Can my body take a break even after I catch covid?
all the sick girls standing in the line for the bathroom
the first week of march I got covid. who’s fault is this?
Shout out to the vaccines and shout out to the booster shots.
I am not a doctor.
Though, if I didn't get the prick of a needle for those shots, maybe I would've been bed-bound for a dog’s age.
In the beginning of March, I was sick with Covid. It wasn’t chill, it was ill, dude.
On the second day I dealt with the symptoms, I got a nasty fever that burned my forehead and left a lingering chill on my skin.
I wrapped a blanket around my own body and watched TV in the living room. I cried watching High Maintenance, twice in one episode.
Have you met my fiancé? She was kind enough to pause the show and handed me a fistful of tissues.
My body worked against me when I was sick. It was out of my control.
I’d say as an adult man, I’ve been better at practicing self-compassion.
Like, my old way of thinking would've been to beat my own ass up for mishaps that were not in my total control. Getting sick is a mishap that's not 100% in my control.
I wash my hands thoroughly. I do a quality control of my face mask to reassure myself a tight seal surrounds my mouth and nose. I check in with loved ones to know what the ideal boundaries are to prevent being sick. But, I got sick.
Kindly be kind to yourself
Self compassion is good! It can soften up the calloused edges on your demeanor.
You, with self compassion, can be more open to experiences.
And, to not be a dick about little inconveniences.
Ironically, the person I’m most harsh to is my own self.
slaps my own hand even though that’s my hand and that hurt a lil’
I had a running joke that I didn’t believe in getting sick because I don’t have the time to get sick...it’s not a hobby I like to partake in.
Yet, I got sick. I thought it was allergies. The sore throat misled my self-diagnosis. But, blech, the fallen pollen that I thought could've tainted my throat was not the result of the incoming spring season.
The labor in maintaining a body
I give myself a hug and recognize that other people need to take extra effort to take care of their bodies.
I don’t menstruate.
I don’t cope with a debilitating chronic illness (at least at the time of this newsletter). I don’t believe I have to do extra maintenance to take care of my body.
Sleep is my process of maintaining my body. So is mindful eating. I eat when I’m hungry and not deprive myself if I’m fixin’ for comfort food. Cleaning my body and taking care of my skin - that’s an example of how I maintain my body, too!
I allow myself to have the self compassion to be kind to my body. When I got sick, it took effort to move about.
When I scooped up cat pee/poop and washed dishes, it was laborious. Kind of like running your fingernail underneath a sticker you want to scrape off your water bottle. You scratch off the sticky parts from the surface, but you underestimate the remaining adhesive that still needs to shed.
How much maintenance can you do on your body?
To take care of your body is to acknowledge your body won’t everlastingly feel one hundred percent. Perhaps the sentiment sounds cynical. If anything, the mindset is freeing.
Granted, you perform the maintenance to feel physically and mentally well. Shit, I run a lot for my work out.
Sometimes you might have a taxing day at your job. Or, your day in the studio feels unimaginative and blah. Loosen your expectations. You ought to remind yourself that the maintenance you put in your art, your job, or your health, won’t always align with your desires.
But! You can definitely control how much time and effort you maintain all of those things.
👀
Passing Notes - Open Call for Issue 02 due April 30th, 2022
If you identify as an artist and you write, submit to the publication, Passing Notes. There’s no cost to submit a piece. You can go here for the direct link to the form. One of my fave persons, Jade Green, contributes to the editorial/design for the publication.
Back in 1955, wiretapping equipment was discovered by the New York Police Department and the investigators for the New York Telephone Company. There wasn’t a single tap-free telephone in New York. The socialite, John Jacob Astor VI, even eavesdropped on his wife’s phone calls to get leverage for divorce.
Photographers are puzzled by the cameras in the iPhone 13 Pro. Pictures can result in lackluster quality. The cameras, especially in the iPhone 13 Pro, rely too much on software and “intelligent photography”. The data processing that runs in the camera software is “aggressive and unsolicited”. Brush up on what you read about Walter Benjamin from art school.
The poet, Diana di Prima, was pursued by FBI agents because of her “connection to anarchist politics and the Black freedom struggle”. Di Prima’s contributions to poetry were overshadowed by her male correspondents during the Beat Movement. To pull a quote from di Prima,
if what you want is jobs/for everyone, you are still the enemy,/you have not thought thru, clearly/what that means.
glicol is a webpage where you can make music with code. You can “collaborate with your friends from any place”. Change up the code and listen to your tunes. What you see is what you get!
Thanks for listening,
Alexander