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tradingmaps · 2 years

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On giving yourself space to create

Musician Ada Lea discusses keeping the creative process dynamic.

You wrote a lot of your last record in Banff but you live primarily in Montreal. How did this new environment affect your creative process?

A lot of the songs were Banff songs, but a handful were written before then. Early in the pandemic, I found a cabin to rent, and was like, “Oh, this is a perfect opportunity to leave the home and move to the country.” I’d come back to the city every few weeks and notice my anxiety and overall view of life become dark, by feeling overwhelmed by obligations. There is something about being in nature where I don’t have to pretend to be something I’m not, and I can just create at my own pace. I feel most connected to myself and others when there’s that silence. I seem to have a really hard time finding it in the city.

Since you know this about yourself now, how do you find ways to get yourself in that space more often?

I don’t think I could have finished the album if I had stayed in the city; that’s where I got everything done. Waking up to birds rather than airplanes flying over my head, you don’t realize until you’re away from the city, how intrusive it is being around the noise. I am looking for more places to rent, and to hopefully move to the country one day. I would love to be able to do that.

There’s often this extended sense of time outside of cities, and time is such a valuable resource when it comes to creativity. In thinking of time as a resource, how has the unfolding of your career has felt, the pace of it? Have you been able to take things at your own pace and find a sense of control?

I definitely don’t feel I have control over it, but I do see the larger patterns. There’s the frenzy of creating, then there needs to be the down time of integrating. I think that’s the hardest thing to do: to step back, assimilate and integrate. I’m not always willing to admit when I’ve reached that phase because it feels like giving up, as if what I’m actually thinking is “Oh, the things I’ve been creating suck and I guess I should be assimilating.”

Do you feel like that comes from a sense of pressure when it comes to being productive?

I was listening to a George Saunders interview where he was saying that in his younger years, he’d write off an entire day of creativity if something came up and he couldn’t dedicate a block of four or six hours to writing. Then he realized, “Oh, actually, I’m really only looking for these 20 minutes of time, because those minutes add up.” I really do believe in that approach, because you can take 20 minutes anywhere really, even on tour. I’ve somehow written while traveling, even when I don’t have those huge blocks of time I think I need in order to create something meaningful. You can’t really do anything interesting when you’re exhausted and when your mental health isn’t great.

Mental health is such a massive part of an artists’ capacity to be creative. How did trying to maintain your mental wellness play into the work of making a record?

2019 was particularly difficult. Towards the end of that year, when I was in Europe and writing the rest of the album, those were some of the darkest moments. I know that came with the stress of touring and the financial anxieties around that.

I’m surprised that I managed to write stuff in Banff. I knew I’d be recording in early February with Marshall (Vore), so I thought “I need more songs, I just need to do this.” For the three weeks at Banff, I approached it like some sort of game where I was trying different sleep schedules out, and had a goal of writing a song a day, and then recording it either that day or the next.

That’s really interesting. The sleeping schedules, you were waking up in the middle of the night trying to write songs?

There was one method I was trying where I wouldn’t have a full night’s sleep; I would just take naps and try working at random times and intervals. I read somewhere that it could be helpful, so I thought I’d try it.

How do you feel like that shows up in what you made during that period?

“Can’t Stop Me From Dying” was written in that way, and I thought, “This is the weirdest thing.” I shared it with some of my close friends asking “Is this a funny song or this cool? Is this horrible?” and they were like, “You should finish it. Why not?” I don’t think anyone really understood what was happening for me, emotionally. There was another song that came out at that time, “Hurt.” It feels like a weird time to try and remember because it really felt foggy even when I was living it.

In addition to your music, you’re a painter and you’ve dabbled in poetry, how do all these practices coexist in your daily life?

I’d love to talk about my idea of the perfect creative day, which would start with waking up between 5:00 and 6:00am, having coffee and writing. I found The Artist’s Way cringey in many ways, but there was one thing I took away from it, which was the morning pages. I’ve grown used to writing them every morning, so those three pages are where I work through issues happening on an interpersonal level. Then I’ll try and work through some of my more vague creative ideas and logistical things, then I can get on with my day. Ideally, reading would happen after that. Then from 7:30 to 9:00am, I would work on a song or a demo. I would make my way to my painting studio at 11:00am, and this is where I’d try working in blocks. A big time block for painting, a block for drawing and then writing. The Holy Trinity of : painting/drawing, writing, and song. If I can hit all of those in one day, then I’m in a great mood. It’s taken me 12 years trying to figure out the perfect routine, the perfect day.

Do those different creative practices overlap or talk to each other?

I don’t think they do. I’m taking classes at Concordia University: a painting class, a drawing class, and I’m auditing a course on New American poetry. It’s easy to separate everything, because the projects don’t look the same, and with these different projects I’m not after the same things.

In drawing we just finished a “myth makers” project where we had to create an origin story. My idea was to do the origin story of the moon; that the moon started off as an orange that fell down the stairs, got bruised up and moldy, and when it rolled out into the garden all of the other wildlife and flowers thought it just looked so ugly that they decided the orange didn’t belong there with them. The grass created a slingshot and propelled the orange into the sky. And when they saw the orange from afar, they were like, “Wow, this is the most beautiful thing we’ve ever seen!” They immediately regretted sending it up, but it was too late. So yesterday for instance, I spent a block working on drawings for that specific project. For my painting class we’re working on family portraits. There are specific readings for my poetry class.

With more general writing there’s this method that I’ve been using, similar to my Banff method of writing a song a day and then recording it. I came up with it with a friend and we call it The Method. I would like to develop some sort of book or how-to guide.

This friend wanted to try the literary version of The Method, where every three days a short story is due. I’d never written short stories before, so I saw it as a good challenge. We’re doing The Literary Method now.

It sounds like working in this dynamic way helps to keep the creative channel really open, and it might help to keep it, not impersonal, but keep it light. A way of helping it to feel like not everything you make has to be a referendum on whether or not you’re some great artist, and not everything has to be released.

That’s it 100%. I think failure comes from being too fixated on the finished product, and so creative success must be the focus on the process. Fixation on the product blocks you because you’re thinking, “Well, there are all of these other things that I have to get better at before I can actually do something that will be good.” And then you are overwhelmed.

For me personally, if I’m approaching it from the place of “I have all of these things I want to learn and I’m just working through it very slowly,” the finished piece really doesn’t matter. I just really want to get better at writing a song, writing a story, and painting. I just need to trust that doing it is what matters most. I’m definitely not going to get better by focusing on the preciousness of the final thing and laboring over it. You don’t need to release everything you make, but there should be more emphasis on the process than the final creation.

You give a lot of different things the opportunity to breathe, and then whatever wants to rise to the top, that’s there, then there’s also a ton of stuff in the middle and maybe on the bottom for other people to find. What’s your take on technical skills?

I love talking about the importance of developing technical skills. It’s also interesting at the school I’m at now. The art program is so different from the music program that I went to at The New School where the emphasis was on theory, ear training and instrument proficiency. It was a program designed to get the students to a level where their instrument wouldn’t be much of an obstacle for expression.

There’s no structure regarding technique in the art program I’m in now. And I’m thinking, “I’m here because I want to learn about the techniques, teach me the skills!” And the teacher says, “We can’t teach someone creativity.” I’ve gotten into some arguments, like, “Yeah, of course you can’t teach creativity, but you can teach us the skills and the techniques that we can then use to be creative.” Without those skills and techniques, I don’t even know what the process would look like.

I really do see the value in the techniques and developing a skill set.

Ada Lea Recommends:

Walking for 25 minutes

“The Method” as described above

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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How copyright filters lead to wage-theft

Last week, "Marina" - a piano teacher who publishes free lessons her Piano Keys Youtube channel - celebrated her fifth anniversary by announcing that she was quitting Youtube because her meager wages were being stolen by fraudsters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcyOxtkafMs

Marina posted a video with a snatch of her performance of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," published in 1801. The composition is firmly in the public domain, and the copyright in the performance is firmly Marina's, but it still triggered Youtube's automated copyright filter.

A corporate entity - identified only by an alphabet soup of initialisms and cryptic LLC names - had claimed Ole Ludwig Van's masterpiece as their own, identifying it as "Wicca Moonlight."

Content ID, the automated Youtube filter, flagged Marina's track as an unauthorized performance of this "Wicca Moonlight" track. Marina appealed the automated judgement, which triggered a message to this shadowy LLC asking if they agreed that no infringement had taken place.

But the LLC renewed its claim of infringement. Marina now faces several unpleasant choices:

She can allow the LLC to monetize her video, stealing the meager wages she receives from the ads that appear on it

She can take down her video

She can provide her full name and address to Youtube in order to escalate the claim, with the possibility that her attackers will get her contact details, and with the risk that if she loses her claim, she can lose her Youtube channel

The incident was a wake-up call for Marina, who is quitting Youtube altogether, noting that it has become a place that favors grifters over creators. She's not wrong, and it's worth looking at how that happened.

Content ID was created to mollify the entertainment industry after Google acquired Youtube. Google would spend $100m on filtering tech that would allow rightsholders to go beyond the simple "takedown" permitted by law, and instead share in revenues from creative uses.

But it's easy to see how this system could be abused. What if people falsely asserted copyright over works to which they had no claim? What if rightsholders rejected fair uses, especially criticism?

In a world where the ownership of creative works can take years to untangle in the courts and where judges' fair use rulings are impossible to predict in advance, how could Google hope to get it right, especially at the vast scale of Youtube?

The impossibility of automating copyright judgments didn't stop Google from trying to perfect its filter, adding layers of complexity until Content ID's appeal process turned into a cod-legal system whose flowchart looks like a bowl of spaghetti.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/12/fairy-use-tale/#content-id

The resulting mess firmly favors attackers (wage stealers, fraudsters, censors, bullies) over defenders (creators, critics). Attackers don't need to waste their time making art, which leaves them with the surplus capacity to master the counterintuitive "legal" framework.

You can't fix a system broke by complexity by adding more complexity to it. Attempts to do so only makes the system more exploitable by bad actors, like blackmailers who use fake copyright claims to extract ransoms from working creators.

https://torrentfreak.com/youtube-strikes-now-being-used-as-scammers-extortion-tool/

But it would be a mistake to think that filterfraud was primarily a problem of shadowy scammers. The most prolific filter scammers and wage-thieves are giant music companies, like Sony Music, who claim nearly *all* classical music:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/22/crisis-for-thee-not-me/#filternet

The Big Tech companies argue that they have an appeals process that can reverse these overclaims, but that process is a joke. Instagram takedowns take a few seconds to file, but *28 months* to appeal.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/17/cheap-truthers/#robot-sez-no

The entertainment industry are flagrant filternet abusers. Take Warner Chappell, whose subsidiary demonetizes videos that include the numbers "36" and "50":

https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/annemunition-bizarre-copyright-strike-youtube-random-numbers-1317750/

Warner Chappell are prolific copyfraudsters. For decades, they fraudulently claimed ownership over "Happy Birthday" (!):

https://consumerist.com/2016/02/09/happy-birthday-song-settlement-to-pay-out-14-million-to-people-who-paid-to-use-song/

They're still at it - In 2020 they used a fraudulent claim to nuke a music theory video, and then a human being working on behalf of the company renewed the claim *after* being informed that they were mistaken about which song was quoted in the video:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/05/warner-chappell-copyfraud/#warnerchappell

The fact that automated copyright claims can remove material from the internet leads to a lot of sheer fuckery. In 2019, anti-fascists toyed with blaring copyrighted music at far right rallies to prevent their enemies from posting them online.

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/23/clever-hack-that-will-end-badly-playing-copyrighted-music-during-nazis-rallies-so-they-cant-be-posted-to-youtube/

At the time, I warned that this would end badly. Just a month before, there had been a huge scandal because critics of extremist violence found that automated filters killed their videos because they featured clips of that violence:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/06/06/people-who-document-evidence-of-violent-extremism-are-being-shut-down-in-youtubes-crackdown-on-violent-extremism/

Since then, it's only gotten worse. The Chinese Communist Party uses copyfraud to remove critical videos from Youtube:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/27/literal-gunhumping/#communist-bandit

and so does the Beverley Hills Police Department:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/10/duke-sucks/#bhpd

But despite all that, the momentum is for *more* filtering, to remove far fuzzier categories of content. The EU's Terror Regulation has just gone into effect, giving platforms just *one hour* to remove "terrorist" content:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/04/eu-online-terrorism-regulation-bad-deal

The platforms have pivoted from opposing filter rules to endorsing them. Marc Zuckerberg says that he's fine with removing legal protections for online platforms unless they have hundreds of millions of dollars to install filters.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/25/facebook-has-a-facebook-problem/#played-for-zuckers

The advocates for a filternet insist that all these problems can be solved if geeks just *nerd harder* to automate good judgment, fair appeals, and accurate attributions. This is pure wishful thinking. As is so often the case in tech policy, "wanting it badly is not enough."

In 2019, the EU passed the Copyright Directive, whose Article1 7 is a "notice and staydown" rule requiring platforms to do instant takedowns on notice of infringement *and* to prevent content from being re-posted.

There's no way to do this without filters, but there's no way to make filters without violating the GDPR. The EU trying to figure out how to make it work, and the people who said this wouldn't require filters are now claiming that filters are fine.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/11/protocols-of-qanon/#no-filternet

Automating subtle judgment calls is impossible, not just because copyright's limitations - fair use and others - are grounded in subjective factors like "artistic intent," but because automating a flawed process creates flaws at scale.

Remember when Jimmy Fallon broadcasted himself playing a video game? NBC automatically claimed the whole program as its copyrighted work, and thereafter, gamers who streamed themselves playing that game got automated takedowns from NBC.

https://old.reddit.com/r/beatsaber/comments/bi9cp5/beat_saber_stream_blocked_by_jimmy_fallon_show/

The relentless expansion of proprietary rights over our virtual and physical world raises the stakes for filter errors. The new Notre Dame spire will be a copyrighted work - will filters block videos of protests in front of the cathedral?

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190425/09282042084/why-your-holiday-photos-videos-restored-notre-dame-cathedral-could-be-blocked-eus-upload-filters.shtml

And ever since the US's 1976 Copyright Act abolished a registration requirement, it's gotten harder to figure out who controls the rights to any work, so that even the "royalty free" music for Youtubers to safely use turned out to be copyrighted:

https://torrentfreak.com/royalty-free-music-supplied-by-youtube-results-in-mass-video-demonetization-191118/

We need a new deal for content removal, one that favors working creators over wage-thieves who have the time and energy to master the crufty, complex private legal systems each platform grows for itself.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/04/content-moderation-broken-let-us-count-ways

Back in 2019, Slate Future Tense commissioned me to write an sf story about how this stuff might work out in the coming years. The result, "Affordances," is sadly still relevant today:

https://slate.com/technology/2019/10/affordances-cory-doctorow-sf-story-algorithmic-bias-facial-recognition.html

Here's a podcast of the story as well:

https://ia803108.us.archive.org/3/items/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_314/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_314_-Affordances.mp3

Meanwhile, governments from Australia to the UK to Canada are adopting "Harmful Content" rules that are poised to vastly expand the filternet, insisting that it's better than the alternative.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/bill-c10-user-generated-content-1.6007192

#pluralistic

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ofmythsandfables-a · 2 years

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Hey y’all! Just a little psa. Lately my brain capacity to write on here and disco has been a bit spotty and that’s due to life happening on my end. Lots of stressors and it’s been hard to keep up with stuff. Normally, at this point, I’d just delete everything I’ve got and start anew but I’ve looked through my drafts and I wanna keep what I have as of the moment which brings me to my next plan of action.

