caronavirus – Page 6

Alone naturally

I’m enjoying the shelter in place and solitude. I think I could live alone in a cabin in the mountains for long periods of time. These days I don’t see another person for days and I like it.

I wake up in the morning and think, “What do I have to do today?” And then I remember – Nothing! There is nothing I have to do today! Not a damn thing. At the moment, I don’t have any responsibilities. If I do, I can’t get them done. It’s a nice feeling.

I have been reading how the earth is resetting, the oceans and waterways are cleaner, the air is cleaner, there is not a lot of gas or carbon emissions or fossil fuels spreading around. The world is renewing.

These two famous quotes/comics are exactly my sentiments. But I am conscious of the fact that there is no FOMO – Fear of Missing Out. Since no one is out doing anything, I don’t feel like I have to be out there either.

Show me the money!

So maybe I should have waited before mentioning the PPP debacle yesterday, or maybe it helped. It seems like after filling out dozens of forms of all sorts, I finally received a notification from Chase as you can see below. So I’m glad to know the application made it through. Now I wait.

I have been keeping busy. I sent a few cartoons to The New Yorker and I sent a few to Readers Digest yesterday. Some years ago I had a lot of comics published in various magazines, I’m going to start submitting again.

In the past I sold a lot of cartoons to a magazine called “American Life” or something like that. After years of them publishing, and paying me well, I learned that they were owned by American Tobacco. That didn’t sit well with me.

And years ago I submitted a bunch of my comics to the National Enquirer, they loved the work but didn’t like the fact that I used a computer to shade some of the work, only I didn’t use a computer, I used Ben Day by hand and to think that now, everything is done by computer – shading, coloring, even drawing.

chase — So at least I know they received my application

Job search

I work for myself and there is not any money coming in, so I filled out the unemployment form online. I have not collected unemployment since I was 16 and worked at Sears.

Basically you don’t have to fill out much on the forms, yet you do. They want a resume and things like that even though they know this is temporary and caused by the caronavirus. You are also asked to job search.

So I filled in all the necessary stuff. Keep in mind I am a cartoonist and marketer, I’ve been in the printing and marketing business most of my adult life. Of course my goal now is to cartoon full time, but that’s another story.

Anyway, I received job offers. Here is one:

It’s for a full time VP Technical Management position. The job requires:

1) Manage a growing fleet of over 240 aircraft, and analyze fleet activity to ensure that fleets are being utilized appropriately.

2) Predict the operational lifespan of aircraft components to know when a specific component of an aircraft is about to deteriorate and/or enter into failure mode before the operator does.

3) Maintain Maintenance Reserve and End-of-Lease cash flow predictions.

4) Automate any/all processes by employing Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence/Natural Language Processing where possible.

5) Up to 10% Travel Required.

There are actually 30 things on the list.

First off, if this is how they randomly hire people to manage planes, I don’t think anyone should feel comfortable flying. The good part about this job is that I would only have to travel 10% of the time, on the unsafe fleet that I would manage.

And to manage the end-of-lease cash flow predictions? If I could manage money, I wouldn’t be applying for unemployment.

I wonder how many people get jobs like this that are not qualified. You know, fake it till you make it, only you never make it and are always faking it.

I had this friend named Morton, he was afraid of his own shadow – always afraid of getting new jobs, trying new things. I told him that most people don’t have a clue what they are doing – they just show up for work and do whatever it is they do.

For many years I would bid on large printing jobs and after I got the job I would figure out how to do it later. It always worked out. I provided a top class job at a good price, but I learned on the job with each print job I received. The customer was happy, I was happy.

I filled out forms for the PPP, the Paycheck Protection Program. I read that most people are having problems getting the loan. My bank, the one where I have had my business account for many years, Chase, turned me down right away – but I’m hoping it was just the system acting up, as no one had time to look over the form. Or did I check one wrong box that disqualified me? The government is guaranteeing this, is it Chase’s decision to make?

It should be an easy process – how many years have I been with the bank? How many accounts do I have with them? Have I ever been late or defaulted or been overdrawn, including my house mortgage? No? Never? Then give me the freaking loan.

I think I may know how to get to Chase Bank. A few years back I wrote a story in the Huffington Post about a bad experience I had with them. They saw it and I was hounded by Chase for months – they called me on my house and cell phones, they emailed me, they sent snail mail – concerned about the bad press. Maybe I should do that again. Hmmm.

I fear that those trillions of dollars are going into the wrong hands – going to people connected to the White House, people who don’t need it.

Isn’t it ironic?

house-arrest I was talking to my cousin in New York and I told him I know how Sam (not real name) feels now. Sam is a guy who has been under house arrest for many years.

“Oh, that’s the funny part,” my cousin tells me. After all these years, his time is up, he is not under house arrest anymore!” But he is! Where can he go now?

Sort of reminds me of an Alanis Morissette song.

I met Sam a couple of times – at a bar, at happy hour, where there were many of us. My cousin would tell me, “Don’t look him in the eye, don’t joke with him, he is very volatile and could explode at any second!”

