Coronavirus Diary: April 7th 2020

Unlike many people in America, I'm lucky to have a job. And luckier still, I am able to do that job from home. In fact, I'm in week 4 of working from home. If my company every put me on furlough or laid me off, I suppose I wouldn't be surprised, but that might not happen as we're still doing business. From that perspective and the fact that I feel healthy (knock on wood), I really don't have much to complain about in life.

One thing I've realized during this period of quarantine; however, is how much of my pre-COVID-19 night life revolved around music photography. I will admit that my time out and about during 2020 was limited. I got the flu (let's assume it was the flu and that I wasn't one of the first individuals to come down with COVID-19) in mid-January that hit me hard for 5 days or so and it took about 3 or 4 weeks to feel really up to speed. I still went out, but missed a number of shows that I wanted to catch as I didn't want to relapse. Then towards the middle of February, I started to pick it up again. Then music came to a screeching halt. I came down with a mild sore throat and cough at the start of March that got me worried about getting the flu again and so I put a stop on going on. The sore throat and cough never went beyond that, but by the time it passed the world had changed and the chance of catching bands ended.

I was talking to a friend recently over the phone and mentioned how I was busy during the day (work), but my nights felt way too open in this new world. I was/am spending way too much time watching television or surfing the web. Then I started to describe how my nights were in the past. I probably averaged going out 2 times a week to catch bands/singers. The following nights after going to shows would also be busy as I'd spend time going through my photos and sending out e-mails to conduct my Q&A interviews that I post on Instagram and then later end up posting on this blog site. Then other nights would be spent collecting responses as well as doing things on this blog site. I personally at times felt like I was spending way too much of my life doing this, but then it is a fun hobby and I enjoyed it. So now, there is this big amount of free time that I need to fill.

So yeah, I've been watching some online concerts (as can be seen via my Instagram posts: @notesfromvivace if you're randomly coming across this). But actually most of the sets I've seen have been watched while taking breaks from work as many of the sets are between noon and 6 p.m. As mentioned above, I have been watching too much television. One show; however, that I really loved and did a big binge watch of was "War of the Worlds" on Epix. Season 1 of the show just finished and was 8 episodes. Instead of taking an American point of view, the show focuses on France and the UK. I found it really edge of your seat watching and perhaps too relevant in this day and age. In the second episode, we learn that billions of the world population has died due to the space invaders. I personally find the story line intriguing. I get this sense of dread as these invaders hunt down human survivors and then there is also hope as two scientists do research from two different angles. And the soundtrack provides a level of slow-burn fear.

I've also started reading a book called "The Feather Thief," which is about an individual who stole bird feathers from a museum. I'm only about 20% of the way through the book. It isn't as intriguing per say as "War of the Worlds," but there is some interesting history about birds in the book. 

Anyways, I did accomplish one major thing during my time: I finally submitted my taxes. I always have a dread of doing my taxes as I'm always fearful that I've made an error. But I decided to finally just hit submit and if I get audited, I get audited. Hopefully, I made no mistakes.