The Judas Kiss

I had a post here about my Easter Sunday, but it's gone because I hit ctrl-z at a weird moment. I was changing between the "Compose" mode and the "HTML" mode in the post editor when I used that keyboard shortcut to undo a mistake and suddenly everything was gone. I can't trust Blogger anymore. I'm furious. It took me hours to write because I often approach writing blogs in a piecemeal kind of way with a lot of rewriting. I'll have to try to remember as much as I can and use what I can find online to restore what was lost.

The post was about how I saw the Easter service at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels Easter morning on TV. The church was empty except for the clergy and the musicians. I didn't watch it for long. I watched the Agape Church service on Facebook live next. Instead of white robes the clergy wore flowing dresses or suits, though Rev. Michael Beckwith, the pastor, didn't wear a tie with his suit. He made a joke about the ski cap he was wearing before he took it off. I've always enjoyed his sense of humor and jazz improv style of preaching. His message about the death and resurrection of Jesus was not your standard Christian doctrine. "There is a resurrecting spirit of God within you," he said. He described a kind of spiritual growth period he called a "cycle of resurrection" and used the classic scene from the Gospel when Judas kissed Jesus in order to betray him to the Roman soldiers sent by Herod.

"This cycle of resurrection always begins with a Judas kiss ... Judas kisses everybody. Right now, Judas is kissing the planet. Right now, people are losing jobs. Right now, individuals know someone who has died ... No one gets away from Judas' kiss ... and Judas is kissing you so that you may evolve to the next stage of your own unfolding. After that Judas kiss, there is a crucifixion of the previously held world and all the ways that you thought it should be ... but underneath there, there is something brooding in you, the resurrecting spirit of power in you ... At some point you'll roll away the stone from the tomb and step into the bright sunshine of a new day ..."

For examples, he used the hardships suffered by the Dalai Lama, who was "kissed by Judas" when he was forced out of Tibet, but then became an international figure. Likewise, Nelson Mandela was kissed by Judas when he was arrested and jailed for 27 years, but later became the president of South Africa.

"The resurrection is up to us. Our vision, our dreams, our possibilities ... We'll look back years from now and say ... Judas crucified the old so that which is new could emerge."

In the evening, I got a call from my friend Steve. He wanted to know if I had heard anything about Alycia. I hadn't heard anything, but I admitted that I had been thinking about driving to Calabasas to check on her. As we were talking, I decided that I should actually do that. I drove the six miles from Chatsworth, park up the street from her car, and walked the rest of the way to her car wearing a mask and gloves, which we're all supposed to do everywhere now. She wasn't in her car. Once I was back in my car, I called Steve and we talked about where she might be, maybe in a hotel. As I was driving away, I decided that I should check her car one last time. I parked in front of her car and looked inside to see if she had taken her things with her, which would suggest that she had gone to a hotel. As I was looking in her car, another car stopped on the street beside me. A man in the car asked me if I knew the woman in Alycia's car. I told her that she's my friend. The lady who was driving parked the car and they got out to talk to me. They told me that Alycia had been terrorizing the neighborhood by pushing over garbage cans and pulling signs out of the ground. They lived up the hill, they said, and she had pushed their garbage can down the hill. They came to her car to get it, I suppose. I told her about Alycia's condition. The man's name was Moe. We exchanged numbers before I got back on the road.

Cassie called me while I was driving up Topanga Canyon Boulevard. While I was telling her about what just happened, Moe called. I merged the calls on my phone. Moe said that he spotted Alycia at a nearby Rite Aid. Cassie and Moe left the call so they could talk. I drove to the Rite Aid and found Alycia inside.

"Are you following me?" she said. She threatened to get a restraining order against me and continued shopping. Everyone in the store was wearing a mask except her. The cashier must have reminded Alycia to read the sign that said you must wear a mask when making a purchase. She made a big deal about putting a mask on, but took off the mask when she left the store and started the half-mile walk back to her car. When I went back to my car, I could see that there was no point in following her. I told Cassie and Steve what happened when I drove home.

