Day 18: Post-Pandemic Redefining, Part 1

 I've been back at school for about a month now, give or take a day or two. Before that first day back, I believe it's entirely possible I went an entire year of my life wearing t-shirts, sweatshirts, sweatpants, and shorts. 

The thing is, if you threw a few pairs of jeans into that mix, you'd basically be describing at least 85% of my wardrobe. Fine, let's not kid ourselves - the number is higher than 85%, but 85% seems like the highest number I can list without openly humiliating myself for dressing like a 15-year-old. (Yes, I've used that line before in describing my wardrobe, and yes, people have commented that making that comparison is insulting to 15-year-olds.)

Since I've been back to school, I've been sticking close to the jeans-and-sweatshirt aesthetic, mostly because I'm housed in a classroom that isn't known for its warm temperatures. This has mostly worked out because it hasn't been a terribly warm spring so far, at least not until this week, but since the room I'm in nearly all day is still cold, the sweatshirts are totally justifiable. And comfortable. Kind of like walking around in a nice cozy blanket, which I did more than once during The Winter of Isolation.

However, things definitely seem to be on the upturn now, at least as far as the pandemic goes. I mean, even TARGET, for crying out loud, has lifted their mask restrictions. I don't know if that means I'll stop wearing mine in public, but maybe if Target isn't super busy? Anyway. The day is coming when things will return to some semblance or normalcy again. Probably a new version, but definitely a recognizable version. 

One of the things I pondered most heavily during The Winter of Isolation was what I wanted life to be like once that somewhat normal returned. It was a deep list of thoughts I'll be exploring later in the month in a different post, but one thing I felt pretty set on was how there were so many different aspects of my life that I had grown to accept as good enough. I have an old car. My bath and hand towels still do the job of drying, but they aren't super comfortable. There's nothing about it that's fancy, but the mileage is low since my commute is short, so that's good enough. My kitchenware is starting to show its age, but it still keeps my food off the table. Although I don't know if I still need to keep using the same Coca-Cola glasses I won playing Whiffle Ball Tic Tac Toe at some low-rent Wisconsin county fair in 1988....

Hopefully you get the idea. Things were good enough. Does life need to be just good enough? Good enough seems like a compromise, and one thing I learned during the pandemic is that maybe there are aspects of my life and my world where if I don't really need to compromise, maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I could push for things to be at least little better. 

This take us up to today, and one serious truth I know about myself after living through the Covid Months: I am so tired of sweatpants. One of the best things about going back to school was how I really had to wear actual pants again. So, I've been thinking a lot (I learned yesterday that's a phrase that scares my principal a little when I say it, incidentally): My wardrobe needs an overhaul. The follow-up question to that, though? What direction to go? I mean, I ain't James Bond, or a professional football player walking in front of the media on the morning of game day, or some YouTube Clownshoes dying for attention. I feel that somewhere there is a true core Tom aesthetic, but maybe one that can be even gradually upgraded out of the 15-year-old realm. I mean, one of my teaching partners literally laughed out loud last year when she tried to visualize me wearing a button down shirt, and I totally understood where she was coming from. 

So, my question tonight: I'm solidly an adult be any working definition. What items do people feel should be found in the closet of any self-respecting adult male? If I'm going to make a wardrobe upgrade this summer, what suggestions are out there about where I should begin?

Just so you know, giving up my concert t-shirts is totally a deal breaker....

Day 17: Sammich Week, Part 1

 I had a doctor tell me once that sandwiches (referred to as sammiches from now on) are just about the perfect meal: A well balanced amount of protein, carbohydrates, vitamins (if you get enough vegetables) and fats. Most of the time, sammiches are also delicious.

I have a very short commute back and forth between home and school. Right in the middle of this commute is an enormous shopping district, known to locals as Riverdale. This is not the prototypical all-American town where Archie and his gang lived in the comic books, nor is it where the Elves from Lord of the Rings lived, for any nerds trying to make a joke. There are so many places to eat or buy food at Riverdale that it makes it almost impractical for me to ever bother keeping groceries in my house; in fact, a former colleague of mine once gave me a lot of grief over the fact that for years on end, my refrigerator seemed to only contain condiments, diet soda, and Vitamin Water Zero. She wasn't wrong. 

Since the statewide mask mandate has been lifted and one of these days I have to get used to the idea of going inside stores and businesses that are not Target at 7:00 AM, I am declaring this week to be Sammich Week. This means that each weeknight on the way home from school, I will be stopping at a different Riverdale sammich establishment to pick up my dinner.  To make it interesting, I'm setting a few rules for Sammich Week: 

Rule #1: I can't go to the same place more than once. Variety and all. 

