Thu, 12:52: I've never managed to read books very quickly. It's long been a source of frustration because, frankly, reading a lot (especially books, of all types) improves both the vocabulary and the intellect.

But, this year has been the worst. I have *two* library books at home that I have not finished, which I checked out in February. Six months ago! But, I am finally starting to burn through one of them again, slowly but surely, having found a way to fit it into my work-from-home daily routine: I read during my half-hour lunch break, usually about ten pages.

That seems to be the key, making it part of routine. Back in the pre-pandemic days, I read books almost exclusively either on transit or on walks to and from work. Public transit is best avoided whenever possible for now, and my twice-weekly trips to the office tend to be either on my bike or walks accompanied by my neighbor (both of us masked, of course, and not too close to each other). So my usual scenarios for getting reading done are gone.

I have always had a hard time not being distracted by the "shiny objects" of TV, movies or social media while at home. And if I try reading while I'm in bed at night, I will inevitably just fall asleep. But there was an added layer of distraction in the first days of the pandemic: I was far too distracted mentally, by the uncertainty and the horrors of what is almost certainly the signature global historic event of all of our lives, to be able to focus in a way that reading a book required.

I'm finding that in particular to be less of a problem now. The horrors are still there, even greater in number, but we understand them better (thank you, science), and having spent six months settling into this new reality, this new world, and carving out new routines in our new lives carries with it a strange sort of comfort. It took six months to get here, but that does make the kind of focus it takes for something as simple as reading a book easier.

Thu, 18:53: RT @chrislhayes: sorry the horribly mismanaged plague has sickened too many of our massive prison population so we can't coerce them into battling our ongoing climate catastrophe RT @RachaelHerron CalFire admits in presser this morning that they have NO resources to fight this. Like, NONE. Guess why? Bc the prison populations, who have for decades been California’s primary firefighter hand-crews on wildfires, are too sick with Covid to go. California severely short on firefighting crews after COVID-19 lockdown at prison camps