I usually write a post for just one day, but since I've had to rewrite this post, I'm continuing to Monday. Even Easter Sunday is blending into the next day now.

Today I started a new practice. I got up, got dressed, and ate breakfast as if I were getting ready to go to work, but instead of work, I meditated and then worked out, which required changing for the workout. This may be the first day during the self-quarantine that I put my pants on early in the morning only to take them off again. I spent the rest of the day shopping at Costco and using Facebook to commit the sin of sloth, though I forgive myself every time. I texted Moe and found out that the police talked to Alycia and found her not to be a threat. A lady in a car saw Alycia and said, "That woman is wacked out," and followed her with her car. Just then, Steve texted me to tell me that Alycia was in handcuffs. Her attorney and psychiatrist had been notified. I called Steve and told him about the lady following Alycia. She may have been the one who called the police. This was going to happen eventually anyway so it's probably best that it happened now. I hope this means she will get the care that she needs.

And now that I am at the end of this post, I will move on. I got a Judas kiss from Blogger when I lost that post, and I don't think that was the first time that happened. I have tricks I can use to make sure I don't lose data, but Blogger fooled me before I thought to use those tricks and I had to do this whole thing over again. No wonder people stopped using Blogger. Rev. Michael's metaphor of the Judas Kiss might seem like an extreme way of describing spiritual growth, but I feel that my next step as a writer will be to convert this blog to a WordPress blog. I don't even know if I can call myself a writer anymore, but change of any kind can represent growth. I should probably stop blogging for a while, too. I'm looking at working as a tutor for that coding boot camp I went to. I won't have time for this. I have to move beyond this Blogger experience.

Good Saturday

The weekdays and weekends seem to blend into each other when you're home every day and the only real change is in the TV show schedule. I'm talking about over-the-air (OTA) TV, which not everyone watches these days, since there is plenty to watch on streaming services. It was Good Friday yesterday, which means that today is Good Saturday, though the official name is actually Holy Saturday. I remember when I was still a Catholic and I went to a Good Friday service that included the Reading of the Passion. This is a kind of reader's theatre event in which the priest reads the part of Jesus, other clergy or volunteers read other parts, and the congregation reads the part of the witnesses at the crucifixion of Jesus, saying lines like, "Away with Him! Crucify him!" This involved standing up for a long time, to the point of making you feel like you're going to faint. I think the point is to feel for the suffering of Jesus. I remember one lady leaving in a hurry, like she couldn't take it anymore.

I did my usual meditation, TV news, and internet stuff. I did a workout, but I won't do one tomorrow. A workout every other will probably work better for me. Michael S., a friend of Alycia's, called me in the afternoon. He lives in Philadelphia, so he's not up on recent events with her. I told him about what happened with her on Tuesday, when she wanted a blanket. She probably walked to Target and got a blanket the next day. I've tried to call her and text her but she doesn't answer, so I don't know. Michael has been trying to help, but he's been out of the loop. We talked for a while before I went to the store.

The governor of California and the mayor of Los Angeles have told us citizens that we're approaching a critical time in the pandemic, when we must stay home if we can. I have stayed home since Tuesday, but today I felt the need to do some shopping at Trader Joe's. I stood in line with others for a long time. Obviously, it's not as intense as standing during a Reading of the Passion. People are being patient and compliant with the rules when they stand in line. Everyone was wearing a mask. It's required now. We're starting to hear that it's working. The social distancing is keeping down the infection rate. And yet, as of today, the United States is the world leader in both infections and deaths due to the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. 20,000 Americans have died from it. Maybe we're all standing patiently in line because we feel for our fellow Americans, and our fellow humans, who have suffered. We all see the news stories and read the articles about people calling 911 and reporting that they can't breathe. We see the pictures of body bags being stacked in refrigerated trucks and coffins placed in mass graves. We're being good because the consequences could be fatal.