For now, since I do want to write but my brain is saying nope to my much longer threads, I’m sticking to asks and shorter threads at the moment. Just to keep the creative juices semi going until I can work up to my longer threads. I know I’ve mostly got longer threads with a lot of you on here that you’re waiting on me for and I apologize for that, but my mental health is more important and I need to step away from them for the time being. And it won’t be for long, it’s just until I can rest my brain enough before coming back in full swing.

So if you’re looking to interact with my muses, please go for it! Just know that I’m working on shorter threads and asks, so feel free to send any my way or hit me up for short threads.

Also, my activity is a bit spotty during the week because I’m mentally exhausted at the end of each day because of work, so I’m saving most of the writing for weekends for the time being. I’ll still be around, reblogging things and answering a few asks and threads here and there, but the bulk of my writing will be saved exclusively for the weekends, Friday-Sunday, as of right now. Unless I’ve got days off then that’s a different story. I’m sorry if this pisses anyone off, or it’s an inconvenience. But I’m trying to save my sanity here y’all lol

#::psa::#thanks for reading this long ass post but it needed to be said

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voicefromthecorner · 3 years

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I like how the first part of this report is just calling out how petty Konishi is. Hanekoma can really read her like a book.

What follows is really cool stuff, though. Hanekoma basically rebuking the theoretical assumption that losing your entry fee would be an end to your happiness and then giving the whole system of the entry fee a full analysis.

And he's verifiably right! We've witnessed that. Even without his memories and not knowing what life really held for him, Neku was happy at the thought of living on with Shiki and Beat at the end of Week 1. Beat believed Rhyme's memories of him were gone for good, not knowing it was his entry fee, but he still fought tooth and nail to give her everything he had. He would have lived on and tried to help her whether she knew him or not. So Rhyme will definitely be fine, with Beat, Neku, Shiki and maybe even Eri looking out for her as she goes on.

The Reaper's Game, brutal as it is, does spur that kind of self-enlightenment. And Neku went through the mother of all Reaper's Games. He had so much taken from him over and over again, all of it ultimately helping him to grow into the optimistic and loving person he is at the end of the game. He didn't simply go through a difficult time against an opposing force. He was made to look within himself in order to surpass that opposing force. The game is like a crucible that reveals how much capacity for imagination, growth and even change you have. And the capacity of one lonely boy to review himself and open his mind to a new way of thinking saved Shibuya.

I do think "just enjoy the present" is a bit simple and it's definitely totally fine to mourn that which is important, but I get what good point Mr H is getting at. His whole "Enjoy the Moment" mantra sounds a bit hedonistic for my tastes, but there is so much value in making the most of your time and taking that time to see the value that surrounds you at any given second. And while we have every right - even need, sometimes - to go on loving things that are no longer with us, it's not healthy to be consumed by those feelings and to never let go.

The Reaper's Game is so fascinating. Honestly, the whole game's setting is! To take a moment to gush, I can't get over how unique and we'll executed the idea of this game was. A game that tackles themes of death and life with a life-or-death struggle against minor angels wielding fantasy powers, but set in the modern day in an incredibly urban environment and making the absolute most of that environment, tying it in strongly to messages about society and individuality. It's flipping genius.

When you think of an angel, you wouldn't immediately think about a hip barista who nicknames you on sight, but it works. When you think of a deific figure, you wouldn't assume it to be the dubious weedy-looking teenager who enjoys being the smartest person in the room, but it works. Soul is terminologically like computer code, the brands of clothing favoured by the surrounding social consciousness can boost your power and the hierarchy of the Reapers is named after the positions of an orchestra. There aren't enough fantasy games trying to fit into our world instead of splintering off from it. And having said all that, the concept of it is so well done that I'm kind of curious to know what a Reaper's Game set in decades or centuries past would look like. It's just such a creative idea!

Okay rant over.

(I love this game)

#the world ends with you #gamefromthecorner #liveblog #playthrough #twewy #final remix #secret reports #post game content

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frostahesmegabite · 2 years

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Speaking of customers, is there a customer who has particularly marked Mega? 🤔

[ I'm not entirely sure how you mean Marked, so I'll try to answer this in the couple of ways that someone could marked Mega. (I'm guessing you mean left an impression on in a good/bad way and I hope I'm right! ) ] [ Granted, please keep in mind, I seldom use names when it comes to negative experiences unless it's outright to protect individuals from something really awful. But simple drama doesn't deserve me calling people out outright I feel anymore. Just isn't worth the time/effort or the added drama. ] [ Positive Mark, Mega has had a lot of these! I can't remember their name specifically as it's been years now, but I knew an Elf who use to do Technical Seminars and stuff and they put in some orders for some machinery from Mega that was in regards to farming/irrigation and power supply and it was one of his larger IC Arcano-tech projects. This person not only surprised him by giving him the chance to prove himself but was so impressed with his efforts that they actually invited Megahes (and by extension me) to be a speaker at a small Tech Meeting to Discuss Technical Ideas with other like minded individuals. I was positively floored and very humbled that I got asked to do something like that. Tbf, any time I'm ever invited to do something in a public capacity because someone else has seen how hard I work, it humbles me and leaves me with this mixed feeling of embarrassment and pride. (lol) So, that was a massive positive mark that helped launch me in the direction that's led me this far! I wish I could remember the name now, but alas, I've forgotten it sadly. :( This other positive mark, I know will have some controversy attached it is just because of their name and former associations or things brought up to them. But, they're a part of my history and while we did split ways, I grew to be a better person (or so I hope) because of those experiences and revelations after seperating. V Firebrand; They were the GM of Firebrand Enterprises for a while before they retired from WoW or at least that character/guild. But V ended up giving me a lot of Faith in myself as both a GM and as a Creative RPer after I lost a lot of faith in myself and they also put a lot of faith IC to Megahes as a Leader and Engineer as well. While he had been in leadership positions before (and obviously currently is). There was a lot of fundamental things he learned about how he wanted/didn't want to run his own business when he left Firebrand and made the FBC. While the two of them weren't best friends or anything by the end of it, V made it a point to be very hospitable to Megahes and the FBC (Both IC and OoC) and offered continued support to our enterprises in the form of sending potential clients/customers our direction on regular occasions or even a few new members from time to time. V gave Megahes and myself opportunities and chances that a lot of others weren't willing to give us at the time; so credit certainly deserves to be given in that respect and up until their group got so large that they didn't need outside work with us anymore, they routinely sent people to do business with us as well if not did business with us directly. ] [ Negative Marks; Before I go into these, both of these stains for Mega also come coupled with how players also handled situations OoC as well. So, to be open about it. I wasn't a huge fan of how they conducted themselves OoC and then the way they also handled/approached things IC was also pretty shit-birdish. (lol) That being said; both of these individuals came to join the FBC shortly after we began doing public events and posting brochures (Our earliest versions of what are now our full-fledged catalogs) and they stayed with us less than a week, just long enough to see what all was going on, get names, learn where we did things IC (such as work and keep supplies, etc.). Once they left, one of them, without any attempt to consult any of us, Meta'd that their character broke into our warehouses and stole -tons- of gear and equipment and then blackmailed us into getting it back. Mega didn't take this

well and that's when the threat of an Icicle Catheter was born. They subsequently gave it back and never showed up again. (I tried to explain to them OoC that I would have been fine with this plot if it had been discussed with me first, cause we have security in such places. But, they sort of wrote it off and never really returned. ) The other individual did similarly in time, came in and left but once they left, they suddenly began to sell tons of stuff damn near the exact same as what we were selling. I mean, down to a T, it was practically a copy paste of stuff my Members worked very hard creatively to come up with. So, we did our best to just ignore it and move on until this person started making it a point to IC harass people who came to do business with us, sometimes well within hearing range (and sometimes at public events too). They went as far as to OoC reach out to people they saw with us and tried to bash our efforts and bad mouth us to foster up RP for themselves. It never really worked mind, almost everyone told us about it and that actually caused them to want to work with us more. (Which I am truly grateful to those people for!) The couple of people that did go that way, well, it is what it is and people go where they like. All in all, despite their efforts and their mark on us IC and OoC, we still came out ahead I feel! Megahes however, made it a point to be -extremely- petty and every single time something came up about their creations, he'd drill out the questions all the way down to the basest elements, asking why some materials were picked over others. He'd just basically try to tear the designs apart in a 'I have questions' sort of format.] [ Thank you for the asks @jacobdcheshyre and apologies that it's so damn long winded! lol ]

#Megahes #Positive Marks #Negative Marks #Mega can be a Petty Bitch (lol)#goblin

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lonelyreputation · 4 years

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First Time

A/N: Back with some more fluff! I was gonna wait a few weeks to post this, to really tweak it, but I love it too much and it’s so fluffy so I decided to share it now 😌 So please enjoy what I think taking a bath with Shawn for the first time would be like!!

And thank you to everyone who has reblogged my work or said nice words to me 🥺 It really makes me heart flutter and I swear one day I’m gonna print all of the nice words out and put them in a book bc you all are too nice 😪

THANKS A MILLION for all of your support! Reblogs are never expected, but always appreciated!! 🤗💞🌻

REQUEST/PROMPT: Slipping into warm water

Let’s Chat!! | MASTERLIST

Warnings: Two swear words & being naked (but like nothing ~happens…it’s just a bath)

Word Count: 3.9K

Shawn was stressed.

You knew he was pushing his creativity to maximum capacity when he would come back to his apartment with eyes that looked completely drained, placing a gentle kiss on your cheek before retreating his bedroom.

He was currently in the midst of writing and recording his next album. And he was feeling the pressure from his fans, industry executives, and himself to put out an album even better than his self titled record.

But how can I achieve something better than that, he would say with a strained voice, his head buried into his hands, it was nominated for a Grammy.

You tried your best to reassure him; that his fans, the executives, and you would love whatever he put out if he had his heart and soul in it. You had no idea what the woes of fame did to a person’s self-esteem and would never know the pressure of releasing a record. But you knew that Shawn was a people pleaser. He wanted to make everyone happy even if it came at his expense.

At a loss for not knowing what to do to cheer him up, you called Aaliyah.

“He hasn’t done it in a while…” her tone was thoughtful, but then she backtracked, “But I dunno if he would want me to tell you.”

“A, please,” you begged your boyfriend’s younger sister as you stretched out on the couch, “I’m looking for anything. He’s so stressed, he’s barely eating the salad that I make sure he takes with him before he leaves.”

She rushed out her sentence in one breath, “Helikestotakebaths.”

You sat up, “He what?”

With your question, Aaliyah let out a sigh and repeated herself more slowly this time, “He likes to take…baths.”

“A bath?”

There was hesitancy on the other end before adding in an important detail, “Sometimes with…bubbles.”

“Oh?”

“And maybe,” her voice was barely above a whisper, “some candles.”

A small smile graced your lips, your boyfriend surprised you more and more everyday, “Really?”

“You have to swear to me you won’t tell him I told you,” Aaliyah said in an assertive tone, “He cannot know I told you.”

You nodded your head with a smile on your face, you were happy to have gotten something to help Shawn de-stress, “Swear on my life––You’re the best, A.”

After catching up with Aaliyah and hearing what she’s been up to the past few weeks, she had to go and do some chores she’d been procrastinating for a few days. You bid her goodbye, thanking her again for her help and promising her again to not tell her brother that she let his secret slip.

You hung up and looked at the time. Three o’clock. You had an hour or so before Shawn was due back so you hopped off the couch and made your way to the master bathroom. With your hands on your hips, you looked at the tub with a questioning gaze. Not once had you ever thought that Shawn was someone who was into baths. You didn’t even think he had touched the faucet of the big white tub.

But you were trusting Aaliyah with your life so you got to work.

First, you checked the cabinets under the sink for any bubble bath supplies. No luck. Next, you checked the medicine cabinet for anything. Rummaging through extra bottles of shampoo, soap, cologne…you were about to give up, but there was no other place Shawn would keep anything bathroom related. He was very particular with how he organized his apartment. Group like things together, Shawn tsked you when he helped you move into your new apartment, that way things will never get lost.

He was right; grouping like things together did make it easier to find certain things when you thought they were misplaced. And you thanked the heavens above when you knelt down on the ground, pushing a few empty cardboard boxes aside, to find a little plastic basket with some bubble bath supplies.

You made a mental note to text Aaliyah another thank you.

Dragging out the basket, you looked in and saw that the bubbles he had weren’t anything expensive. Just a regular run of the mill brand name bubbles. Usually Shawn liked to splurge on some stuff if he never got the chance to do it often, and with Aaliyah saying he never took baths often, it made you wonder what was holding him back from buying really nice bubbles. And in the basket were also two lavender scented candles.

You took the candles out immediately and found some matches hidden in the basket as well. Candles could burn for a long time and it was better to get a head start on those than forget them later on.

With the scent of lavender filling up the room, you took your phone out and texted Shawn: Any idea when you’ll be back? :)

You didn’t want to run the bath too early, fearing that the water would get cold before he even got back to his place.

You unlocked your phone when it buzzed in your hand: Just leaving now. So tired. Be home in twenty? Something like that.

Your heart dropped when you read his message. So tired. Maybe he wouldn’t be up for a bath? Maybe he just wanted to go to bed?

No, you told yourself, he’s been stressed and unhappy and deserves something relaxing.

You waited five minutes before opening up the Find My Friends app and clicked on Shawn’s name to track his location. You saw his little circle of a contact picture moving down a street, the app telling you he was fifteen minutes away.

Game time, you hyped yourself up as you turned on the faucet to the bath. You ran your hand under the water until it was at a slightly hotter temperature than comfortable. You figured that if you ran the water fairly hot right now, it would be at a comfortably warm temperature by the time Shawn got back. So you put the plug in the drain and watched the tub slowly fill up with water. When it was a quarter of the way full, you got the bottle of bubbles and squeezed only a little bit in. You pampered yourself with a bubble bath one time and accidentally put in too many bubbles which ended up being disastrous.

And you didn’t want this to be disastrous for Shawn. It was supposed to be relaxing. And Lord knows he wouldn’t be relaxed if you flooded his bathroom.

Once the bath was filled to the appropriate height, you turned the faucet off. Admiring your work, you didn’t hear the front door open.

