{"id":3157,"date":"2020-04-05T00:30:40","date_gmt":"2020-04-04T23:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/?p=3157"},"modified":"2020-04-05T00:40:58","modified_gmt":"2020-04-04T23:40:58","slug":"so-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/2020\/04\/05\/so-coronavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"So, Coronavirus!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note:<\/strong> the following was written while inebriated. It\u2019s not an excuse, it\u2019s just a fact.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been avoiding my blog for the last few weeks because it turns out that I don\u2019t like to dwell on current issues. Current issues date the blog posts and tend to preserve the negative. For example, I have four posts from 2015<\/a> I don\u2019t like because they preserve a particularly unpleasant time of my life, although since then those posts are trivial in nature compared to current events.<\/p>\n

Incidentally I have a particularly vindictive post regarding some ex-neighbours that hasn\u2019t seen the light of day yet, purely because I\u2019m still paranoid that the people who bought our house might use it to sue us. Give it a year, maybe I\u2019ll publish it online for \u201cfunsies\u201d.<\/p>\n

The point is that I don\u2019t like to dwell on the negative, and yet I\u2019ll happily devote several paragraphs to the people in suits who run the country trying to censor the internet<\/a>. I\u2019m a hypocritical blogger, apparently. I\u2019ll accentuate the negative quite happily as long as it\u2019s about something that doesn\u2019t directly affect me<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It would be absolutely foolish to not at least mention the virus at least once on this blog, if just for the vanity of looking back on it as a reminiscence (and I\u2019ll admit it\u2019s nice to partake in assuming one will get to look back on it). At the time of writing I am on day 12 of isolation. Colleagues and friends have been at home a lot longer, up to two or three weeks. I have seen the paradigm of my workplace switch to working from home pretty much overnight. I have heard the horror stories, some of which have been closer than I\u2019d like and have genuinely brought me to tears through empathy. I have worried about running out of bog roll and thrown my hands up after claiming one of the last four-packs in LIDL, declaring proudly \u201cWHO RUNS BARTER TOWN? SEAN RUNS BARTER TOWN!\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mentally I am as unsound as ever, in terms of apparently taking being locked at home 24\/7 immensely well. I casually shaved all my hair off the other day because it was long and greasy and was getting on my tits and I harbour no regret over doing so, only regarding it when I catch myself in the mirror. I broke my record on my static bike this week by pedalling 12.5K in the space of half an hour (on my work lunch break, I might add) because of a passing paranoia about carpal tunnel or deep vein thrombosis. I have allowed myself a mid-week drink or three, because I don\u2019t have to get the car out the next day and I realise I will be able to function as well as I would do any other day (does this make me a high-functioning alcoholic, or a run-of-the-mill British bloke who just likes a drink?).<\/p>\n

\"It's-a
Ten-hut! You ‘orrible little man, that’s only a grade four haircut! Drop and gimme 20!<\/div><\/div>\n

It strikes me that I would potentially like prison life, since it appears I am happy existing within the 7 walls that make up my house1<\/a><\/sup> and I am more than happy to communicate with friends, family and work colleagues via phone or video call. I don\u2019t pine to walk the streets or leave the house (yet). I am introverted in nature and a lazy sod at best. Dystopian nightmare futures about only communicating remotely sound perfectly fine to me.<\/p>\n

At most I miss the small things; a work colleague\u2019s smirk as they casually barb at me, a casual hug from a friend I have known since school, buying a pint of Thatcher\u2019s Gold on draught at the pub (again, probably a high-functioning alcoholic). The most galling of all is not knowing when I can take my old man down our local after visiting my old Mum…but they\u2019re always at the end of the phone, at least.<\/p>\n

My home is a paradise, to me. The house we bought at the tail end of last year is in dire need of an overhaul and we have completed only one room, fortunately my \u201coffice\u201d, which was completed just in time to be told I would be working from home. Not many offices have a PS3 and a Mega Drive plugged into the computer monitor. I have all the games to play I could ever want and all the TV or films I could ever watch. I have two very needy pets who desire human companionship constantly to keep me company, along with my wife, the absolute centre of my universe. I am immensely lucky<\/em> and grateful<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My wife doesn\u2019t work for the NHS but she is considered to be on the \u201cfront line\u201d of this \u201cwar\u201d, working for a popular supermarket. She regularly gets up before five o\u2019 clock in the morning to do her job and that was pre-COVID, now she\u2019s lauded for doing her job and rightly so2<\/a><\/sup>. My Dad\u2019s a lorry driver and, as such, he\u2019s on the front line, too. I sort of vaguely know what those wives must have felt like during WW23<\/a><\/sup>, since I am a kept man during this crisis. I don\u2019t know what I\u2019d do if Sam or Dad got Covid and…well, you know. I don\u2019t even want to type it. I guess I\u2019d drink, probably. And cry until I couldn\u2019t breathe.<\/p>\n

This is a blog of vanity. It\u2019s about me, and my family. Apologies, this is my therapy. I’ve just decided to shove it in your face.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have any cure-all suggestions or platitudes. Call your loved ones regularly. Find your paradise. Watch The Tiger King<\/em> on Netflix. Wash your hands<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This is the last time I\u2019ll talk about the virus on this blog. It\u2019s fun and japes from here on out\u2026<\/p>\n

I hope.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"It's-a<\/a>

Dear diary, today there’s a global pandemic on.<\/p>\n

(Spoilers: it’s a drunken self-indulgent post about me. I mean, it is my blog?)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[328,351],"tags":[433],"class_list":["post-3157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-life","category-journal-and-topical-posts","tag-that-bloody-virus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}