In the evening, I called my cousin Chris and got caught with how he's been, how the wife and kids have been. They've been treating the self-quarantine like an extended vacation. I'm glad they're taking it well. Chris and I agree that people shouldn't be going to Easter services tomorrow. By gathering in public they could endanger others as well as themselves. They could spread the virus. I think Jesus would have wanted them to stay home. Jesus used common sense in his teachings, and staying home to prevent disease is just common sense. He also taught forgiveness. I wonder if the people going to the services will be able to forgive themselves if they discover the harm that they have done. I hope to God no one gets sick as a result of their recklessness.

Happy Siblings Day

Last night I dreamed that was was talking to some actor friends about parts they were in. I told them that I wanted to sign up to be an extra in a Star Wars movie. That's not a particularly interesting dream, I know, but it reminds of times when I actually did work as an extra. Once was for a movie called Bicentennial Man, with Robin Williams. I was a hippie from the future. I had long hair back then. I didn't get to meet Williams, but we all saw him at the set by Fort Point in San Francisco. He made people laugh with a joke about the whales in the bay.

Today, I made a little more progress toward making life feel more normal. An awful heaviness seems to weigh everything down. I seem to be doing everything in slow motion. Maybe that's why I get worn out when I workout. I didn't work out today. I'm calling it a rest day. I did more tutorial stuff and web stuff, played cat-and-mouse with the news, watching some of it on TV but not all of it. The stay-at-home mandate in Los Angeles county has been extended to May 15th, according to the news. I finished watching A Handmaid's Tale. I'm glad the Season 3 finale was good. After being disappointed by the series finales for Game of Thrones and Westworld, I developed a rule not to watch a series unless the season finale gets a good rating. That's why I'm avoiding watching Westworld. I loved the first season, but the finale for the second season was too much of a head-scratcher for me.  For A Handmaid's Tale, I looked at the rating it got on Rotten Tomatoes before I watched the season.

The highlight of my day was watching Locke & Key with my sister, Monika, on Netflix Party. We're enjoying it for what it is as a young adult horror teen show. It's fun, but not excellent. Episode Four involved a Mean Girls kind of revenge plot with a magic key that let one girl control another girl like a puppet. Monika and I chatted comments to each other about the intriguing plot points.

After the show, we talked on the phone for a while. We started with a more critical analysis of the show. Some of the relationships don't seem quite realistic. The relationships between the teachers and the siblings who are the main characters seem too familiar because the kids are new in these schools, for example. We talked about how are days have been. I'm slowly rising above the dark well of depression that the world has become. I'm finding myself in a place where I can look at sad moments in my life and choose to be happy about them. I became a substitute teacher with the hope of being a theatre arts teacher. That didn't happen, but I learning a lot about human beings from the thousands of students I met. I wrote plays and music hoping to make something as big as Hamilton. That didn't happen, but I did get a few plays produced and I wrote a few good songs, and those experiences will be with me forever. I can be grateful for everything I've lived through and use that to rise above the fear. In the words of Seneca, “Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.”

The fear of sickness and death coming to me and my family and friends has added another layer of dread to the fear of failing to change my career, and yet I can imagine cutting through the gray sludge of that dread with a sword of determined action. By the end of my call with Monika, I remembered that I had gotten an offer to work as an online tutor for the coding boot camp I attending last fall. I found the e-mail with the offer and decided on a plan for how to move forward. My brother, James, would be proud. Here is a picture of James, me, and Monika from the last time we were together during a visit to the Philippines. Happy Siblings Day.

Make America Healthy Again

I made a better attempt at making a daily schedule and sticking to it. I put "Check e-mail, Facebook, etc." in my 9 am slot as a way of being honest about what I'm actually doing after meditation, breakfast, and TV news. I started my one-hour cardio workout well after 10 am, but that's fine. I had to stop a couple of times. Again, I have to wonder what that means. Maybe it's nothing, though sometimes I have a cough. I don't usually do sixty-minutes workouts this intense every day. Maybe I'm overdoing it.

I was able to do more work on that WordPress tutorial. There was a time when I could knock out a tutorial in a day and have that knowledge under my belt, but the depressing mood of the world, on top of my own depression, seems to be slowing me down again. I managed to avoid the long conferences that Governor Newsom and Mayor Garcetti delivered in the middle of the day, but I couldn't help watching World News at 3:30 and then the Mayor's conference later in the afternoon, followed by more world news. It's hard to look away.