“Y/n?”

Shawn’s voice rang through his apartment as butterflies fluttered throughout your stomach. You hurriedly exited his bathroom, walked through his bedroom and greeted him in the kitchen.

You walked in with a glowing smile on your face, a skip in your step, but when you saw him sitting on one of the barstools, arms resting on the island with his head buried deep, your smile dropped.

Cautiously, you walked up behind him and slid your arms up his back and began to softly rub his shoulders. He looked absolutely drained and it broke your heart. Sure, you knew artist’s liked to pour their everything into creating music, but this was borderline insane.

You pressed a soft kiss to the back of his neck, not exactly knowing what to say. If you asked him about the studio, he would say something that would belittle himself for not writing or singing well enough. If you asked how he felt, he would just tell you that he felt tired.

But luckily you didn’t have to say anything. With his head still tucked away, he let out a low hum, “Missed you.”

The only thing you concentrated on was how exhausted he sounded.

“Missed you too,” you brought your hands to wrap around his torso, leaning forward and hugging him from behind, “Long day?”

You felt his back release a deep deep sigh, “The longest.” You were second guessing the bath that was drawn. He sounded like all he wanted to do was sleep for the next ten years, “Just wanna be with you.”

And then an idea struck your mind.

The bath was originally meant to just only be for Shawn. You wanted him to have time for himself, something he rarely had nowadays, but with his confession of wanting to be with you…

You unwound your arms from him and brought your arms to pull him up by his shoulders. With a groan, he sat up all the way, but his eyes were still closed, “I really just wanna sleep––“

“Come with me,” you interrupted him as you took his hands and helped him up from the bar stool. He followed you, but with slumped shoulders and eyes barely open. He paused in the middle of his bedroom, the arm that connected your hand that held his, over stretching as you kept walking.

He pulled his eyebrows together, “Sleep?”

You let out a small laugh, he sounded like a toddler, speaking only the bare minimum. Shaking your head you tugged his hand, “I have one small thing for you before we go to sleep.”

“But, Y/n––“

“Trust me.”

He continued to stay put in the middle of his room. He glanced back at his bed, the sheets tempting him to crawl under and pass out. But then he looked at you, your eyes pleading with him to follow you. He gave into your eyes; he always did.

You tugged on his hand once more before he trailed behind you. You smiled at the smell of lavender that was more prevalent now than it was when you first lit the candles up. The bathroom lights were dimmed, but when you looked over your shoulder, you saw Shawn looking at the bath, then at you, at the candles, and back at you.

“What is––Did you do this?”

Turning your body to face him you gave his hand a slight squeeze as you stepped forward to him, toes touching, “You’ve been so stressed and I thought this might help relax you.”

His eyes continued to dart between the bath, the candles, and you, “But this––the bath––For me?”

You nodded your head with a shrug of your shoulders, “I wanted to do something nice,” his eyes were now intensely staring into your own, if you didn’t know him like the back of your hand, the stare would’ve intimidated you. But his eyes were just concentrating; they were concentrating on you and you saw the love in them.

“And I thought…” Your eyes fell from his momentarily, suddenly growing shy about your next request, “Maybe…We could like go in…Together?”

He was silent.

It was not the response you were expecting and your stomach dropped, “Never mind,” you waved your free hand in the air, “I made the bath for you so you should enjoy it––You haven’t had any space to yourself, so you–––“

“God, yes,” Shawn’s eyes closed for the second time tonight, but they weren’t closed out of exhaustion, they were closed in pure bliss as he imagined a bath with you, “Please come in the bath.”

Your cheeks heated up as you rocked back on your heels, “Okay.”

You and Shawn had never taken a bath together; mainly for the reason that you didn’t know he took baths. And it seemed like you were crossing a line into uncharted territory. Sure, you’ve shared intimate moments together, seen each other naked, and shared your strongest fears with each other. But there was something about taking a bath with Shawn that seemed even more intimate than all of those combined.

Shawn let go of your hand as he clutched the hem of his shirt, crossing his forearms before peeling the shirt over his head. You slowly peeled your socks off, one by one, then stripped yourself of your leggings.

He folded his shirt and set it on the ground before his hands trailed down to the button on his jeans. You watched his careful fingers undo the button and slowly unzip the zipper of his jeans. He looked up at you through his curls, catching you staring at him, and smiled at you before pulling his jeans down past his thighs, wiggling them off his calves.

Much like his shirt, he folded his pants and set them aside.

Clad in just his underwear, he stepped forward in front of you, toes touching toes. You were scared and you didn’t know why. It’s just Shawn, you scolded yourself, there’s no need to feel scared. The more you two just stood in front of each other in silence, you realized that the feeling in the pit of your stomach wasn’t fear, it was nerves. You were nervous to strip off another level of yourself and become even more vulnerable with him.

He played with the hem of your shirt, eyes peering into yours silently asking if it was alright to take it off. You lifted your arms over your head instead of offering him a verbal response. He slipped your shirt over your head, kissed your cheek softly when it was off, folded it up, and placed it with his clothes.

Both of you stood in your underwear, waiting to see each other’s next move. Shawn seemed to grasp the emotion behind taking a bath––it was such a simple way of displaying affection––but neither one of you had done this before. Neither one of you had taken a bath with any of your previous significant other’s. It would be a first time for something that the two of you would share together.

Staring deep into your eyes, Shawn slowly brought his hands to his underwear and pulled them down his legs. Your eyes never left his as he shimmied out of them, not bothering to pick them up and fold them like his other articles of clothing.

“If you…” he started off slowly, “If you don’t want me to look or like…aren’t comfortable, you don’t have to come in,” He took your hand and loosely held it between your bodies, “You can go to bed or…Or you can just sit on the ledge,” he gave your hand a squeeze, “I just really missed you today.”

You didn’t know what to say. You didn’t know if you were capable of saying anything. You were mesmerized with the carefulness of his tone, how he had just come from a hard day at work, but he wanted you to feel comfortable. You didn’t think you could love him anymore than you did in this moment.

With one last squeeze, he released your hand as he made his way toward the white bathtub. Your back was facing him, but you knew his movements too well that you could picture him; reaching the tips of his fingers in to test the warmth of the water before slowly sinking a foot in. You heard the water move, you guessed that he was standing in the tub now, getting used to the water before he fully sank into the heat.

You knew he was fully submerged when you heard him let out a groan. You glanced over your shoulder and saw his knees bent, limbs too long to fit fully inside the tub, as he rested his head on the back of the tub with his eyes shut tight.

With a deep breath, you reached behind your back to unclasp your bra, letting it fall from your shoulders. You let your shoulders fall as you took another deep breath, carefully sliding your underwear down over your thighs, past your calves, and slightly bent down to unhook them from your feet. And unlike Shawn, you picked up both of your underwear from the floor, and neatly folded them, placing them next to the clothes he had folded.

The bathroom air felt cold around your body, but the eyes you felt on your back lit your insides on fire.

Turning toward the tub slowly, you brushed a strand of hair behind your ear, and saw Shawn staring into your eyes. Any other boy, you thought, any other boy would be trailing his eyes all over your body. But not Shawn, a shy smile creeped up on your lips; Not Shawn.

Your eyes stayed connected all throughout the few steps you took to the tub, the nerves still bubbling in your stomach. But with the nerves came love. With love came adoration. And with adoration came the boy who was sitting in the tub, patiently waiting for you to join him.

Shawn lifted his arm from the confines of the water and held it out to you. With water droplets falling from his arm, you took hold of his hand, not even testing the water temperature before you stepped in one foot at a time. You trusted that if Shawn was fine with the temperature, then you wouldn’t have a problem with it.

You lowered yourself into the bubbles, the heat of the water loosening up every tense muscle you didn’t know existed, as you sat on the opposite side of the tub from Shawn. With your body submerged up to your collar bones, the cold porcelain on your back was a soothing contrast from the heat of the water.

Your eyes were closed as you enjoyed unwinding in the tub. While you made the bath for Shawn, you were glad you decided to join. Under the water, you felt the toes of his right foot glide up and down your calf. You opened your eyes to see him with a lazy half smile, “Will you come here?”

You bit your lip to conceal a grin, but nodded, placing both hands on the ledges of the tub. Your chest was covered with bubbles, but they were slowly trickling off your body, exposing your breasts to Shawn. But like the whole night, Shawn’s eyes were looking into his favorite color; your eyes.

Moving forward, you twisted yourself to turn around, your back facing him, as he brought a hand up to grip your thigh, slowly lowering yourself down on his lap. You leaned back on his chest as the water began to still, resting your head on his shoulder.

“Thank you.”

It was just you and Shawn in the bathroom, back pressed against his chest, but he still whispered. The thank you he whispered held more meaning than those two words. He was saying I’m thankful for you, I’m lucky to have you in my life, I’m in love with you.

You closed your eyes as his arms rounded your waist and you kissed his neck; suddenly hyper aware of everything around you. You felt the hair on his legs brush up against yours, smelled the lavender wafting through the air, heard the single droplets of water that fell from the spout echo in the tub, and saw the love Shawn held for you in his eyes.

“I wrote a song about you today,” Shawn piped up, voice small and unaware of how you were going to react.

“Really?”

His statement piqued your interest, he was usually closed lipped about what went on during his studio sessions. You knew some musicians had weird superstitions, and you never pried Shawn on information he didn’t want to share with you regarding his album. And you never took it to heart, knowing that you would still get to hear the finished cut of the album before the general public.

Shawn sunk further into the tub, taking you with him, “I’ve written lots of songs about you,” he shared. You turned your face up to look at him better. You were met with his sharp jawline, his eyes dreamily facing forward as he smiled at the melody he wrote for you that played in his head, “Why I’ve been so tired.”

“Oh?” You said it playfully, a smirk toying at your lips, “Loving me is tiring?”

Shawn squeezed your hips under the water, “You know what I mean,” he finally looked down at you, “Just have so many feelings about you running through my head all the time.”

You let out a small laugh, “Good to know.”

“You’re on my mind all hours of the day,” again even though you were alone, he whispered his words softly, as if exchanging a secret, “Can’t get enough of you.”

Shawn pressed a kiss as soft as his words to your growing smile. You were having a hard time kissing him back, so overcome with elation, that you never thought your smile would disappear.

Once he stopped trying to pry kisses from you, he knew he would get a good kiss before you headed to bed, he rested his head on top of yours, “This is just what I needed,” he let out his millionth sigh of the night, “I love baths.”

You smiled in satisfaction, “That’s what I’ve heard.”

You noticed the loss of contact when Shawn picked his head up from yours. He looked down at you with a questioning stare, “Heard? Who told you?”

Shit.

“I uh––Read it in one of your interviews,” You stammered, not wanting to break your trust with Aaliyah. While you loved Shawn and would choose his side no matter what, you made a promise to his sister that you intended to keep, “GQ.”

Shawn shook his head, a smirk growing more and more on his lips, “Never discussed taking baths with GQ.”

“Billboard?” His smirk widened with another wrong answer, “Variety? Rolling Stone––“

“Aaliyah told you, didn’t she?”

You rapidly shook your head, but you felt your eyes widen, blowing your cover. But you still held out your promise to Aaliyah and denied his accusations, “Haven’t talked to her in a while, I should probably give her a call, you know? See how school’s going for her, see if she needs any boy advice–––“

“First off,” Shawn cut you off, “No to giving her boy advice. She’s too young––“

“It’s how we bond!” Your laugh caused the water to ripple, “It’s not like I haven’t given it to her before.”

“That’s a conversation for a different time,” he shot you a fake glare, before his smirk reappeared and a mischievous glint twinkled in his eyes, “She’s the only person who knows I like baths when I’m stressed.”

You didn’t know how you could argue with that. No amount of bullshitting could get you out of the corner you backed yourself into. With a sigh, you lifted your back off his chest and twisted your body to face him, “I wanted to do something for you,” you brought your hand up to cup his face, he leaned into your touch, “You were getting so lost in yourself and I couldn’t think of anything. So I called her up.”

Shawn nodded against your palm, turning his head to press a gentle kiss on the inside of your hand, “I really do appreciate this––you. This is the best thing to happen to me all week. Thank you.”

You smiled at him before fitting yourself back up against his chest. You stayed in the water with him until your fingers pruned up and the water went cold.

#here's it the fluff #so 😊 much 😊 fluff 😊#so much compassion and kindness sdkfjsdkf #but like…I bet he's really sweet when taking a bath #does he take baths???#QUESTION TIME: is Shawn a bath or shower person???#what do you think his preferences is???#and yes im just as curious about this as I am with his wine preference #but I am DEFINITELY more interested in his wine preference #anyway enough rambling #I hope you all enjoy this!!! let me know your thoughts!!!!#thanks!!! love you all to bites!!! thanks a million!!!!#*bits omg I hate autocorrect #Shawn mendes #Shawn Mendes x y/n #Shawn mende fanfic #Shawn Mendes fan fiction #Shawn Mendes fan fic #Shawn Mendes fanfiction #Shawn Mendes ff #Shawn Mendes imagine #Shawn Mendes one shot #Shawn Mendes blurb #Shawn Mendes x reader #Shawn Mendes imagines #Shawn Mendes fanfictions #Shawn Mendes blurbs #Shawn Mendes one shots #Shawn Mendes oneshot #Shawn Mendes oneshots

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danideservedbetter · 3 years

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Alright so, here’s how things are gonna work.

First off, welcome to this side blog. Since it won’t be jolly fun fandom content and will be a little more personal I decided to separate my health and writing journey from my fandom stuff, although all my fandom content will still be linked on my main blog here.

(I write Izuocha/bnha content which isn’t super popular so if you’re not here for that then yeah, I don’t blame you. But if you are I have a link to our discord and community content pinned so def check it out if you’re interested.)

Secondly, you guys will hear details about stuff relating to my health like what kinds of things affect my disorder based on the tests some doctors are ordering, how I’m trying to improve my diet and activity, and routines and goals I’m attempting for myself. I am underweight, and that’s something I’m going to be talking a bit about, so if that’s triggering following this blog might not be the best thing for you. Details under the cut.

So, what kind of disorder do I have and why did I decide to make a health journey blog? My disorder is called idiopathic hypersomnia. Basically what that means is that when my disorder is acting up (based on factors like stress especially or my generalized anxiety rearing its ugly head) I have the capacity to sleep. And sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep. My longest recorded uninterrupted “sleep-attack” was 26 hours long and ever since I caught Covid in January, my body had been slowly growing weaker to the point I was starting to develop atrophy. I’ve had this ten years and my neurologist suspects inactive cells from mononucleosis I caught at 14 was the cause, because other IH patients have linked their sleeping problems to a case of mono or have had it at some point in their lives.

This disease stole many years and many things I’ve looked forward to from me. I lost friends and experiences and failed so many college classes I had to drop out.

I’ve decided I’m taking them back.

