still took screenshots of all 40 slides I put together out of terror that my work would be lost). Emails, Slack messages would have to be answered on my phone using data.

The second day, my partner and I braved the public bus and a 45-minute commute to go to my old office. Turned out, this was the very last day my office was open before movers were coming to box everything up. Internet chatter suggested service wouldn’t be restored for two more days, and I was teetering on panic on how I could meet this work deadline. Miraculously, service was restored by the time we got home that night.

At first it seems that going a few days without the internet should not be that big a deal. On vacations this is how I prefer to operate. Lack of internet won’t force you to throw out food or prevent you from cooking; lack of internet won’t plunge you into darkness after the sun sets or prevent the air conditioning from working. I wish I could say I learned something meaningful from these few days without easy online access, how I learned to be more present or whatever.

But when your work and school depends on your ability to communicate with others, access tools, and information, your world is completely disrupted. You cannot do much of anything. The internet is knotted so tightly into our normal lives that to have it or not is not a real choice. It is the means by which we chat with our family and trade jokes with friends. We play games, order food, shop, exercise, look up directions, listen to podcasts and music. We look for jobs, check healthcare records, pay bills. Our daily lives are defined by being online, even more so now under the pandemic. 

The thing I learned, rather, the thing that became visceral for me, was how vital the internet is to function in a modern society. I think we all knew this on some level. One hope I have coming out of this pandemic is that it’s laid this bare in an impossible-to-ignore way. This is how we live now. 

Outside is scary, but I still miss my friends

The Illinois shelter-in-place order has officially been extended until the end of May. I’m relieved by this because there was no way in hell I was going back to my office May 1. It’s obviously not safe. Coronavirus cases are still growing, though (thankfully) slowing. And yet another month of these same walls?

Honestly, a great big part of me is pretty OK with nesting in one place for a long stretch. After six weeks I’ve finally figured out some new routines so I feel more stable than I did back in March. I self-entertain real well. No kids. A dog that gets me outside and a partner who I can bug when I need human contact. Plus, I don’t have to mentally gear myself up to leave the house - I have to stay home! And I just feel better, hunkered in my fortress that is a second floor apartment. Outside is scary.

I did a much lighter, self-imposed version of this the last couple months I lived in China, when people staring at me and trying to talk to me when I just wanted to chill in the park was too much. Let me be anonymous, please! I only left the apartment to teach classes or get food. But it’s one thing hunkering down because you want to and another because you have to.

And this having to… it is tough. Again, I see how tiny my world is. No restaurants, no shops, no shows. Rare interactions with strangers. I only talk to people I somehow know. That is crazy to think about. Am I forgetting how to be around other humans?! I’m a muddle of mixed feelings.

Working from home. I love working from home. I get to wear leggings. All. The. Time. Six weeks without a commute has been amazing. There’s no rushing out the door, no standing in line in the cold and wind and traffic to get on a public bus. No dealing with the nutty people or the obnoxious assholes who either opt to take a conference call or decide 8:30 a.m. is a good time for a casual chat about what happened at the bar last weekend.

I miss friends and family. We text or do video calls, which is great and I want to have that connection with them. Playing games together online has been wonderful. But there’s always a layer of awkwardness even among good friends in a group chat scenario. I worry about them. How much can you really see when you’re looking through a screen?

I miss my coworkers. My job is pretty solitary in that it requires long stretches of solo time to craft research plans or analyze data. But now that means the people I saw regularly because we shared the same general space, I rarely see. The friendships that were slowly starting to form from a casual chat in the kitchen have been put on hold.

Video calls. I’m finally getting more comfortable with being on camera, but at the same time I’m so over it. This is being “on” in a weirder way than it is in person. And it can be so draining. On the other hand, I love these glimpses into other peoples’ lives, like cats traipsing over a keyboard or kids playing with dinosaurs. A coworker I met via Hangouts apologized for being sweaty because he just spent 30 minutes wailing on a punching bag. Best one-on-one meeting ever.

Travel. As much as I like my nest, I do want to travel and see more of the world. Spring vacation was postponed. And I’m not sure when I can visit family.

Nesting: There’s a handful of things around the house that have been annoying the crap out of me that I’m finally tackling because I see them all the damn time: the grubby shower curtain, the haphazard collection of spices, poorly organized book shelves. But of course the spice rack I finally purchased has a shipping delay until September!