In February, Trump told his supporters at a rally, "Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus ... And this is their new hoax!"

The first confirmed case of coronavirus was recorded in New York City on March First. There were a total of 76 cases in the United States. I was already seeing the numbers rise exponentially into the thousands in the coming weeks, but most news outlets were not yet sounding alarms because the numbers were small. Mayor Andrew Cuomo said that it's "deep breath time." He knew what was coming. Trump claimed that his administration had taken the most aggressive action in modern history to protect Americans from the coronavirus. Really? He said this at a Trump rally in front of thousands of people. Groups of people that large look insane these days. What a liar!

The South by Southwest conference was canceled. The NBA told teams to plan for empty arenas. LeBron James said he wouldn't play if the fans weren't there. The Grand Princess arrived in San Francisco on March Ninth with twenty-one people onboard infected with the virus. The next day, Trump said, "It will go away." He didn't want the passengers to disembark because it would be bad for his numbers. Nice job putting your election before people's health and safety, Trump.

On Friday, March Thirteenth, Trump declared a national emergency, but only after the stock market kept crashing. He previously tried to keep the stock market from crashing by saying, "It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away," but that didn't work. Investors wanted to hear the truth, which was that thousands of American lives were in danger and he had done nothing to stop it. In fact, he had fired the pandemic response team in 2018 that would have taken steps to get us the medical equipment and supplies that we would need to survive. He took steps that put us in harm's way, but instead of acknowledging this, he said "I don't take responsibility at all." More than 16,000 Americans are now dead because of him.

Universal healthcare is like the tempting fruit of a true civilization that we Americans can imagine tasting now that Bernie Sanders has taught us how to see it in America's future. Many of us want it now that so many of us are getting sick and dying. One of my friends is recovering from the coronavirus and another friend is very sick. I am praying for her, but she may die. We should have universal healthcare. The Earth is also sick because of our negligence, so we need the Paris Agreement. No more socialism for the super rich and their giant corporations, which are like petty kingdoms in a land ruled by corporate feudalism. We should freeze mortgages, rents, and student loan payments six months, as my friend Kelly McAllister recently said on his blog. We need help but the ruling class refuses see that their money game is over. It only worked when we weren't falling victim to a plague. It's time to make America healthy again.

Thinking of My Friends

I felt a bit stronger today in my conviction to act with purpose, so I at least tried to stick to a schedule of tasks. Once again, the grim reality of the disease that surrounds me distracted me from my practical intentions. I was able to work on a coding tutorial and I did a whole workout, but I also found myself watching the conferences of Governor Newsom and Mayor Garcetti. The river of hard facts pouring into my ears made me numb and too sluggish to get back to the task of doing something other than looking at what my friends are doing on Facebook. Social media isn't always the misdemeanor I make it out to be, but I'm doing it more than I want to. Sometimes it helps me connect with people, though. My friend, Kendra Munger, recently worked on an episode of Star Trek: Picard. I took a screenshot of her scene and put it on my Facebook timeline to share with people and maybe add to her fame a little bit. That's her in the picture. She played a Romulan character, Tal Shiar Female #2, a member of a Romulan secret society. A few people liked it, and Kendra loved it.

"Thank you Ramon Sanchez ❤️," she commented. 

I've been using Facebook for many years now as my primary method of socializing. There have been many times that I've used it to to hang out with Facebook friends in person. Usually, this happens when my actor friends are in a play. I go to the play and then hang out with them after the show. Is this the best way to be social? I like that I've been able to use Facebook to keep in touch with people who are far away, and most of my friends and loved ones are all over the country, but during times like these, Facebook can become a crutch. That may be why I used my phone to actually call someone today, my friend Natalie. She is a Facebook friend, but I met her in person first, when I went to meditation meetings with her and some other friends, including Alycia. We talked for a long time about her problems dealing with her elderly mother and the strangeness of celebrating Passover on video chat (she's Jewish), among other things.