It’s not going to be easy. Just as it took ten years to convince myself that my tiredness was something I chose to give into, it took several extra years and many fights with my family to convince them that I had a real actual neurological disorder and that I need help sometimes. My parents and grandmother finally understand that I have to finish college and find a very special boss willing to work around my erratic progress on projects, but the outsiders they married are not as convinced. My grandmother’s husband kicked me out of their house because he wants to be the center of attention and doesn’t like that some days I’m so weak that I needed my grandmother’s help, and my father’s wife thinks I’m a lazy and ungrateful leech who “gets anxiety just being around” me. Both told my father I’ll never be happy so why even bother with me, but my dad is actually striving to understand his own recently-diagnosed PTSD so while we still butt heads he’s understanding that I have to take things day by day because every tiny circumstance affects my disorder.

Now, why did I decide to air all this out? Well, being open about my disorder and how it affects me has helped at least two people that I know of find out that the tiredness they experience isn’t the typical “American work force exhaustion” they were trained to believe is normal. So if I can help even one more, I’ll gladly talk about what this entails and how I deal with it day to day. Another reason is that I’m also one of those big advocates who believes talking candidly about mental health destigmatizes it and sharing ideas can help us grow as people and maybe make it a little easier to deal with.

So now that you know a little bit about me and my disorder, here are my big goals for the next three months provided my university takes pity on me and actually lets me go back.

First up: create routines to train my body to get used to living a full day fully awake. This includes waking up at the same time and going to sleep at the same time. It means getting dressed and going out and doing things, even little things— which I’ll get to in a sec.

Second: I write. I have a novel in limbo and I write fanfics. Writing is a big part of who I am and I’ve written one thing this year, which for a whole six-month stretch is upsetting and disappointing. Today is my reset. In the next 569 days I want to to finish the six stories I have in limbo (except the larger one) and finally reach my goal of posting 200k words in a single year. I wont be hard on myself if I can’t accomplish this because honestly finishing anything in the chaos of my life is going to be a miracle but. There ya go.

Third: go back to freakin college. I don’t care what it takes. Sit down with every official, every lawyer, and every professor it takes to get me back enrolled in classes in the fall.

Fourth: I have several smaller things I have to do, short term goals, stuff like that. I’m gonna create a to do list each day of small tasks I want to get done and while some of these things will be part of my daily routine I am throwing in like one or two things a day that just need to be done. My writing goal will change daily and I’ll keep y’all updated on that with every post I make.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Dani! That’s so much!! Well, a few months ago I remembered hey!! I basically have a computer in my hand, why make it hard on myself. So I downloaded certain apps to help me out. This isn’t me saying “hey go subscribe to these apps because I said so” it’s just that through a lot of trial and error I’ve come to find that these certain apps work for me and I’ve yet to come across one that has the functionality of everything I need.

Tiimo — so this is an app I found developed by people with autism for people with autism to help them develop good habits and routines. It has preset daily schedules (things like morning routines or nightly routines or work routines) and an internal alarm to let you know when to move on to the next task. I myself have extremely low-level aspergers (to the point where my doctor won’t give me an official diagnosis because I didn’t want people think that *it’s* the reason I have issues with school), so moving from task to task can be difficult sometimes and I also deal with getting distracted. This widget also appears on my home screen so I know what I have to do at a glance. You can program in weekly and daily tasks to fully customize your schedule, which is fantastic for someone like me who wants to for example rotate chores. This is hopefully going to help me get my body in the habit of adjusting to routines and transitioning from one task to another, as well as getting important things done responsibly.

Promptly Journals — I’ve been told for a while that journaling is helpful mentally to kind of recenter yourself, so a bit ago I downloaded several journal apps to add to my morning routine. Now some will prefer more creatively free journals, but I prefer this one that gives me small prompts I can do in a short amount of time that just allows me to get my thoughts down. I can even add pictures at the bottom that go with the theme! I’m scared I’ll run out of prompts eventually lol but until then this app works very well for my needs.

Stretchingexercise — Now idk if it’s from lack of sleep from my disorder, the position I sleep in when I do sleep, all the physical labor I’ve had to do in the past couple weeks, my medicine, or w h a t but I suffer from body aches like no one would believe. I know stretching is supposed to help with that, so I downloaded this app to help me do non-demanding physical activity that wakes me up in the mornings and helps relieve pain so I don’t keep having to take pain relievers. This one has different plans for things like muscle tension, back pain, warm ups— and it also gives you rudimentary weight updates (I’m underweight lololol so we’re looking to fix that) or plan updates. It’s worked really well for me so far and gives you animations and descriptions of the workouts (some taken from yoga) as well as timed breaks and a narrated guide. It’s been pretty helpful in temporary relief and if nothing else gets my blood flowing in the mornings.

Widgetsmith Step counter — in addition to the stretching thing one thing my doctor and I discussed that helps with the sedentary lifestyle is simply walking. I’ve needed so bad to relieve my stamina and reverse the atrophy, and walks have been stellar for that. Now I live in the New Orleans area so humidity and heat force me to go at the crack of Dawn, but honestly my weenie dachshund Charlie really enjoys our time out so he goes with me! The CDC recommends 10,000 steps a day which seems like a lot and it is if you don’t get out much. But this gives me an excuse to get dressed and do the hygienic thing and help Charlie be healthy too, as well as give me time for brainstorming because we walk in a truly beautiful area. I’m sure everyone installed widgetsmith with the last iOS update (Apple users anyway) and while at first the step counter was just interesting I’ve since come to rely on it! We do our 5000 in the morning, which of course is half, and I find that other things I do throughout the day typically drive the counter higher. Anything leftover can easily be accomplished by an evening walk in our neighborhood. Now the caveat is that I have to remote have my phone in my pocket because I don’t own a watch or anything fancy lol, but honestly I need to keep it on me anyway so that serves as a good reminder.

Todoist — this one is my FAVORITE. Ever since I’ve decided that I have trouble keeping track of things I need to do and small stuff I need to keep in mind and appointments, etc, I decided to find a list app. This is the one I found that absolutely helps me for everything from my list of room supplies I need to buy, to my reading list, to general tasks I have coming up I need to complete. And its widget functionality keeps it right on my Home Screen! More organized individuals can just use tiimo, but I’m definitely not one of those individuals so this app is sorely needed and appreciated.

And of course, I know building habits the first few weeks is HARD. So for days my body doesn’t respond to my alarms, I have a checklist of the key things I have to do to keep my life as functional as possible.

So that’s that on that. I’m going to try to keep writing updates and my daily goals in a post in the morning, and reblog what I accomplished in the evening. It’s gonna be tough. But I’m thinking if I can start small I’ll be able to build my stamina enough to return to college and be successful when I do. I hope that anyone watching this journey draws some kind of meaning or inspiration from it. And you guys can even follow along if y’all want! Especially for writers or people trying to get healthier. I can’t promise what works for me will work for you (and honestly I expect things to change especially if I get accepted into college again) but hey, I figure it’s worth a shot.

I hope you guys enjoy watching this journey, if nothing else I hope it’s entertaining. And maybe it’ll be successful. I do know that I’m just gonna try for it, and hope it works out.

First daily update to follow

Xoxo

Dani

#idiopathic hypersomnia #health and wellness #writing challenge

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coldcolourchords · 3 years

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Turning 21 - an unwanted landmark

It happened an hour and 20 minutes ago, as the clock hit midnight CEST and the date changed so seamlessly to the 12th, without any hesitation, uneventfully and in complete silence, just as expected. The day I've been negatively anticipating for the better half of the past one year has come, and it caught me sitting at my computer alone in the living room, drinking hot tea on a summer night in a sweater and doing my silly little tasks that I call "work" (because despite my best efforts, middle of the night is still the only time of the day I can function as intended).

I remember ever since I was a child I always used to start mentally preparing myself for my birthday from New Year's Day. Even my mother used to say, "now that it's 2010, you're already 10 to me", even though August was still nowhere to be seen. But that felt good at the time. The beginning of a new year and my birthday approaching meant hope and progress, as the only thing I wanted as a child and as a teen was to grow up and not have to be a child anymore. I didn't like going to school, I didn't like being told to do things, I didn't like not being taken seriously, as I'm sure no one does. But by "didn't like", I mean it caused me severe emotional distress, the stuff that happened to me every single day without my control. It's hard to tell now in retrospect what caused what, but I have memories of developing my two most prominent and persistent mental disorders at around 6 years old (social anxiety and a BFRB) which have isolated me and often subjected me to cooler kids poking fun at me, shortly followed by starting school in the middle of my parent's divorce and moving houses. One of our last dinners in my father's comforting family home at the dinner table, I remember being visibly sad and my mum asking me what was wrong. My slightly belated answer ("everything") did not quite get the desired reception, as she and my little brother went on to have a little giggle over making assumptions about what that must include ("I'm sure she's sad over dinosaurs going extinct too..."). And, from then on, it's pretty much been downhill. I didn't like being home and I didn't like being at school (or at any of the million extracurricular activities my mum had picked out for me falsely thinking they could stop me from hurting myself and not just accelerate it). The ever-present social anxiety, bottled up frustration, high academic expectations and confusion about the nature of my very own self-destructive behaviours did not make for an enjoyable time in any of my 12 years at school. So, obviously, all I could do was anticipate the end. The end of being vulnerable to the very systems that were meant to nurture me and protect me.

I think that was my way of thinking all the way until I turned 19. Two years ago. At 19, I had graduated high school, I was about to start university studying something I was interested in, I had a semi-stable student job I liked and I was ready to move in with my boyfriend (a former classmate), separate from our parents. I had an artistic goal that I was ready to work for in my free time, and living away from home I was finally going to get the capacity to do so as well. And then when all of this happened and my thoughts became occupied with the new kind of responsibilities that came with "adulting", I started getting this overwhelming feeling of "what now?". A couple months have passed in the blink of an eye, it was November and I wasn't happy. I was making virtually no progress on my creative goals, my flat was a smelly mess, I didn't see my friends and I wasn't making new ones, and I found university to be draining and incompatible with my brain. I wasn't enjoying anything. I thought, "is this how I'm going to have to spend another 3 years?".

And then a miracle happened. I had to give a presentation at uni with a couple of other girls, and one of them suggested a book to do it based on. Reading my part of the book to prepare for the presentation has unlocked something in me - it was a book about the way people manage to feel like hostages due to their own decisions and thoughts. First it hurt to read because I had to face the truth: I wasn't really a hostage of expectations, university or responsibilities, I was a hostage of myself and my own attitude. I even wrote a song about this (my ultimate way of being honest with myself), and that's when I've felt ready to start working on myself in order to take back control over my life. And hell, I have done it. In a couple of weeks, I was feeling the best I've ever felt and I went into exam season thinking I was capable of the impossible at this point. Who knew I had it in me? I had gotten through a couple of exams and assignments and I was thinking soon I was going to start improving in other areas of my life as well. I was going to make art, see my friends again, go out, have fun, maybe learn to cook and be a better girlfriend too. Not a lot of that has happened. Came the end of exams and the second half of January and I was already exhausted. My job was at a halt and uni wasn't back on until mid February, so I spent a few shallow weeks at home just thinking "why am I doing this again?". It was difficult, suddenly having too much space for negative thoughts and rumination.

But it was only the start of the pandemic when my race with time has really begun. Which is ironic, because when the restrictions were first announced in my country, I really saw a lot of opportunity in them to grow for myself (and I mean this is in the least "this deadly virus is a blessing in disguise" way possible). University moving online and social gatherings being nothing short of illegal all of a sudden felt more than convenient for my social (but very luckily not health) anxiety ridden brain, and I had imagined this was going to be the most prosperous phase in my life, in terms of moving forward with my goals.

Ever since I was little, I had dreamed of becoming a musical artist. No one ever encouraged me - maybe for a good reason - and I tried to keep quiet about it as well. I was so ashamed of desiring something that was so "unlike me" according to everyone who knew me. I never had a good voice and everyone perceived me as shy, on top of being seen as more of a "STEM girl" (until I went to high school for maths and ended up not understanding any of it anymore). I'd been writing lyrics into my phone since 14 and attempting to turn them into actual songs on my laptop since 17. At 18, I even took a beginner's course in Ableton. Still, I just never felt like anything I wrote was of any worth or that I had a single ounce of talent in any part of the process. But I kept on dreaming and pushing because I thought "if I don't try, how will I know?". My work ethic was awful too, I was an inconsistent writer and an even more inconsistent producer. I never got anything finished because I got lost in the details and gave up due to my perfectionism. Plus, and this is what I perceived to be the biggest problem at the time, I could only record music at home, and my family were home all the time. Moving out, I thought I was going to prosper, then I didn't prosper for a bit, told myself it was okay because uni was making me depressed, then I continued to not prosper, told myself it was okay because I had to rest up after exams. And then it's like the universe said "Stop. You're just making excuses. Stay home and produce those songs now because there will NOT be another opportunity like this".

I put so much pressure on myself then to get stuff done. It felt like my time - all my adolescence I was looking at teenage popstars rising to fame and each year they were just getting younger and all I did was compare myself to them and worry. Worry that I was running late, that no one was going to ever care about me because I am late, but growing up I excused it every time. I was home with my family and stressed because of school all the time, duh, how could I have made good art? But right there, at the beginning of "quarantining", it was just me and my willpower. No school, no job, no impromptu social plans. And who knew how long it was going to last? Some people said only four weeks, some others said months, some the rest of the year. All I knew was I was 19, still young and practically a teenager, and I had to act. And I did. I made two of the worst songs you've heard in your life and I put them both out in the summer under my own name. Like proper released them on streaming services and all. Looking back now, holy hell, how desperate was I, posting it on my social media that people I actually knew followed? With my fear of being ridiculed? I was setting myself up for an emotional disaster. Shock horror: my songs didn't blow up (although I have had a few friends say lovely things about them, at least to me). By the time of scheduling the second one for release (mid July) I was already feeling burnt out. Yes, there was another exam season in the meantime, and the unexpectedness of the elongated pandemic has definitely been a factor as well, but generally I was just so let down by the overall underwhelming experience. I made such bad decisions - why my own full name? Why did I have to let people know and thereby handicap myself? Of course I wasn't going to promote my songs now or even speak of them positively because I feared coming off ridiculous. So I just let the whole thing pass without a sound and made myself sad. By last August, I was back to "what now?".

