Items

• 2020-05-01

  Music Club Quarantine Edition: Whatever Gets You Through the Night

  We’ve started a music club in almost every location we have lived (from New Mexico to New York). Our current music club is in Hamilton, New York. Whoever hosts a music club picks the theme and all attendees bring two songs to share related to that theme. The theme often aligns with a feeling (music that haunts) or a season (autumn sweater). However, sometimes it's tied to a place or format like last year's ode to the music video hosted at the Hamilton Theater One of the few silver linings of this pandemic has been reconnecting with friends near and far. We thought this would be the perfect opportunity to bring together all of our friends for a globe-spanning, quarantine-themed virtual edition.  The theme for this music club was “whatever gets you through the night.” We wanted to know what songs were getting folks through the night right now, what songs they might always associate with this time. “Whatever” was intentionally vague and open to interpretation. Songs of unbridled joy? A burst of sonically cathartic rage? An extended meditation on melancholy? Whatever.
• 2020-05-12

  Covid-19 and being immunosuppressed

  I love in Bremen, Georgia, USA, a tiny town 65 miles west of Atlanta, Georgia. I also have asthma and an immunosuppressed due to the medications I take for rheumatoid arthritis. Covid-19 has been an eye-opening experience for me. I never really thought about being immunosuppressed until now. Sure, I had to be careful if someone around me was sick, but I could pretty much go where I wanted, if I wanted, with no fear. Now, I wear a mask and gloves when I go for a walk. I don't go to the store for anything -- my husband goes. No outdoor places with large crowds, which are getting more prevalent in my state since Governor Kemp lifted the stay at home restrictions, foolishly, in my humble opinion. Every little thing that starts up bodily, my first thought is, "Is it Covid?" I started having an occasional dry cough on Friday with a weird feeling on my tongue, headache, and achiness. Is it Covid? Well, I do cough due to a medication I'm on, and I'm prone to migraines, not to mention I ache a lot from the RA, so it probably isnt. Can't get tested anyway. So I wait, and watch, and mull over each possible symptom. I turn to TV and books and school (even online as it is until the fall) to take my mind off possible symptoms. I worry when my husband has a cough and complains of headache. I worry about our son, who lives with us and works from home right now. I worry they're going to call him back into work while cases and deaths are still rising. I worry. But we'll get through this.