Getting back to Facebook after the call, I found out that my friend, Josie, is pretty sure she has been infected with the coronavirus. She has been in bed with a fever for eighteen days. She's afraid. She's tired. From what I gathered on her post, she's been communicating with doctors who are sure that she has it, but apparently she wasn't able to go out to get tested before the Big Self-Quarantine. I've know Josie for about fifteen years. She auditioned for the staged reading of the vampire musical I wrote when I was studying with The Academy for New Musical Theatre. The director of the reading, Tommy Redmond Hicks, didn't choose her for the part of Roxana, the lead female in the show. We had problems finding someone to play that part until Gary Mattison, the music director and composer, brought in Kendra. I knew Tommy because we were both substitute teachers at the time, and I slowly got to know Kendra and Josie on Facebook. They are wonderful friends. I watched on Facebook as Kendra rallied her friends to support her when she battled cancer. She got over it, and I'm glad to see her doing great things now. Josie is a fun, witty person with a lot of heart and talent. Both Kendra and Josie want Trump out of office as much as I do. I hope Josie gets better soon. I've had enough death already.

Strange Building Dream and a Call for a Blanket

Last night I had a dream about tall buildings that were sliding across the land like pieces on a chessboard. It was somehow the result of a new kind of earthquake. The buildings were running into each other. It was all highly cinematic. I was riding around in one building like it was a ship, and I could see from inside the building as another building came toward me and went through the building that I was in. Later, I could also see from the point of view of the building, and I was moving through forests and other buildings until I came to a large hole in the ground, and then I woke up.

There was a quick dream about a cake I was trying to bake, but I used only half the batter required, so it came out weird and twisted.

In the last of these dreams, I was floating in a kind of empty space that you might describe as being like the night of Brahma, a place where all of creation withdraws into a state of unrealized potential. I saw a kind of cosmic mist that was churning and spinning. A voice was explaining that beings were emerging from the mist so they could have the experience of being human. I saw a girl forming from the mist before I started to wake up.

I started the day feeling like I could face the world with a sense of purpose. I made a schedule that included an hour long work out and working on this blog and a tutorial, though it was hard to stick to the schedule. With more news coming out about the thousands of people dying every day from the pandemic, it was hard to think of anything else, so of course I become distracted with my friends' posts on Facebook. After lunch, I had a Facetime session with my therapist. We went over the events of the past week. I shared with her my perception of the current mood of the nation, or even the human race, as being like a gray fog that was permeating everything. I felt that I had to form a space around myself that would be like a bubble full of sunshine. How does one do such a thing? By invoking your own joy and hope. That might seem like a simple trick. It's not.

I called a police dispatch number and asked if someone could do a welfare check on Alycia. The operator asked why. I explained that Alycia was living in a wrecked car and might need help. She said that I should do it myself since I have that capability. I decided that I would wait until night fall, since Alycia would have nowhere to go at that time, but, strangely, that's exactly the time that she called me. She asked me to have dinner with her and to help her buy a blanket at Target. She was freezing. The dinner offer sounded like a kind of gratuity for helping her out, but I told her that people are being told to stay home. No one can go out for dinner. I offered to let her have an old blanket of mine, but she refused.

"You can borrow it, then," I said.

She was determined to buy a blanket of her own and ended the call. Later, I thought that if I had said that I could buy the blanket for her at Target and let her pay me back, that might have worked, but you can't reason with her when she's in this state. I felt frustrated. She was about to sleep in a cold car while it was raining. A person can get pneumonia that way. What if I just drove there and gave her a blanket? If you're freezing and someone gives you a blanket, you'll probably take it no matter what's going on in your head. I have an old blanket in a plastic bedding case that I was planning to give to charity anyway, so I put on my gloves and mask, put the blanket in my car, and drove to Alycia's car while listening to a Rachel Maddow podcast. I parked in front of her car, got out, and looked through the mist on the windows of her car. She had reclined the driver's seat and seemed to have wrapped herself up in a blanket, but it might have been layers of clothes. She was asleep. I called her name. I didn't want to scare her by knocking on the window. I called her, but her line when to voicemail, and I didn't see her phone lighting up. It must have been turned off. I thought of leaving the blanket by her car, thinking the plastic would keep it safe from the rain, but after I spoke to Steve on the phone, I decided against that plan. I called Cassie and told her what was going on. We decided that this was as far as I could go. She told me that I'm a good friend. I drove home and left the blanket in the car.