Needless to say, there were no festivals last summer. Festivals used to be my ultimate summer happy place and I always celebrated my birthday at a specific one (the biggest one in my city to be exact) starting with the 15th. Concerts and festivals were somehow simultaneously an adventurous escape from all my worries and the root of a lot of my confidence issues and anxiety. I dreamed of being on stage and presenting my art to the world, pouring my heart out to even just one person who will listen, the same way that I listen to my favourite artists and what they have to say. Some nights were emotional, some nights were energising, some nights were spent worrying about the people who surrounded me and some nights were just pure jealousy and feeling far away from my goals - you never knew what you were going to get at a gig. I think that overall most gigs were bittersweet experiences for me, but that's how I liked them to be. The whole point was just to feel something. But there were no festivals last year. There were concerts, though, put on by local bands, but lord do I wish there hadn't been any. I went to two of those last summer - one I went to alone and walked away feeling like shit, another I went to with my friends and felt extremely guilty and anxious about the virus after. This second one happened to be two days before my 20th birthday. I spent my birthday worried to death that I got the virus (even though numbers were extremely low at the time in my country and going to small gigs was perfectly legal and deemed not dangerous) and that I was going to infect my elderly relatives who I was going to meet with later. That didn't happen, but I haven't been to a single show since then, and it's been a year. So that's how my first non-festival birthday worked out.

Turning 20 didn't feel good and my birthday aligned with the onset of a bunch of new problems as well as old ones accelerated. I began to think deeply about everything. What was the point of anything I was doing? Was any of it going to get me anywhere? Was any of it causing me joy, even? I didn't know what to do about my musical efforts - should I keep trying to put out songs or admit defeat? I still had that creative drive in me and I worried so much about my role in the world - "I'm not a good friend, not a good girlfriend and not a good daughter, and I certainly will never become a good psychologist directly helping people with their problems. I need to give something to the world - I need to find a purpose". I didn't do stuff because I was anxious, and then I was anxious because I didn't do stuff. But I think at that point I also realised I didn't only want to succeed and produce. I also wanted to live. Having fun was missing from my life too. I rarely saw or talked to friends and my relationship wasn't going well either. Every day I tortured myself looking at other people live their lives on social media and thinking to myself I wanted what they had. I wanted to be someone. I wanted to create, to connect and to matter, but all of these things have only ever caused me anxiety in my life and I didn't know where to go from there.

With the virus getting worse again and the start of another online semester, there was one silver lining to locking myself in again though. During the pandemic, I have been playing a lot of video games, possibly even more than before. They weren't only a nice way to numb my brain and relax - no, the opposite, they were actively giving me a temporary sense of direction and progress with each gaming session. I have always loved The Sims for this reason, I had spent so many years building and perfecting my little worlds to my liking and practicing full control over my characters' lives, but this time I began to feel like it was something bigger. I discovered the Sims side of the internet, something I had not really done before, and the amount of content, help, info and Sims-related entertainment has blown me away. Whole new levels of playing have been unlocked for me and I began to dive deeper than ever. I wanted to be part of the community, so in the autumn I started streaming the game on Twitch and this time I knew better than to tell anyone I already knew about it. That didn't quite turn out as I expected, and my streamer phase was cut short in January by someone I knew from high school accidentally finding my stream. Before that, I would only get moderately anxious before streams, not worried much about what viewers were going to think of me (if they find me annoying they'll just leave and I'll never have to hear from them again), but then that unexpected turn of events ruined everything in my head. All my confidence I had built up was suddenly gone. I never streamed again after that. It wasn't really for me anyway, I told myself.

Instead, insistent on further pursuing the only thing that was giving me joy at the time, I started my YouTube channel initially uploading Sims tutorials, because I thought I had useful stuff to show people that has a greater chance of making someone happy than just watching me try to put together a sentence for 5 minutes straight while my Sims struggle to get in the shower by themselves. And much to my surprise, it was gaining decent traction, although I put a lot of it down to luck even today. But either way, it's been growing more or less consistently ever since, and beginning of the summer I stopped to think "could I not just be doing this for a living now?". "Could this be my new creative ambition?". As much as I would have liked to say yes based on my progress and how I managed to earn the same amount I would have earned in a month at my part-time retail job (we're talking Eastern European sums kids!), it wasn't that simple. Thoughts around this have of course been puzzling me for months now. I like to think of myself as a natural talker, just because I am anxious I am NOT quiet or shy. I can even make small talk very well, it's just that because I'm mortified by the possibility of an awkward silence I tend to avoid situations where it might be required. And I talk to myself all the time. So on paper, talking to a camera should not be an issue. And yet every time I record a video I feel my soul being sucked out of my body because I need to make sure I say every sentence correctly and that ends up in draining 4 hour recording sessions. Editing videos, on the other hand, is a rewarding process, a kind of flow-experience I have not really known before, though extremely long and usually detrimental to my sleep schedule (which is far from being rosy by default). Maybe I just put too much effort into everything, but it really makes you question - is it worth it? Can I really be doing this on the long run without destroying myself? And will I ever get used to the social interactions that come with it?

It's weird, suddenly getting recognition for something, people giving me positive feedback on the daily. This certainly happened more suddenly than I thought it would and I don't think I was prepared. Naturally, people taking the effort to leave me nice comments and messages makes me want to reply, appreciate their kindness and return the favour but the trinity of little demons inside me - social anxiety, impostor syndrome and a chronically low self-esteem - makes this a difficult task to complete. To combat the overwhelming weight of responsibility that comes with making sure I appreciate everyone who appreciates me enough, as well as to shut out the fear that what I have now can be taken away from me any second, I have built up a mental wall between me and my relative success. This wasn't a conscious choice, it's just the way my brain has started dealing with this new situation. I do not allow myself to internalise the rewards of what I work so hard for and that contributes to why, when I look back on 2021 so far, all I see is depression despite having "gotten what I wanted". My YouTube channel has been the only thing bringing hope and the only thing I've got going for me and yet I am incapable of embracing it.

The past one year has been enlightening. It has enlightened me that there must be something deeply wrong with me because I have not been able to enjoy life even at times I had all the reasons to. The times I am capable of letting go and feeling happy for short periods come exactly based on that - short periods. I'm drifting into states of bliss only when I know the situation is temporary and doesn't come with commitment and responsibility. Some of these moments of calmness come to me while walking to the store by myself after dark, getting invested in my video games, meeting up with my friends for an evening every once in a while and writing a therapeutic song just for myself using the simplest chords on the piano. The feeling usually doesn't last and disappears at the first attempt to get back to any kind of organised schedule (that attempt on most days is the simple act of trying to force myself to go to bed). Isn't that ironic? I wanted purpose. I wanted to get it together. And yet... every day is a struggle. I know now, I am the problem. Whether it's a chemical imbalance or another anomaly in my brain or my own fault somehow, it's not my circumstances, it's me. I wanted to be free and to make my life my own, and now I just can't. Every day I worry about running out of time, rapidly approaching death and not being able to say that I have lived. This is why turning 21 fills me with so much panic. I am no longer a child and I'll never be again, although I wouldn't even like to be. I just can't help thinking that I wasted so many opportunities to enjoy myself and to push for my goals. But it's gone now and there's no point regretting how I used to think about life back then. If I look back on my life so far I see a lot of stuff that happened that made half of my brain temporarily happy, but the other half was always filled with anxiety, anticipation to get out or dissatisfaction. It was just never fully right and I keep hoping that there will come a time when it will feel fully right. Before turning 19, I thought independence was going to give me that. Now at 21, I'm not quite sure there's anything that's going to give me that if I don't also start to work through every single one of my issues (although part of me still likes to cling onto the idea that once I'm done with my first and last degree, a lot of underlying stress and guilt will be taken off my shoulders and I'll see everything in a different light). So for a start, I just finally signed up for psychological counselling. I don't know if it will help but it's something and I've done it for myself. I need to do more for myself.

There is so much more I could talk about. Like the pandemic, how I've turned into a hermit, my relationship, struggling to be honest with myself and slowly losing touch with my all time number one passion because of it. I could talk about how I know that society has been deliberately making us (especially women) feel scared of aging and yet I still file it under personal issues, how I've been trying to fix my sleep schedule for a year and a half straight now, the guilt I feel from my family and friends all the time, my inability to concentrate and how I fall into despair concerning the future and present of humanity every time I read the news and people's opinions on social media. I could talk about how I want to cry every time I see a picture of somewhere beautiful in the world - a street in Japan, a lake in the Alps or the trees in the Mediterranean - because I feel a longing that is almost nostalgic for places I've never even visited. There is always so much to still be told to complete the story, but why do I want people I'll never fully know to understand me that well? I need to let go of compulsions like these.

Deep down I just hope that I'm not the only one terrified of growing old.

#21 #happy birthday to me #long story long #welcome to my brain #aging #depression #anxiety #growing up #growing old #young adulthood

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thoughtsaboutshows · 3 years

Note

Hi!! I don’t wanna bother but you said that you were gonna upload the fire drill full prompt in August. Are you still planning to do it? Really looking forward to it!!

Hi!!!

So yeah…I’m sorry…I totally promised that and totally didn’t deliver. I get really hard on myself when I’m not able to follow through with something and I’m sorry.

Life’s just been very crazy with family stuff and I just haven’t had the time or the creative capacity to make something that’s worthy of that prompt. It’s definitely coming, I’m going to finish it. I just need to get in the headspace for it

I’m moving in the next few weeks to my own place that’s not a house full of toddlers so I should have more free/me time to write.

Again, I’m sorry. But I felt like if I forced myself to write it it’d be crap and that wasn’t okay with me.

Thanks for checking in!! It’s always helpful to know what people are still interested in reading!

#nabrina prompts #fic: fire drill au #nonnie #asked and answered

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corona-extra-newsletter · 4 years

Text

3/17/20 corona extra: cracking open cold covid facts

Announcements & Thank Yous

Thank you to everyone who’s messaged me or sent asks! Specific thanks go to:

@catrope for verifying Netherlands information

@ruffboijuliaburnsides and @fleurdeneuf for helping me collect county level data and for extra sources

@ineloquent-tumbling and Dr. Mehta for sharing an excellent source of data

@stebuklai for info about NJ

@halcyonhowl for the homeschooling resources

@stone-stars for info about FL

@planb-is-in-effect for sources about Canada

Georgia anon for information about Georgia State

Twitter users @molly0xFFF and @goblinartificer for their continued help with the Wordpress site

@marywhal for the cat videos

@epersonae for the Gritty tipoff

If you have reliable information from a good source that I don’t seem to have, please shoot me a message/ask/pigeon!

Places now included in the newsletter are: Australia, Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, Arkansas, and Wyoming. Please send an ask or a message if you would like a place included! Germany will be included in full tomorrow.

I have started a website for the newsletter! Find it at coronaextranewsletter.com. If you know me from fandom, please be chill about my meatspace identity. Please.

Sorry the newsletter is late today. There was some late breaking news and also a lot of stuff happened today! Tomorrow I will make more of an effort to be on time. :)

Just The Numbers

Case numbers

Total cases: 179,112 (+11,526)

Total deaths: 7,426 (+475)

Mortality rate: 4.15%

WHO is now breaking cases down by region, and I will follow their lead from here on out

Western Pacific: 91,779 cases (+289), 3,357 deaths (+23)

Europe: 64,189 cases (+8,507), 3,108 deaths (+428)

SE Asia: 508 cases (+124), 9 deaths (+2)

Eastern Mediterranean: 16,786 cases (+330), 873 deaths (+3)

Americans: 4,910 cases (+2,234), 68 deaths (+18)

Africa: 228 cases (+42), 4 deaths (+1)

159 countries/territories reporting cases, 8 new including:

Guam (3), Somalia (1), Bahamas (1), Aruba (2), US Virgin Islands (2), Benin (1), Liberia (1), and Tanzania (1)

Italy is reporting 27,980 cases (+3233) and 2,503 deaths (+349)

Iran is reporting 14,991 cases (+0) and 853 deaths (+0)

Germany is reporting 6012 cases (+1174) and 13 deaths (+1)

International/General News

Italy has had approximately the same number of cases three days in a row. This means that their strict lockdown/quarantine procedures are working! GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!

China is endorsing the use of favipiravir as an experimental treatment for COVID-19. It has been used to treat influenza before and is showing some promise in COVID patients, by decreasing the duration of the illness and the severity of their lung disease. Watch this space for more!

Virology Corner

Today’s question comes from @greenfairyarmadillo and @heturnedleft. Both asked a variation of the same question: Do we know yet if people who recover from COVID-19 are immune to reinfection or not? Do we expect COVID-19 to be like measles, like flu, or somewhere in between?

We don’t know yet! We know that people have protective antibodies, but my guess based on what I know about other coronaviridae is that the protection will wane pretty quickly, which is more like the flu. But we’ll see! Watch this space for data from China, where we’ll see hard data first.

The other thing to consider is the way that coronaviruses can attenuate, or get less strong, as they spread through populations. So it may be mitigated in the future less by herd immunity and more by attenuation of the SARS-CoV-2 strain itself. But I’m not sure! If I could predict the future I’d be super popular right now. Like, super popular.

If you have questions, ask them and they’ll appear here in the next issue of Corona Extra!

Tomorrow’s topic: Why 6 feet of separation? How does that help? How is COVID-19 spread? Stay tuned!

Regional News (if you want somewhere added just let me know. Don’t be shy!! I highly recommend you just skip to your area if you don’t wanna be overwhelmed.)

Australia: last updated 3/17 at 6 am

375 cases, 5 deaths, 27 recoveries

189 cases acquired overseas (US, Iran, Italy, UK)

Community spread not confirmed

States affected include: ACT (2), New South Wales (170), Queensland (68), South Australia (29), Tasmania (7), Victoria (71), and Western Australia (28)

I have to question why y’all have states called just “South Australia” and “Western Australia”, where’s the panache??? Where’s the creativity?

COVID-19 information line: 1800 020 080

Canada: last updated 3/17 at 10:30 am

Total cases: 424 confirmed (+100), 16 presumed (-1), 5 deaths (+4), 5 recovered

Symptoms began for these cases between 1/15 and 3/15

13% of cases have required hospitalization (no change)

74% of cases are in travellers, and a further 6% in their close contacts

Affected provinces include: Alberta (74, +18), BC (103, +30), Manitoba (7, +0), New Brunswick (7, +1), Newfoundland and Labrador (1, +0), Nova Scotia (5, +0) Ontario (177, +5), PEI (1, +0), Québec (50, +9), and Saskatchewan (7, +1).

Totals here include confirmed and presumptive positives

8 cases in repatriated travellers (+4)

Restrictions/Closures:

No formal restrictions/closures at the federal level

Recommendation to cancel or postpone gatherings of >50 people

Recommendation to avoid non-essential travel, particularly cruise ships

All international travelers must self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival

Wash your damn hands

Federal information line: 1-833-784-4397

Alberta: last updated 3/17 at 1:40 pm

74 cases, 18 new, 0 deaths

Community spread confirmed in Calgary

Affected zones include: Calgary (52), Edmonton (18), Central (2), South (1), and North (1)

This is all of them I think

Restrictions/closures

K-12 schools and in-person post-secondary classes/training are closed

Licensed childcare facilities, out-of-school care programs, and preschools are closed indefinitely

State of Emergency declared 3/17

Sit-down restaurants are operating at lower capacity

All events over 50 people are prohibited

Rec centers, bingo halls, casinos, theaters, other entertainment/public spaces are closed

British Columbia: last updated 3/16 evening

Dedicated phone line: 1 888 COVID19

103 cases (+30), 5 recoveries, and 6 critical cases

4 deaths, 3 new

Affected public health units include: Fraser, Interior, Island, and Vancouver Coastal

Clusters of infection have been reported at Lynn Valley Care Centre, Hollyburn House Retirement Residence, and Lions Gate Hospital (admin staff).

