Featured Refresh
Text & Image
Have you noticed any changes in your relationships with coworkers, neighbors, or acquaintances since the start of the pandemic? Have these kinds of relationships gotten stronger or weaker? If so, how?
This picture of a scale in a hardware store where I bought fresh peanuts is an example of comfort food and also a reminder of Peanuts the Charles Schulz cartoons. I find that I am proactive to make new connections in fields of interest that intrigue me. I bought the peanuts as I waited to get into an exhibit of Techspressionism which is artwork created digitally or using technology. It was a great exhibit I reconnected to the woman who did a seminar many years ago at Guild Hall in East Hampton about software to create digital art. I call my works digital abstract expressionism. I actually sold an art work at Guild Hall in a member exhibition. Only 19 works sold out of 400 displayed. The curator of the exhibit on Saturday April 23 was also a new connection. So I guess I manage to make new connections which compensates for not staying in touch with old friends.
April 30, 2022
Text & Image
How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
Quite honestly, COVID-19 has moved to my mental back burner. With all that is happening locally and globally–easing restrictions on campus, a national decline in cases, large-scale crises like Putin’s invasion of Ukraine– hearing the word “covid” has started to leave me with an apathetic expression. Although I have heard utterances of another simmering variant, it seems like a given at this point–covid will continue to wax and wane, cases will drop and spike, and we will all just have to carry on and adapt as we have been the past two years. Ironically, I am sick right now with some other virus; you forget that other viruses besides COVID-19 still exist. Even more ironically, I fully departed from wearing masks indoors this past week, which may explain my newfound sickness. Do I blame the sudden absence of indoor mask regulations or plain bad luck? Part of me wants to retreat back to mask wearing as I sit here with a burning sore throat, but I have to keep reminding my hypochondriac self that masks are not the norm and not a safety blanket, either. Additionally, spending the end of my spring break in bed has been a major let-down, especially with warmer temperatures and sunnier skies, but I am trying to remain grateful for suffering at home in my bed instead of a noisy dorm with a roommate I do not want to get sick. I also did have the chance to get outside (and inside, apparently around floating viruses) pre-illness and managed to take some photos of one of my favorite spots from home: the Lake Michigan beachfront. I am immensely looking forward to more time at the beach in the near future, to recovering from this virus, and to the final stretch of a semester that seems to be rising out of covid’s ashes.
March 22, 2022