Election Dream and Kaitlynn's Birthday

Last night, I dreamed that I was working for a political party during an election. It was probably the Democratic Party, though I wonder if the pandemic may redefine politics so much that the current political parties get swept into the dustbin of history, replaced with new parties.

I felt a bit less anxiety this morning. My experience of it isn't like ordinary fear. It's like the slowless and feeling of being ineffective that I've been feeling for a week. Having a purpose could help me overcome that feeling, and I had one this morning. My friend, Cassie, organized a birthday party parade on Facebook. She asked friends to drive by her place to say happy birthday to Kaitlynn, her daughter. I gave myself the task of printing a kind of banner that said "Happy birthday, Kaitlynn!" in multi-colored letters. My printer failed to print. I pulled out a crumpled piece of paper inside it, but after that it still took many tries to get a good print. I drove to Simi Valley knowing that heavy rain was predicted, but I caught a lucky break in the rain. There were only clouds in the sky when I got to Cassie's place. I waited my turn while Cassie took a picture of another car full of birthday greeters. I said "happy birthday" to Kaitlynn from a distance while Cassie took a picture of me and the banner, which she collected from me. I wasn't sure if I should give it to her, since you can be shedding the virus if you have it but are asymptomatic, but I gave it to her anyway. I'm sure Cassie is taking precautions against infection.

I finished watching Star Trek: Picard on CBS All Access. Overall, I enjoyed the show, even though there were some holes in the plot. For example, if the Tal Shiar secret society of Romulans wanted to get rid of the threat of sentient life and had been able to plant agents in Star Fleet at the time that Doctor Noonian Soong was creating Data, and Data was the source of all sentient AI that they wanted to destroy, why then didn't they simply kill Data when they had the chance? But that kind of nitpicking takes away from what was enjoyable about the show, such as Patrick Stewart's performance, intriguing subplots, and adventurous characters. Captain Rios is as close as Star Trek has ever gotten to a Han Solo character, and the show even had a scene that vaguely resembled the Mos Eisley scene in Star Wars. Seven of Nine came back as a kind of lone ranger character, who helps the helpless. Seeing her take control of the deactivated Borg cube was a moment of high drama worth waiting for, considering her compunctions about enslaving a hive of inactive borg. There should be a spinoff show for her. There's a rumor that this may be happening. I'm geeking out on Star Trek again. That hasn't happened in a long time.

In the afternoon, I spoke to Steve on the phone. Steve is a mutual friend of Alycia's. He had previously told me that he was planning to give her some survival supplies like clothes and toilet paper. I asked him how it went. He said it didn't go well. She rejected all contact with him. There's nothing we can do for her but pray.

In the evening, I watched an episode of Black Lightning while cleaning the kitchen and bathroom floors. I'm almost done with that series. It's pretty cool. Later, I did an hour of cardio with a YouTube video. I was wondering if I was even capable of doing it. No one knows if they're sick unless they get tested, but you can't get tested unless you have symptoms. The only symptom I've had is shortness of breath. I decided that if I can't finish the workout, I should register for a test. To my relief, I was able to get through the whole workout. When I had rested a bit, I felt that I could breathe freely. Maybe I just had a chest cold before. Resting for a couple of days helped. I felt like I got what Chris Cuomo was saying about how he has been fighting the virus. It's about will, he said. The virus wants you to lie down. Don't. Get up and fight it. I'm thinking of that line from the first Captain America movie, when he's being beat up by a bully. Steve Rogers gets up from the ground, gets into a fighting stance, and says, "I can do this all day."