An exposure occurred at the Pacific Dental Conference 2020 (Vancouver Convention Centre, 3/6 and 3/7)

All present on those dates are in self-isolation until 3/22

Poor teeth man :(

Restrictions/Closures

All hospitals have postponed elective surgeries and are on Outbreak Response Phase 2

Lions Gate Hospital is going to open a dedicated COVID 19 unit and is in Outbreak Response Phase 3 (emergency patients only)

Long term care facilities have restricted visitors to end of life only

Public gatherings & buildings with >50 people are prohibited

All casinos are closed

Manitoba: last updated 3/17 AM

HealthLinks Line: 204-788-8200 or 1-888-315-9257 (toll free)

8 cases, 1 new

Affected regions include: Interlake-Eastern (1) and Winnipeg (7)

Closures/Restrictions

Hospital and long term care visitors restricted to only exception circumstances (incl. end of life care)

Licensed child-care centers are closed effective 3/20

Casinos are closed effective 3/17

Health care workers and first responders who need child care due to school closures are advised to call 204-945-0776 or 1-888-213-4754

New Brunswick: last updated 3/17 4 PM

8 cases, 2 new, 0 deaths

Affected areas include Zone 3

I don’t live in NB so I have no idea what this is beyond one of at least three zones

Closures/Restrictions

Schools are closed starting 3/16 for two weeks

Newfoundland & Labrador: last updated 3/17

1 case, 0 new

Sorry that’s all the info I have ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Nova Scotia: last updated 3/16 at 12:58 pm

7 cases, 2 new

Affected areas include: Halifax Regional Municipality (2)

Closures/Restrictions

Gatherings over 150 people are disallowed

Casinos are closed starting 3/16; VLTs are not allowed in bars

Childcare facilities are closed starting 3/17 through 4/3

Public schools are closed until 4/6

Long-term care facilities are closed to visitors until further notice

All incoming international travelers are required to isolate for 14 days upon arrival

Hospitals are limiting visitors but limitations vary by centre

Ontario: last updated 3/17 at 10:30 AM

Telehealth Ontario: 1-866-797-0000

177 cases, 69 new, 5 recovered, 1 death

Affected public health units include: Durham (1), Halton (1), Hamilton (9, +5), Middlesex London (2), Niagara (1), Ottawa (3), Peel (4), Sudbury (1), Toronto (11), Wellington Dufferin Guelph (1), York (6, +1)

Only cases from 3/16 on are counted under here based on how the site works

No hospitalizations since 3/16

Closings/Restrictions

All schools, restaurants, libraries, childcare facilities, theaters, public venues, and recreational spaces are closed

Events over 50 people (incl. parades and worship services) are prohibited until 3/31

P.E.I.: last updated 3/17 AM

1 case, in Queens County, connected to a cruise, no new cases

Closures/restrictions

Libraries and community events are closed/canceled

Child care facilities are closed for two weeks starting 3/17

Public schools are closed until April 6

General queries: call 1-800-958-6400

Business-related queries: call 1-866-222-1751

Québec: last updated 3/17 at 1 pm

74 cases, 24 new, no deaths

Affected regions include: Capitale Nationale (3, +1), Mauricie - Centre du Québec (3, +0), Estrie (9, +6), Montréal (22, +4), Chaudière-Appalaches (4, +0), Lanaudière (6, +3), Laurentides (7, +4), Montérégie (13, +3), and undetermined/outside Québec (7, +3).

State of health emergency as of 3/13

Closures/restrictions

Indoor gatherings of >250 people prohibited, many public buildings closed until further notice

Daycare/childcare facilities and all schools closed until 3/27

Elections scheduled for 3/15 have been rescheduled to after late April

Non-essential visits to hospitals and long-term care institutions are prohibited

Saskatchewan: last updated 3/16

8 cases (+2), no deaths

Restrictions/Closures

School K-12 is suspended indefinitely effective 3/20

Gatherings >250 people are prohibited, except for distributed places (malls, universities, etc)

Public gatherings >50 people with attendees who have traveled internationally in the last 14 days are canceled/prohibited

Hospital and long term care visitors are only allowed in end of life care

Dammit Saskatchewan, why are you making me download PDFs :(

Greece: last updated 3/17 at 6:45 pm local time

Note: I do not speak Greek, and I therefore am struggling to find official data from somewhere more granular than the WHO. I’m sourcing most of this from the WHO and from Ekathimerini, but if you know where I can find better/more up to date info, please let me know. Thank you!

387 total cases, 56 new, 14 recoveries

5 deaths (1 new)

Restrictions/Closures:

All arrivals to the country are required to isolate for 14 days

Beginning 3/19 at 6 am, the country is closed to non-Greek and EU nationals unless exceptional circumstances warrant

Parliament has suspended all committee meetings and restricted each party to one MP in attendance at a time

Businesses are closed starting Wednesday 3/18, with the exception of gas stations, pharmacies, and groceries

Supermarkets are restricting the number of patrons to allow 1 person per 10 square meters

Migrant camps on various islands are on total lockdown for 2 weeks

Religion is canceled until 3/30

Ireland: last updated 3/17

292 total cases, 69 new (nice), 2 deaths (0 new)

Community transmission is confirmed

The following regional breakdown is available of the new cases: 48 eastern, 5 north/west, 3 west, and 13 southern

Restrictions/Closures

All pubs & bars are closed until March 29. House parties are discouraged.

Schools, colleges, and childcare facilities are closed until March 29

Indoor gatherings of >100 people and outdoor gatherings >500 people are prohibited

State run cultural institutions are closed until further notice

The Netherlands: last updated 3/17 at 2 PM local time

1705 confirmed cases, 43 deaths

292 new cases, 19 new deaths

314 hospitalizations

Average age of decedents is 79, with a range from 63 to 94

The report of a decedent aged 59 years was in error, this is now corrected

Provinces affected include: Drenthe (17, +1), Flevoland (24, +2), Friesland (14, +1), Gelderland (173, +38), Groningen (10, +0), Limburg (197, +48), North Brabant (634, +80), North Holland (152, +36), Overijssel (45, +9), Utrecht (173, +33), South Holland (175, +39), and Zeeland (20, +3).

There are 70 non-residents/unknown location patients

Restrictions/Closures

Schools, restaurants/bars, sports and fitness clubs, sex clubs, saunas, and childcare facilities are closed until April 6

If it’s fun it’s probably closed unless it’s your house

New Zealand: last updated 3/17 in the morning

13 cases, 5 new

12 confirmed, 1 probable

2 in Wellington contracted in the USA (sorry guys :c)

1 in Dunedin contracted in Germany

2 family members of the case in Dunedin

No hospitalizations reported

Exposures are reported on the following flights and in the following locations:

AA83 on 3/14, Los Angeles to Auckland, seats 4A and 10H

NZ419 on 3/14, Auckland to Wellington, seats 1B and 1C

Logan Park HS in Dunedin, now closed for 48h while contact tracing and thorough cleaning occurs

If you are concerned about possible exposure please call Healthline (number below)

Testing capacity: 770/day, expected to be 1500/day by the end of the week

Anyone coming into the country from anywhere except a small list of other Pacific islands is directed to self-quarantine for 14 days. This started on 3/16 at 0100 and is expected to continue for at least the next few weeks.

New Zealanders currently overseas should register with SafeTravel (https://register.safetravel.govt.nz/login)

Healthline number: 0800 611 116

Norway: last updated 3/17 at 10 pm local time

I still don’t speak Norwegian so if I screwed up lemme know

1469 cases, 3 deaths (+0)

67 hospitalized (+14), 15 critical (+4)

139 new cases during the 24h of March 16

423 cases acquired in Norway, 757 acquired outside of Norway, the rest are undetermined. Community spread is confirmed.

Locations where people became infected include Austria (513, +0), Italy (148, +0), Switzerland (20, +2), UK (15, +1), Spain (18, +4), France (8, -2), USA (7), Iran (5), Germany (5), other countries with more than 3 cases (128), and other countries with less than 3 cases (18).

Breakdown of cases by area: Agder (67, -20), Innlandet (88, +0), Møre og Romsdal (20, +0), Nordland (11, +0), Oslo (329, +37), Rogaland (150, -14), Troms og Finnmark (24, +1), Trøndelag (61, -13), Vestfold og Telemark (59, -10), Vestland (141, +10), and Viken (358, -15)

I’m not sure if the numbers dropping means that those are people recovering or people being moved from place to place for intensive care/hospitalization. If you speak Norwegian and can clarify, please shoot me a message!

Restrictions/closures

The whole country is under shelter in place type restrictions for two weeks. Hang in there, y’all.

Switzerland: last updated 3/17 at 1:45 pm local time

2650 cases, 19 deaths (+5)

Restrictions/closures:

Whole country is on lockdown as of 3/16: no entry or exit until further notice (maximum of 6 months)

schools are closed until 4/19

all events are canceled

all personal service establishments are closed

United Kingdom in general: last updated 3/17 at 9 am

Boris is hopefully starting to realise how severe this thing is, fuck Boris and his stupid cronies for not acting earlier. I’m still furious about how this has been bungled in multiple countries.

Where’s that milkshake guy who got Nigel? He could probably hit Boris from 6 ft away to both do a public service and maintain social distancing.

Given the numbers, it might be too little too late. I personally would encourage everyone in the UK to shelter in place, but I have zero authority there.

1,950 total cases (+26.3%), 407 are new today

55 total deaths as of 3/16, deaths on 3/17 have not been announced

England: last updated 3/17 at 9 am

1,557 total cases, 361 new

Affected UTLAs with at least 10 cases are as follows: Barnet (24), Bexley (14), Birmingham (20), Brent (24), Bromley (23), Buckingham (23), Cambridge (12), Camden (20), Cornwall and Isles of Scilly (10), Cumbria (22), Devon (24), Ealing (21), Enfield (10), Essex (21), Gloucestershire (11), Greenwich (19), Hackney and City of London (22), Hammersmith and Fulham (23), Hampshire (69), Haringey (17), Harrow (15), Hertfordshire (36), Hillingdon (16), Hounslow (15), Islington (11), Kensington (49), Kent (18), Lambeth (43), Lancashire (15), Leeds (11), Lewisham (18), Liverpool (11), Manchester (14), Merton (13), Newham (17), Northamptonshire (12), Nottingham (12), Nottinghamshire (13), Oldham (10), Oxfordshire (25), Slough (12), Southwark (58), Staffordshire (10), Stockport (10), Surrey (30), Sutton (10), Tameside (10), Tower Hamlets (23), Trafford (12), Walsall (13), Wandsworth (21), West Sussex (10), Westminster (58), and Wolverhampton (18)

I had to download an Excel spreadsheet situation for this, hopefully it is being updated the way I think it is. Let me know if these numbers are totally off.

Also, I am alphabetizing starting today because the hardest-hit areas will change day to day. Tomorrow will have deltas and all that good stuff.

My dad is from Cheshire, I know a fair amount about the UK, I was still fucking SHOOK by the fact that Nottingham and Nottinghamshire are two separate places.

Also “Slough” is kind of a gross name for somewhere, are y’all ok?

Deaths are not being reported by the PHS but I will do my best to split these out in the next few editions using news reports etc. It will hopefully be included by the 3/18 edition but no promises? If you have a good source for deaths by county/area, please let me know.

Scotland: last updated 3/17 at 2 pm local time

195 cases, 24 new

2 deaths, 1 new

Affected health boards are as follows: Ayrshire and Arran (6, -1), Borders (7, +0), Dumfries and Galloway (1, +0), Fife (7, +0), Forth Valley (12, +2), Grampian (22, +10), Greater Glasgow and Clyde (49, +5), Highland (5, +3), Lanarkshire (21, +1), Lothian (30, +1), Shetland (15, +0), and Tayside (20, +3)

Maybe this is all of them? Time will tell.

If anyone knows whether negative numbers are patients dying, being moved, or recovering, please let me know.

Wales: last updated 3/17 at 4:30 pm

136 cases, 12 new

2 deaths, 1 new

Areas reporting deaths are: Swansea (1)

Affected areas include: Blaenau Gwent County (8, +1), Bridgend County (3, +2), Caerphilly County (15, +1), Carmarthenshire County (7, +0), Ceredigion County (1, +0), City & County of Swansea (22, -1), City of Cardiff (14, +1), Conwy County (1, +0), Flintshire County (1, +0), Isle of Anglesey (2, +0), Monmouthshire County (8, +0), Neath Port Talbot (11, +0), Newport City (24, +3), Pembrokeshire (2, +0), Powys County (7, +2), Rhondda Cynon Taf County (2, +0), Torfaen County (3, +1) Vale of Glamorgan County (1, +0), and Wrexham County (2, +0).

Note that some of these numbers have changed more than you might see from looking at yesterday’s report; this is because residential locations of patients are being confirmed. 0 cases remain unlocalized and 2 are residents outside of Wales.

Northern Ireland: last updated 3/17 at 2 pm

62 cases, 10 new

Health dept is not providing more detail than this at this time as far as I can tell

If you know more or know where I can find more info, please let me know!

US in general: updated 3/17 at 4 pm

4,226 total cases, 739 new

75 deaths, 8 new (1.75% mortality rate)

54 jurisdictions are reporting cases: 50 states, DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, and US Virgin Islands

Shelter in place orders and curfews are coming into effect in lots of places

Alabama: updated 3/17 at 3:30 pm

39 cases, 11 new

0 deaths

Affected counties include: Baldwin (1, +0), Elmore (2, +1), Lee (3, +2), Jefferson (21, +4), Limestone (1, +0), Montgomery (2, +1), Shelby (4, +1), and Tuscaloosa (3, +0).

Newly affected counties include: Madison (1) and St. Clair (1)

State hotline: 1-888-264-2256

Arkansas: updated 3/17

22 cases, 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Cleburne, Cleveland, Desha, Garland, Jefferson, Lincoln, Pulaski, and Saline

Exact numbers by county are not available from the state department of health

Y’all have a county called YELL, that’s the best county name I’ve seen yet

Graphic design is their passion

State hotline: 1-800-803-7847

Arizona: updated 3/17 at 11:36 AM

20 cases, 2 new, no deaths

Affected counties include: Graham (1, +0), Maricopa (9, +1), Pima (4, +0), and Pinal (5, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Navajo (1)

Community spread is confirmed in: Maricopa, Pima, and Pinal counties

Closures/Restrictions:

“Strong recommendation” that restaurants in areas of community spread close their dine-in services

Recommendation to cancel/postpone gatherings >10 people

Schools are closed through 3/27

State hotline (rolled into poison control): 844-542-8201

California: last updated 3/16 at 6 pm

The Governor has recommended the following:

Those with chronic health conditions and those over 65 should shelter in place.

