This pandemic is a drag. When we first went into lock-down in March, which meant closing the museum I run, figuring out how to work from home, getting used to Zoom meetings, and dealing with shortages at grocery stores, there was such a flurry of new activity that it was difficult to reflect on all that was happening. In addition, we had to get used to masks and social distancing, including avoiding stores and other…
I have seen the sentiment expressed multiple times online that the weeks we have lived in 2020 feel like years as the serious events of the year, including the pandemic, innumerable political events, and the death of George Floyd with the resulting worldwide protests, pile up on us. We barely have time to process major news related to any particular event when another hits and it’s all we can do to hang on for the…
Since reading this Twitter thread by Kristin Rawls, it has been circling through my head. Within 8 tweets, Rawls has expressed the sad state of the United States of America during the COVID-19 pandemic, how we are collectively willing to reopen society and let tens of thousands more people die unnecessarily because we have been unwilling to mourn the loss of the tens of thousands who have already died. The thread points…
I took vacation time this past week, which may seem like a strange time to take a vacation, what with a pandemic and all, but my brother was planning to visit this week and I had the time off scheduled. While he couldn’t be here for a visit, I still needed to take the vacation time or I’d lose it. Plus, given the recent stress of shutting down a museum and learning to work from…
As we settle into the stay-at-home routine necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a map I have been obsessively checking every day. It’s a map of the State of Minnesota that is part of the MN Department of Health’s Situation Update for Coronavirus Disease 2019. It shows the number of positive cases by county of residence. Here are the maps that I have taken screenshots of since March 31, 2020. I live in…