Read it or Weep

True confession of a stay at home librarian-when we first announced our closure I was kind of excited. As an introvert I’ve been training for this my entire life-I have books, podcasts, tv, and snack-of course I’ll stay home. As a slacker and procrastinator I thought I could finally get some projecst done! Paint the bathroom. Fold ALL the laundry. Scrub the baseboards. It was going to be great. No excuse. Just endless amounts of time! What I did not account for was my natural anxiety and depression. That to-do list became overwhelming and every day that I didn’t accomplish 17 things felt like a failure so I just ignored it. And then I saw this art by Tyler Feder on Facebook:

If you follow RRPL on social media you may have seen it when I shared it. This advice spoke to me; especially the part about to-do lists. So, in Week 3 of social distancing my to-do list looks VERY different from my Week 1 list. You know what’s on my list for today? Fold the flannel sheets that I took off the bed and washed on Sunday. Yup. They’ve been in the dryer since Sunday and that’s ok. It’s going to feel great when I put them in the linen closet I organized last week. So, to all you extroverts and list makers who might be experiencing anxiety for the first time, it’s ok to be anxious and scared and unproductive. Be kind to yourself. Reevaluate your to-do list. Feel great about little accomplishments. Those little accomplishments will eventually result in a deep-cleaned living room; it just might take a week to make it happen. And for all you anxiety experts, I feel you friend, you are not alone. We got this.

Ok, we covered the A for Anxiety, time to move on to the B for Bingeing.

I am a podcast addict. My taste range from off-color comedy to true crime with some little supernatural, medical, and political shows sprinkled in for variety. I can talk podcasts all day, so I am just going to give you the highlights today.

The Dollop has over 400 episodes. Three are Cleveland-based: Ten Cent Beer Night, Balloonfest, and Danny Green. I recommend starting with one of those.

The hosts are both epidemiologists and disease ecologists. They have recently done a six-part series on Covid-19 that is phenomenal.

Who doesn’t recognize Lester Holt’s voice?!?

Now for the C-Connecting. Pick up the phone and call someone. I have talked on the phone more in the past two weeks that I have in the previous two months and 50% of my job is literally talking on the phone! I love texts and messaging and that’s my preferred mode of communicating and staying in touch, but since we live in the upside down now I am actually finding comfort and connection hearing my loved ones’ voices.

Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay connected. And let me know if you have binge-worth podcast!

~Megan