Gatherings over 250 people should be canceled.

Drinking establishments should be closed but restaurants can operate at 50% capacity.

Hospitals and long term care facilities should prohibit visitors except for end of life situation

Total cases not including the ones at Miramar (discussed below): 472, with 11 total deaths

Deaths have occurred in the following counties: Los Angeles (1, +1), Placer (1, +0), Riverside (3, +3), Sacramento (2, +0), San Mateo (1, +0), Santa Clara (4, +2)

The following counties report recoveries: Humboldt (1), San Benito (2)

The following counties report numbers of hospitalizations: Los Angeles (2), San Diego (9, +1), Santa Clara (56, +4), Tulare (1, +0)

Affected counties include: Alameda (27, +9), Amador (1, +0), Calaveras (2, +0), Contra Costa (39, +5), Fresno (2, +0), Humboldt (1, +0), Imperial (2, +0), Los Angeles (144, +50), Madera (1, +0), Marin (9, +0), Nevada (1, +0), Orange (29, +12), Placer (8, +0), Riverside (15, +0), Sacramento (40, +7) San Benito (3, +0), San Bernardino (2, +1), San Diego (51, +18), San Francisco (43, +3), San Joaquin (13, +5), San Luis Obispo (3, +0), San Mateo (64, +23), Santa Barbara (2, +1), Santa Clara (155, +17), Santa Cruz (13, +4), Shasta (1, +0), Solano (8, -1), Sonoma (6, +1), Stanislaus (3, +0), Tulare (3, +1), Ventura (10, +5), and Yolo (4, +2)

Note regarding San Diego: The four federally quarantined people are not included in the county statistics. Cases of non-residents diagnosed in San Diego are included.

Unaffected counties include: Alpine, Butte, Colusa, Del Norte, El Dorado, Glenn, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Lake, Lassen, Mariposa, Mendocino, Merced, Modoc, Mono, Napa, Plumas, Sierra, Siskiyou, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity, Tuolumne, Yuba

Counties with confirmed community transmission include: Los Angeles, Marin, Orange, Riverside, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Sonoma, and Yolo

Newly affected counties include: Monterey (2)

Closures/Restrictions by County

Alameda: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Alpine: County activities are canceled, schools closed, no non-essential services

Contra Costa: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Del Norte: Schools closed through 4/20

El Dorado: Schools closed through 3/20

Los Angeles: gatherings >50 people prohibited

Marin: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Mendocino: Modified schooling starting 3/17, gatherings >50 prohibited

Mono: Schools closed through 3/30, Alterra Mountain closed, libraries closed through 3/31

Monterey: Shelter in Place beginning 3/18 until 4/8

Napa: gatherings >50 people prohibited

Nevada: Schools are closed until 4/13, libraries closed until 4/12

Orange: Shelter in Place until 3/31

Riverside: Schools & daycares are closed, gatherings >10 people prohibited

Sacramento: Shelter in Place until further notice

San Benito: Shelter in Place until 4/7

San Bernardino: County operated attractions are closed

San Diego: gatherings >50 people prohibited, restaurants are carry-out and drive through only, all schools are closed, and entertainment establishments are closed

San Francisco: Shelter in Place until 4/7

San Luis Obispo: Alcohol sales on site are banned through 3/18

San Mateo: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Santa Barbara: Dining is takeout/drive through only

Santa Clara: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Santa Cruz: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Siskiyou: gatherings >50 prohibited, hospital/LTAC visitors prohibited

Stanislaus: Gatherings of >1000 people are prohibited indoor and outdoor from 3/16 to 3/31

Tuolumne: Schools are closed from 3/16 to 3/30

Ventura: All schools and public libraries are closed starting 3/16 until further notice

Yolo: Many schools are closed at the local level, non-essential gatherings canceled through 3/31

School closures listed here: https://www.yolocounty.org/health-human-services/adults/communicable-disease-investigation-and-control/novel-coronavirus-2019;

Counties with no closures/restrictions beyond those mandated by the state: Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, Fresno, Glenn, Humboldt, Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Lake, Lassen, Madera, Merced, Modoc, Placer, Plumas, San Joaquin, Shasta, Sierra, Solano, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity, Tulare, and Yuba

Drive through testing is available in Marin County

Colorado - last updated 3/16 at 4:00 pm

183 cases (+52)

2 deaths (+1)

20 hospitalizations

Counties reporting deaths include: El Paso (1) and Larimer (1)

Affected counties include: Adams (8, +2), Arapahoe (18, +3),Boulder (8, +5), Clear Creek (2, +1), Denver (38, +14), Douglas (10, +2), Eagle (34, +12), El Paso (6, +2), Gunnison (11, +3), Jefferson (17, +5), Larimer (1, +0), Mesa (1, +0), Pitkin (11, +9), Pueblo (1, +0), Summit (3, +2), and Weld (5, +0)

4 cases are designated “unknown”

Out of state visitors are now included in the tally of the county where they were diagnosed/are being treated

Confirmed community spread

Newly affected counties include: Garfield (2), Routt (2)

Drive through testing is available in: Denver and Lowry

Residents of Gunnison, Eagle, Summit, Pitkin are recommended to minimize social contact due to potential exposures

Anyone who visited the Colorado Springs Bridge center in late Feb-early Mar may have been exposed, call the DPH for more information

Closures/restrictions

Public places are closed, restaurants are takeout only until 4/16

Gambling is canceled

Schools are iffy, check your local district news

Colorado’s new website looks way nicer but takes 5ever to load

Dark colorado give me the forbidden numbers

Connecticut - last update 3/17 at 4:30 pm

68 cases, 27 new

The following counties are affected: Fairfield (48, +19), Hartford (7, +3), Litchfield (5, +1), New Haven (8, +4)

This continues to support my conjecture that Connecticut only has 4 counties

Restrictions/Closures

No gatherings >50 people until further notice

Nursing home visits restricted

Schools closed through 3/30

Restaurants are carryout/drive through only through 4/30

Fitness/recreation centers and movie theaters closed through 4/30

Gambling is canceled until the end of April

Delaware: last update 3/17 at 2:55 pm

16 cases (+8), 0 deaths

Affected counties include: New Castle (15, +7) and Sussex (1).

Update: you apparently have three counties

Restrictions/closures:

Events over >100 people are encouraged to cancel/reschedule

Schools closed through 3/27

District of Columbia: last update 3/17 at 7 pm

31 cases (+14), no deaths

There’s no counties in DC, you can’t trick me

Restrictions/Closures

Food service/drinking establishments are restricted to <250 people, <6 people/table, no standing or bar seating, and tables separated by 6 feet

Nightclubs etc are closed

Most government stuff is telework so if you want to report a Ponzi scheme you have to email them or call them

Florida - last updated 3/17 at 6:03 PM

216 (+61) cases and 7 deaths (+3)

Community transmission remains unconfirmed but highly likely

Affected counties include: Alachua (6, +4), Broward (55, +16), Charlotte (1, +0), Citrus (2, +1), Clay (4, +1), Collier (7, +1), Duval (10, +5), Escambia (1, +0), Hillsborough (9, +4), Lake (1, +0), Lee (7, +3), Manatee (7, +2), Miami-Dade (43, +20), Nassau (1, +0) Okaloosa (2, +1), Orange (6, +3), Osceola (7, +3), Palm Beach (13, +5), Pasco (2, +0), Pinellas (4, +0), Santa Rosa (1, +0), Sarasota (4, +1) Seminole (4, +0), St. Johns (3, +1) Volusia (9, +2)

Newly affected counties include: Brevard (1) and Polk (1)

State hotline/call center: 1 (866) 779-6121

Georgia: last updated 3/17 at 11:34 AM

146 cases (+25),1 death (+0)

Affected counties include: Bartow (10, +1), Charlton (1, +0), Cherokee (7, +0), Clayton (4, -1), Clarke (3, +0), Cobb (25, +3), Coweta (3, +1), Dekalb (15, +5), Dougherty (6, +0), Fayette (5, +0), Floyd (6, +2), Forsyth (1, +0), Fulton (33, +6), Gordon (2, +0), Gwinnett (7, +2), Hall (1, +0), Henry (2, +0), Lowndes (4, +1), Lee (2, +0), Newton (1, +0), Paulding (1, +0), Polk (1, +0), Troup (2, +1)

Newly affected counties include: Barrow (1), Columbia (1), Rockdale (1), and Richmond (1).

Closures/Restrictions

USG universities are closed through 3/29 and will be online after that for the semester

Athens-Clarke County has a curfew in place from 5pm to 9 am probably. There’s a lot of uncertainty as I have heard. I will try to clarify this in tomorrow's edition provided the government clarifies things.

Asks from Georgia Anon can provide more details

Illinois: last updated 3/17

160 confirmed cases (+55), 1 death (+1)

Confirmed community spread

Affected counties include Champaign (1), Clinton (2), Cook (107), Cumberland (1), DuPage (26), Kane (3), Lake (7), McHenry (2), Peoria (1), Sangamon (3), St. Clair (2), Whiteside (1), Will (2), Winnebago (1), and Woodford (1)

ILDPH started publishing numbers for each county, YAY.

Med students have been infected (not at my school, but still yikes)

Deaths are reported in the following counties: Cook (1)

Closings/Restrictions

Bars and restaurants are closed (except for carryout and drive through) until 3/30

All gatherings >50 people prohibited

Gyms/fitness centers/clubs/theaters are closed

DMV is closed! I personally hate the IL DMV so this isn’t like, sad news in particular…..

Community colleges and public schools are closed - like in other places I will attempt to include county-by-county news soon.

The IL governor dunked on Trump for a really long time during his press conference tonight and it was totally fucking awesome.

Indiana: last updated 3/17 at 10 AM

30 cases, 2 deaths

Affected counties include: Adams (1), Bartholomew (1), Boone (1), Floyd (1), Franklin (2), Hamilton (1), Hendricks (3), Howard (2), Johnson (3), Lake (2), La Porte (1), Marion (9), Noble (1), St. Joseph (1), and Wells (1)

Deaths are being reported in the following counties: Johnson (1) and Marion (1)

Indiana, good job on your website. Thanks for making this easy on me.

Iowa: last updated 3/17

29 cases (+7)

Affected counties include: Allamakee (2, +0), Carroll (1, +0), Dallas (3, +2), Harrison (1, +0), Johnson (18, +3), Polk (1, +0), and Pottawattamie (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Adair (1) and Black Hawk (1)

Community spread confirmed

Closures/restrictions

Schools closed for 4 weeks starting 3/16

Public places closed, restaurants carryout only until further notice

Kansas: last updated 3/17

16 confirmed cases (+5), 1 death

Affected counties include: Butler (1, +0), Franklin (1, +0), Johnson (10, +2), and Wyandotte (3, +2)

Newly affected counties include: Douglas (1)

Deaths are being reported in the following counties: Wyandotte (1)

Closures/Restrictions

Schools closed through 3/23

Gatherings >50 people prohibited

Public places must maintain a 6ft bubble

Phone line: 1-866-534-3463

Kentucky: last updated 3/17 at 4 pm local time

27 cases (+5), 1 death (+0)

Counties reporting deaths: Bourbon (1)

Counties reporting recoveries: Harrison (1)

Affected counties include: Bourbon (1, +0), Clark (1, +0), Fayette (6, +1), Harrison (6, +0), Jefferson (9, +3), Montgomery (1, +0), and Nelson (1, +0).

Newly affected counties include: Lyon (1)

Closures/Restrictions

Restaurants and bars closed to in-person service

State Capitol closed to nonessential personnel

Entertainment/nonessential services are closed

Schools are closed statewide

Phone line: (800) 722-5725 (rolled in with poison control)

Louisiana: last updated 5:30 pm 3/17

196 cases reported, 60 new

4 deaths, 1 new

Parishes affected: Ascension (1, +0), Bossier (1, +0), Caddo (4, +1), Jefferson (35, +14), Lafourche (2, +0), Orleans (136, +42), St. Bernard (2, +0), St. Charles (3, +0), St. John the Baptist (1, +0), St. Tammany (6, +0), and Terrebonne (3, +1)

New parishes affected: East Baton Rouge (1) and Washington (1)

Parishes reporting deaths: Orleans (4, +1)

Maryland: last updated 3/17 at 10 am

57 cases (+20), 0 deaths

Counties affected: Anne Arundel (3, +2), Baltimore (6, +2), Baltimore City (1, +0), Carroll (1, +0), Charles (1, +0), Harford (2, +0), Howard (3, +2), Montgomery (24, +9), Prince George’s (14, +4), Talbot (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Frederick (1)

Community spread confirmed

Exposure risk advisory for Lorien Elkridge

Closures/restrictions

Casinos, racetracks and other gambling situations are closed

Gatherings >250 people prohibited

All schools closed through 3/27

Senior centers closed until further notice

Elections postponed - vote by mail implemented for urgent elections

Massachusetts: last updated 3/17 at 4 pm

218 cases (+21)

Affected counties include: Barnstable (2, +1), Berkshire (14, +3), Bristol (5, +3), Essex (8, +0), Hampden (1, +0), Middlesex (89, +6), Norfolk (43, +7), Plymouth (5, +2) Suffolk (42, +6), and Worcester (8, +2)

1 case of undetermined location

21 hospitalizations (+7)

Michigan: last updated 3/17 at 2 pm

54 cases (+21), 25 hospitalizations, 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Bay (1, +0), Charlevoix (1, +0), Ingham (2, +1), Kent (5, +0), Macomb (8, +2), Monroe (1, +0), Montcalm (1, +0), Oakland (16, +2), St. Clair (2, +0), Washtenaw (7, +0), and Wayne (17, +3)

Wayne County includes Detroit (8 cases, +2)

Newly affected counties include: Jackson (1), Leelanau (1), Otsego (1), and Ottawa (1)

Two employees of the corrections department have tested positive

Jackson County Probation Office and Detroit Detention Center have both been exposed, contact the health department if you have been exposed

Closures/Restrictions

Bars and restaurants are carryout/drive through only

Public spaces (casinos, theaters, etc) closed

Public offices open by appt only

Minnesota: last updated 3/17 at 12:00

60 cases (+6)

Affected counties include: Anoka (3-5), Benton (1-2), Blue Earth (1-2), Carver (1-2), Dakota (6-20), Hennepin (20+), Olmstead (3-5), Ramsey (6-20), Renville (1-2), Stearns (3-5), Waseca (1-2), Washington (1-2), and Wright (1-2)

Still working with just ranges due to everything popping off today. I apologise for the imprecise data.