Palm Sunday

In the morning, I watched recordings of Good Morning, America and This Week with George Stephanopoulos as I usually do. The TV news shows were showing church services for Palm Sunday with priests and ministers performing their ceremonies for live streams without congregations. The Pope prayed in an empty St. Peter's Basilica. A local church allowed people to take communion if they used social distancing. That seems reckless to me. I usually do chores on Sunday but everything feels difficult to do now. I'm not as productive as I used to be. I wanted to do laundry in the morning but I didn't get around to it until afternoon. I didn't clean the floors. I didn't do any coding. It was mostly Facebook and TV today.

After watching the evening news, I went grocery shopping at Ralphs and Trader Joe's. There are no paper products of any kind at Ralphs. You can't bring in your own cloth bag at Trader Joe's now. They use their own paper bags only. I understand why they would want to follow that policy. They have to see hundreds of people every day and they can't have hundreds of bags from people's homes infecting the cashiers. I wanted to get in as much grocery shopping as I could before the rain starts and I think I did it. At home, I checked in with friends on Facebook and worked on this blog. I'm finding it hard to get things done. This blog is not a major work, and yet it seems to take me forever to do a single entry. I did what I could and then finished putting away laundry while watching Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks singing live from their home studio on Garth & Trisha Live! on Fox 11. I've never listened to their much, but I enjoyed the songs they performed. The last song was "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

Rest Day

I meditated before breakfast the way I always do, but even while I was making coffee I felt tightness in my chest again. Was it anxiety or a chest cold? I don't know, but I decided to eat a whole cannabis edible instead of half of one the way I usually do. I haven't been eating these every day, and I hadn't touched one in months since boot camp, but sometimes now I'm finding I need it. I didn't exercise today. If doing an hour of cardio a day is wearing me out and adding to my stress, I should take a day off.

While going through Facebook I found out that one of my friends from high school had gotten the coronavirus. I was at least a week behind in hearing about the story. She had just returned from a week long stay at a hospital and Facebook friends were heaping love on her timeline. Dawn and I went to Redlands High School together, but we didn't know each other very well back then, which is a shame because she's a very sweet person. I've gotten to know her on Facebook over the years and I've seen her a few times at high school reunions. She bakes cupcakes for a living, or at least she used to. I sent her a private message and she sent me PM's telling me the whole story. She's recovering at home now. I sent her a funny dog picture to make her feel better.

The highlight of the evening was a movie from 2017, Logan Lucky, which is a very funny Soderbergh film that's been on my movie list a long time. At one point I was howling with laughter at the joke about the way the prisoners were complaining about how the prison library didn't have two books by G.R.R. Martin that they wanted to read, The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring. It's 2020 and Martin still hasn't finished those books! After the movie I opened this blog so I could put in another post but I found that most of the content for Friday's post was gone. I had to redo it from memory. I'm not sure how that happened, but it's another sign of what a difficult time I'm having. It's seems to take longer to do everything, even though I'm not working or doing very much.

TV Day

I thought I was doing well this morning. I was able to go through the morning routines of meditation, breakfast, and checking e-mail and social media in less time then usual, and then I did a workout for an hour. I felt good about being able to put on pants in the morning and looked forward to getting back into coding, but something happened. I felt a tightness in my chest. It felt like the beginning of another panic attack. I found it hard to do any coding. I needed to get away from the increasingly bad news. I watched another episode of Star Trek: Picard. That helped.

Later, I used a new Chrome browser extension called Netflix Party to watch an episode of the a new series on Netflix called Locke and Key. I've heard it described as being like an updated version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but it's more adult than that. The episodes involve teenagers and their kid brother who discovers magical keys that open doors in the family's ancestral house with unexpected results. I used Netflix Party so I could watch it simultaneously with my sister Monika, who lives in Seattle. The chat feature in the program allows us to make smart remarks about the characters and weird situations in the show. We watched the first episode on Wednesday; we're trying to spread out the episodes over the next few weeks. This episode was entertaining enough, and Monika and I said our goodbyes and logged off. I spent the rest of the evening trying to catch up on e-mail and study code, but when I went to bed I still felt some tightness in my chest and wondered if I have something that is more than just anxiety.