Rule #2: I have to order a sammich I've never ordered before. This won't be that hard, I don't think, since I usually stick to my favorites. 

Rule #3: None of my sammiches can come from a restaurant considered fast food. For our purposes today, I'm defining fast food as any place that sells some kind of fries.

I'll report back on my experience this coming Saturday.

Day 16: Covid Changes That Should Stay (and Some That Should Go Away Forever)

When I went to my local grocery store this morning, I noticed some things were different. First off, it was light out when I got there. This is because we're at a point in the spring when we're seeing days with more sunlight, which is kind of great. This was also different because I had been locked into a pattern for months when I would only dare shop for groceries if it was between 3:00 - 6:00 in the morning. As I walked through the automatic sliding glass doors, I noticed the signs telling shoppers they needed to wear masks inside had been taken down. Many shoppers still wore them, including me, but none of the employees did. 

Of course our state mask mandate was lifted last week, which makes all of this at least legal. All of these changes signal that it seems as if the Covid-19 Pandemic of 2020-21 is gradually starting to resolve itself, and maybe the more normal times we've all been pining for are that much closer to becoming a reality. I think everyone will welcome that time when it happens, even if we don't all agree right now that we've reached that point just yet.

It does make one wonder, however: How different will society be once we return back to normal? I don't think anyone believes we'll all go back to doing things exactly as we did before, at least not right away. So what things about daily life has Covid changed? I think that even if there will be many new habits we'll be happy to be rid of, some changes could be argued as improvements, and maybe they're worth holding on to. 

KEEP - MASKS: You know, people all over the world have been wearing masks at least some of the time for years, if not decades. It could be from the way viruses spread so easily through overpopulated countries, or how some locations have unsafe air quality. Why not dig out masks again, even voluntarily, if there's a particularly bad year of the flu? I don't think anyone would actively want to do that, but I don't think many people were super anxious about the 2nd vaccine, either. Sometimes you do things because they keep you safe and healthy, even if you don't want to do them. 

KEEP - CURBSIDE PICK-UP OPTIONS: Many businesses have been doing this for some time already. It's super convenient!

KEEP - MOSTLY EMPTY MOVIE THEATERS: My absolute favorite time to see movies has always been during the summer in the early afternoon. Why? Because there are so few people seeing movies then, there's a good chance you could have the entire auditorium to yourself. No one on their phone, no kids throwing popcorn, no screaming babies, no one having a conversation right behind you....

LOSE - DOOR DASH-TYPE DELIVERY SERVICES. If anything, it's just too convenient. And expensive. I don't want to even speculate how much of my money they claimed from me in the past year.

KEEP - VOTING BY MAIL. Yes, I'm fully aware there is a collection of True Believers of The Big Lie examining each ballot in some huge Arizona county right now to see if they have any telltale bamboo fibers that would give away how they were imported from Southeast Asia and shouldn't be considered valid...no, I'm not making that up. I say, fine. Pass whatever crazy legislation is needed to allow people to mail in their votes. There's no better way to ensure a greater part of the population will engage in the process.

LOSE - ELBOW BUMPS: They're just silly. I'm totally okay if we don't replace handshakes. And elbow bumps are no substitution for a hug, so let's not even pretend that's a point to be made.

KEEP - LOW RIDERSHIP ON THE COMMUTER TRAIN. I don't go into Minneapolis that often, but I'd like having the option of riding the train if I needed to. And if the North Star line is down 96%, that sounds empty enough for me to enjoy the trip.

KEEP - LESS POLLUTION. When I saw the initial news reports of how people working from home led to fewer people commuting in large cities and consequently cleaner air, I always thought of Black Widow and Captain America talking about whales in the cleaner water of the Hudson River after Thanos snapped away half the population. Not quite the same thing, but a clean world would be a nice thing to have. And it didn't seem like it took long before the first steps of improvement had manifested.

LOSE - CULTURAL TRIBALISM. It's been around for a long time on a low boil. The last president made people feel it was okay to bring out in the open. The pandemic amplified all of it. I'm confident our country will be moving further and further away from rational political discourse throughout the duration of my lifetime.

LOSE - NOT WAITING AROUND EVERY DAY TO FIND OUT IF BREATHING AIR WILL SEND YOU TO THE HOSPITAL. That one should seem pretty straightforward.