Drive through testing available in Olivia

Missouri

13 cases, 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Boone (1), Cass (2), Cole (1), Greene (4), Henry (1), Jackson (1), St. Louis City (1), St. Louis County (4)

Hotline: 877-435-8411

Montana: last updated 3/16 at 7:22 pm

8 cases (+2)

Affected counties not being reported at this time, and due to everything being all the time all the time I haven’t sorted out where the cases are. Please forgive me and watch this space, I’ll try to get to it asap.

Closures/Restrictions

Public schools closed until 3/30

Many counties have closed libraries

State of Emergency

Nebraska: last updated 3/17

Community transmission confirmed: many locations in Douglas County are potential places where transmission has occurred; if you live or have traveled to Douglas County (Omaha), please check the Douglas County COVID-19 monitoring site at: https://www.douglascountyhealth.com/latest-news.

There were also two exposures in Knox County on March 5, at basketball games at Lincoln Southwest HS and North Star HS.

21 cases (+2), no deaths

Affected counties include: Cass (1), Douglas (18, +3) and Knox (1)

Nebraska, please update your shit. (Or possibly I can’t find the updated shit)

Hotline (bling): (402) 552-6645

New Hampshire: last updated 3/17 at 9 AM

26 cases, 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Carroll (1), Grafton (7), Hillsborough (4), and Rockingham (14)

Nashua (1) is included in Hillsborough county totals

Exposure reported at the Manchester DMV on 3/2, 3/3, 3/4, 3/5, and 3/10.

My desire to avoid the DMV at all costs continues to be vindicated

Your governor has a really good last name, btw

He announced a state of emergency

Sununununununu

New Jersey : last updated 3/16 at 2 pm

267 cases (+89), 2 deaths (+1)

Affected counties include: Bergen (84, +23), Burlington (5, +2), Camden (3, +0), Essex (32, +12), Hudson (24, +5), Hunterdon (4, +3), Mercer (6, +5), Middlesex (22, +5), Monmouth (22, +8), Morris (7, +2), Ocean (3, +0), Passaic (10, +2), Somerset (7, +2), and Union (15, +7)

17 cases are unassigned to a county

Closures/Restrictions:

No gatherings >50 people

Restaurants, bars, entertainment venues, and other public spaces are closed

Curfew in effect from 8 pm to 5 am, anyone out without a valid reason is committing a misdemeanor and is also a total dick, don’t expose people

New York: last updated 3/17 at 8 PM

1,374 cases (+424), 10 deaths

Affected counties include: Albany (23, +11), Allegany (2, +0), Broome (1, +0), Delaware (1, +0), Dutchess (16, +6), Erie (7, +1), Greene (2, +0), Herkimer (1, +0), Monroe (10, +0), Montgomery (1, +0), Nassau (131, +22), Onondaga (2, +1), Ontario (1, +0), Orange (15, +4), Putnam (2, +0), Rockland (22, +6), Saratoga (9, +4), Schenectady (5, +1), Suffolk (84, +21, Tioga (1, +0), Tompkins (2, +1), Ulster (8, +1), Westchester (380, +160)

NYC has 644 cases (+351) as of 3/17 at 2:30 pm

Areas/counties reporting deaths are: NYC (7), Rockland (1)

I can’t find the two others, if you have information leading to the whereabouts of these last two deaths in New York State please let me know. There is no reward other than my gratitude.

Newly affected counties include: Clinton (1), Rensselaer (1), Sullivan (1), and Wyoming (1)

Why do so many states name their counties after OTHER STATES

Drive through testing in New Rochelle, Long Island, Staten Island, and Rockland County

Closures/Restrictions

Bars, restaurants, entertainment venues closed

No gatherings >50 people

Public schools closed until 4/1

Village elections delayed until 4/28

New legal protections and stuff from the state came down today

Job protection and pay are guaranteed for those quarantined

Permanent comprehensive sick leave policy

If you are a retired doctor or nurse, New York needs you. Like, real bad. Contact the state or local health dept to see how you can help.

North Carolina: last updated 3/17 at 8:57 AM

40 cases (+7), 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Brunswick (1, +0), Cabarrus (1, +0), Chatham (1, +0), Craven (1, +0), Durham (1, +0), Forsyth (2, +0), Harnett (3, +1), Johnston (2, +0), Mecklenburg (7, +3), Onslow (1, +0), Wake (15, +1), Watauga (1, +0), Wayne (1, +0), and Wilson (1, +0).

Newly affected counties include: Iredell (1) and Sampson (1)

Advisory for an exposure at Raleigh convention center on March 8

Please call Wake County if you were there, they are tracking exposures

Closures/Restrictions

Schools are closed statewide until 3/30

Events >100 people canceled

Restaurants and bars are closed

Ohio: last updated 3/17 at 2 pm

67 confirmed cases (+17)

17 hospitalizations (+3)

Affected counties include: Belmont (2, +0), Butler (6, +0), Cuyahoga (31, +7), Franklin (4, +1), Geauga (1, +0), Lorain (4, +1), Lucas (1, +0), Medina (3, +1), Stark (3, +0), Summit (4, +2), Trumbull (2, +0), Tuscarawas (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Coshocton (2), Lake (1), and Mahoning (1)

Closures/Restrictions

Bars/restaurants are closed

Gatherings >50 people canceled

Oregon: last updated 3/17 at 9 AM

65 cases (+26), 1 death (+0)

Counties reporting deaths: Multnomah (1)

13 hospitalized at time of positive test

The following counties are affected: Clackamas (6, +5), Deschutes (6, +2), Douglas (1, +0), Jackson (2, +0), Klamath (1, +0), Linn (15, +5), Marion (4, +2), Multnomah (3, +2), Polk (1, +0), Umatilla (2, +0), Washington (21, +8), and Yamhill (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Benton (2)

Pennsylvania: last updated 3/17 at 5 pm

GRITTY HAS SPOKEN: https://twitter.com/GrittyNHL/status/1239962668208779266

96 total cases (+20)

Counties affected include: Allegheny (7, +2) Bucks (8, +3), Chester (4, +2), Cumberland (10, +5), Delaware (9, +2), Lehigh (1, +0), Luzerne (1, +0), Monroe (8, +0), Montgomery (32, +2), Northampton (1, +0), Philadelphia (10, +2), Pike (1, +0), Washington (2, +1), Wayne (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Beaver (1)

Closures/restrictions:

Restaurants and bars are closed in the following counties until 3/30: Allegheny, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery

Rhode Island: last updated 3/16

21 confirmed cases (+1), no deaths

Chanston High School West had an exposure; 1700 people are currently quarantined after this exposure

I will attempt to sort out county level data soon, since apparently y’all have counties

If anyone knows where to find more frequently updated information than that from RIDOH, please let me know. I apologise for this data being out of date.

South Carolina: last updated 3/17 at 4:35 pm

47 cases (+13), 1 death (+1)

Affected counties include: Anderson (2), Beaufort (4), Calhoun (1), Charleston (3), Fairfield (1), Greenville (2), Horry (4), Kershaw (22), Lancaster (2), Lexington (3), Richland (1), Spartanburg (1), and York (1)

Deaths are reported in the following counties: Lexington (1)

South Dakota: last updated 3/17

11 confirmed cases (+1), 1 death (+1)

Affected counties include: Beadle (1, +0), Bon Homme (1, +0), Charles Mix (1, +0), Davison (1, +0), McCook (1, +0), Minnehaha (5, +1), and Pennington (1, +0)

Closures/Restrictions:

Schools closed week of 3/16

Tennessee: last updated 3/17 at 2 pm

73 (+21) cases, no deaths

Affected counties include: Campbell (1, +0), Davidson (42, +17), Hamilton (1, +0), Jefferson (1, +0), Knox (2, +1), Rutherford (1, +0), Sevier (1, +0), Shelby (2, +0), Sullivan (1, +0), and Williamson (21, +3)

Texas: last updated 3/17 at 12 PM

64 (+7) total cases, 1 death (+1)

Highly likely that there has been community transmission, unconfirmed currently

Affected counties include: Bell (1, +0), Bexar (3, +0), Brazoria (2, +0), Collin (6, +0), Dallas (9, +1), El Paso (3, +2), Fort Bend (9, +0), Galveston (1, +0), Gregg (1, +0), Harris (10, +0), Hays (1, +0), Lavaca (1, +0), Matagorda (1, +0), Montgomery (3, +0), Smith (3, -1), Tarrant (3, +0), and Travis (3, +1)

Newly affected counties include: Denton (1) and Webb (1)

Hail Satan for the best ever death metal band out of denton

(this is what the kids call a Reference)

2 cases are pending county assignment

Utah: last updated 3/17 at 12:45 pm

51 cases (+22)

Affected health districts include: Davis County (4, +0), Salt Lake County (22, +4), Southwest Utah (1, +0), Summit County (15, +4), Tooele (1, +0), Utah County (1, +0), Wasatch County (2, +1), and Weber-Morgan (4, +2)

Newly affected districts include: Bear River (1)

I wonder what Bear River has in its rivers

Definitely not bears

Community spread confirmed in the following counties: Summit and Utah

Exposure at Wasatch High School identified

Schools, Mormonism, skiing, and restaurants are canceled until further notice

The zoo and a bunch of museums are canceled too :(

Vermont: last updated 3/17 at 1 PM

17 cases total (+5)

Affected counties include: Bennington (3), Chittenden (4), Orange (1), Springfield (1), Washington (1), and Windsor (3)

County by county data was not updated on 3/17

Hospitalizations are reported in the following counties: Bennington (3), Chittenden (1), Springfield (1), Washington (1), Windsor (1)

Closures/restrictions:

No gatherings >50 people or >50% capacity, whichever is lower

Schools are closed starting 3/18

Bars/restaurants are closed until 4/6

Virginia: last updated 3/17

67 cases (+16)

Affected counties/cities include: Alexandria City (2, +0), Arlington (13, +4), Chesterfield (4, +2), Fairfax (12, +2), Hanover (1, +0), Harrisonburg City (1, +0), James City (12, +2), Loudoun (5, +0), Prince Edward (1, +0), Prince William (4, +1), Spotsylvania (1, +0), Stafford (1, +0), Virginia Beach City (4, +0), and York (1, +0)

Newly affected areas include: Charlottesville City (1), Goochland (1), Henrico (2), Williamsburg City (1)

Are we being pranked by the Commonwealth naming something Goochland? Studies are inconclusive

Washington State: Last updated 3/17 at 3:15

1012 total cases (+108), 52 deaths (+4)

Current mortality rate: 5.1%

Deaths have occurred in the following counties: Clark (2, +2), Grant (1, +0), King (43, +0), and Snohomish (6, +2).

Affected counties include: Clark (4, +0), Columbia (1, +0), Grant (7, +4), Grays Harbor (1, +0), Island (14, +7), Jefferson (3, +0), King (569, +81), Kitsap (7, +0), Kittitas (3, +0), Lewis (1, +0), ,Lincoln (1, +0), Pierce (45, +7), Skagit (9, +2), Snohomish (254, +54), Spokane (4, +1), Thurston (5, +1), Whatcom (6, +3), and Yakima (5, +1).

70 cases are currently unassigned to a county

Newly affected counties include: Chelan (2) and Klickitat (1)

Closures/restrictions: widespread, will have county-by-county info soon.

Hotline: 1-800-525-0127

Wisconsin: last updated 3/17 at 2 PM

72 total cases (+25), 0 deaths

Recovery is being reported by the following counties: Dane (1)

This is updated every Friday, next update expected 3/20

Affected counties include: Dane (19, +9), Fond du Lac (11, +0), Milwaukee (24, +11), Outagamie (1, +0), Pierce (1, +0), Racine (1, +0), Sheboygan (3, +0), Waukesha (4, +1), Winnebago (3, +0), and Wood (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Kenosha (4)

Community spread is confirmed in the following counties: Dane, Kenosha, and Milwaukee

Closures/restrictions

Schools closed starting 3/18 for minimum of two weeks

No gatherings >10 people until further notice

Wyoming: last updated 3/17 AM

11 cases (+1)

Affected counties include: Fremont, Laramie, and Sheridan

Today’s Hot Tips

If you’re a parent, you’ve likely been charged with homeschooling your kids, no small feat not in the middle of a pandemic. A kind reader (@halcyonhowl) hooked me up with a collection of resources that I’m excited to share with you all!

Find it here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rcV0cLYYj7TftfyTYU-3Z1bvI90tOqAz6yR7XenzYHA/edit?usp=sharing

I’m not a teacher by any means but I checked out some of these resources and they seem super super cool.

My personal favorite resource is SciShow, and they make a great podcast for curious adults called SciShow Tangents! Check it out here: www.youtube.com/scishow

Hand Washing Song of the Day

If you hate singing happy birthday while you wash your hands (I certainly do) try Bohemian Rhapsody!

Sing from the beginning through “as if nothing really matters” as dramatically as possible to follow CDC handwashing guidelines! Use soap and water for maximum efficacy. And then finish the song, you monster.

If you’re this talented, you can sing it on a rubber chicken. And then sanitize the chicken with bleach. And wash your hands again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDrdZM1iGrc

Good News, Everyone!

The Shedd Aquarium penguin adventures continue!

Check it out here: https://twitter.com/shedd_aquarium/status/1239661654629023747?s=21

People in Italy are singing from the balconies, whereas New Yorkers are yelling “GO THE FUCK HOME” to people who are out. Different ways of coping, I suppose…

Italy’s lockdown is working - transmission has slowed dramatically over the past few days!

Vaccine testing continues in the United States, where testing kits are finally becoming more widely available.

China has sent the United States a massive aid package with tests and personal protective equipment (PPE) since many hospitals in the States are completely out of materials.

Chill Cat Corner

This is a thread of cat cams for people in quarantine, it’s totally amazing and will provide you with so much fucking serotonin.

https://twitter.com/margiehousley/status/1239545102831366144?s=20

This makes me want to post pictures of my cats all the time though

About this newsletter

I’m Emily, I’m a 4th year med student w/ a degree in molecular biology. I started this because I’m an infectious disease and epidemiology nerd and also all my friends have questions & anxiety. Hi internet!

The archive/proper website is located at coronaextranewsletter.wordpress.com.

All this info is sourced from regional & national public health organizations, plus the WHO. It’s as up to date as humanly possible. I’ve been beaming information about this outbreak directly into my brain 24/7 but I still miss stuff. Please let me know if I miss something!

Most public health departments stop updating their information around 4-5 PM local time on weekdays. That means that the earliest this will come out is around 6 PM Pacific time on weekdays going forward. On weekends things update more sporadically and earlier, so who knows what I’ll do then, but I’ll do my best.

The excellent title is courtesy of @marywhal and the Wordpress site is courtesy of @molly0xFFF and @goblintinkerer, thank you all!

For More Information

JHU COVID-19 data center: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

List of peer-reviewed publications: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/publications.html

WHO FAQ: https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses

CDC cases in the US: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html, this also has links to each state’s health dept

#corona extra #coronavirus #covid19 #covid corner #sars-cov-2 #public health #quarantine

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