Produce delivery. Opening a box of fresh produce is like Christmas. I was squealing and skipping around the kitchen as I pulled out pineapple! Tomatoes! Broccoli! Grapefruit! Peppers! And more!

Grocery shopping. Despite how much I love colorful fruits and vegetables, I do not miss going to the grocery store regularly. I didn’t mind it before, but now I have to psyche myself up, as I put my mask and gloves on. My battle gear. And low-level worry the next couple weeks if I picked up the virus my one time going into a public place. I do miss getting fresh-baked baguettes regularly.

Cooking. I’ve more patience/interest/mental capacity to figure out what to do with the weird produce that comes in the CSA boxes: ramps (wtf are these!), sweet potatoes, grits. I had deliberately stopped CSA boxes in the past because I was chucking too much veg I didn’t understand how to prepare. Now, I dig into overlooked chapters in cookbooks for recipes. Nothing goes to waste! Must avoid stores as long as possible!

I hope you’re all able to stay safe and healthy and are finding your own grooves, whatever they maybe. And if you can spare a few dollars, donate to help people who are struggling during the pandemic.

Getting used to a new normal

My coworkers decided to make Friday “Formal Friday.” Because of COVID-19, we’re under a shelter-in-place order in Chicago, and are all bunked in our homes wearing PJs or sweats (on the bottoms at least - can’t see that part on video calls) every other day. Why not get dolled up for the biweekly breakfast meeting?

Me, I’m like “no thanks.” This is probably very revealing of my core character: a lazy non-joiner. I’ve been just fine in my leggings and grubby sweaters, with no make-up and somewhat clean hair.

But really this is a nice thing my coworkers are doing. In the two weeks since my company switched to a work-from-home policy, the whole office (< 50 people) has been creative in finding ways to connect while we’re all remote. We do shout outs with drinks at the end of the day Friday, kids and pets welcome; in honor of National Puppy Day, we posted a stream of cute pooches to Slack all day long; and there’s weekly trivia just for fun.

These kinds of things have definitely made the transition to working from home easier, though my daily rhythm hasn’t shifted too dramatically. As a child-free introvert, I feel like I’ve been training for quarantine my entire life. The challenge so far has been being home with the dog all day, who has a propensity to explode into a shrill bark if he hears even a whisper in the hallway.

But obviously something has shifted. Even that I have a job that I can do remotely feels like a great privilege as the unemployment rate is spiking. Even those of us who are still working face uncertainty about our jobs and paying our bills.

My emotions oscillate wildly, between relief that I’m safe and healthy, worry for friends and family who still must leave their homes for work, annoyance that I don’t have as much new free time as I hoped under quarantine, general anxiety about the pandemic (no doubt egged on by all the links in the Covid-Convo Slack channel at work) and guilt for feeling stressed because I’m at home all day with a gallon of bleach, toilet paper, and enough canned beans to last for days. 

A few months ago, I had made a year plan with quarterly goals and everything. That’s been obliterated into insignificance. My partner and I were planning a vacation to Joshua Tree at the end of March which we’ve obviously had to postpone. I was excited to attend a tech and design conference that isn’t happening. My planner is loaded with white-out. And I don’t even care that much. Those plans seem irrelevant now that I don’t know when it’ll be safe to hug my friends or see coworkers IRL. My brain is incapable of thinking beyond next week. It’s occupied by stuff like:

• Should I still try to find hand sanitizer or Clorox wipes if 95% of the time I’m only touching surfaces in my own home (the other 5% is accidentally touching my face).

• Talking myself off the ledge that it’s The Virus(!) if I happen to cough.

• Should I finally pluck my eyebrows?

• I hope my moisturizer doesn’t run out soon.

• How can I avoid going to the grocery store as long as possible?

• I didn’t buy enough coffee, did I? 

Despite all this, I’m feeling a general burst of optimism now, in this moment. What I really want to hope is that amidst all this uncertainty and emotional twirling, there will be some silver lining. That this blow-up to our routines will show us something, will illuminate something we couldn’t have seen otherwise, even a small thing.

I know this optimism is fueled in part because I’m financially OK now and healthy and not surrounded by tiny humans who need my attention. But I’m seeing how my coworkers are looking for ways to connect even though we’re all remote, how friends too are checking in with each other and finding ways to do things we would normally do together even when we’re apart, how we’re stepping in to support local businesses and others in need. That counts for something.