Thursday, May 14, 2020

Plague Diaries, Issue 59: May 13, 2020





Happy Hump Day! (I think. It's Wednesday, right?)

That's going to be one of the hardest things about coming out of isolation--we will have to actually remember what day it is, and have to adhere to more strict, unforgiving schedules. Boss, what do you mean, I'm not allowed to leave the Info Desk to take a 45 minute nap? What do you mean, I can no longer work from home at 11 PM?

It'll be a minute before we get there. But at least in my life, in my job, we're starting to take steps towards that. The last several days, many of us have been hard at work on a plan to safely restore library services to our community. It's a wrench, quite honestly, because we need our libraries...but it's still scary out there.

As part of the planning and preparing, today I spent about six hours on the phones with almost a score of my colleagues, in some cases hearing their voices for the first time in three months, talking about timelines and next steps. Tentatively, it looks like I'll be returning to my physical library on a limited basis in early June. Dang. I'm equally excited and apprehensive: will our customers respect our safety and their own? In the news, recently, there has been more than one instance of people inflicting physical violence upon those who would have them respect a business's protocols. More than once I've wondered, is this how the next American civil war starts? Because of some asshats that get their balls in an uproar about wearing masks and attempting to keep their fellow humans safe? Freedom! Second Amendment! 'Murica!

Something about those masks, though, that I am really not looking forward to: wearing them in the summertime. In fact, I'm already dreading it. At least I'll be able to hide my horrible, sweaty grimaces behind a possibly ineffective but definitely pretty scrap of paisley-patterned fabric. Bright side, I guess?

Current Indiana COVID-19 Counts: 
Total Number of Cases: 25,473 (up from Monday's 24,627)
1,482 people have died.

Nationwide, 82,246 people have died.
(Sources: Indiana State Department of Health and the Center for Disease Control)

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