One time my cousin showed me an article in The NY Post where there was a picture of Sam being taken from his house by the feds in the middle in the night. It explained why Sam was under arrest – he beat up this guy, he gambled, he sold booze, he robbed a bank, he stole a car, he sold things that had “fallen off a truck,” he sold drugs and prostitutes, he hung with a shady crowd, etc, etc. he did everything except murder. You get it, he was a step down from Tony Soprano.

Anyway, my cousin would visit Sam at his NYC apartment once in awhile over the years, dreading each time he was “summoned,” but he would go with another friend of Sams. Now I guess they are all free and when the bars and restaurants are open again, they can hang out like they always did.

By the way, my cousin is an honest person who does an honest day’s work. In New York you are sort of thrown in with people by circumstances – you hang out with a buddy at bar, he invited a buddy who invites someone and a guy comes over from a nearby table and becomes part of the group and so on. I was part of that mix for many years, but I got tired of it and got out. But these are all great people with one virus in the crowd. See how I did that?

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The real super heroes

A few years ago I was in the hospital for eight days and I got such an appreciation for everyone who worked there, especially the nurses. While the doctors were in and out sparingly, the nurses did everything, every day. But the whole hospital staff were heroes, they were angels to me, even down to the guy who changed the light bulb.

They all treated me with love and respect and you can imagine now how extra special all of these people are. They are there to help others. Every day of their lives. That’s their calling.

I vowed to volunteer at the hospital, because even the volunteers were wonderful to me. But I never did it. I’m not sure why, it’s so easy, the hospital is right next door, I can walk over.

My cousin volunteers at a hospital in New York, she does something there every Saturday. I thought she volunteered at the Elmhurst Hospital that they keep talking about on the news – ground zero for caronavirus in our country. She lives near there, but she is not at that hospital, but another cousin is – he is a cop in NY, that’s his precinct. He is at that hospital three days a week. I worry about them, I’m close to my cousins, they are like brothers and sisters to me.

Of course the hospital workers are not the only super heroes out there today – the police, the fire departments, the transit workers, all the service workers, all the people who put their lives on the line by simply leaving the house in the day are the super heroes including the grocery store workers, the teachers, etc.

I love the memes I see these days with Batman and Superman and all the superheros saluting the healthcare workers.

And the people stayed home

peace

And people stayed at home
And read books
And listened
And they rested
And did exercises
And made art and played
And learned new ways of being
And stopped and listened more deeply
Someone meditated, someone prayed
Someone met their shadow
And people began to think differently
And people healed.

And in the absence of people who
Lived in ignorant ways
Dangerous, meaningless and heartless,
The earth also began to heal
And when the danger ended and
People found themselves
They grieved for the dead
And made new choices
And dreamed of new visions
And created new ways of living
And completely healed the earth
Just as they were healed.

– Kitty O’Meara
More on Kitty and the poem here.

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Don’t lose perspective

shameless I saw this online – A college student was reminiscing about the caronavirus of 2020 with his mother 10 years from now, in 2030 and the mother was telling him what a horrible time it was – “everything was shut down, grocery stores were out of everything, people were dying, the economy was a disaster because no one could work, we were all frightened ….”

“Don’t you remember?” she asked him.

He said, “All I remember was the school closing and being home schooled. I remember doing scavenger hunts in our yard, I remember eating meals as a family for a change, I remember getting great sleep because I wasn’t up late for homework or getting up early for school. I remember board games as a family. I remember watching our pastor on our laptop. Honestly, it was the happiest time of my childhood.”

You know what? I feel the same, right now as it’s happening. I’ve always seen the glass as half full. Sure, money is tight, bills have to be paid, but I don’t dwell on that. While friends panic around me and I have to shut them off most of the time, I feel happy. I sent a friend who is like the mother in the meme, only 100 times worse, and his response was more drama, he ignored the meme and started in with the drama of the day. I can’t understand how people exist like this. We are all in this together, not just us, but the whole world. That should give you some sort of odd comfort. You are not alone. Billions of people are in this with you.

I have been turning these drama-filled friends off and I am enjoying the solitude. I have been Spring cleaning as I said before, I get up early and watch tv, I love not having to answer 100 emails that came in over night since there are no emails coming in these days.

I stay up late and watch tv, not going to be earlier as I usually do. I go for walks around the neighborhood. For so many years I would go to the beach almost daily, I would eat lunch or stay and swim and run and hang out, I have not done that for years. But once this mess is over and the beaches open up again, I plan on doing that.

I have plans to downsize, I’ve been thinking about it so I have been house hunting online, planning my future. You know, I’ve been making the best of this time. I loved an episode of Shamless so much that I watched it twice. When do we ever have time to do that? It’s Season 2, Episode 11, “Just Like the Pilgrims.” That’s my favorite episode so far. With Breaking Bad there are two episodes that are my favorites that I can watch over and over Dead Freight and Face Off, the name is so perfect for the episode. I would watch these two episodes over and over. Dead Freight is my all time favorite. But (spoiler alert), I don’t know why they had to kill the boy on the moped at the end. That’s the one part I don’t like.

