I learned that Booker loves to sing “The Illuminati song” (which is actually just the X-Files theme song). But mostly what we learned was that the schedule was an illusion. A lie. To think that we could control time was pure hubris. We were Icarus. We flew too close to the sun. And eventually, like him, we plummeted to the earth.
Task: Do actual work during quarantine.
My work continued even though the home schedule had fallen apart, and I struggled. In fact, I would have struggled even if I hadn’t deluded myself into thinking that I could get enough done during “thinking time” and “screen time” to keep up. That’s why, at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning, I was holed up in my bedroom, writing things I should’ve written the day before, catching up on emails (it’s the apocalypse why are people sending so many emails!?!?!), and questioning capitalism as a useful framework for society.
(If anyone has any protips for actually getting through these mountains of emails, I’d love to hear them. You can DM me on the Supermaker account. So far, I’m just pretending they don’t exist, which doesn’t seem like a sustainable strategy.)
One of those emails was from my editorial supervisor. It began with a Camus quote: "In the midst of winter, I learned that there was, in me, an invincible summer." This was my supervisor’s way of softening the blow before telling me that, come next week, we will be back on a regular editorial schedule, and I will be expected to submit 10 trivia headlines a week.
I have always hated Camus.
Still, I soldiered on. Kelsey, a goddess and a gem, took full responsibility for the children, making sure they didn’t interrupt me as I tried to get through my seemingly never ending work to-do list. At first, it was hard to focus and work. I felt guilty, like I was dumping the kids on her, and like I should be doing more to help out.
She tried to reassure me that she was fine doing this work to facilitate the work I was doing (which in turn facilitates things we both want and value, like food, shelter, and a fancy comfy couch), but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I was putting too much on her. Until, that is, we talked about the terms of the agreement. She would keep the kids for a specified amount of time, I would handle after-dinner clean up, and she could send me text updates about kid antics.