Anyway, I’m seeing life in a whole new way. I am feeling a shift. Whenever there have been changes in my life, I get this feeling. I don’t mean bad changes, I mean life changes, like moving or getting a new job, or things like that. I am feeling that now – a fresh, new beginning is coming.

Don’t lose perspective.

Giving life to the neighborhood

There are these construction workers across the street building one of those big boxy, white, zero-lot-line townhouse projects, which I usually hate. But I’m glad to see them and hear them every day. It brings a sense of normalcy.

For some reason, construction work is permitted to proceed in the county while most other businesses are at a standstill, I’m not sure why, but in this one case I’m glad.

Each morning I hear them banging away, yelling back and forth to each other and giving life to the neighborhood.

Strange how things have changed in this crazy time. Things we hated we now love, things we loved, we now hate.

comic-con My new favorite person is New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, I always liked him, but love when he is on tv or the internet, speaking to us in his clear, calm voice.

I see the Jacob Javits Center is being turned into a field hospital in New York City. That’s where New York Comic Con takes place ever October. I don’t want to rush the year, but I keep dreaming of that day, when all is right with the world again and we’ll be walking through the huge complex thinking of what was there some months before. I pray for that day.

I’m wanting to go back in time

comiccon5 — New York Comic Con, October 2019

I think the depression is starting to set in. I know I wrote about being positive and I still am, but now I am starting to feel like I am in prison or house arrest, which I felt was an easy thing to do. I was concerned about money for the month, but I think I got that sorted out, so now my attention has turned to life itself and our world during the coronavirus.

I know that the real heros are the doctors, nurses and all the health workers out there who are at ground zero, dealing with this daily. And of course the sick people, the patients and their families are all suffering. I am just writing this from my own selfish perspective.

I have not seen my family or friends in person, I don’t think I have seen any of my neighbors. I just ran downstairs to pick the newspaper up, which was thrown on the front walk and a guy I didn’t know was walking his dog. He lives down the block I assume. I was glad to see him. I kept starting at him and the dog. A human and a dog! Wow. But again, I am well, all the people I know are well. I am thankful for that.

I keep reminiscing about the past and by the past I mean a few months ago – October in Upstate New York pumpkin and apple picking and Thanksgiving in November. Also, a lot of the summer photos keep popping up on my phone. I did a lot this past summer. This image above is New York Comic Con in October. Will we ever be that physically close again? Comic Con takes place at the Jacob Javits Center, which is now turned into a field hospital; just that thought is so depressing.

I watch a tv show on Bravo, a reality show called Summer House, it was on last night – it’s on every Wednesday night. It’s about a group of friends that rent a house in the Hamptons for the summer.

It always brings back memories because I am usually in the Hamptons at the time they are there. The image here is from a restaurant where they filmed last summer on July 5. I headed back to the city on the morning of July 5 and then there they were filming at a place where my cousins were eating later that night. One of my cousins sent me this. They show the date of each episode when it airs and as it airs I think to myself, where was I that day? What was I doing when they were doing this?

But as I watch the show I see all the places we would go, they film at so many of the places. I keep wanting to go back in time, but maybe I should wish for the future when this whole mess is over since that is a reality – facing the future when the world is healed.

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Taking things positively

mercy2

I’ve been trying to take everything positively. I’m not worrying, I’m making the best of things and I love how so many others are, too.

One thing I love is how at 7 pm in many cities people are hanging out their windows and balconies and applauding the service workers. That is the best. I live next to a hospital, on the bay, so the sound travels on the water and I’m sure the life savers at the hospital hear it all.

The hospital has a large campus and I try to walk over every day, just to get out of the house and walk along the bay. I don’t usually see anyone and if I do, we don’t interact, it’s just a quick 45 minutes for me to get out of the house. I saw these signs (see above?) at the hospital entrance. Aren’t they great? There are about 20 of them scattered about – a nice way for the doctors, nurses and hospital workers to start the day. And end it.

I noticed a few little winding streets in the area which I never walked or drove on before and I sometimes walk along them. There is a lot of shade and peacocks and lots of old mansions. It’s a little vacation for half an hour or so.

I also noticed kids are taking this quite seriously. Friends are posting pictures of their kids being home schooled either by teachers or parents and the kids are really into it. They don’t seem to be fooling around, they are really into the school work. One day, years from now, they’ll have some interesting stories to tell their own kids and grand kids. Maybe tell them about how we used to have this funny custom of shaking hands when we met each other, which we may never ever do again.

cynthia

And reporter Cynthia McFadden wins the Zoom/Skype tv game. Remember I posted about all the house scenes from people skyping in to tv news shows? Well this was the scene this morning on the Today Show – a nice lit fireplace, nice background, pretty green wall, the light in the background is on and not a bookshelf (or award or diploma) in sight!

mercy1 — Just one of the many “Thank You” signs at Mercy Hospital in Miami.